Online democracy

Giving a voice to the people

Vanessa Scanfeld, founder of MixedInk.com, has offered a web-based tool that enables citizens to speak with a single voice. A group of gun rights activists recently used this tool to express their opposition to HR 45, proposed gun control legislation that would allow for unprecedented privacy invasions and infringements to the people’s right to bear arms, not to mention a likely backfire and increase in crime rates.
 

Given the debate around HR 45, GovTrack.us, a non-partisan website that tracks federal legislation, invited its visitors to write a collective letter to tackle the proposed gun control legislation using MixedInk’s collaborative writing platform. Over 450 people participated in writing this collective letter. Ms. Scanfeld created MixedInk’s tool which allows everyone people to voice their opinions coherently and in collaboration with one another, so that those opinions may be heard by lawmakers and the media.
 

Josh Tauberer, of GovTrack.us, transformed the collaboratively written letter into a petition detailing the error of the bill’s ways, which will soon be delivered to Congress. The petition letter eloquently describes the Western World’s history with gun control; a history littered with examples of strict gun control increasing crime rates and fewer restrictions decreasing crime rates. The crime rates in Australia, Washington D.C., London, Denmark, Sweden and Holland all increased drastically following the stringent gun control laws they implemented. While Kennesaw, Georgia experienced an 89% decrease in crime following their implementation of a law that all citizens must carry a firearm.
 

The petition letter also looks back at the potential danger to the populace created by taking away our ability to defend ourselves. It points out that; “Admiral Yamamoto, who crafted the attack on Pearl Harbor, had attended Harvard University from 1919 to 1921 and was a Naval Attache to the U.S. from 1925-28. Most of our Navy was destroyed at Pearl Harbor, and our Army had been deprived of funding and was ill prepared to defend the country. It was reported that when asked why Japan did not follow up the Pearl Harbor attack with an invasion of the U.S. Mainland, his reply was that he had lived in the U.S. and knew that almost all households had guns.”
 

Also mentioned in the collaboratively written letter are the cases of genocide and abuse of power following the removal of citizen’s weapons; the 20 million killed in the Soviet Union beginning the year of their establishment of gun control, the 1.5 million Armenians killed in Turkey four years after their establishment of gun control, the Nazi’s war crimes following their gun bans, the 20 million political dissidents killed in China following their 1935 gun control ban and the 100,000 Mayans killed beginning the year of their gun control laws being implemented.
 

Websites such as GovTrack.us and MixedInk are essential in today’s political environment, when the mainstream media is either slanted towards the right or slanted towards the left, ignoring major issues the American public may be facing either way. While GovTrack.us helps the people reach the government and track federal legislation, MixedInk helps those people come together despite geographical constraints. They are two internet success stories and Vanessa Scanfeld, co-founder of MixedInk, has been kind enough to elaborate on the founding and work of her the website.

Seattle Libertarian Examiner: How was the idea for MixedInk conceived?
Vanessa Scanfeld: MixedInk's platform was first used publicly last summer while in private beta by a group of progressive activists to write their own 30-page political platform, covering topics ranging from the environment to national security to healthcare. The project was covered by ABCnews.com and Wired, and a small piece of their platform was included in the actual Democratic Platform. More recently, Slate Magazine invited its readers to write a collective inaugural address, which was published on inauguration day. The final product, crafted collaboratively by over 450 people, anticipated the themes and tone of President Obama's actual speech. The project was covered by NPR, PBS, the San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, and others.
 

SLE: What was the site’s primary purpose?
VS: Given the sheer number of voices competing for attention online, individuals can’t make themselves heard and organizations can't process the volume of input they receive. We built MixedInk’s collaborative writing platform to solve these problems – it enables large groups to speak with a single voice by weaving their ideas and opinions into a collective text. The tool combines the wiki concept with a democratic voting system like Digg’s to ensure that the community's best text, rather than simply the most recent, emerges at the end. It provides real-time text suggestions and automates authorship tracking to encourage remixing of a community's best ideas and language into a single, well-written final product.
Using MixedInk's platform, thousands of people can work together to create an op-ed, review, product specification, mission statement, news article, letter to Congress, or other high profile text. The tool is available for free at MixedInk.com and can be integrated within existing websites as a customizable, embeddable widget. MixedInk's service is also being used extensively by teachers to help students build writing skills.
 

SLE: How was the H.R. 45 bill was originally brought to your attention?
VS: In March and April 2009, GovTrack, a nonpartisan website that provides comprehensive legislation tracking for citizens, used MixedInk to invite people to write a collective letter opposing HR 45. This bill was identified because it was attracting a lot of attention at GovTrack.us.
Together, citizens who advocate gun rights produced an eloquent open letter using the online, democratic competition at MixedInk, in which any citizen could submit his or her own version of the letter, judge the quality of others’ ideas and writing, and borrow and remix language from other’s submissions. Because of how it was crafted, the final, collective message was nuanced and powerful. It was made into a petition that will be delivered to members of Congress in late May.
 

SLE: Why did you begin the petition?
VS: I think Josh Tauberer of GovTrack had a few reasons: (1) to collect real names and locations, rather than usernames used on MixedInk and (2) to include as many people as possible in the process, including those who missed the opportunity to help craft and choose the final letter.
 

SLE: What reaction have you received thus far?
VS: It is early to say, as we haven't publicized this very much, but internally we've gotten great feedback from users. The petition now has over 2,000 signatories, which is a good indicator of how well it expresses the community's viewpoint.