geekroom

I’ve just gotten yet another piece of spam from the Florida House of Representatives. What could possibly motivate an elected representative to indisctiminately spam his constituents? First, I don’t live in Florida and never plan on doing so, so this spam clearly doesn’t help the Florida House (though it also doesn’t hurt them, since I can’t vote in Florida). If I was a Florida citizen, though, the spam would upset me even more, since it would have been sent by *my* elected representative. The spam would definitely give me a strongly negative opinion of whoever is responsible (seems to be Johnnie Byrd, the speaker of the house, just from poking at the http://myfloridahouse.com/ web site linked from the spam). My being upset at the speaker would have a direcly negative effect on him (I would be less likely to vote for him).

The fact that I could so affect the spammer fundamentally changes the economics of spamming for the spammer. Most spammers spam becuase even though the number of people upset by the spam is much greater than the number of people who respond, the upset folks can’t hurt the spammer in any way. Spammers don’t care that they piss of 999 recipients for every 1 recipient that actually responds, because the 999 pissed off recpients can’t hurt them. For an elected official, those 999 pissed off folks are their constituents, so the spam has a hugely net negative effect on their electability. Spamming the folks who need to vote for you seems to me to be a monumentally stupid act. Leaving alone the personal animosity over having fotten spammed, I’d be less likely to vote for a political spammer simply because to send political spam demonstrates either a terrible ignorance about technology and digital issues or just plain stupidity, neither of which are qualities I appreciate in a representative.

I have graciously written several emails explaining this fact to Johnnie Byrd, but he evidently disagress because he keeps spewing out the spam.