{"id":203,"date":"2008-07-17T08:01:15","date_gmt":"2008-07-17T12:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/idblog\/2008\/07\/17\/tweets-sparked-over-twitter-in-congress\/"},"modified":"2008-07-17T08:01:15","modified_gmt":"2008-07-17T12:01:15","slug":"tweets-sparked-over-twitter-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/2008\/07\/17\/tweets-sparked-over-twitter-in-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Tweets Sparked Over Twitter in Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congress has been engaged in a heated debate recently. Not just about the Iraq war, the economy and health care, but about whether House members are free to \u201ctweet.\u201d The NY Times reports<\/a> that a proposal to limit House members\u2019 use of social media outlets on the Web has been causing a brouhaha both in Congress and cyberspace. In his NPR interview<\/a>, Andrew Noyes of the Tech Daily Dose Blog <\/a><\/em>explained that debates ensued after Rep. Capuano (D-MA) was asked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to head the Franking Commission <\/a>and revamp rules on how members of Congress communicate with constituents, especially in the Internet age. <\/p>\n

The blogosphere and House floor have been excited with twitters concerning Capuano\u2019s proposal <\/a>which he claims was only meant to regulate how members of Congress post videos on the web in order to \u201cprevent members from endorsing commercial or political advertisements\u201d in keeping with a vintage house rule. Yet, twitter-happy, tech-savvy House members such as Rep. Culberson of Texas <\/a>are in an uproar, describing the move as an \u201cattack on free speech.\u201d <\/p>\n

Internet activists, bloggers, and avid Twitter users have also been quick to respond. The Sunlight Foundation <\/a>created the \u201cLet Our Congress Tweet<\/a>\u201d campaign, encouraging people to \u201ctweet\u201d their disdain through an online petition, while the TechSailor Blog <\/a><\/em>offers Congressional source documents to readers. Other bloggers such as those at Shelly Blog <\/a><\/em>and Techdirt Blog<\/a><\/em>, although supportive, are critical of Culberson\u2019s approach, even calling him out for \u201cigniting a misleading partisan fight.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yet, this debate goes beyond the issue of maintaining house rules or partisan politics. It exposes the disconnect between the 75% of American adults now using the Internet, and the unfortunate number of House members who are falling behind in their use and understanding of new, interactive Internet technologies. <\/p>\n

In its 2008 Communicating with Congress Project <\/em>report<\/a>, the Congressional Management Foundation <\/a>found that although the Internet is a simpler, more cost-effective method for contacting Congress, \u201cneither citizens nor congressional offices have learned to use it in ways that facilitate truly effective communications between citizens and members of Congress.\u201d Furthermore, \u201ca significant number (of representatives) still respond to email with post-mail, 42% have substandard or failing websites, and few have embraced new media tools for better serving online constituents.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, progress has been made. YouTube recently vowed <\/a>to create a \u201cgovernment ghetto\u201d and provide legislators with their own commercial-free video sites; a move which discourages congressman\u2019s over-dependence on traditional, \u201csnail-mail\u201d methods of communication with constituents. <\/p>\n

Given the currently low approval rates of Congress, it is surprising that more members do not take advantage of the potentially powerful new interactive communication technologies out there, and even more discouraging that they feel the need to regulate what many do not use or understand. As Rep. Capuano admitted to the Washington Post, \u201cI make no bones about it. I don’t know anything about this stuff.” More elected officials should be embracing these new technologies, in order to empower themselves and promote greater political participation by their constituents. As the authors of Rebooting America note, \u201cIn a full circle of thought and commitment, the Internet revolution has enabled us to rediscover our passion for broad public participation in government and governance.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congress has been engaged in a heated debate recently. Not just about the Iraq war, the economy and health care, but about whether House members are free to \u201ctweet.\u201d The NY Times reports that a proposal to limit House members\u2019 use of social media outlets on the Web has been causing a brouhaha both in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1847,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1847"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}