Automatically tagging politician when they use their phone on the livestreams

This project doesn't seem to collect data, it posts the photo from the stream to social media and tags the politician. You might be able to derive the data you're talking about from the social media posts and timestamps, but that is obviously not the primary purpose.

The notion that you must have your phone away and be giving all your attention to a speaker is so antiquated and worthless.

I have issues with auditory processing and attention. If you deliver information to me verbally in a format where I cannot rewind/playback, have no subtitles or text to consume alongside it, and demand my full attention, I will have objectively worse reception of whatever information you're communicating. The way neurotypicals demand adherence to these, to be blunt, ceremonies of conveyance is tiresome and interferes with the goals they espouse of communication.

In fact I would go so far as to say a lot of the time, the goal is not communication at all; it is a demonstration of one's power and authority over others. If your goal is actually communication, text is better in every way. Every reader can read at a speed of their choosing, re-read parts they missed, have a speech-to-text program read it to them if they like, stop in the middle and tend to something time sensitive, what have you. A live speech allows none of this.

So yes, I probably use my phone while you're talking. I probably have my AirPods in too, because the settings where they remove background noise and just give me the person speaking are phenomenally useful. I might even be watching or having my phone transcribe what you're saying, too. And if you're going to try and chastise me for it, fine, that's your prerogative, but then I'm probably starting a job search for a place that will appreciate my skills and not demean me for not being able to perform "good worker vibes" to your arbitrary standards.

> Angela Merkel was known to text during parliamentary sessions, sometimes with multiple phones, with colleagues about the ongoing debate.

Legislative / collective council discussion has probably always had some sort of quieter back channel discussion. The low tech solution might be a whispered conversation, or might be conducted via pages/runners when decorum puts moving around the room out of reach.

Mobile devices mean you can use technology instead of runners.

It's somewhat tricky to measure the effectiveness of your MP, because of course their work output is politics.

We have https://www.theyworkforyou.com/ in the UK, which is a fantastic site, listing everything your MP does in Parliament. But the truth is that most MPs always vote exactly how their party tells them, and rarely speak. The main chamber in Parliament is mostly national debate on how to run the country, and amendments and motions are put forward outwith that chamber, by teams of MPs communicating with the Speaker's office.

Most MPs in the Commons are just waiting their turn to speak, and they wrote their speech the day before. The rest only turn up at voting time, and vote how they were told to by their party, then leave again. They don't listen to speeches, it's not going to make them vote differently.

So perhaps we need all the MP's official emails and texts to truly scrutinize their activity. Their presence and focus in the chamber is of limited importance.

What's more useful, IMHO, are when MPs join the various Parliamentary committees and listen to witnesses, scrutinize legislation line-by-line, and such. Those are meetings where I'd like MPs to be fully focused.

> presence at a parliamentary meeting (...) which is what they were elected to do

Parliamentarians from all around the world gasp in shock and revulsion

I suspect you may just not value artists or art.

> they arent really selling anything i would consider valuable or sellable (eye of the beholder?).

Which meshes well with art, so maybe the OP, in fact, is an artist.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

> Sure, but I am tired of there being two set of rules for those with power and those without it.

Can you elaborate on how this project is going to impact that? What change do you expect will come about from it?

In what way has the Belgian parlament participated in bringing about the surveillance ad-industry or the american tech oligarchy?

If anything European politicians have struggled against the surveillance monopolies and enforced more online privacy protection than any other leaders on the planet. You can argue the effort hasn't been sufficiently successful and you're probably right about that.

In other wording, if someone is speaking about a subject I'm not entirely familiar with, I'd likely be googling different details to get a more real picture than the one presented by the person proposing changes. Incentives and all that. An issue with political discourse in parliaments is that it's a meeting with a lot of important people so you can't really ask for clarifications again and again as you would in a 5 person meeting at work if you don't understand something you feel might be important. Partially because if everyone started asking for clarifications the topics won't get anywhere and partially because it's politics so you have to appear competent at all times.