Guardian.co.uk: Mob rule: Iceland crowdsources its next constitution by Haroon Siddique
Sum Up: Using social media tools is not “crowdsourcing” but it makes for a punchy headline.
Stories like this make it obvious when someone else is writing the headline. “Mob rule” has an undeniably negative connotation. And “crowdsourcing” is already a pretty watered-down term, but this story seems to think it means “having a Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr account.”
Writing a new constitution is a pretty amazing event. Just imagine what it would be like to read the Twitter streams out of Philadelphia from May 25, 1787. A government using all available tools (including social media) to communicate with its constituency is great and should be the norm, so long as it doesn’t include anyone’s underwear.
But none of this is “crowdsourcing” - it’s just PR. If Iceland was really crowdsourcing their constitution, the Icelandic people would be able to do more than just watch their constitution get written - they’d be able to write it.
Wouldn’t that be something.
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