Bots have a bad reputation and sometimes they do bad things. The bot activity that has been in the news allowed a few individuals from a foreign government to relay content through multiple bots so that it might appear that a message was coming from many people.
I think Resist Bot is OK. Here is a Wikipedia description of the Resist Bot project. The intent of Resist bot is to make it easier for citizens to send messages to politicians and to post this same information to other outlets if desired. Let’s stick to politicians. Recent political events may have made you upset with or happy with your Representative or Senator. Resist bot allows you to send a comment.
Resist bot works with text messaging. You text “resist” to 50409 and then follow the instructions. The bot will interact with you to set up an account and to send a “letter” or “call” to the individuals you are trying to contact. Just to be clear, the service allows you to communicate with the politicians that represent you and not others you might want to reach with a message. I assume the program uses your ZIP code to make this connection. I would like to communicate with other politicians who represent the state I lived in just a few years ago, but I can understand why the developers did not want to allow blanketing of politicians with messages. The content would then lose effectiveness.
I had some concern with providing my phone number and my email address, but I pretty much ignore phone calls I don’t recognize and my email address offers a way for the politicians representing me to respond. I sent a message to my Senators after yesterday’s Senate hearing and one did respond. I am guessing most responses are fairly generic and not actually from my Senator, but I still think commenting is important.
I provide some screens below to offer you a way to anticipate what the experience looks like.
