Am I signing up for massive text spam?

October 16, 2018 10:43 PM

I received a text from republicans for the upcoming election. This is just wonky to me because I've voted Democrat my entire life. I was going to write back and say "you got the wrong number, buddy" but then I was wondering if these are mass texts that are going out with an attempt to see who is responsive. Sort of like "text spam" - is this a thing? Should I not respond? And if I do respond, do you know how to say, "I vote blue" in Russian?
posted by Toddles to Law & Government (18 answers total)

I’ve been part of groups doing this on behalf of Democrats. We start with a list of registered voters and then correlate them with public lists of phone numbers, and then someone has to hit Send on every message so that it is not classified as automated spam.In some races we are deliberately including people not registered as a Democrat. If you don’t want to talk to them, either don’t respond or to prevent the same group from contacting you again say something like “please take me off your list and do not contact me again” (ie: clearly opt out, don’t just say “You’re scum and all republicans should die” because that is not a request to stop receiving messages). Think of it as an environmentally friendly replacement for a flyer in your letterbox.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:59 PM on October 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

That said, we include the intended recipients name in every unsolicited message - if they didn’t do that, it may well be some more dubious spam. I wouldn’t say “wrong number” unless it included a name that isn’t yours, because that won’t end the conversation.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 11:01 PM on October 16, 2018

What would you be aiming to achieve by replying?
posted by pompomtom at 11:01 PM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Text spam is a thing. I don't know if that's what you received but if it is, you definitely don't want to reply or you'll just get more from "different" senders. I recommend erring on the side of caution and marking the message/number as spam (or at least blocking it) since it's something you're not interested in anyway.

Until reading agents' comments, I didn't know this was a thing legitimate (non-spambot) orgs might do, otherwise I'd have no doubt it was spam.
posted by DyRE at 1:46 AM on October 17, 2018

if its automated & legit, sending 'stop' requires them to stop. But who knows whats legitimate anymore.

moveon just sent me spam personalized with my first name & political spam for one party. Or was it a false flag to piss off everyone who hates spam?, we'll never know. sending 'stop' at least triggered a 'you've been unsubscribed, blah blah blah'.
posted by TheAdamist at 3:19 AM on October 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was text-canvassed last week for the Republican running in a district I used to live in years ago. (It's a safe D seat.) I replied something to the effect of "Lol no 🤣" and then blocked the number. If it was a real person and not a bot, I hope I discouraged them from continuing to support that candidate, I hope I made them feel bad for being a Republican, and I hope I made them feel ostracized from their community for their political beliefs. I probably didn't, but hope is important in these dark times.
posted by melissasaurus at 4:59 AM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

You can just ignore it, the vast majority of people do.

I'm involved in sending these kind of texts for our state GOTV for Democrats, and the messages use my first name and the first name of the voter I'm contacting. I never see their actual number. Respond however you like if you feel like responding, you can just say "no" and/or "take me off your list." You can also send a string of profanities and get the same result, but try to remember that a real human will read these.
posted by Drosera at 5:01 AM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

If it was a real person and not a bot, I hope I discouraged them from continuing to support that candidate, I hope I made them feel bad for being a Republican, and I hope I made them feel ostracized from their community for their political beliefs. I probably didn't, but hope is important in these dark times.

You definitely did not (texters get tons of silly responses), and you probably are still on the list because "lol no" is not an opt-out. If you want to be opted-out, just politely say so. Or ignore and keep getting them.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:54 AM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Reporting the spam text to your cell carrier is a better idea than responding to it. If you're on Verizon, you forward the text to 7726. The FTC also has some useful information on fighting text spam.
posted by Zonker at 6:14 AM on October 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sending profanity doesn't opt you out of text canvassing, fyi. You have to specifically ask to opt out/take me off your list/stop texting me. These aren't automated bots, they're sent by a real person who generally chooses from a dozen or two pre-written responses.
posted by sonmi at 6:24 AM on October 17, 2018

Replying "stop" or "unsubscribe" will get you removed with as little hassle to everyone involved as possible (it will likely happen without a human even seeing it). I do it to everyone I get a political text from. They have no interest in continuing to spam you if you're not going to vote Republican.
posted by dfan at 6:27 AM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

This makes me irrationally angry. I don't care if you a rep or dem you texting me randomly makes you a terrible person in a terrible organization and definitely makes me more likely to not support your candidate. So, false flags rejoice!
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 6:28 AM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't see any reason to treat it differently than email spam. Maybe there's a person on the other end, or maybe it's just a computer program, or maybe it's a dishonest person who is going to take your reply as a confirmation that your number is "live" and add it to a list that they can sell onwards to someone else. You don't know, and without knowing, replying seems like a bad option.

Block the number and move on.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:47 AM on October 17, 2018

I have been involved in organizing texting campaigns for the local Democrats here. I understand the impulse to be annoyed by unsolicited text messages, but I wish people would look at this in perspective. Our campaign, once it is finished, will have personally helped many thousands of people answer questions about their ballots, find polling places, and answer complicated questions about absentee voting.

So, I am easily able to justify this by balancing the minor annoyance of getting a few unwanted text messages against the benefit of helping A LOT of people vote. We are also reaching people who are ordinarily not reached by political movements: young people, in particular.

These messages are not sent by bots. Every single text message is individually sent by a human being, probably a volunteer, so please don't curse them out or send them gross pictures or abuse them--just ignore it, or reply "STOP" move on. If an unwanted text message flips you from Dem to GOP or vice versa, I would urge you to re-examine your priorities.

(Personally, I think we have maybe once or two election cycles before the texts become ineffective and they go the way of unanswered and unread emails and phone calls. So we are doing our best to avoid duplicate messages and preserve their utility as long as possible.)
posted by tybstar at 9:18 AM on October 17, 2018 [8 favorites]

Just reply "STOP". "lol no" won't get picked up by any of the automated or semi-automated unsubscribe processes.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 11:02 AM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

"Lol no" won't get you unsubscribed if it's a human textbank volunteer, either. They usually require some explicit statement to the effect of "stop sending me messages." Mere snark or even rudeness without some kind of request for unsubscribing, be it something as minimal as "stop" or "quit," won't do the trick.
posted by praemunire at 11:48 AM on October 17, 2018

I've gotten quite a few of these over the past election cycle -- I'm a prime candidate for Get Out the Vote efforts based on the paperwork -- and I usually just reply STOP. If it's automated, I get an unsubscribe message pretty quickly, and the one time it wasn't, I did reply later that they'd take me off the list right away.

Personally, I research candidates and have voted in every single primary and election I've been able to for over ten years now. So.... it's like... okay, I've already figured out my votes already, so spend your precious resources on candidates that aren't gold star voters like myself.
posted by PearlRose at 12:49 PM on October 17, 2018

I haven't gotten any political texts this election cycle, but I asked a question about this last year after getting a bazillion, mostly addressed to a family member. I repeatedly asked to stop, and continued to get texts/calls (mostly texts). None of them would disclose where they got my number. It was extremely annoying and frustrating and made me briefly consider voting for the non-spammy opponent.

I'm not convinced that spam texts improve voter turnout or convince people to vote for one side or the other. But I fully admit that I'm 33, which in tech/social media terms makes me an Old Lady who wants you to get off her lawn and stop sending me goddamn texts.
posted by basalganglia at 3:53 PM on October 17, 2018