The Internet is now being used more and more as a political tool. Natural, I guess, since newspapers have been doing this for many years. I guess the Internet used to be the non-elite media, but power is shifting in a hurry.Last month, Obama used video games to get his message out. Obama, Hillary and the other candidates also used the Web to fuel grassroots campaigns, raising millions of dollars of funds, and taking Internet fundraising to a new level.
The CNN YouTube debates during the primaries, and the CNN Facebook People's debate, the candidates' Twitter presences, are all a testament to how the Web directs politics!
Candidates showing up on Saturday Night Live have their shows immediately broadcast on sites like Hulu, for immediate impact! Even email accounts are being hacked in order to help a political statement or cause!
Now, the battle of Proposition 8 (Anti-gay-marriage) is being fought using TCP/IP!! Google and Apple, among other high-profile companies in the Valley, have come out on blogs (against the proposition) to support their diverse workforces.
Google Ads are being used to get the yes-messsage out (even on my own blog!!)- and Adwords, Adsense are being criticized for triggering on these keywords. These systems are expected to be sophisticated enough to be able to understand a gay-site from a non-gay-site, and automatically self-moderate - while this is possible, it will likely not happen in time for the elections tomorrow!
The Internet isn't political enough...yet!
1 comment:
Now, I just wish that I could vote from home using the Internet instead of having to drive (increasing my carbon footprint), stand in line (wasting my precious time), writing on paper (increasing my carbon footprint), and waiting forever to have some human count those votes (wasting my precious time)...
You get the picture :-)
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