DigiActive.org

Twitter Vote Report monitors the US election via micro-blogging

Description: Discriminating officials, fraudulent voting machines or simply long wait times are some of the problems voters may be facing on November 4th. Twitter Vote Report gives American voters an opportunity to report incidents on Election Day using their mobile phones and share them with others.

Digital Tools Being Used: Mobile phones, Twitter, Google Maps mashup, Plodt, iPhone app.

What Are They Doing: Twitter Vote Report aggregates short messages from people all over the US during the election.

Twitterers can use the hash tag “votereport” to let Twitter Vote Report know about an incident. But reports can also be submitted by sending a SMS to the organizers, using an iPhone / Android app or simply calling them.

Twitter Vote Report will aggregate all messages sent to them and display them on their front page. They also offer a RSS feed for those who want to receive all the messages. But to make more use of the information sent in, Twitter Vote Report offers some additional tags that can be added to a tweet to indicate a specific problem: Read more »

Zim opposition party used Google Maps

Description: The abrupt withdrawal of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from this Friday’s runoff presidential election essentially handed President Robert Mugabe a victory and left Zimbabwe’s future up in the air. However, given the uphill battle to have a fair election, Tsvangirai’s party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) looked to cyberspace to get the word out about the possibility of a changing political landscape in Zimbabwe.

Tools Being Use: Google Maps

What Did They Do: Tsvangirai’s party used the free software Google Maps to inform MDC supporters about campaign rallies around the country up until Tsvangirai withdrawal, as well as spots where alleged detentions, arrests and beatings have taken place at the hands of ZANU-PF.

“The courageous people of Zimbabwe, of this country, and the people of the MDC have done everything humanly and democratically possible to deliver a new Zimbabwe and new government,” Morgan Tsvangirai said to CNN following his withdrawal.

Tactic: Mapping Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa

Description: United for Africa is a South African web site that records reports of violence sent by SMS and e-mail on a Google Earth map. It provides living testimony to the atrocities committed during the xenophobic riots of May 2008 in South Africa. United for Africa is build upon the engine of Kenyan riot-tracking site Ushahidi.

Organizer: Quirk, a web marketing agency in Cape Town is leading this charge. Quirk will act as administrators on this build, and the Ushahidi team will step away from it as soon as the build is done.

Purpose of Action: To create a visual map of human rights abuses.

Organizing Tools: SMS, Google Earth, web site

Outcome: The xenophobic riots in South Africa are still continuing.

Ease of Replication: It is rather difficult to replicate the Ushahidi map, but their authors offer help to interested activists. United for Africa is actually the second rip-off build upon the Ushahidi engine after Sokwanele from Zimbabwe. The initiators of Ushahidi are developing their project as a free and open source tool for crowdsourcing crisis information and then visualizing that on a map. They hope that they will soon be able to provide this tool for any national or international conflict. To reach that goal they are still seeking for more developers.

via White African

Tactic: Facebook used in tracking war criminals

Description: Anti-genocide group Aegis Trust created a campaign using the social networking site Facebook to find alleged war criminals in Darfur.

Tools used: Facebook, Google Maps and e-petition

What Are They Doing: Aegis is asking Internet users to provide updates on their Facebook page about the whereabouts of suspects – Sudan’s Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Harum and Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb. The International Criminal Court has indicated both men for over 40 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

Aegis Trust is also using Google Maps to track the last-known movements of the suspects. Users can also go to Aegis’ “Wanted for War Crimes” webpage to sign a petition that will be automatically emailed to members of the United Nations Security Council.

“The men on the watch list are suspected of hundreds of thousands of murders,” said Dr James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust in a recent statement. “Someone, somewhere, knows where they are. They shouldn’t be allowed to live out their last days in luxury. Their futures lies in a courtroom. That’s what their victims deserve.”