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Comment by epi16 | Hacker News Reader

I say the same thing every time I read a "slacktivism" post, but here we go again: if this is useless, what do I actually do to help? Seriously, I'm not posing this as rhetoric.

I've already filed a fairly long, unique comment to the FCC, but I've heard that the FCC ignores most comments unless they come from well-known players.

I donate money monthly to the EFF.

I've signed the letter to the lawmakers on Battle for the Net.

I don't have a personal website, so I can't put up a banner ad.

So, given that I've heard comments on this site and in person that all of the above counts as slacktivism, just makes me feel better, and doesn't contribute to an actual solution, what do I do to influence this issue? Ignoring the possibility of coming into large sums of money and buying myself a congressman of my very own?

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Calling or writing letters (not emails!) to congressional representatives is another thing you can do.

FWIW, I think that donating money is pretty real.

Are letters taken more seriously than emails? That's good to know, thanks.

I don't know if they consider it consciously, but it's about the costs to the sender: emails are cheap and easy to fire off. Phone calls and letters a bit less so.

I've spoken to several reps and they say yes.

This is mainly because they get inundated with email. Letters and snail mail? Not so much. You actually have a captive audience to a degree when you send a letter.

As an individual US citizen, that is probably all you can do, though I would call "signed the letter to the lawmakers on Battle for the Net" slacktivism.

Slacktivism is - " "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it take satisfaction from the feeling they have contributed"

Donating money to the EFF, well you would hope it goes to paying the lawyers fighting these things in the court, so you are directly contributing to a practical effect. Comments to the FCC are actually part of the FCC's process, so while they may ignore them, that is the actual way to get your input to the FCC. Even more so when you send a personally written comment instead of filling in a form letter.

On the other hand, click to sign a petition, throw up a banner add, put a little black box on the web page, send a tweet, change your avatar, these do nothing. However because you feel like you did something because you had to change some html or upload some image somewhere people do these instead of anything that would require any real thought.

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