Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text

How 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?

All the examples on the splash page are current Democrat priorities. Even if you are left, you are unlikely to agree with 100% of one party's platform. (If you do, start thinking critically please.) Can this tool be used to support your own priorities or is it just a retweet/amplify button for the Democrat party line?

Nice 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&#x27;t think it will in this fashion.<p>Asking nicely or many times won&#x27;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.

I&#x27;m not a resident of the USA but it doesn&#x27;t seem like it would be very effective. Members of Congress only seem to care about filling their own pockets via lobbying and insider trading. Improving the country seems to be an afterthought for them and even if they wanted to, they&#x27;re too out of touch to do so. Hence the end of net neutrality, the constant bills to kill privacy, and the way they waste the time of big tech CEOs when they call them in every 6 months.

I recall trying this one time a few years back to contact my congressman and senators. Was disappointed to see that the only available options were canned messages with specific viewpoints, and that it seemed to let me send those messages to politicians on only one side of the aisle.

Maybe I’m missing something but I scanned the front page there… why is it called “resistbot”? This seems like more participation in the democratic process so I’m not quite sure what they are resisting.

&quot;When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure.&quot;<p>Tools like this just make <i>all</i> modes of contacting officials less effective. Zeynep handled this really clearly years ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.twitterandteargas.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.twitterandteargas.org&#x2F;</a>

I would consider using this but don&#x27;t trust their privacy policy. People have been canned for expressing political opinions or donating to political causes.<p>How do I know this company won&#x27;t leak my information? This is especially a concern for people they would not consider political allies. Is there a more anon way to use it than giving your phone number?

I&#x27;ve been kicking the around to make something similar, so it&#x27;s interesting.<p>I wonder about this part near the top:<p>&#x27;“Resistbot is the smartest technology to emerge from the disaster that was the 2016 election. No one else even comes close.”<p>Debra Cleaver, Founder, Vote.org &#x27;<p>Is this meant to imply that the site or&#x2F;and vote.org is anti-trump or anti-republican - or imply something else?

I wonder how often these things actually work. At this point officials must get so many texts that they can&#x27;t possibly be reading them and they know they&#x27;re highly liable to be automated rather than necessarily representing real actors.

I am not familiar with US politics, but genuine question here. How effective is this? Does the respective representative have incentive to follow through or disincentive to not follow through?

I always thought email spam was bad. Then I contacted my senators via email and they started spamming me.

Calling the office or faxes work better than e-mail. I suspect a text is a lower tier than e-mail.

Not new, created around 2017 so think of what the climate was

Given the name - is this a tool for all constituents and parties or is it specifically for democrats?

&gt; Resistbot is the smartest technology to emerge from the disaster that was the 2016 election<p>Your preferred candidate losing is a &quot;disaster&quot;?

Unfortunately it disappointed me so much to learn that Eric Ries (the Lean Startup author) is a part of this sorry &quot;R E S I S T&quot; enterprise.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;resist.bot&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;09&#x2F;13&#x2F;the-robot-of-the-resistance" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;resist.bot&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;09&#x2F;13&#x2F;the-robot-of-the-resistan...</a>