![]() ![]() Resistbot was established by Eric Ries and Jason Putorti in January 2017.ALBANY, N.Y. Jason Putorti attended the University of Pittsburgh where he graduated with a BS in computer science. Before launching Resistbot, he served as the designer at AngelList and previously co-founded Causes and Votizen. He expresses that one of his goals in creating Resistbot was to create a universal way to increase civic engagement and civic education. Though the program was founded to oppose the actions of the Trump administration, it functions as an unbiased channel, allowing users to compose their own messages. Unlike many other advocacy efforts, it provides no scripts to users. 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. ![]() When Resistbot began, letters were faxed 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. 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. Between June 21 alone, Resistbot volunteers delivered 12,781 letters to the U.S. Those letters represented only a small sample of deliveries overall. Within five months of launch Resistbot had 730,000 users, by six months 1 million, and after fifteen months 4.5 million. Users text one of many keywords to 50409, and respond to what the bot texts back. If a user wants to write to 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. Users may also use iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or Telegram to use the service. Resistbot is free to use, and does not require an app download. Resistbot has been featured on many news and magazine sites including Recode, Teen Vogue, Fast Company, Engadget, GOOD Magazine, 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. ![]() Resistbot's Twitter feed features many responses by members of Congress to users who have sent messages through the software. It was called, "The Most Genius Thing Of 2017" by GOOD magazine. 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. ĭuring the congressional recess in August 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. In November 2017, Resistbot was used as a channel by Medium 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. 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. ![]()
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