6mo ago

I live in the PNW. Every election cycle I get massive amounts of Arizona conservative text spam. How do I make it stop?

It all comes from Arizona. Ive never been to Arizona. My phone number isnt anywhere near Arizona. One year, I replied STOP to every text. Nothing stopped. Now I just cuss them out and block them, but it still persists. I wrote an email to the Arizona Republican's main office and demanded my number be removed from thier canvassing. Crickets. More spam. 3 today alone. I am so tired of this shit. It doesnt help that I think conservatives are pieces of shit and I am a member of a marginalized community that they are targeting with hate and discriminative laws.

41 comments

Report it to the FTC.
Edit: I named the wrong F agency. It looks like the FCC might be a better option: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/115002234203-Unwanted-Calls-Texts-Phone
- Thanks. I'll do this.
- This is a good idea, as it might eventually lead to policies or laws that would reduce the spam.
  I wouldn't get my hopes up for resolution any time soon, though. Keep in mind that some of the biggest influence campaigns targeting US politics are run by foreign parties, and bulk text messages are cheap and consequence-free. Sadly, stopping it might require changing your phone number.
- Political campaigns are exempted from most of those regulations. For example, the DNC list doesn't protect against them.

Unfortunately they respond to engagement.
PNW has a large snowbird population so AZ has been trying to get PNW Rs to switch their registration to AZ to help it be more reliably red.

Clearly the only way to be sure is to destroy Arizona.

Google messages has good spam filtering, but that requires you to use Google messages. Depends if you prefer Google or spam

Make complaints to your congressman's office. Those texts are illegal and should be reported.

Are you responding literally "stop" or are you editorializing like "please stop for the love of Satan"? The former is supposed to be seen by the system and you're supposed yo be automatically unsubscribed. The latter goes to a person and that person may try to engage you. At least, when I've done text-banking, that's how it worked. A less reputable system may try to engage you regardless. If you get sent to a person it's also up to the person to decide if and how they talk to you. If I saw something that made it clear the person didn't want to talk, I would tell the system to unsub them, others might try to be persistent.
- That’s how it SHOULD work. But I’ve replied with just stop or unsubscribe depending on their chosen system’s keyword. I just received a nearly identical message from a different number. Maybe Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries were just determined at that time, but it definitely wasn’t handled the way it should have been.

I am getting the same crap from the Republicans. Don't get me wrong, I could care less regardless of party, but it's ridiculous.
In my case, since I moved to a VOIP service for voice and text, I just keep adding these to the blacklist, and don't hear from any of them again, but they do keep coming from other numbers.

I get emails for Wisconsin and Michigan politicians...
I live on the East Coast

Port your number to Google voice. Their spam blocking is great. That and/or get a Pixel. TBH I'm not exactly sure which one is blocking spam calls but I haven't gotten one in years. I only use Google voice for texting though, so that would have to be blocking spam texts.

all of the above.

Get involved in politics and vote them out. Once they are gone they won't have the funds to harass you.
- Oh, I suppose i should uproot my life and move to Arizona to take part in AZ politics?
  Its like, you must of read my post, but your comprehension skills leave a lot to be desired.

Take the SIM card out of your phone
- This is not remotely helpful.
  
  Why? I did it a decade ago, and its been extremely helpful for both reducing spam and increasing security

It doesnt help that I think conservatives are pieces of shit and I am a member of a marginalized community that they are targeting with hate and discriminative laws.
Stop infecting every single Lemmy community with freaking politics. There's nothing good in it.
Speaking of your question, it looks like there's a bad actor. Spamming isn't something a serious political organization would do. I think you should change your phone number.
- Spamming isn't something a serious political organization would do.
  They already said it's from conservatives, no need to be redundant.
  
  It can be from their fans, competitors or anyone trying to discredit them. Anything is possible. But if it's really from conservatives, it's a very stupid strategy.
- lol, change your phone number because of one group abusing it. "Just subject yourself to this massive hassle."
  
  You have any other ideas on how to stop the spam? Then just tell them. No need to stupidly fight
- Why open a post mentioning a political party if you’re going to be mad that it’s about politics?
  
  Because the user wants help on how to stop the spam. You toxic people won't understand that. I argued about the inclusion of politics because it's not allowed in this community and if everyone breaks the rule, it will stop working and the community will turn into a political junkyard.
- Sir, you may want to go back to Twitter or Reddit.
  
  Lol why? There's a lot of politics there
- Shut up
- Bruh if conservatives just stop being a threat to democracy we will start talking about them, ez
- This wasn't needed nor called for.
  
  If answering the user's question isn't called for nowadays, I think we need to completely rebuild English so the words mean what they're supposed to mean.

41 comments