Chelsea Kwong

20 Jan 2016

From the article “A Call for Bots of Conviction: A protest bot is also a bot so specific you can’t mistake it for bullshit” I came across the @ClearCongress bot. This bot made the most sense out of all the ones mentioned in the article, and I really experienced its message even from a single tweet. The message is so clear: that there is a discrepancy between people, and what is being done for the people, simply because we don’t know what laws are being passed and which ones are being disapproved. Simply put, we don’t know what’s going on. This message about discrepancy is so artfully executed with the bot, using symbols ▓▓ and ▒▒ to cover up congressional tweets, the amount covered correlated to current congressional approval rate polling. There are 92 followers for this bot, but that’s because this bot as an information outlet doesn’t do much for an audience, but rather it speaks volumes to visitors as an exhibit. I think this bot is really powerful in the message it conveys, and the fact that it speaks out in a nonviolent and subtle but truthful manner about its message is makes it so easy to digest.