• Italy | "Internet is freedom": Lawrence Lessig at the Chamber of Deputies
  There were high expectations for Lawrence Lessig's lecture at the Chamber of Deputies yesterday afternoon during the event "Internet is freedom". Some days before, the organizers asked people to tweet about the theme of the conference: the chosen hashtag was #difenderelarete, a reference to some recent bills attempting to limitate freedom of expression on the web. There were thousands of tweets and even more during the speech, making the topic the most popular of the day in Italy.
  But, apparently, mainstream media still don't get it: the lecture was preceded by a speech of the President of the Chamber, praising the Internet as a force of peace and innovation, and that is the only part of the conference that has made it to the news so far.

The first videos of plenary sessions from "Personal Democracy Forum 2008: Rebooting the System" are now available on our Blip.tv channel at pdf.blip.tv. Now playing: Elizabeth (and John) Edwards, Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Mark Pesce

Day 2 of PdF took us from personal democracy through participatory democracy to hyperdemocracy powered by a series of smart white guys with great presentation skills. This is how I think it went down.

YouTube re-imagines YouChoose '08; Will.i.am remixes his "Yes We Can" video with mixed results; Joe Trippi speaks the truth, tells it like it is; a skeptic about a Lessig run for Congress and the first interview with Lessig since his announcement; the Obama Spendometer is widgetized; and a New York Times article about John McCain may end up helping more than hurting his campaign

Obama beats Clinton in Wisconsin and Hawaii, maybe with the help of a text campaign; a tech consultant analyzes Clinton and Obama's policy proposals and finds that Obama actually has more substance; more videos appear showing candidates borrowing catchphrases, applause lines, and hair styles; Obama's numbers take off again on YouTube; McCain sees life on Facebook; and the web's response to a possible Lessig run for Congress.

Barack Obama makes waves with a far-reaching tech policy: will other candidates follow suit?; anti-Giuliani and anti-Paul videos gain some traction; and a new game from John McCain is fun, or controversial, or both. We can't decide.

The Web on the Candidates

MySpace and Mark Burnett (producer of TV shows like Rock Star: INXS) are working together on a new reality show that will search for an independent presidential candidate. "Contestants in the show, set to launch in early 2008, will meet the public and interact with supporters, protesters and others. An interactive 'town hall' will give MySpace users and TV viewers a chance to rate their performance." The show is still looking to partner with a network, though something -- I don't know, intuition maybe -- tells me that Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace will ultimately find a partnership with Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox...

A bipartisan alliance has signed a petition asking the Republican and Democratic National Committees "To Ensure All Presidential Debate Video Can Be Legally Put On Sites Like YouTube." The petition was started by Stanford professor and copyright activist Lawrence Lessig, and it seeks to make certain that all debate footage (which would be officially owned by the networks on which the debates appear) be put into the public domain or licensed as "Creative Commons," Lessig's alternative copyright vision. It was signed by the who's who of tech/politics, including techPresident's own Micah Sifry. See the post for the complete list.