Sonia Eyaan

Politics 3.0: A New Democratic Model Forged by Civil

Society and Digital Technology

“In the digital era, political parties represent the 19th century.

We need to take a 22nd century approach in order to bring politics into the 21st century. ”

Divina Frau-Meigs, media researcher

Summary

What do the French think of national politics? (case study)

Use of social media by politicians

Digital technology in the service of a participatory and inclusive

democracy

Digital technology in the service of ethical, moral politics

Moving towards forward-looking, predictive politics

What do the French think of national

politics? (case study)

What do the French think of national politics?

82% 93%

88%

80%

86%

74% How can digital

technology help to

recast politics?

According to the May 2014 BVA-Orange national political barometer:

Say that

they do

not trust

political

parties

Believe that politicians do not

make interesting proposals

Feel that government policy

is ineffective

Consider that parties do

not select the best

potential candidates

Consider that parties are not

managed transparently

Believe that government

policy is not fair

Use of social media by politicians

Use of social media by politicians …

Posting selfies

Publicizing campaign

agendas

Interacting with

constituents

Giving voting

instructions

Settling scores Posting

anecdotes

President Obama, the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-

Schmidt and Britain's David Cameron took a happy selfie at

Nelson Mandela's memorial service (Dec. 10, 2013)

Who is Nadine Morano,

a former minister under

President Sarkozy, talking to?

… Self-promotion and influencing voters

Source: Politiquement correct

Cyber trespass

Cyber contraband

Cyber contraband

Child pornography

Cyber stalking

Drug sales

Computer-based

fraud

And yet, cybercrime continues to grow…1/3

Cyber theft

Advertising or

soliciting prostitution

through the internet

According to the 2014 McAfee Labs Top Security Threat Predictions:

Mobile malware will dominate the greater malware realm with a

heavy-handed emphasis on technical advancement that will

drive the volume of attacks to new highs.

The rising popularity of unregulated virtual currencies such

as Bitcoin will cause cybercriminals to launch malicious

ransomware attacks on a worldwide scale.

Attacks on social media platforms will not only put users’

private information at risk, but social media breaches will

become nearly ubiquitous by the end of the year

Data stored in cloud-based applications will continue to be a

favored target for cybercriminals and possibly put big data at a

great risk. The small business sector will most likely witness

the bulk of these attacks.

And yet, cybercrime continues to grow…2/3

87%

48%

52%

7%

76% Agree that the

risk of becoming

a victim of

cybercrime has

increased in the

past year

Have changed some of their

online passwords during the

past year

Avoid disclosing personal

information online

Still do not feel well

informed about the risks

of cybercrime

Have been the victim of credit

card or banking fraud online

In the IBM 5in5 report (2013) IBM imagines that 5 years

from now, a digital guardian will protect you online.

This guardian, who is trained to focus on the people

and items it is entrusted with, based on 360 degree

analysis of an individual’s data, devices and

applications, will make inferences about what is

normal or reasonable activity. Deviations that could be

precursors to an attack or identity theft will trigger an

alert.

In a Eurobarometer poll on cybercrime (22 November 2013) out of 27,680

internet users in the EU:

And yet, cybercrime continues to grow…3/3

12%

Have already had a social media

or email account hacked

… The development of the cyber hate …

Geography of Hate (USA)

Students at Humboldt State University have geotagged

racist , homophobic and anti-disability tweets in the

United States and plotted them on an interactive map.

The students read each individual tweet and manually

code the sentiment of each tweet to determine if the

given word was used in a positive, negative or neutral

way.

#putosjudios Over 17,500 anti-Semitic tweets posted in Spain (May

2014) after the victory of Tel Aviv against Real Madrid in

the Euroleague men's basketball final.

Lookismus gegen rechts

A blog which posts pictures and names of internet

users who make racist comments online has caused a

stir in Germany. Is it going too far?

… The craze for cyber-activism…

Avaaz.org

Avaaz is a campaigning

community that brings

people-powered politics

to decision-making

worldwide. The

organization operates in

15 languages and claims

over 30 million members

in 194 countries.

MafiaLeaks.org

The website is “a mediator“

between potential

informants on Mafia

activity and those who can

act on the information,

such as journalists, anti-

Mafia organizations and

law enforcement agencies.

FWD.us

A lobbying group led by

Mark Zuckerberg and Joe

Green, based in the

United States that aims

to lobby and advocate for

its version of

immigration reform and

changes to the US

education system

And media coverage of cyber “anarchist vigilantes” who don’t play

by the rules of the political game

Chaos Computer Club (CCC) The CCC is Europe's largest association of hackers.

It describes itself as “a galactic community of life

forms, independent of age, sex, race or societal

orientation, which strives across borders for

freedom of information.” The CCC also advocates

transparency in government and the human right to

communication.

