Justin Adelson, MIT Sloan Political ads often bend and distort reality to achieve an end. However, emerging tools make it easier than ever to dispel confusion about political TV ads. Enter the Super PAC App: a new mobile application that gives users detailed information about political ads. The app accomplishes this by using audio fingerprinting software to listen to the campaign ad, and then simply shows what PAC paid for it, provides verification of claims in the ad, and gives links to non-p...

Photo: americanprogress.org Voters are becoming more independent of conventional partisan politics, and young voters in particular are getting harder to squeeze into a red or blue box. While many voters may feel they have to choose whether they are socially and economically "liberal" or socially and economically "conservative," more and more young voters are deciding that they can pick and choose their values and how government should work irrespective of party platforms. As an indicator of th...

Photograph: Aleshkovsky Mitya/Itar-Tass Photo/Corbis Strange but eerily familiar events are taking place in Russia as the trial of Russian punk band, Pussy Riot, continues this week: "Three members of Pussy Riot – Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich – face up to seven years in prison if found guilty on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. They have argued that they were carrying out a political protest against the church's support of Putin ahead ...

Photo: tsa.gov In response to Friday's tragic shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, Twitter users took to their timelines to express their worry. Their concern was-- how will government respond to this event? Far from demanding total security and safety, many Twitter users, already upset by TSA pat downs and screenings at airports, feared the same treatment could come to cinemas. Here are a few responses. Matt Johnson wrote: "I swear, if I have to go through TSA style security to g...

In an unprecedented step for executive power, President Obama signed an Executive Order on July 6th that allows the executive branch to seize control of all communications infrastructure in the United States, public and private: "Without even the faintest toot of a fanfare, President Barack Obama has issued an Executive Order that outlines an extreme level of communications preparedness in case of crisis or emergency, including the ability to take over any communication network, including the i...

The European Union has, by a landslide, voted to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) Treaty: said in a statement For an international treaty to work well all the major players need to be at the table. Europe just flipped the table and walked out of the room. "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is dead" is the buzz phrase bouncing around the blogosphere. One might think the jingle refers to the Wicked Witch of West. It may as well-- in February many tremendous protests er...