Dodd continued to talk, drawing the ire of many when he went on Fox News and basically admitted to buying votes in Congress. He said:

Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.

This prompted someone to create a petition on The White House’s petition site We The People, asking that Chris Dodd and the MPAA be investigated for bribery. The petitioner described Dodd’s act as “a brazen flouting of the ‘above the law’ status people of Dodd’s position and wealth enjoy.” Apparently, more than a few people agreed because the petition currently has over 31,000 signatures. That means it has reached the threshold to merit an official White House response.

And The White House has responded….kind of. See for yourself:

Thank you for signing this petition. We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on Whitehouse.gov. However, consistent with the We the People Terms of Participation and our responses to similar petitions in the past, the White House declines to comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action.

If you head on over to the Terms of Participation, you’ll find this applicable note:

To avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition.

Now, it would be a lie to call this response a shocker. This is why the internet community has expressed such a lack of faith in this process. If The White House was actually looking into this, it would befit them to not go into details about it – but even if they were, they could respond in a better way than this. At least the petition shows us that there are plenty of people out there watching, and when someone mentions political bribery on national television, it won’t go unnoticed.

[Hat Tip to TechDirt]

The Hangout will be streaming live today at 2:30PM on the White House YouTube Channel and while it’s too late at this point to submit a question, you can head on over to the page now and get a preview of some of the questions that have received votes thus far. Interestingly, of the ten questions that appear on the top of the page, eight of them are focused on the (de)criminalization of marijuana. I wish I could say it’d be exciting to see the President answer any of those questions candidly – YouTube notes that Obama and the White House will not have access to the questions asked prior to the interview – but even a question about something as divisive as marijuana legalization will still stubbornly illicit a canned response. Obama and his team have been at this whole politics things for a while and you don’t go charging into a less moderated medium like YouTube without having all of your ducks in a row beforehand. Additionally, I expect several of the topics will be drawn from the SOTU last week, such as college tuition and the snail-paced job growth. Who knows, though, with the President’s penchant for being able to seamlessly combine stately professionalism with refreshingly human animation, he’ll likely have more than a couple of entertaining responses.

Anyways. If you’ve got an hour to kill and want to cram before the POTUS has his Hangout+ session, re-watch parts (or all) of last week’s State of the Union address. If you do watch it, I recommend not partaking in the drinking game that many like to enjoy while watching the SOTU – it’s still a bit early in the day for that.

Last month, the 2.6 million followers of @WhiteHouse and the 11.6 million followers of @BarackObama on Twitter were asked “What does $40 mean to you?” with the hashtag #40dollars. The discussion was about the payroll tax cut being considered before Congress that would take an additional $40 a week out of workers’ paychecks.

The premise was simple enough. People posted responses to that question, hashtagging them with “#40dollars”. If you followed that hashtag on Twitter, you saw responses like:

#40dollars would cover gas to get to work to provide for my family for a week.

— Nick Sheats (@nicksheats) January 25, 2012

And #40DOLLARS adds up to $1,040 in a year.:) I’ll take it!

— Remy (@RemyRadio) January 25, 2012

#40Dollars could buy me some pizza hut right now, and I’d still have cash left over.

— Lisette Jenkins (@LisetteJ_14) January 25, 2012

#40Dollars would buy me those new black cowboy boots I wannntt! #pleaseplease

— miranda fields (@mirandafields32) January 25, 2012

#40DOLLARS thats a guaranteed cell phone bill paid each month

— RB (@VarsityVersatal) January 25, 2012

#40DOLLARS is gas in my ride

— lamuel pinto (@realpinto22) January 25, 2012

New OtterBox For My iPhone#40DOLLARS

— Kayla Williams (@KaylaaAlexiss) January 25, 2012

The #40dollars hashtag started trending on Twitter, with most people unaware of what it was all about. But, they asked. And word got around.

If congress doesn’t act by 3/1/12 roughly 160 million Americans will see less money in each paycheck #40Dollars

— Jeremy Murray (@jsmurray) January 25, 2012

Soon a national conversation was started.

Some simply poked fun.

You Cant get NO good hair weave for #40DOLLARS

— Alicia* (@Carmella_Virgo) January 25, 2012

The White House had seized control of the narrative in the public by priming the conversation with a Twitter hashtag.

Then, during the State of the Union address last night, President Obama brought it all home:

The administration has been posting a weekly address from the President to YouTube throughout his time in office. Now, they have a new channel for distribution.

Perhaps the administration also heard that Google+ content is much more heavily integrated into Google results these days. Another good reason for any content to appear on Google+, where people can engage with it.

Yes, Obama’s social media strategy is already in full force this election year.

The petition says:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information
“the more freely information flows; the stronger that society becomes” President Obama http://tiny.cc/rh5b1

SOPA is too blunt. Please veto.

The response comes from specifically from Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff.

Here is the statement in is entirety:

Thanks for taking the time to sign this petition. Both your words and actions illustrate the importance of maintaining an open and democratic Internet.

Moving forward, we will continue to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis on legislation that provides new tools needed in the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting, while vigorously defending an open Internet based on the values of free expression, privacy, security and innovation. Again, thank you for taking the time to participate in this important process. We hope you’ll continue to be part of it.

A new petition on the White House “We The People” site tries to trip that absurdity meter with an effective demonstration of the ridiculousness of SOPA.

