Political Communities Online

 

U.S. political parties

Political Activism on the Internet

  • Move-On.org is one of the most active "liberal" political activist sites these days. And, on the "conservative" side, is Real Clear Politics.

  • They call it "Hacktivism": the most well-known hacktivists globally are "Anonymous," a group which engages in various forms of overt (sometimes destructive) political hacking. Their particular nemesis is the Church of Scientology. Here is one video that really spells out some of what Anonymous has done.

  • Political Activists Online provides links to the web site's favorite conservative political causes.

  • Political Empowerment Resources (pretty ugly, but with some good material, if you can read it).

  • The main US libertarian organization, The Cato Institute, is often labeled as "conservative." But it's not. It is libertarian, and there really is a world of difference.

  • Spawned by anger with the economic stabilization bills, the Tea Party was born. Several "Tea Party"-backed candidates took high-level Republican primaries this week, including the gubernatorial race in New York. Although the Tea Party is very protean, Tea Party Patriots is a fairly prominent site.

Ensuring Political Accountability

  • Center for Political Accountability (where does the money go?)

  • Completely non-partisan, and devoted to the truth, is FactCheck.org. They are equal-opportunity pokers, and I thank goodness for them. On the other hand, Political Truth and Fact specifically says of themselves, "sponsored by the Gideon Project [sic] A project designed to energize conservative activists and those willing to work to return to American values." Always read the small print!
Links about online voting/balloting/eDemocracy
  • Not all voting is political. Elections Online offers software and services especially aimed at corporate and NGO elections online. Guaranteed secure...

  • PEW offers lots of services. One important one is a non-partisan look at election reform: ElectionLine.org.

  • A U.K. service for Online elections at Everyone Counts (and note their article about Florida absentee online ballots for 2010!).

  • And there is a site that is pushing very hard to ensure we keep hard-copy ballots for verification purposes.

Other useful links

  • USA.gov offers extensive information about voting and elections to US citizens.

  • Beaucoup is the search engine about government information

  • Politics Online (liberal political fund raising and online tools)

  • Companion web site to the PBS show "the :30 Second Candidate" -- even lets you design your own ad

  • One of the best things the CIA ever did for us was to craft the World FactBook, with information about all of the world's nations, now online.

  • InterZone Virtual Republic:  Renouncing Citizenship in Geographically-based nations...and, of course, Second Life (The online game/world which became so popular that Sweden set up an official 3-D embassy "there").

 

Tactics for Political Activism: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Spam, spam, spam, spam. This BBC story looks at how easy it is to set up a botnet to pound email accounts with spam. There is some indication that hacktivists are using these techniques to make people believe that the spam comes from their political opponents.



 


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This page created and maintained by
Dr. Deb Geisler
Department of Communication and Journalism
Suffolk University
Boston, MA  02108
Last updated 16 September 2010