Culture

Culture

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
africa, elections, mobile phones



Mobile Phones Being Used To Bring Fairer Elections To Africa

from the good-news dept

We report on so many stories where technology is used in bad or oppressive ways, that it's important to note when it's being used in positive ways as well. Technology, itself, is just a tool that can be used in both good and bad ways (not to mention neutral ways), but somehow the good ways don't always get as much attention. CNN has an article detailing how the rise of mobile phones throughout Africa is helping in making elections that are more fair. It's certainly not perfect yet, but the ability to communicate has allowed citizens to report abuses of the election process and get the word out when they see any kind of cheating happening.

2 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Aug 28th, 2008 @ 8:29pm
  • When is it coming here?

    by Barrack Mccaine

    When that "technology" is going to arrive in florida and ohio??

    Seriously, same cellphones can be used to spread misinformation. Anyways whats the power of information against gun? We know thousands of people are being killed in Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan,...........list goes on! So what??

    Sometime that kind technology is exploited by..... the exploiters, but don't hold ur breath to bring democracy to Africa!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Aug 29th, 2008 @ 1:24am
    • Re: When is it coming here?

      by Enrico Suarve

      When that "technology" is going to arrive in florida and ohio??

      Diebold/Premier have released a press statement that you'll be getting the technology to monitor them just as soon as they can provide it and calculate the bill

      They are, however, a little busy fixing the random vote stealing bug in their software however

      Apparently all you conspiracy theorists were dead wrong with your wild claims that votes were going missing, which you continually requested more information to prove. In no way were the votes going missing in the manner you thought they were, it was *cough* a different way entirely

      Now please could you all turn around for a moment so they can rewrite *cough cough* remove the erm... bug?

      Go back to sleep America.....

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML
Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It