Beware openwashing. Question secrecy. Acknowledge ideology. | Gov 2.0: The Power of Platforms

"You could spend a long day listing all of the organizations or individuals who are putting government data online, from Carl Malamud to open government activists in Brazil, Africa or Canada. As many conversations in the public domain over the past few years have demonstrated, there are many different perspectives on what purposes 'open data' should serve, often informed by what advocates intend or related to an organization or institution’s goals. For those interested, I recommend the open data seminar and associated comments highly ... In the U.S., Govtrack.us has been making government legislative data open, despite the lack of bulk access to Thomas.gov, by 'scraping.' There are many people who wish to see campaign finance data open, like the Sunlight Foundation, to show where influence and power lies in the political system. There are many members of civil society, media organizations and startups that are collecting, sharing or using open data, from OpenCorporates to OpenCongress, to Brightscope or ProPublica ... Whether anyone chooses to describe those activities as a movement is up to them — but it is indisputable that 3 years ago, a neutral observer would be hard-pressed to find an open government data platform. Now there are dozens at the national level. What matters more than their existence is what goes onto them, however, and there people have to be extremely careful about giving governments credit for just putting a 'portal' online.  While the raw number of open government data platforms around the globe looks set to continue to increase in 2013 at every level of government, advocates should be wary of governments claiming “open government” victories as a result ... [Evgeny] Morozov sent out that tweet, he’s published a book with a chapter that extends that critique, along with a series of New York Times op-eds, reviews, Slate debates, and a 16,000 word essay in The Baffler that explores the career and thinking of Tim O’Reilly (my publisher). Morozov’s essay catalyzed Annaleen Newitz to paraphrase and link to it at post at iO9, where Tim responded to in a comment.  While his style can distract and detract from his work — and his behavior on Twitter can be fairly characterized as contemptuous at times — the issues Morozov raises around technology and philosophy are important and deserve to be directly engaged by open government advocates, as John Wilbanks suggests ... Morozov’s critique of 'openwashing' isn’t specious, though it’s fair to question his depiction of the history of open source and free software and an absence of balance in his consideration of various open government efforts. Civil society and media must be extremely careful about giving governments credit for just putting a 'portal' online.  On that count, Wonderlich wrote about the 'missing open data policy' that every government that has stood up or will stand up an open data platform could benefit from reading ... This goes to the concerns of traditional advocates working for good government, as explored in a excellent research paper by Yu and Robinson on the ambiguity of open government and open data, along with the broader discussion you’ll find in civil society in the lead up to the Open Government Partnership, where this dynamic was the subject of much concern — and not just in the Canadian or United Kingdom context. The work exploring this dynamic by Nathaniel Heller at Global Integrity is instructive ... The open data strategy advanced by the White House and 10 Downing Street has not embraced releasing all of those data types, although the Obama administration did follow through on the President’s promise to launch Ethics.gov.  The Obama administration has come under heavy criticism for the quality of its transparency efforts from watchdogs, political opponents and media. It’s fair to say that this White House has advanced an unprecedented effort to open up government information while it has mu