First (?) massive use of cell-phone activism — responding to the “nuclear option” threat
May 13th, 2005 by Jon Stahl
People For the American Way are preparing a massive text-messaging action alert to be launched in the event that Bill Frist pulls the trigger on the Senate’s “nuclear option.”
By giving us your cell phone number, we will text message you as soon as Senate Republicans trigger the “nuclear option.” Embedded in that text message will be a link to the Senate switchboard. With the push of a couple buttons, your call � along with thousands of others � goes right through to the corridors of power demanding preservation of the filibuster.
This is a brand new technology, and this is the first time it is being used on a large scale.
It will be interesting to see how well this works. The fundamentals are pretty simple — I predict it won’t be long before grassroots groups are doing this with open-source software like Asterisk
Hat tip to my colleague Sean Pender.
Going Nuclear: Broadcast Text Messaging
Fascinating. People for the American Way is deploying an experimental technology for the filibuster showdown in the U.S. Senate: braodcast text messaging. They’re asking their supporters to disclose their cell phone numbers, and promising to instantly…
This is being used on the right, too.
http://www.RightMarch.com/sms.htm