

Site that lets you record and automatically phone-blast SOPA supporters for you - cjfont
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/reverse-robocall-campaign-lets-citizens-phone-blast-sopa-supporters.ars

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nick-dap
Activism needs to be reinvented.

Legislators are already not paying attention to email, because so much of it
is automated. At best, some legislators tally email, many of them don't pay
attention to it at all.

Automating phone calls is an inevitable continuation. Right now, phone calls
have _some_ impact. Unfortunately, technology will make calling less
effective.

On one end we have software, on the other we have the poor Congressional
staffers who have to pick up the phone every time it rings. Eventually the
staff will become numb to phone calls, stop paying attention, and turn to
people sitting in their offices for guidance (lobbyists, who get paid to be
there, or, less likely, people like you and me who find the time to actually
go and talk to them.)

We have a disconnect between taking the smallest step (sending an email,
calling) and the next one, physically going somewhere. This is why we -- we
the tech industry, in partnership with visionaries from the non-profit space
-- have to reinvent activism. To make the transition from the online to the
offline world smoother. And to make the time spent online more meaningful.

Increasingly, people look online first. The dozens of petition sites --
Change.org is a full social network type of deal -- are making it easy to
confuse "doing something" with "doing something effective."

~~~
stinkytaco
>Activism needs to be reinvented.

No, activism is effective (see: GoDaddy, Arab Spring, Montgomery Bus Boycott),
but it's hard and takes real work. It's the political system that needs to be
fixed. Those lobbyists _should not be out in the lobby_. The fact that they
have more clout because they are right there is the major problem. Saying we
need to get boots on the ground so we can compete with lobbyists is to miss
the core problem that we shouldn't need to compete with lobbyists. We should
be able to email, call or walk into an office and have our voice heard. Our
vote should matter more than money.

In the meantime, yes, we need to be active enough to change the political
system, but changing activism should only lead to the larger goal of changing
the fact that activism shouldn't need to be changed.

~~~
nick-dap
Activism can be effective, but certainly not by default. Non-profit campaigns
fail about as well as startups.

When I say reinvented, I mean that we need innovative ways to use technology
in the advocacy space. Like you said, activism takes real work. Clicking
"Like" on FB is giving people the false impression that they have actually
done something.

Where we agree is that the political system is broken and that it is a much
more important issue.

I've been fighting for a particular bill for nearly a decade (see my profile,
if you care to know) and the thing that I've heard consistently, regardless of
what season or year it is, regardless of who controls Congress, regardless of
who is the President, is this: "now is not a good time to make the push,
because the election is coming up." If there is ANY election in the next two
years, Congress simply STOPS. In other words they are in a perpetual election
cycle.

We make the push anyway, we inch closer, but fail (always due to filibuster
and votes splitting evenly along party lines, regardless of actual stance of
specific legislators), then we spend YEARS in the election cycle. I've seen
this happen too many times...

I'm starting to think that all progressive organizations should drop their pet
issues and focus on campaign financing reform first.

~~~
stinkytaco
>I'm starting to think that all progressive organizations should drop their
pet issues and focus on campaign financing reform first.

We certainly agree on that point. I believe publicly financed campaigns and
term limits will bring the United States greater change than any other two
policy changes can.

That said, I don't think slactivism is really a _change_ per se. It's hard to
believe that people who click the "Like" button on Facebook would be out
picketing or writing their congressman on any issue. What you could argue is
that it at least forces them to consider a position that they might again
consider when they are standing in the ballot box.

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igul222
I can't imagine this having much positive effect– if I were a politician, I'd
just hang up as soon as I realized it was a robocall.

If anything, it'll probably make it more difficult for actual people trying to
talk to their representatives to be heard.

~~~
noonespecial
"Sir we're getting all these calls about this sopa thing. They're automatic
but there's a lot of them and they're all different. Its starting to tie up
our phones."

...is a hell of a lot better than "no mention at all about that entertainment
lobbyist's bill I rubber-stamped and then never heard anything about. Must not
have been important."

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nextparadigms
I could see how if this starts happening for a lot of issues and becomes a
popular thing, they would make this sort of thing illegal.

~~~
sukuriant
That sounds great for the telemarketing and political system, to me! I tire of
calls about my political stances on random issues... as well as telemarketing
calls.

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cjfont
Direct link to set up a SOPA/PIPA robocall:

[http://www.reverserobocall.com/products/sopa-and-pipa-
propon...](http://www.reverserobocall.com/products/sopa-and-pipa-
proponents-301-offices)

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Havoc
Robocalling strikes me as somewhat pathetic, regardless of who uses it. Sort
like spamming people.

~~~
thesis
There are plenty of legitimate uses for it where you just want to get a point
across.

~~~
Havoc
>There are plenty of legitimate uses for it

Name one.

~~~
rdouble
In my town, tornado and blizzard alerts, including road closings and school
closings are delivered by phonebots.

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thesis
I especially liked this part:

"SOPA isn't the only target of Reverse Robocall, and it's not an issue that
the site specifically takes a stand on. In an interview with Ars, Dakin said
that the site is a non-partisan, for-profit effort aimed at providing a
service for advocacy groups, in the same vein as the petition site Change.org.
But the service, launched in beta just before Thanksgiving, is also an
outgrowth of Dakin and Titus' work as privacy advocates to work against
robocalls by politicians, he said."

Why not take a stand on it, rather then just worrying about your bottom line.

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timjahn
I really hope an idea like this will make an impact. But I have a hard time
thinking the politicians won't simply ignore the robocalls like we do and then
think it still makes sense to robocall us.

~~~
rhizome
I'm not saying it's an effective method, but to be fair, if the politicians
are going to ignore it they (or one of their minions) will at least have to
confront that decision.

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username3
What do they hear?