The petition is entitled “VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information.” Here’s the plea, in full:

“the more freely information flows; the stronger that society becomes” President Obama

By allowing free conversation it is so easy to drop a link

http://i.imgur.com/TD4Kq.jpg

It would be ridiculous for an ISP to block the entire whitehouse.gov domain on court order because a single user posted a link. It is difficult for any web administrator to know which links to copyrighted material are done with permission. This will kill the free flow of information and conversation on the internet.

SOPA is too blunt. Please veto.

The petition references the SOPA provision that just a few infringing links, even if they are user-posted, can be grounds for the blocking of entire sites. Basically, “look how easy this is – in theory I just made whitehouse.gov an offending website.”

The hypothetical “illegal” link is actually just a link to an image. As you can see, the idea for this petition comes from a redditor.

The petition was created only yesterday and has already amassed almost 19,000 signatures. In order to reach the next threshold and become eligible for an official White House response, the petition must receive 25,000 signatures by January 17th, 2012 (which might be a little late, given the current SOPA timeframe).

This isn’t the first SOPA-related We The People petition to gain momentum. Early last month, a petition emerged asking the administration to “stop the e-parasite act.” Although that petition is currently approaching 50,000 signatures, it has yet to receive an official White House response.

This and other petitions like the one advocating for the decriminalization of marijuana have led folks on the interwebs to become quite skeptical of the power of the We The People initiative. Take for instance the petition on the site that stated “We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.”

When the history of SOPA is written, it’s unlikely that this little petition will have a starring role in the story – but that doesn’t stop it from being a wonderful example of the absurdity of it all.

No, President Obama won’t be battling people for mayorships, as this is an official White House account. I’m sure that’s for the best – an Obama personal Foursquare account might qualify as a security risk.

The White House announced the news on their blog –

The White House is now on Foursquare, a location-based social networking website, which is the latest way for you to engage with the administration. There are over 10 million people already “checking in” around the world, and now you’ll be able to discover “tips” from the White House featuring the places President Obama has visited, what he did there, plus historical information and more.

The White House has joined Foursquare amidst a huge Midwest bus tour where the President has been holding town hall meetings to discuss the economy. If you visit the White House’s new Foursquare profile page, you’ll see the first tip they’ve left – for “Lower Hannah’s Bend Park” in Cannon Falls, MN. Yesterday he led a gathering of over 500 people at the park.

If you follow the White House on Foursquare you can expect “tips” about locations that President Obama has visited as well as special check-in opportunities.

Maybe The White House can make use of the brand new Foursquare Lists feature unveiled yesterday. You know, “Presidential Hotspots,” “Best Rose Gardens,” or “Best DC BBQ Places.” Will you follow The White House on Foursquare? Let us know in the comments.

Last week the White House began a series of back and forth communications with its followers that they called “Office Hours.” Every afternoon since July 26th, the White House Twitter account has opened up discussion. Users have been asked to tweet questions to different members of the National Economic Council using the hashtag #WHChat.

Last week, they scored quite a bit a publicity when they rickrolled a follower who said he was bored with all the economic talk.

Some interesting stats about all this Twittering have been posted to the official White House blog. And it looks like the “Office Hours” have given the White House a much larger presence on the site.

Since last Tuesday, over 100 questions have been addressed. During this time, the White House has gained over 22,000 followers – an average of over 3,000 a day. Before the #WHChat, they were only averaging 2,257 new followers a day.

Also, the White House Twitter account is averaging over 5,000 mentions a day, up from just 900 before the office hours began.

According to the blog, tweets with the hashtag #WHChat generated over 33 million impressions “reaching an audience of nearly 10 million followers as of Friday, July 29th.”

While the back and forth communication between the White House and Twitter users resulted in a increase in followers, Barack Obama’s presidential Twitter account suffered a loss of followers after one of their Twitter offensives.

On Friday, the Barack Obama team sent out a flurry of tweets asking users to tweet at their Republican congresspeople to convince them to accept a “balanced approach” to solving the debt crisis. Many complained that the tweets were “spammy” and that account subsequently lost about 36,000 followers.

The White House has two more scheduled office hour sessions – one today at 4 pm EDT and one tomorrow at 4 pm EDT. Today, you can submit your #WHChat questions to Jason Furman, Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

Financial discussion isn’t always the most riveting of subjects, everybody knows that. Twitter user @wiggsd decided to use the #WHChat hashtag to tweet his frustration with the lack of entertainment coming from the correspondence briefing.

Here’s what he wrote –

In response to that, The White House decided to give him something a little more lively. They tweeted the following, and yes, the link leads directly to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

User gaboer117 on YouTube writes on the comments for the Rickroll video -

“Thumbs up if the White house brought you here.” That comment has already received 130 likes.

These are tough, tense times. It’s nice to break it up with a little bit of humor. Apparently, someone in the White House is no stranger to that fact.

[Hat tip to TNW]

Twitter users are being asked to submit questions to the President from now until July 6th. Just tweet your questions “about the economy and jobs” with the hashtag #AskObama, and your question will have the chance to be answered.

When will the President answer these job questions? At a live webcast from the White House on July 6th at 2 p.m. EDT.

askObama.twitter.com has been created as the official site for the town hall. That’s where you can watch the live stream of the President answering the Twitter-posed questions next Wednesday.

The Town Hall has also developed its own Twitter account @townhall that will give users updates up until the Q&A goes down.

This isn’t the first time that the White House has organized with Twitter to promote discussion. Back in May, Obama gave a big speech on the situation in the Middle East. The White House held a follow-up chat to the speech live on Twitter. Reporters from NPR and Foreign Policy interviewed Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes based on user questions coming in on Twitter.