digital democracy Cybersalon

What was most amazing about the event in berkeley last night was that the audience was more interesting than the panelists :) Seriously, it was a delight to be a part of a conversation with so many people-- from moveon, meetup, internet archive, affinity, league of women voters, and the Berkeley community who really care about the state of democracy and are doing things to make it work better.

I was in DC for the 2000 elections and the cyberthinking was that THAT was the election that the Internet would transform. McCain had the first ever candidate banner ad, and I was at the launch party for voter.com and testified on whether the FEC should regulate campaign contributions recieved online. It's interesting to note now that all those activities were transforming, but in the sense that they transformed the candidate's campaign activities.

Now-- moveon, meetup, and blogging are all the rage and the next generation cyberthought is that through THESE tools, the Internet will transform democracy. All the conversation last night was about how these tools are being used to activate an otherwise apathetic citizenry. Maybe so. They are user-- voter-- empowering (rather than candidate) which may mean they'll fare better than the voter.coms did.

But the jury's still out (or at least I have no idea right now)...