Tuesday, April 02, 2019

Robocalls and mass texts

It's election season here in Alberta. So here's a thought: what if robocalls, mass text messages, and similar forms of automated campaigning were banned? Would anyone be disadvantaged from this?

If political candidates have to rely on volunteers, paid staff, and paid advertising to get their message out, then the number of people they can reach is roughly proportional to how well they engage everyday people in the political process, whether as volunteers or donors. If they can write a computer program to mass text or mass call a huge list of randomly generated phone numbers, they really don't need to actively engage the rest of us; they can annoy get their message out to massive amounts of people without a lot of money or help.

So would banning robocalls and mass texts get more people engaged in the political process? And maybe reduce people's cynicism and distrust in the whole political process?