WORTH READING Undercover persuasion by tech industry lobbyists

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Tim O'Reilly" <tim () oreilly com>
Date: April 28, 2010 11:44:46 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Undercover persuasion by tech industry lobbyists


On Apr 28, 2010, at 2:19 AM, David Farber wrote:

> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042305249_pf.html


Dave,

I forwarded this article to Ev and Biz at Twitter when it came out the other day.  I copied Clay Johnson over at the 
Sunlight Foundation, thinking he might well have the tools to identify lobbyists on twitter. After all, lobbyists are 
required to register.

Clay's response was thought-provoking and contrary to the alarmism of the article.  His key point:

> the fact is-- we regulate and dictate disclosure around what lobbyists say to Congress, not what they say to the 
> public.


I asked him if I could forward his full response to the list and he graciously agreed.

Clay Johnson wrote:

> It pains me to be the rainy day man on this due to my general contempt for lobbyists. But ethically, I kind of have 
> to.
>
> What we have here is an influence disclosure problem, not a lobbyist disclosure problem. While we can get you the 
> names and handles of a bunch of lobbyists on Twitter, the fact is-- we regulate and dictate disclosure around what 
> lobbyists say to Congress, not what they say to the public. Putting a mandatory scarlet letter on a Lobbyist on 
> Twitter will likely have the reverse effect that we want: the status quo is-- they use it, blend their personal stuff 
> with beliefs, and we have the privilege of waiting for them to screw up and disclose something they shouldn't have 
> (especially thanks to Twitter's geotagging stuff!). Start segmenting them off, or putting an X by their names, and 
> they'll simply just stop.
>
> Also: most public policy and astroturfing isn't usually done by lobbyists. Blue State Digital-- one of the top tier 
> online persuasion firms-- doesn't have any registered federal lobbyists. Yet they get paid to push messages by their 
> clients. Jane Hamsher, of FireDogLake runs an ad network and a popular blog. She's notorious for trying to sell ads 
> on her blog to progressive groups in Washington, and then when they don't buy, she'll write a hit piece on them. This 
> is the same exact problem that you're trying to solve, but Jane's not a lobbyist.
>
> Solving this (larger) problem isn't Twitter's job. What's really needed is some kind of standardized way of exposing 
> influence that's machine readable, and has a nice interface. Consultants, Bloggers, Members of the Media, etc-- could 
> go in and optionally disclose who their clients were and who has been paying them. Then we could build interfaces on 
> top of that and syndicate that information-- whether it be on TV or on the Web-- at least people would be able to 
> start figuring out whether or not they were being induced into some kind of paid campaign. And the bloggers, 
> twitterers, and whomever could choose to be kept honest, and those who didn't participate would be presumed to be 
> dishonest.
>
> Finally, I'd strongly recommend that, if Twitter wants to go the public service route, then a better option is to 
> somehow allow members of Congress to see whether or not messages are actually coming from their constituents or not. 
> RIght now in terms of influence, it's easier for me (or a lobbyist) to get, say, Representative John Lewis' (who is 
> not my representative) attention on Twitter than one of his constituents. Allow people to, in their profiles, say 
> where their congressional district is, and then when somebody @s their member of Congress, denote it in the UI. 
> Exposing, transparently, constituent communications to Members of Congress would be a powerful thing -- and a great 
> story of how, Twitter's actually making tools to improve people's connections to their government, rather than 
> setting up "politician pages" to lend credibility to their service.

Clay's suggestion at the end is much more compelling than what is in the post, and we're taking a closer look at how to 
do it.
>
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Tim O'Reilly, Founder & CEO O'Reilly Media
1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
tim () oreilly com, http://radar.oreilly.com, http://twitter.com/timoreilly








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