BlogHer - GOP Rep. Accuses Dems of Censorship- Wait...What??? - Comments

From the Sunlight Foundation

Erin Kotecki Vest — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:27:10 -0500

Hi Erin,
Online conversations about rules affecting congressional Web use, like your post inspired the Sunlight Foundation to do something to rally citizens to ensure lawmakers can freely connect with us all online.

In that spirit, we are launching a new campaign, Let Our Congress Tweet, (http://letourcongresstweet.org/) an experiment in Twitter-based advocacy. You can express your support of a petition that tells Congress to "embrace the communication technologies that we already use" like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace.

On the site, you can watch who's tweeting to sign the petition. We'd love to hear any feedback on this experiment or on the broader dialog regarding congressional Internet use.

Best,
Gabriela

--
Gabriela Schneider
Communications Director
The Sunlight Foundation

Politics & News Contributing Editor
Queen of Spain

Is it...

nelle2nelle — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:41:38 -0500

too much to ask of our government? It would seem a natural match - a government site where people could actively interact with their representatives. In a way, that would beat having to guess which particular service they might be playing on.

With the monetary resources available to them, I'm pretty sure they could legislate the necessary appropriation, and it should have wide support (I hope.)

nelle

why silo it?

Karoli — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:33:40 -0500

There is standalone software (open source) that could be used, but then it becomes a silo without the back-and-forth interaction that really makes Twitter powerful.

Also, if their servers can't handle video, they sure can't handle twitter-like apps.

karoli

odd time signatures (life)
bang the drum (politics)

What will he miss?

Nordette — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:39:42 -0500

I'm all for instant communication between our reps and the people, but every time I read the phrase "tweeting from the floor" I wonder, "What will he miss while he's tweeting?"

At a tech conf. we were asked to turn off our phones and close our computers while presenters were speaking because, as the host said, "I know all you techies will not pay attention. You'll be online or texting the whole time."

I know some of what goes on on the floor isn't worth paying attention too, but still ... :-)

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link.

Why not their own...

nelle2nelle — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:00:43 -0500

framework? Surely the resources exist for our government to set up an interactive site free of commercial involvement. If we can communicate on the current commercial spaces, why not on one designed for the specific purpose of interacting with government officials - where a citizen knows they can go toss a message and have a reasonable chance of their representative fielding it?

nelle

Culberson's twitter history is interesting

Denise — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:32:45 -0500

I just spent a half hour going through the archives of Culberson's tweets - fascinating to see the tweets from the floor and to see the people who responded to him and then to see him respond again.

http://twitter.com/johnculberson

I love that his last tweet, the night before this twittstorm was as follows:

johnculberson Good night everyone! Congress in session tomorrow & I will keep testing the boundaries of live Qikking w/o getting into too serious trouble 11:52 PM July 07, 2008 from web

Test the limits, indeed.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

I think the problem comes in with taxpayer dollars

Erin Kotecki Vest — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:23:59 -0500

If you think of this in terms of commercialization, which is the focus of this letter...

What happens if Twitter is monetized? Facebook ads?

But I agree the GOP response cleans it up further. To make sure these issues are taken care of. As I said, I think Culberson's intent is noble, and this needs FURTHER revamping, but...

My issue is taking aim at a Congressman who clearly isn't about 'censorship' yet is being blasted across the blogosphere as some sort of pro-censorship guy.

It also brings up the same issue every employer in the world is dealing with right now- personal and company time. Am I twittering as Erin from BlogHer? Am I Erin?

Framing this is a censorship issue is partisan, I think these guys are actually on the same page...if they would just sit and talk.
Politics & News Contributing Editor
Queen of Spain

Disagree with you a bit

Karoli — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:58:38 -0500

As I said in my post, I believe the language was unintentionally restrictive out of ignorance not malfeasance. After all, the specific focus of the letter was video, but in the process, they pulled in just about every social media site out there. The key language in the letter that jumped out at me was in paragraph 2:

...the official content should not be posted on a website or page where it MAY appear with commercial or political information or any other information not in compliance....

Anything these guys post is 'official', particularly when it pertains to Congressional activities. The restrictions of paragraphs 2 and 3 make it impossible to post on Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube (though YouTube might be doable given that they really can set up official channels there).

There's no way they could reasonably post on Twitter and expect to comply with these rules. A comment on my blog could be fed to FriendFeed and co-exist with 'inappropriate content'.

When I first saw his Tweet earlier today I made a mental note to go do some research. My reading of the letter and underlying rules is different from yours (no surprise there...god forbid anything would ever be drafted clearly), but I still don't believe there's malfeasance. Just ignorance as to the different possibilities for the rules to inadvertently be broken. There is, however, clearly an error in how the proposed changes are drafted.

