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> - 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 politic

> - 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 ago
  Okay. 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 ago
    That 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
    - Aloisius 2y ago
      > It only sends Apple the report, not your carrier. Depending on your carrier and country or region, reporting spam you receive with SMS, MMS, or RCS shares this information with your carrier and its affiliates. https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/iphone/iph203ab0be4/ios https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/iphone/iph203ab0be4/io...

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 ago
Okay. 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 ago
  That 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
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    > It only sends Apple the report, not your carrier. Depending on your carrier and country or region, reporting spam you receive with SMS, MMS, or RCS shares this information with your carrier and its affiliates. https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/iphone/iph203ab0be4/ios https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/iphone/iph203ab0be4/io...