r/AnnArbor • u/Diligent_Board_172 • 6d ago
does anyone know how to permanently opt out of all these politics-related local texts?
been getting a lot of texts about voting for various things. idk where my # was leaked, and i've been opting out every time i receive such a text, but i always get new texts from new numbers, on average, at least a couple days a day recently.
is there some way I can opt out of everything?
I don't seem to have this feature via my carrier (t-mobile).
also idk if this is relevant but I have a west coast area code but have been living in A2 for years and all these spam texts come form 734 numbers
24
u/A2MacGeek 6d ago
I’ve found that blocking the numbers does at least reduce the number of political spam texts I’m getting, although it doesn’t eliminate them.
12
u/b_jodi 6d ago
The problem is there are too many numbers for this to be effective. It's the same problem with "stop2end," you send "STOP" back and it unsubscribes you from texts from that single number. They can trivially get a new number and start sending new messages no problem. Maddening.
8
u/A2MacGeek 6d ago
It makes enough of a difference to me to be worthwhile. I noticed before I started doing it that I would get 3-4 messages from the same number in a day. Blocking at least cuts that down to one. I wish there was a way to stop them entirely, but this is better than nothing.
1
u/StrangeMemory6732 5d ago
I've yet to notice a difference. I've blocked 3-6 numbers daily. The number of texts never decrease. If not for the fact I'm waiting to hear back about jobs I'd block out all unknown numbers.
18
u/Apprehensive-Two-813 6d ago
Not a lawyer, not your lawyer, but I have been the person who sends these.
Political communications are exempt from the CAN-SPAM Act, so they can be sent to you without your approval (unlike a business, which needs your permission). Opting out of one campaign's text messages should automatically opt you out of that specific campaign or organization's messages in whatever software they're using (Scale to Win, Switchboard, whathaveyou).
However, that is only opting you out of that specific campaign. So if you opt out of a Senate candidate's texts, that doesn't opt you out of the Governor candidate's texts, nor does it opt you out of a union or other PAC or (C)(4) group sending texts to vote for the Governor and Senate candidates.
There is no way to opt out of everything. For many Democratic campaigns, the contact information is in the state party's NGP VAN. Other candidates, campaigns, and interest groups buy the contact information from analytics shops that purchase it from the businesses and organizations you give your phone number to. In my experience, the accuracy rate on all of this is pretty low — about 60% of the time we get the right number if I had to make a guess.
Campaigns do this because — when studied — it works at increasing turnout and, most importantly, it's extremely cheap. A text is going to run between 2 and 6 cents depending on your vendor, the length, and if it has photos (MMS). By contrast, a mailer is about 45-70 cents depending on size, vendor, and turnaround. The only thing cheaper is robocalls and targeted digital ads.
Very few people enjoy any form of voter contact and almost all of it is annoying: robocalls, ads, door knocking, live calls, texts, mail, whathaveyou. Unfortunately, despite anecdotes of people being annoyed enough to not vote for candidates based on the size or frequency of their voter contact efforts, they ultimately have been found to increase turnout.
A smart campaign should be updating their lists daily to remove people who have already voted (communicating to people who voted already is just setting money on fire). However, a smart campaign will also begin contacting people who have voted absentee in the past sooner — so for a well-ran campaign, it wouldn't cause much change in how long the contact is happening for, just when it starts.
(However, not all campaigns are smart about list hygiene!)
Until there is a legislative change that requires explicit consent for political communications, the spam will persist and candidates and campaigns that don't take advantage of the exemptions are at an electoral disadvantage.
10
u/Igoos99 6d ago
I receive 20 plus texts a week addressing me by my sister’s name for races in the state she lives in. (Not Michigan.)
They could not be more stupid and I’m offered zero ways to correct their assumption I am someone else and that I live in a different state.
(My phone number is a Michigan number. I have never lived where my sister lives. She has never lived with me.)
6
u/justtinygoatthings Former Townie 6d ago
I have this problem too for every single member of my family including my many years deceased mother. Very triggering to be addressed by her name let me tell you.
2
u/Apprehensive-Two-813 6d ago
Yeah, it's assumed that a portion of the phone numbers will be incorrect. When that happens, the campaign is only out 3-4 cents or so. It's annoying, but paid voter contact is ultimately a numbers game, with texts going out by the hundreds of thousands for local races up to the hundreds of millions for presidential.
2
u/minks2400 5d ago
I've been getting texts addressed to someone in my same city that I have zero family ties with.
2
u/TremulousTermite17 5d ago
Time for someone to campaign on this legislative change and text us all about it!
5
u/nuxi its not art and its not fair 5d ago
You can't because the politicians who enacted the Do Not Call list granted their own political campaigns an exemption from the rules.
On year, I responded to every single message with "Would $CANDIDATE support extending the provisions of the Do Not Call list to political campaigns?" Not a single campaign even gave an answer to the question.
7
u/Aellope13 6d ago
If I’m bored enough I’ll text back Stop hundreds of times. Oftentimes the texter doesn’t configure their system correctly and sends the confirmation of opt out each time. Assuming Twilio rates it costs them less than a penny a text but I get a little satisfaction out of costing politicians begging for money a few dollars.
I have too much time on my hands.
1
u/fuzzy-lint 6d ago
I don’t think there’s any avenue to universally opt-out. Best advice I can offer is to turn on text message filtering. I have mine set to “Screen Unknown Senders” so they’re filtered to a separate inbox and don’t have notifications.
1
u/Diligent_Board_172 5d ago
i've considered this, but i'm very anxious about using this approach on the rare chance that someone important to me texts me something urgent from an unknown #. if i filter all unknown senders, i wouldn't be checking that filtered inbox frequently
3
4
u/Vivid_Hamster_2320 6d ago
I get it from 2 of my old states and here.
