Tech and the presidentials: Tech policy hasn’t really surfaced yet as an issue in the presidential campaign, but during last night’s Republican debate, rising contender Marco Rubio did say this: “It took the telephone 75 years to reach 100 million users. It took Candy Crush one year to reach 100 million users. [Laughter.] So the world is changing faster than ever, and it is disruptive.” Rubio, who opposes net neutrality, wasn’t asked how he thought the next Candy Crush would grow that rapidly if we lose the open internet.

Rival Floridian Jeb Bush had this to say about that issue, kind of: “On the regulatory side I think we need to repeal every rule that Barack Obama has in terms of work in progress, every one of them. And start over. For those that are already in existence, the regulation of the internet, we have to start over, but we ought to do that.”

As a co-sponsor of last night’s debate, Facebook got mentioned ten times, either as a source of an anodyne question from a random user or as the source of some vague data about obvious issues Americans are talking about. Each time, though, Facebook got mentioned, making the evening a successful night for product placement.

“Internet startup founders represent an entirely distinct, libertarian-like ideology within the Democratic party,” writes Gregory Ferenstein in The Guardian. “Tech startup founders see the government as an investor in citizens, rather than as a protector from capitalism.”

This is civic tech: Writing for Civicist, Ruth Miller draws on her experience facilitating part of the Refugee Hackathon in Berlin to urge that more attention be paid to the impact of media attention on the vulnerable populations civic hackers may be trying to help.

Writing for Quartz, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry riffs on Nick Grossman and Elizabeth Woyke’s new (and free to download) e-book, “Serving Workers in the Gig Economy,” and suggests that new platforms that help gig workers band together don’t go far enough. Instead, he argues for a return to a pre-New Deal solution to the insecurities of work: forming mutual aid societies “such as the Independent Order of Oddfellows or the United Order of True Reformer. Members paid dues in exchange for access to a wide range of services, based on the principle of reciprocity: today’s donor might be tomorrow’s recipient.”

Opening government: The U.S. Commerce Department now has its own Data Service, Hallie Golden reports for NextGov.

OpenDataSoft has built a list of 1600-plus open data portals around the world.