Resistbot

Resistbot was established by Eric Ries and Jason Putorti in January 2017.[4] Jason Putorti attended the University of Pittsburgh where he graduated with a BS in computer science.[5] Prior to launching Resistbot, he served as the designer at AngelList and previously co-founded Causes and Votizen.[6] He expresses that one of his goals in creating Resistbot was to create a universal way to increase civic engagement and civic education.[7] Though the program was founded to oppose the actions of the Trump administration,[8] it functions as an un-biased channel, allowing users to compose their own messages. Unlike many other advocacy efforts, it provides no scripts to users.[9] Donations from users pay for postage for letters and voter registration forms, faxes and calls to officials, and texts between the users and the service.[1] When Resistbot began, letters were faxed[10] to officials' offices. However, as the program received more heavy usage, and officials started to unplug their fax machines, it switched to electronic delivery as a primary channel, with faxes, postal letters, and hand deliveries as secondary methods.[11] The first states that had access to Resistbot's feature of texting one's state legislature were Arizona, California, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington.[12] Between June 21 and 22, 2018 alone, Resistbot volunteers delivered 12,781 letters to the U.S. Senate, largely about family separation.[13] Those letters represented only a small sample of deliveries overall.[14] Within 4 months of launch, 730,000 people had used Resistbot[15], and by six months 1,000,000[16].

Users text the word "resist" to 50409, and follow a series of prompts.[17] Resistbot asks for a name and a zipcode to confirm to the representatives that these are real users. If a user wants to write to one of their officials, Resistbot will ask for their address to find out who represents them, ask for the user to type out the letter they want to send, and deliver the message via electronic delivery, fax, or postal mail, depending on what method is available. The first message, by default, will be sent to the user's Senators, and after more engagement there is opportunity for the messages to be sent elsewhere.[18] Users may also use Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or Telegram to use the service.[1] Resistbot is free to use,[19] and does not require an app download. A full list of keywords is available on the Resistbot website.

Resistbot has been featured on many news and magazine sites including Recode, Teen Vogue, Fast Company, Engadget, GOOD, The Guardian, The Miami Herald, and Huffington Post. In an interview with Recode, Putorti acknowledged that though the product's main purpose was to voice those in opposition to the Trump Presidency, the system delivers all messages without regard to political views.[20] Resistbot's Twitter feed features many responses by members of Congress to users who have sent messages through the software[21]. It was called, "The Most Genius Thing Of 2017" by GOOD magazine.[22]

The more times a user engages with Resistbot, the more features they unlock. For example, the second time they use it they can unlock the option to contact a representative in their area. On the third and fourth use, users can begin unlocking town hall locations. The idea behind this was to both promote usage, and ensure users were not overwhelmed with their first few uses, if there were too many options. The more advanced users become, the more specific they can choose to be in terms of which representatives their messages get sent to.[23]

In April 2017 Resistbot added a feature called "Letters to the Editor". This feature allows users to choose to send their message both to their elected official, and directly to a local newspaper or media source in their area. This allows the message they wrote to get seen by their communities and can help them gain support for their cause, potentially leading to more people texting Resistbot about this cause.[24]

During the congressional recess in August of 2017, Resistbot helped to facilitate what they called flash-mobs. When members of congress were refusing to attend town hall meetings, Resistbot encouraged users to organize or protest in order to help gain support for their causes.[25]

In November 2017, Resistbot was used as a channel by Medium Magazine to push Net Neutrality letters to Congress. The article published seven letter templates for readers to send to their representatives in favor of net neutrality.[26] Individuals couldn't send a message to the FCC or its commissioners, only the elected officials who attend to the address that the user enters into the prompts. In January 2018, The Peace Report published an article pushing its users to send letters to government officials through Resistbot in order to oppose the construction of two new military bases in Okinawa.[27] The article contained a letter template for readers to copy and paste to Congress representatives. In February 2018, WUSA TV fact checked and verified that texting "NRA" to Resistbot would tell users how their officials had benefited, or been hurt by, NRA contributions.[28] In September 2018, InStyle Magazine listed it as a way to "make your voice heard," regarding the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.[29]

Resistbot has received criticisms for not being effective enough. Micah L. Sifry argues on civichall.org that given how simple it is to send a message in using Resistbot, it makes it more likely that representatives will not read the letters they send in.[30] Additionally, it is argued that there are too many platforms of this sort that are bombarding the legislators with information. The congressional offices can be small and short staffed, who are not paid very much. Therefore it is challenging for them to manage all this information and file it in a way that is useful.[31] It is also argued that Resistbot gives users a false sense of efficacy, as there is a low likelihood that their message is being heard. [30]Resistbot has also faced criticisms saying it is too casual a method to be able to contact officials. The fact that you can send a message from a bar or from your own couch is alarming to some, and they believe it means that these platforms do not take civic engagement seriously. [31]

Ries has explained how Resistbot faces classic scaling issues as well. At the core of Resistbot's opensource communication platform is RapidPro, as well as being integrated with apps such as Lob. As of 2017, they had many challenges due to reaching limits of free usage on apps they were using in order to help Resistbot run, such as GitHub and Slack. He explains how the software is good at what it does, but occasionally when too many users are trying to use the app, message time can be very slow, and the platform will have a "total meltdown". [3]

Comparison of civic technology platforms

Civic technology companies

Civic Technology