Anonymous A loosely associated international network of

activist and hacktivist entities. The Anonymous

collective became increasingly associated with

collaborative hacktivism on a number of issues

internationally. Supporters have called the group

"freedom fighters" and “digital Robin Hoods” while

critics have described them as "a cyber lynch-mob"

or "cyber terrorists"

Digital media in the service of a

participatory and inclusive democracy

Communities and think tanks are vital if a democracy is to function correctly. However, the world is changing. The rapid development of social media is a game-changer. Adopting a digital, collaborative strategy encourages interactions between citizens.

Open Government for an open democracy

Open Government Partnership OGP was launched in 2011 to provide an international

platform for domestic reformers committed to making

their governments more open and responsive to citizens.

Since then, OGP has grown from 8 to 64 countries, in

which government and civil society are working together

to develop government reforms.

The IBM report “Using Crowdsourcing In Government” provides a

strategic view of crowdsourcing and identifies four specific types:

Knowledge Discovery and

Management

Distributed Human

Intelligence Tasking

The National Archives of Australia The National Archives of Australia

(NAA) launched the arcHIVE project to

encourage the public to transcribe

archive records into their collection to

make them easier to find.

Political crowdsourcing: a participatory approach to democracy 1/2

Datapoa In November 2013, Porto Alegre

launched a crowdsourcing platform that

gathers information directly from

citizens on matters such as sanitation,

health, the environment and traffic to

help improve urban life.

1

2

Political crowdsourcing: a participatory approach to democracy 2/2

The IBM report “Using Crowdsourcing In Government” provides a strategic view

of crowdsourcing and identifies four specific types:

Avoin Ministeriö

The Open Ministry (Avoin ministeriö in

Finnish) is a non-profit organization that

helps crowdsource legislation. Since

March 1, 2012 the Citizens' Initiative Act

in Finland requires the parliament to vote

on initiatives that are supported by

50,000 people online.

Next Stop Designing Chicago BRT Station

2013 Burnham Prize Competition: NEXT

STOP is a competition that seeks to

integrate innovative and compelling

transportation design into Chicago’s

urban fabric, which can transform space

and community.

Broadcast Search

Peer-Vetted Creative

Production

3

4

Digital technology in the service of

ethical, moral politics

Campaign accounts for the 2012 French presidential election

Does this scandal point to a system

that is no longer adapted to the current

challenges facing political parties?

Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign accounts following the Bygmalion scandal

According to

Mediapart, more

than 17 million euros

were concealed from

the French National

Commission for

Election Financing

(CNCCFP).

Which digital tools can lead to

more ethical campaigns?

Political crowdfunding “Made in the USA”…

2008

2012

2014...

• By using a donation-based

crowdfunding strategy to target small

donors, half of Obama’s donations

came from crowdfunding.

• Social media and crowdfunding

relied on an emotional connection,

which created a direct link between

potential donors and Obama’s

message.

Sunlight Foundation

held a series of

webinars in 2014 on

the influence of

money in elections

and to promote

more transparent

political campaigns.

VoteRaise.org is a new, nonpartisan

crowdfunding platform that

launched in May 2014 to give

people the option of raising or

donating early contributions for a

campaign, with a guaranteed

refund if the candidate stays out

of the race.

• The Obama campaign raised $750

million from small donors.(John

McCain raised $350 million)

• 2/3 of financing came from small gifts

($86 on average)

… A political campaigning tool…

To test a

candidate’s

popularity

ahead of

time

To increase

donor

involvement

in decision-

making

To increase

campaign

finance

transparency

To establish

direct

communication

between donors

and candidates

To raise

early

campaign

funds

…And general interest projects

Give money to

the homeless

In France, the National Monuments

Center has joined force with

MyMajorCompany, a French crowd

funding specialist, to raise money for

four national landmarks, including

restoration projects at the Panthéon

and Mont St. Michel.

Handup.us is unique in that it allows you

to specify a specific homeless individual

to receive your donations. The site also

identifies why the individual is seeking

funding. These individuals are often

identified by the neighborhood they

usually frequent.

Restoration of

French

national

heritage

World Bank Group President Jim

Yong Kim joined UN Secretary-

General Ban Ki-moon in April 19,

2013, for Global Voices on

Poverty, an interactive event

featuring world leaders, opinion

makers, and a global online

audience discussing what it takes

to end poverty.

Following his fifth State of the Union address,

President Obama took a virtual road trip across the

country via Google+ Hangouts to discuss the issues

and policies laid out in the speech with citizens from

around the country.

