News from mySociety

Democracy

Stand up for your right to protest

Protest is a democratic right: a way of telling government how you feel about policy, and an important tool for any active citizen.

That's why mySociety, along with many other civil society groups, condemns the additions to the Crime and Policing Bill that seek to crack down on any protest that 'may' have 'impact'.

It's not too late to add your voice to the calls against these additions to the Bill, which is now open to public consultation. Find out more here.

Community

Making streets safer for blind people

It was brilliant to hear from Lauren and John, who told us one simple way they're using FixMyStreet to ensure roads are safer for those with sight loss.

Check them out, along with guide dog Daisy, in this video — and you can read more in our recent blog post, too.

Events

TICTeC: Catch up with our first Show and Tell, and sign up for the next ones

Six speakers, seven minutes each, and a series of insights from around the world: that's the current TICTeC format, presented online in a series of Show and Tells.

The first session, all about scrutiny, oversight and the open data that makes it possible, was last week: we've shared the video and accompanying materials if you'd like to catch up.

And there are still two more Show and Tell sessions to come: the next one is on April 20 with Lessons learned from online deliberation projects, exploring citizen engagement projects from around the globe. Sign up for free via the TICTeC website.

Transparency

UK government on OGP watch list for lack of transparency

The UK government has failed to meet its own targets on transparency. Along with several other organisations, we’ve added our voice to a message of concern. All the details are here.

Climate

Working from home sustainably

mySociety's Climate Action Group is always looking for ways to make our workplace more sustainable. Well: we say 'workplace', but as a remote company that's something of a loose concept.

So we put together some internal documentation on how to lower the carbon footprint of working from home — and we think it might be relevant to others as well, especially now so many of us are using our own living space as an office.

If you find it useful and think that your colleagues and friends might too, do feel free to share it around.

What we're reading

• Ordering food in? Tell your Deliveroo person to take a look at this project to make the algorithms behind their wages more transparent.
• Line, Taiwan's closed chat platform, now has an inbuilt fact-checker to prevent the spread of misinformation.
• Lord Norton of Louth provides his annual figures for how many items of correspondence are received by Members of Parliament, and speculation on the email/paper split.
• Our pals at the US Freedom of Information site Muckrock delight in their awards for the worst in government transparency this year.
• Explore declarations of interest, including gifts, jobs and more, from elected members around the UK.
• They called him the PDF Killer: the employee tasked with getting Boston City Council's forms away from paper and onto digital.
• Enough Zoom already? Here's your escape hatch.

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