5 ms·

I see that some of this hinges on the federal Do Not Call list. I wish you could do the same for political spam. I want to vote in primaries, and I want to not

I see that some of this hinges on the federal Do Not Call list. I wish you could do the same for political spam. I want to vote in primaries, and I want to not get spammed with “vote for X” all the time. But as far as I can tell that’s not possible anymore since I stupidly gave my phone number when registering to vote.

seibelj 5y ago
I just respond that I will not vote for them because they texted me. Often a real human responds very apologetic. Maybe it will affect their behavior.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
  They'll just send texts to other people on the list of people they're being paid their grocery money to text...
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    Many of them are unpaid volunteers. Source: I volunteered for multiple campaigns and texted people.
    - ______-_-______ 5y ago
      I'm curious. What were the ratios of: - people who ignored the text - people who were annoyed - people who changed who they were voting for after receiving a text ?
      - nebula8804 5y ago
        GOTV efforts increase turnout without a doubt. The biggest problem is that people don't even know who is running in a given election season(obviously does not apply to presidential given they get untold amounts of free advertising on TV). Turnout is abysmal for anything other than Presidential, (even then there is like what ~40% of people not participating?) Because of this, text campaigns help spread the word. Even more effective is actually knocking on peoples doors and having a friendly conversation with them. COVID minimized that last election but I suspect future campaigns will go back to that in favor of mass texting.
        6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
        That sounds like dodging the question, to be honest.
ThePowerOfFuet 5y ago
So remove your number from your voter registration.
- vba616 5y ago
  It's probably in a database somewhere. Have you ever tried to remove or change something in a database you don't have access to?
- drdeadringer 5y ago
  Do you have any realistic, actionable resources of how to do this effectively in real life?
  - gbear605 5y ago
    My state doesn’t collect phone number with voter registration. But if it did, I assume that I would need to do the same thing that I do if I want to change my location, name, or registered party. To do that, I just go to my state’s voter registration site (find it at https://vote.gov/ https://vote.gov/), click “edit voter registration”, provide some information about myself to identify me (name, DOB, zip code), then edit the thing I want to change and submit. It’s a trivial process assuming your state lets you do it. If it doesn’t though, I would first contact the state office that manages it (the Secretary of State in my state) and ask them to remove it. It’s their job to help people do bureaucratic steps like this.
    - antsar 5y ago
      My state (NJ) doesn’t seem to collect phone number, and either way does not seem to allow one to update their registration record. That doesn’t stop political parties from blowing up my SMS inbox with daily garbage during election season. Even if your state allows this edit, why would anyone believe that these scum would respect your wishes and stop spamming the old number?
      - nebula8804 5y ago
celticninja 5y ago
Update the register with a fake number
- moltke 5y ago
  Or just have public/private numbers. VOIP numbers are very cheap. I use jmp.chat for mine.
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    If you just need one number, Google Voice is free
revscat 5y ago
This sounds like a joke but I can assure you it’s not. I got on some list somehow, and like you started getting unwanted texts. I simply started replying with Eugene Debs quotes. They stopped, sometimes with an angry reply of some sort. Might be worth a try.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Unfortunately, in San Francisco at least, there are so many groups who contact me that getting off of just one of their lists at a time doesn’t make any real difference.
- exolymph 5y ago
  I reply "buy bitcoin" and that seems to work too.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
At this point I think the only reasonable thing to do is whitelist phone numbers that are allowed to actually call you. It sucks, and there are certainly legitimate services that will be more difficult because of it, but once again advertising and marketing has demonstrated that they are the reason we can't have nice things.
- throwntoday 5y ago
  I take advantage of the dual-sim support on iPhone. I have one number I only give to family/friends and another for everyone else. I receive less than one spam call/text a month. If it ever gets bad I can just swap the second number out. Make sure to keep a list of all services you give the number to.

seibelj 5y ago

I just respond that I will not vote for them because they texted me. Often a real human responds very apologetic. Maybe it will affect their behavior.

aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
They'll just send texts to other people on the list of people they're being paid their grocery money to text...
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Many of them are unpaid volunteers. Source: I volunteered for multiple campaigns and texted people.
  - ______-_-______ 5y ago
    I'm curious. What were the ratios of: - people who ignored the text - people who were annoyed - people who changed who they were voting for after receiving a text ?
    - nebula8804 5y ago
      GOTV efforts increase turnout without a doubt. The biggest problem is that people don't even know who is running in a given election season(obviously does not apply to presidential given they get untold amounts of free advertising on TV). Turnout is abysmal for anything other than Presidential, (even then there is like what ~40% of people not participating?) Because of this, text campaigns help spread the word. Even more effective is actually knocking on peoples doors and having a friendly conversation with them. COVID minimized that last election but I suspect future campaigns will go back to that in favor of mass texting.
      - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
        That sounds like dodging the question, to be honest.

ThePowerOfFuet 5y ago

So remove your number from your voter registration.

vba616 5y ago
It's probably in a database somewhere. Have you ever tried to remove or change something in a database you don't have access to?
drdeadringer 5y ago
Do you have any realistic, actionable resources of how to do this effectively in real life?
- gbear605 5y ago
  My state doesn’t collect phone number with voter registration. But if it did, I assume that I would need to do the same thing that I do if I want to change my location, name, or registered party. To do that, I just go to my state’s voter registration site (find it at https://vote.gov/ https://vote.gov/), click “edit voter registration”, provide some information about myself to identify me (name, DOB, zip code), then edit the thing I want to change and submit. It’s a trivial process assuming your state lets you do it. If it doesn’t though, I would first contact the state office that manages it (the Secretary of State in my state) and ask them to remove it. It’s their job to help people do bureaucratic steps like this.
  - antsar 5y ago
    My state (NJ) doesn’t seem to collect phone number, and either way does not seem to allow one to update their registration record. That doesn’t stop political parties from blowing up my SMS inbox with daily garbage during election season. Even if your state allows this edit, why would anyone believe that these scum would respect your wishes and stop spamming the old number?
    - nebula8804 5y ago

celticninja 5y ago

Update the register with a fake number

moltke 5y ago
Or just have public/private numbers. VOIP numbers are very cheap. I use jmp.chat for mine.
- lelandfe 5y ago
  If you just need one number, Google Voice is free

revscat 5y ago

This sounds like a joke but I can assure you it’s not. I got on some list somehow, and like you started getting unwanted texts. I simply started replying with Eugene Debs quotes. They stopped, sometimes with an angry reply of some sort. Might be worth a try.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Unfortunately, in San Francisco at least, there are so many groups who contact me that getting off of just one of their lists at a time doesn’t make any real difference.
exolymph 5y ago
I reply "buy bitcoin" and that seems to work too.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

At this point I think the only reasonable thing to do is whitelist phone numbers that are allowed to actually call you. It sucks, and there are certainly legitimate services that will be more difficult because of it, but once again advertising and marketing has demonstrated that they are the reason we can't have nice things.

throwntoday 5y ago
I take advantage of the dual-sim support on iPhone. I have one number I only give to family/friends and another for everyone else. I receive less than one spam call/text a month. If it ever gets bad I can just swap the second number out. Make sure to keep a list of all services you give the number to.