Civicist

CIVIC TECH NEWS & ANALYSIS
Categories
First Post

INSURRECTIONS

INSURRECTIONS

Civics in the age of mistrust; Microsoft’s Civic Graph; and more.

    • Today’s civic tech must-reads: MIT Center for Civic Media director Ethan Zuckerman offers the fullest expression of his ideas about civics in the age of mistrust, arguing that the “insurrectionist” temper to overthrow today’s broken institutions can be channeled through making changes in code, markets, norms and by promoting “monitorial citizenship.”

    • 18F’s Melody Kramer and Michelle Hertzfeld offer a fabulous hands-on guide to how they make distributed teams work.

    • Jason Shueh reports for GovTech on Microsoft’s Civic Graph, built by John Paul Farmer and the company’s civic tech team in New York (and at Civic Hall, we might add!).

    • Meme wars: For part of yesterday, a #BoycottStarWarsVII hashtag was trending across the United States, fueled by online racists upset that the forthcoming movie includes a multiracial cast, Jen Yamoto reports for the Daily Beast.

    • The response #hashtag #CelebrateStarWarsVII—created by Selma director Ana DuVernay—quickly overtook the meme, as Topsy shows.

    • Twitter has come out against the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) “as written,” because “security+privacy are both priorities for us.”

    • Opportunities: The Detroit Community Technology Project is looking to hire a Data Justice Community Researcher.

    • The Citizen Engagement Lab has extended the deadline (to October 25) for its new OPEN-US Kairos Fellowship, which offers a six month on-the-job training program for emerging digital campaigners of color.

    • This Friday in Washington, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are hosting the second annual congressional hackathon. The event is free but advance registration is required.