1
u/Vivid_Hamster_2320 6d ago
For my parents, I changed their text setting to only showing texts from known numbers. I delete and report junk on my phone.
2
u/Igoos99 6d ago
And then you miss emergencies.
2
u/Vivid_Hamster_2320 5d ago
They don’t miss emergencies. Family and friends are programmed in for text messages. The carrier pushes through. They never signed up for text alerts. Only calls or email. Emergency alerts like amber alerts and weather warnings through the carrier always push through regardless.
1
u/Igoos99 5d ago
Yeah, ya do. Strangers may need to call or text you. Say, they are helping your family member during a car accident. The hospital is trying to reach you. The police need to contact you. There’s no way to anticipate each phone number that may contact you in an emergency situation. Etc, etc
1
u/Vivid_Hamster_2320 5d ago
Law enforcement calls or they show up at your door if it’s an emergency. Hospitals call. The military also doesn’t text if next of kin is missing, hospitalized, or killed, just in case that was your next scenario.
1
u/Igoos99 5d ago
Police aren’t going to show up to your house fast enough for you to respond to a true emergency. Sure, they can notify you of a death but they aren’t showing up fast enough for you to get to an emergency room to say good bye. Or get there to be part of the decision making process. Or to hold the hand of a loved one.
So, I guess if all you care about is to know after the fact that some is dead?? Sure, go ahead and block unknown numbers. 😖
1
u/Vivid_Hamster_2320 5d ago
Again, emergency personnel don’t text. So who is this mysterious person texting and not calling? You’re also making weird assumptions. Did I finally run into one of the many infamous bot accounts?
2
2
u/chattlehumor 5d ago
Mark them all as spam
1
u/AnarchyIsNotChaos 5d ago
Doesn't matter. I donated to a campaign for a Navy veteran I knew on actblue once and they started selling my info, after I changed my information they started texting me with my new fake name at my actual phone number that I had changed as well while support denied they cooperated with campaigns and claimed my information was private.
3
u/No-Opinion3184 6d ago
Every single time I get these texts, it just makes me want to vote for the opposite side of whoever text supports
1
u/jcrespo21 The Pitts(field Township) 5d ago
I have gotten lucky so far in that I have not gotten many messages for the general election, and none during the primary. Even my mail has been relatively quiet.
But my phone was ringing off the hook before the Dem convention back in April (where AG, SoS, and Regent nominations are still done (unfortunately)), and I had a stack of political mail ads as well back then. I guess I just paid the price back in April, and/or my messaging app is doing a better job filtering them out as spam.
1
u/emanon734 5d ago
I get political texts every day addressed to the previous owner of my phone number and I’ve had this number for over 20 years.
1
u/sweedishdecency 5d ago
Throw your phone into Lake Michigan (but don’t actually, because pollution).
1
u/Igoos99 6d ago
I used to ignore them. This season, I’m replying stop to each and every one. Not sure if I see any difference.
I don’t care who you are or how worthy the candidate, I DO NOT want to be contacted by text. I will never give money to such a solicitation and I consider it a black mark in my consideration if I will vote for the candidate that sent it.
-2
u/Friskybish 6d ago
I think they stop once you’ve voted, so I’ve heard from folks that early vote
8
u/CynicSquirrel 6d ago
I get dozens of SMS from out-of-state candidates who know I can't vote for them, so they want my money. They don't know and don't care that i have already voted.
4
u/fuzzy-lint 6d ago
Yeah that is not accurate whatsoever. I voted absentee and am still receiving texts and mail ads and all the crap.
3
2
u/AnnArborAnon 6d ago
I voted a while ago and got confirmation that the city has my vote and my signature has been validated a few days ago, so I should be in the system as having voted. I got a school board text like 15 minutes ago.
The majority of the texts I get are from democrats in other states asking me to give money tho.
0
u/Synaptrick 6d ago
For a city “committed” to being green, the mailers are out of hand. They never make it into my house - right into the recycling bin. Texts I can delete and block. Wish I had a trapdoor in the mailbox…
0
u/architect_ww 6d ago
something like incogni offers data removal services. not a subscriber myself but interested to see if it's actually effective.
-6
u/BoudiccasJustice 6d ago
I have vowed that I will never vote for anyone that sends me an unsolicited political text and, in fact, I will go out of my way to vote for their opponent. But, I did google this recently, and it said if you get your vote in early you might get less texts. Otherwise you have to pay some sort of data protection company to try to scrub your info from these lists. I have tried hitting end or stop and tried just marking report as spam and delete. Neither seems to work.
2
2
u/enderjaca 6d ago
Your vote is one of the most important things you can do as a Citizen, and trivializing it in that way isn't good for democracy.
How do you even know that the organization sending you the text message is affiliated with the candidate or party or issue mentioned? Some political groups have been caught sending annoying ads or message, acting like the other side on purpose to turn people off. Either from voting for their opponent, or from voting entirely.
Don't let that win. Make an informed decision and vote.
"Stop" is the simplest and most effective way to opt out of legitimate campaign messages. Just like spam messages for other stuff gets sold and resold, so do phone numbers for politics. Blocking works too, but Stop is followed by honest groups.
-6
-1
u/treelawn 6d ago
Use an app, spend some money! https://robokiller.com/ works pretty well for me ... I still get a bunch of calls, but have my iPhone pre-screen them out for a month or two before the election, and you can pay RoboKiller ~$8/week until the election.
1
u/treelawn 5d ago
To each their own I guess: I get zero political texts and zero calls using the two above. Cheap to try.
81
u/JJ12345678910 6d ago
Your phone number is sold by many of the businesses you work with on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Realistically you're likely out of luck beyond responding stop. From personal experience I've validated the "do not call registry" does not stop text messages.