The suggested addition by the GOP specifically delineating text, video and audio communications on sites such as Twitter and Utterz seems to clarify it well and without peril to anyone.

karoli

odd time signatures (life)
bang the drum (politics)

GOP Rep. Accuses Dems of Censorship- Wait...What???

Erin Kotecki Vest — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:34:59 -0500

How behind the times is our government? Is my party? More than I'd like to admit, but today the left and a whole lot of citizen journalists got pwned.

The web is buzzing with headlines like "Is the House going to limit the free speech of its own members?" "Congressmen, Censorship, and Social Media" and "Politician Using Twitter To Ignite Misleading Partisan Fight Over Politicians Posting To Twitter."

So what the heck is going on you ask?

Congressman John Culberson of Texas has been Twittering. Yes, Twittering.

He talks to his constituents, his fellow countrymen. He talks to ex-pats and heck, he even talks across the aisle.

As Karoli at Bang the Drum writes, "I view this as a huge leap in political communication. No longer constrained by the 'official' responses, these representatives choose to directly speak to anyone who follows them on Twitter, and tell us what’s going on."

As many of us know, each political campaign has been leveraging social media for votes, donations, and to get their messages out. It's been widely noted the Obama campaign is winning the web wars.

"Obama does tend to have a younger demographic that is attracted to him, so it stands to reason that that population would be more active online [than McCain's supporters are]," said Jon Gibs, vice president of media analytics at Nielsen Online. And because of Obama's Web 2.0 approach during the primary season, "this is the first campaign we have seen where the Internet has moved into the middle of the campaign itself," Gibs said.

So when a Republican Congressman blasts a tweet claiming the Democrats are trying to censor him, you bet I perk up:

"I just learned the Dems are trying to censor Congressmen’s ability to use Twitter Qik YouTube Utterz etc - outrageous and I will fight them."

Of course, I immediately think to myself...but Senator McCain doesn't EVEN USE A COMPUTER! Why would the Democrats want to limit access to social media? They are shooting themselves in the foot!!!

Turns out they are NOT trying to limit anything to anyone, and I just watched several hundred micro-bloggers and bloggers enter quickly into the world of "breaking news" and "fact-checking" as a frenzy over censorship went viral in less than 140 characters.

Then came tweets from the House Floor by the Representative.

"on house floor - telling Ds they must not censor our blogs or Tweets etc "

Culberson's argument stems from a letter from Rep. Michael Capuano of Massachusetts. As Techdirt points out:

Existing House rules actually forbid members of Congress from posting "official communications" on other sites. This was first noticed by a first-term Congressman who was worried that posting videos on YouTube violated this rule. Other Congressional Reps told him to not worry about it as everyone ignored that rule, and no one would get in trouble for using various social media sites such as YouTube. However, that Congressman pushed forward, and eventually got Congress to act. Of course, rather than fixing the real problem (preventing Reps from posting on social media sites), they simply asked YouTube to allow Reps to post videos in a "non-commercial manner." YouTube agreed, and that was that.

However, the existing rules still stood. Culberson's complaint stems for a letter (pdf) sent by Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano, suggesting that the rules actually be changed to be loosened to deal with this situation and make it easier to post content on various social media sites. Culberson, however, bizarrely claims that this is the Democrats trying to limit what he can say on Twitter. But that's actually not at all what the letter states. The problem isn't this letter, but the existing rules that are already in place. In fact, based on the letter, it would appear that this would make it possible for Congressional Reps to Twitter, so long as their bio made it clear they were Reps.

Some small research and suddenly this becomes "politics" not "censorship."

While Culberson's intention may be noble, his framing is not.

The Sunlight Foundation writes, "The really interesting part of the story might be the way Rep. Culberson
managed to stir up attention through twitter.

Nothing gets attention through social media like hot stories about social
media. :) "

Framing Rep. Capuano as a big, bad, anti-free speech Congressman, is absurd at best.

This is a Congressman who has repeatedly stood up to China, most recently asking President Bush to Boycott the Olympics Opening Ceremony and opposed permanent normal trade relations with China back in 2000.

Capuano has also been holding "online community meetings" for as long as I have been blogging.

While our Government has a long way to go catching up on Web 2.0, I think we may have just answered BlogHer's hot topic question- "Twitter: Jumping the shark or hotter than ever?"

When we see a GOP Congressman using it to play politics, Twitter = Jumping the Shark.

In which case I would have to declare BlogHer =FTW!

Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest also blogs at Queen of Spain blog