Nieman Lab: Inbox Influence tool gives stats on political connections

[EFerrari]

The Internet was supposed to usher in a new era of transparency. Groups like the Sunlight Foundation, the Center for Responsive Politics, OpenCongress, and even the government’s own Data.gov provide oceans of data for the curious, concerned citizen.

If the truth is in the data, however, you still have to go find it. That’s why open-government websites are mostly popular with journalists and activists, the people willing to pull up their sleeves and wade through the numbers.

A new tool from the Sunlight Foundation would seem to seek to tweak that paradigm. It’s called Inbox Influence, a Gmail plugin that requires exactly one step: installing it. When an email message arrives — from a company, a political candidate, a PR person, your aunt — you’ll see statistics about that entity’s political connections. The plugin detects names in body text, email addresses, and links.

For example, I received a news alert from The New York Times about Comcast’s successful bid to broadcast the Olympics until 2020. The company’s name is highlighted; when I mouse over, a popup graphic tells me:

* Comcast Corp. has given $16.9 million to politicians
* A majority of the cash has gone to Democrats
* The company has spent $66.7 million on lobbying


more
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/06/inbox-influence-reveals-your-connections-connections/

[patrice]

1. Thanks very much for this! Imagine being able to identify the economic-status of constituents'

email, so that it can be compared to donations.

Awesome, awesome tool.

Tks!

:hi:

[EFerrari]

2. I thought it looked like a cool idea.

:hi:

[patrice]

4. If money is speech, listening only to the Koch brothers would be Discrimination, might it?

Co-relations between donation sizes might show discrimination against lower SES constituencies, in favor of big $$$$$ lobbyists . . . just brainstorming issues around this kind of information.

Is my political speech being Discriminated against politically by churches and by upper SES Americans? I do have the internet etc, but they have Faux News' false equivalencies propaganda machine.

[patrice]

3. Kicking!