A GLOBAL

INTERACTIVE

DEBATE

ORGANIZED BY

THE WORLD

BANK

BARACK OBAMA

VIRTUAL ROAD

TRIP (GOOGLE+

HANGOUT)

Online events…

Innovate

Collect,

compile and

analyze

exchanges

Generate

collective

knowledge

Ensure

meeting

continuity

Avoid

electoral

campaign

budget

overruns

…A solution to increase democratic interactions

Moving towards forward-looking, predictive politics

Information literacy in 2025 and beyond 1/3

Information teleportation

A team of scientists at the University of Delft‘s

Kavli Institute of Nanoscience used the concept

of quantum entanglement to transport

information a distance of three meters from one

diamond to another without passing it through

the space in between.

The teleportation of information will help to

create a more secure communication network.

Quantum cryptography will make it possible for

one government to communicate with another

in complete confidentiality, with no need for a

shared secret key that would could be

intercepted by a network of cyber terrorists.

CREDIT: voyager624/Shutterstock

Information literacy in 2025 and beyond 2/3

Holographic Information

Holography is a technical spatial

representation that simultaneously reproduces

all the viewing angles of a set of information.

Human subjectivity and the multiple realities

perceived by each person can be seen through

this complexity. Use of these tools will show

how a change in reference point and observer

can directly affect the information that can be

perceived.

By removing all the emotional and subjective

factors that clutter up data, holographic

information will, for example, show the various

possible scenarios if a candidate is elected (or

not).

CREDIT: Avatar, James Cameron

The artificial brain

Following on from the Human Brain Project that was

launched in 2005 in the Lausanne École

Polytechnique in Switzerland, the Brain initiative

started in April 2013 during President Obama’s

second term.

These projects aim to gather as much data as

possible on the brain, map neurons and, ultimately,

to convert the contents of a brain into digital format

and to transfer them to a computer.

Information literacy in 2025 and beyond 3/3

CREDIT: Andrew Ostrovsky / iStockphoto / THINKSTOCK

Information literacy today

Research for predicting critical societal events in the

near to distant future (1 to 5+ years) is in progress. A

conference on "Predicting the Likelihood of Financial

Crises With the Help of Information Theory“ was held

at The Graduate Institute of Geneva (IHEID) in October

2013.

In order to win the 2012 election, Barack

Obama used big data, in particular to

determine the optimum amount to request

from donors. Specialists agree that big data

will play an even greater role in the 2016

US presidential election.

According to Virginia Tech university research,

there is a potential to use ‘big data’ as a lever for

tracking trends and making forecasts for critical

societal events, including civil unrest, elections,

disease outbreaks, and criminal activities, with

quantifiable accuracy a few days or weeks before

they occur.

BIG DATA

The relationship between big data and open data

Big data that is not open is not

democratic.

Open data does not have to be big

data to matter.

Big, open data does not have to

come from government.

But, when the government turns big

data into open data, it is especially

powerful.

This Venn diagram maps the relationship between

big data and open data, and how they relate to the

broad concept of open government. There are a

few important points to note.

4 points are explained in in this Guardian article

Source: Joel Gurin

Young people at the heart of the democratic process

Adopting a forward-looking

approach means exploring the

future and anticipating

initiatives that will facilitate

"living together in harmony".

Today's children are the

citizens of tomorrow: which

tools encourage their

ownership of the main issues

facing our society?

How to facilitate full awareness of citizenship and the democratic process

Serious game/simulation Co-design / e-magazine

Les petits citoyens A multimedia platform that is

dedicated to children and teaches.

The aim is to provide support for

children in media and citizenship

education.

5 mayors during electoral

campaigns

After experiencing a ballot,

democracy and municipal

administration, this project will

enable pupils in Montréal to

choose a candidate and to help

him/her win an election.

SimCityEDU An adapted version of Sim City that

is distributed in schools, to help

children become aware of

environmental issues, and to teach

them how to solve problems using

digital techniques

Involve young citizens in designing the democracy of tomorrow

The Weingartner Digital Citizenship

Challenge

This challenge dedicated to American

students is looking for creative new ideas

to help make the internet, including all

forms of social media, a better tool for

strengthening democracy.

The winners were announced at the

Weingartner Digital Citizenship Forum on

February 11, 2014.

Conclusion

Democracy

From politics 2.0 to Politics 3.0

Politics 2.0

Expert blogs

Online donations by

supporters

Citizen Forums

Content curation

Content aggregation

Big data

Artificial Intelligence

Crowdsourcing

Crowdfunding

Cyber Petitions

Politics 3.0

The era of

pooling

The era of

sharing

Information

Skills &

Knowledge

Finance

Citizen

Actions

Politics 3.0: Digital technology used to recast democracy

39

Sonia Eyaan

LinkedIn: Sonia Eyaan

Twitter @Eyaansonia