As part of my master’s degree in Digital Culture and Society I wrote an essay in January about “how the use of media technologies can help strengthen the feeling of community of the Icelandic People in the process of crowdsourcing their constitution”.

Though I don’t believe the (flawless) solution to modern democratic governing is involving the public in every process, in my opinion the risk of peer pressure is overwhelming, I do admire how well thought through and thorough the Icelandic crowdsourcing project was.

Therefor I was sad to read how the Icelandic government this week overturned the publics desire for change and thereby risk to damage the public believe in democracy for many decades to come.

If you want to read more, you can find my essay here: Crowdsourcing the constitution to unify Iceland

A bit of background

Post the financial collapse in 2008 the Icelandic people went to … read on

Det hele startede for seks dage siden. 8. marts kl. 8.22, hvor forfatteren Linda Grant skrev et uskyldigt feministisk tweet for at fejre Kvindernes Internationale Kampdag:

Linda Grant havde længe været frustreret over, at unge er historieløse, når det kommer til feministernes betydning for samfundet. Men i løbet af dagen fik hun tusinder af svar – hun retweetede en del af de svar, hun fik – og projektet eskalerede og endte på den måde som et crowdsourcing-projekt om feminisme og sexisme. For et par dage siden tilbød en bruger at samle tweetsene som dokumentation for eftertiden på sitet A Thousand Reasons (why feminism is still relevant and nescessary).

Man kan mene om emnet, hvad man vil, men dette er et af de mest interessante og vidtrækkende crowdsourcing-projekter, jeg er faldet over, hvor almindelige brugere (ikke nørder med stor erfaring i data-behandling) har brændt nok for et emne til at byde … read on