DigiActive.org

German Activists Collaborating on Writing Draft Bill Online

Description: Germany’s “Telemediengesetz” is seen as inadequate by many critics. The law is meant to regulate so called information and communication services, mostly affecting the internet. Hence its name: “Telemedien” is a neologism which was made up combining the former descriptions “Teledienste” (meaning one-to-one communication services) and “Mediendienste” (meaning one-to-many communication services). Though it only became effective in March 2007 it has since been criticized by experts as inadequate. As the Bundestag discussed amendments brought in by the three oppositional parties, German bloggers have started an online project to lobby for significant and useful changes on the bill.

Tools Being Used: Blogs, Wiki, Listserv

What Are They Doing: Some bloggers proposed to write a draft for the new bill together. The draft is thought to include all the proposals which can be heard from experts since years but have always been ignored by the government. The project is open for participation.
The bloggers set up a provisional wiki where the draft will be developed jointly much in the way of a Wikipedia article. They then announced it on netzpolitik.org, an important blog which is known for having criticized the Telemediengesetz before, in order to find more people interested in participating in the project.

In their first step, the bloggers started discussing the foundations for their project, including the question whether a wiki is the best solution for their intention. They subsequently set up a mailing list as a means to discuss the project.

The next step after finishing the foundations of the project will be to work out a draft which can be proposed to the Bundestag.

Who is organizing the action? The wiki was set up by the niche bloggers of Telemedicus in cooperation with Germany’s most important blog on net politics, award-winning netzpolitik.org.

Tactic: Keeping demonstrators up to date using Twitter

Description: A German group used the microblogging service Twitter to inform protesters during the traditional May 1 demonstrations in Hamburg, Germany.

Organizer: The Freie Sender Kombinat (FSK), “Free Channels Conglomerate”, a Hamburg-based independent radio station.

Purpose of Action: To inform leftist protesters about the progress of both their own and a neo-nazi counter-demonstration.

Organizing Tools: Twitter, cell phones.

Outcome: About 360 people followed the FSK’s Twitter account and were subsequently informed about the ongoing of both demonstrations, but the organizers failed to study whether their broadcasting had any effect on the protesters’ behavior. Using Twitter instead of regular SMS broadcasting saved the FSK about 650 € (~1000 $) of SMS costs.

Ease of Replication: Twitter is one of the new minimalist and easy-to-use web 2.0 technologies. Updates can be received via the service’s website, RSS feed, instant messenger (XMPP / Jabber) or specialized Twitter clients.
Reporting from a demonstration via Twitter is by far easier to handle than most alternatives, i.e. live radio broadcasting, and highly cost effective. Problems could arise through a lack of phone connection or data security.

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DigiActive News: Interview (in German)

On Tuesday, DigiActive writer Simon Columbus was interviewed by Frédéric Valin of Spreeblick, which is one of Germany’s top three blogs, about digital activism.

If you understand German, you can read the whole interview on Spreeblick.

Topics included a review of last September’s “Free Burma” action lead by German bloggers and a look at the power of digital activism.