4 ms·
A Golden Rule of the internet says that you should never reply to unwanted texts on any medium: - stalkers and trolls live off reactions, both positive and neg
by jonathanstrange 2y ago
A Golden Rule of the internet says that you should never reply to unwanted texts on any medium:
- stalkers and trolls live off reactions, both positive and negative ones
- spammers will use your reply to verify there's a human at the other side
- colleagues and friends will hate you because everybody thinks they're important
Replying only has negative effects. Use client-side filtering, kill files, blocking functions, or ignore the text - whichever fits best.
- adastra22 2y agoExcept that STOP is handled at the carrier level and isn't even returned to the sender. It's effectively a mandated block command.
- Havoc 2y agoFor which countries is this true?
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y agoDefinitely not France. The STOP message is ignored. They also created a global “block” list that you can subscribe to. This list is handled by an advertising company…
- jeremyjh 2y agoIts true in the US; its mandated by law that they comply.
- jbaber 2y agoWait. Really? I had no idea this is true. You're saying there's a US law that means replying STOP is intercepted by verizon/T-mobile/etc. and the sender never has to see it?
- rascul 2y agoI don't know if it's true either. I often get confirmations from the same number that I want to stop.
- mcluck 2y agoWhile it's true that they must comply with the STOP message, I'm not finding any proof that it must be intercepted before reaching the business. https://www.cullenllp.com/blog/fcc-adopts-new-tcpa-opt-out-rules-governing-robocalls-and-robotexts/ https://www.cullenllp.com/blog/fcc-adopts-new-tcpa-opt-out-r...
- yborg 2y agoThis is not correct, I've worked with an app that had to handle SMS opt-out and we received the STOP message.
- threeio 2y agoThis -- Stop is required action, but its passed to the vendor for management -- non-compliance is punishable by loss of shortcode/carrier acceptance. Things may have changed since, but used to work sending 8m sms messages before breakfast every day to people who subscribed to news, sports scores, etc.
- adastra22 2y agoIf it is sent as an actual SMS, yes. Not if it goes through Apple messages or whatever.
- crossroadsguy 2y agoAnd if I send a reply to my friend with just the text "stop" - that does it, right? I mean part of normal conversation, not to indicate that they should stop messaging me. Or should I remember that it's the special phrase?
- bityard 2y agoCarriers know the difference between bulk text senders and your friend
- mastax 2y agoThat seems unlikely when I get a response that says “You have been unsubscribed - Bob Loblaw for Senate” or whatever. I suppose that could be pre programmed.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- upwardbound 2y agoThat's not true at least in the USA on my carrier. Some spammers just ignore the STOP and continue messaging anyways.
- maweaver 2y agoFor what it's worth, I've sent a "stop" before and gotten this: > NETWORK MSG: You replied with the word "stop" which blocks all texts sent from this number. Text back "unstop" or "start" to receive messages again. I assumed it was from my carrier (T-Mobile in the US), but now I'm wondering, as I have gotten different replies from other numbers. Maybe it came from the sender's provider? Or is just misleading.
- adastra22 2y agoYes, this is T-mobile’s message.
- squeaky-clean 2y agoEvery spam message I get comes from a different number
- coldpie 2y ago> - spammers will use your reply to verify there's a human at the other side For real spam, sure, but for semi-legitimate spam like real businesses and political fundraising, I'm not sure this is actually true. I have found replying with STOP did reduce the volume of political spam I was getting. I think it makes intuitive sense that they should try to respect opt-out signals: you don't want to piss off the people you're trying to appeal to. It hasn't entirely eliminated them, but it seems to have been more effective than Junking them. Could just be coincidence, of course. Who knows.
- ryandrake 2y ago> for semi-legitimate spam like real businesses and political fundraising I don’t distinguish anymore. There is no such thing as a legitimate spammer. If you contact me without my consent, you are at best a nuisance and at worst a threat. You get marked as spam if E-mail, and blocked+trashed otherwise. I really wish SMS and iMessage had a way to mark senders as spammers.
- coldpie 2y agoOkay. But if your goal is to reduce the amount of spam you receive, and if one group of senders responds to opt-out signals as an indicator to send more spam while the other group responds to opt-out signals as an indicator to send less spam, then the distinction matters, regardless of how you feel about it. > I really wish SMS and iMessage had a way to mark senders as spammers. On my iOS phone in the US, there is a "Report Junk" button in the text message app. I'm not sure what it does, to be honest. The point of my comment was that replying with "Stop" has, for me, been a better way to reduce spam from (what I am referring to as) semi-legitimate spammers than "Report Junk" has been. That goes counter to the "never respond to spammers" advice from the comment I was replying to. This is all just going from my personal experience over the past few months, though, and could well be a coincidence.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoThat report junk feature doesn’t do anything much. It only sends Apple the report, not your carrier. You will notice it also only appears on some messages - I think contacts that have not messaged you before. To report people properly and actually improve the messaging experience for everyone, you have to follow the steps I mentioned in my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41704119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41704119