The EFF has launched its new platform.
A new program that allows you to contact congress directly has been launched by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Its name is Democracy.io and its aim is to allow the common constituent to transmit their opinions to their elected representatives without too much effort.
The launch of this tool greatly simplifies the process of making your voice heard between elections. Those who would like to do so only to access the site, enter their address and a list with their three representatives will appear. Afterwards the user can write to any one of them or all three at once. The interface is as simple as possible and can be used by anyone.
The Foundation’s Director of Activism, Rainey Reitman, states that this tool is welcomed addition to the democratic process, as the old method of contacting members of the Congress nowhere near as streamlined as this tool. He also hopes that this tool would increase the awareness of representatives towards the importance of keeping in touch with their constituents, especially through the online medium.
Tech Fellow Sina Khanifar from the same organization hopes that this tool would incentivise individuals to make their voices heard more often, saying that this represents a core democratic principle that has been unfortunately neglected by the authorities. She hopes this would help holding those in power more accountable and that an official, state-funded version of the platform would be eventually created as a result.
This marks just the most recent accomplishment of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been actively campaigning for the rights of Internet Users for the past years. In the future, they plan to make a ranking system for lawmakers based on how often and well they respond to these messages. Their program is entirely open-source, meaning anyone is free to create their own custom version of it. It was built with the help of 100 volunteer over the course of a year.
The organization has very ambitious plans for its tool, but it is still up to the individual to hold their legislators to account. It can only be guessed as to how many are going to use it and how many are going to actually get back a reply, but hopefully this will make a change and attract more attention towards the importance of the online medium in democracy.
Image Source: democracy.io