BOSTON — Madison Medina hasn’t been able to vote for three years, but the 15-year-old’s phone is still “buzzing” with text messages from politicians.
“They want me to vote. They want me to send them money,” she said. “It’s a lot of work. They ask a lot of things of me.”
She pulled up the evidence on her phone: several robotexts, one of which offered a Tumblr with a message printed on the side, with the word “woke” crossed out.
“Would you pay $5 for an anti-woke Tumblr?” David Wade asked Madison. “No, I wouldn’t,” she replied.
We spoke to a lot of people on the streets and on Twitter who are fed up, and the screenshots our viewers sent us showed us that both parties are attacking people.
15 billion political documents in 2022
According to spam-blocking service Robokiller, Americans will receive a record 15 billion politically-related emails in 2022. That’s an average of 50 messages per US cell phone, and 2024 looks set to be an even bigger year.
Why is this allowed? Well, the FCC rules are pretty confusing. Basically, campaign calls and text messages are excluded from Do Not Call lists. Campaigns typically need your consent to send these messages unless they actually dial them manually. Most messages are sent by so-called “autodialers” that can call thousands of numbers at once.
“I never agreed!” you say.
It’s all in the fine print
Cybersecurity expert Peter Tran says they probably did at some point: It’s all in the fine print.
“If you’ve ever used your phone number for any kind of online ordering, any kind of marketing, or any kind of social media platform, those simple end user agreements likely have in the fine print that your phone number may be shared with other service providers,” Tran told WBZ.
Tran warns that these texts are not only annoying, but also dangerous. Some of them contain links that contain malware or take you to websites that are not actually related to the campaign or candidate. Your money will end up in the hands of scammers. So never click on the links.
So, what can be done?
Tran says to reply “stop” to unsubscribe. But don’t stop there: After replying “stop,” you can block the number. You can also go into the “Messages” settings on your phone to filter text messages from people who aren’t on your contact list.
Also, if you want to make a donation, please go directly to the official website of the candidate.
You can’t stop these robot texts completely, but you can slow them down significantly.
Finally, if you receive a text that you believe violates FCC rules, please report it by forwarding it to “7726” or “Spam.”
If you have a question you’d like us to explore, email us at questioneverything@cbsboston.com.
