Chris's blog

Social media is a conversational medium that gives a voice to anyone with an internet connection. This is an amazing advance over broadcast media that only gave voices to the wealthy and powerful. But the popular platforms such as YouTube, Facebook & Twitter are all centralised, controlled by corporate interests, and prone to legal and political pressures to censor certain content. The owners of the social media sites also have access to all your personal data, and can sell this to advertisers and other interests.

Tickets are now on sale for dotActivist - a new online campaigning conference. Seven inspiring speakers, and plenty of time to talk about the ideas that arise. Join web activists of all stripes, to share tactics and explore exciting new ways of changing the world.

The conference will be at The Hub, King's Cross on 7th August. There are a range of ticket options for different budgets, starting at £15.

Check out the dotActivist site or register now

I've already talked about the Give Your Vote project, that enables British voters to give their vote to someone in Ghana, Bangladesh or Afghanistan. Now there is a candidate promising that you'll Get A Vote on every piece of legislation that passes through parliament, if you elect him as your MP. And the Simply Understand project is seeking to make law-making accessible to people without a legal background.

The internet provides exciting new ways of doing democracy and for organising society in general. The central idea is that the internet allows people to organise and make decisions in ways that involve large numbers of people. This is a radical change from having power held in the hands of a few.