Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#2I wonder how often these things actually work. At this point officials must get so many texts that they can't possibly be reading them and they know they're highly liable to be automated rather than necessarily representing real actors.
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#3How much impact do these services actually have on elected officials? They know how little effort constituents put into having a text sent on their behalf so they're probably going to put very little weight on them. Go through the effort of handwriting a letter is going to add quite a bit of weight to your message. If you are unwilling to invest a small bit of time and the cost of a stamp to send a message, why would they think it's very important to you?
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#4I wonder how often these things actually work. At this point officials must get so many texts that they can't possibly be reading them and they know they're highly liable to be automated rather than necessarily representing real actors.
Some of the ones that send emails on your behalf are known to harvest your email address for resale. Not sure if the same is true for the ones sending texts but wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#5How much impact do these services actually have on elected officials? They know how little effort constituents put into having a text sent on their behalf so they're probably going to put very little weight on them. Go through the effort of handwriting a letter is going to add quite a bit of weight to your message. If you are unwilling to invest a small bit of time and the cost of a stamp to send a message, why would…
> Go through the effort of handwriting a letter is going to add quite a bit of weight to your message.
Really? is there even a slight chance that Rep. XYZ actually reads my letter and it doesn't get filtered out by an aide as "spam"? And furthermore, once read does my letter actually hold any weight against moneyed interests? It feels like an utterly futile and pointless exercise to pretend democracy still works.
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#6Unfortunately it disappointed me so much to learn that Eric Ries (the Lean Startup author) is a part of this sorry "R E S I S T" enterprise.
https://resist.bot/news/2017/09/13/the-robot-of-the-resistan...
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#7Nice initiative but I fear the principle of this design is flawed and will only prove once more that the working class as a whole has no real power. Technology can solve many of the problems of society but I don't think it will in this fashion.
Asking nicely or many times won't do much because the people who run a society are the ones who control production, not the ones who mediate policies. In short, this is not the root of the problem.
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#8How much impact do these services actually have on elected officials? They know how little effort constituents put into having a text sent on their behalf so they're probably going to put very little weight on them. Go through the effort of handwriting a letter is going to add quite a bit of weight to your message. If you are unwilling to invest a small bit of time and the cost of a stamp to send a message, why would…
> Go through the effort of handwriting a letter is going to add quite a bit of weight to your message. Really? is there even a slight chance that Rep. XYZ actually reads my letter and it doesn't get filtered out by an aide as "spam"? And furthermore, once read does my letter actually hold any weight against moneyed interests? It feels like an utterly futile and pointless exercise to pretend democracy still works.
OpenGov recently researched this and the results largely backed up conventional wisdom, and suggested a trajectory of change. You night best learn by starting with the findings summary: https://v2v.opengovfoundation.org/summary-of-research-findin...
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#9How much impact do these services actually have on elected officials? They know how little effort constituents put into having a text sent on their behalf so they're probably going to put very little weight on them. Go through the effort of handwriting a letter is going to add quite a bit of weight to your message. If you are unwilling to invest a small bit of time and the cost of a stamp to send a message, why would…
I know at the federal level, pretty much all the reps/senators see compiled reports of all constituent comms, broken down by (issue / stance / method / volume).
Either way your message is "just" making it up to the member as a spreadsheet column, but text vs email vs letter might not actually make the difference you think. Some members might see letters as more serious, others might take texts as "oh my younger and more savvy constituents think X."
At the state level, this probably varies widely.
Re: Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
#10I wonder how often these things actually work. At this point officials must get so many texts that they can't possibly be reading them and they know they're highly liable to be automated rather than necessarily representing real actors.
They're not reading every constituent message, many reps get thousands of messages a day. But they're seeing aggregated reports.
If a rep suddenly starts getting a thousand messages a day all supporting/opposing issue X, that's going to get noticed.
Generally a handful of messages is fruitless, but a persistent big batch can change policies, especially if it's between multiple alternatives the member is already OK with.