How to End a Candidate’s Message

It’s 2024. Taxis fly. Cars drive themselves. Homes adjust the temperature to suit your mood. So for the love of all that’s decent in the world, why can’t we stop those dreaded political text messages from blowing up our phones 24/7?

Just last week, I received 3-4 messages per hour in my inbox. Most of them asking, urging, begging, even mildly threatening me to donate to the campaign. Now. If we don’t, democracy is doomed. Can we resist saving America?

It’s no longer as easy as you might think. It doesn’t really matter who you plan to vote for in the next election: unsolicited spam notifications are coming from all directions.

Over the past few months, I’ve received so many Trump-related robotexts that I’ve wanted to throw my phone into a volcano. But now? Apparently Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, and Tim Waltz have all tried to contact me personally.

It would be great if this was an alternate universe where we were all best friends and direct messaging each other the latest memes. But in reality, it’s a distraction. At worst, it’s a potential scam trying to steal my personal information and my hard-earned money, not to mention a soul-sucking time-waster that takes up my precious time trying to stop it all.

So what’s going on and how can we actually stop it?

How to stop political text messages on your smartphone

Unfortunately, there’s no free, universal “mute” button that will consign annoying political messages to mobile phone purgatory forever, but there are plenty of ways to slow them down.

Let’s start here:

Reply to the message by texting “STOP.” This works well if the sender is a legitimate business or organization, as they are required to comply with the law. If the sender doesn’t stop harassing you, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could impose heavy fines on you.

The FCC has said the same rules should apply to political campaigns, but the problem here is that political campaign text messages are exempt from the Do Not Call list.

Your consent is needed to send you a text message, but who knows where or how they get permission to send mass texts. But sometimes your permission isn’t needed, such as when a real person types the message manually. Meanwhile, “auto-dial” technology sends mass texts to thousands of numbers. According to the FCC, these political robotexts are not allowed.

So how do they get your phone number? And when was the last time you told someone it was okay to turn on your cell phone at any time of the day or night? It was most likely written in the fine print on a website when you bought something online, used a social media platform, or clicked “I agree” on an end-user form that allowed your phone number to be shared with “other service providers.” All that’s left for data brokers to do is siphon the information and sell the list to the highest bidder.

According to call-blocking service Robokiller, Americans will receive a record 15 billion politically-related emails in 2022, averaging 50 per mobile phone in the country. It’s no wonder the record is expected to be broken in 2024.

“If you receive an unsolicited text, report the sender by forwarding the text to 7726 (or “SPAM”), clicking (Delete and Report Spam), and blocking the sender. File a complaint with the FTC or FCC.”

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Use your phone’s built-in spam filter

We’re not done yet. If you have an iPhone or Android device that was updated within the last few years, there’s a built-in feature here that you should take advantage of.

For iPhone: Open Settings and tap Messages. Scroll down and toggle Filter unknown senders on. Texts from people not on your contact list will now be sent to a separate text inbox. For Android: Open the Messages app and go to the Settings menu. From there, select and enable Spam Protection. Note that the menu layout may vary slightly depending on your Android phone.

After doing all of the above, most of the spam texts disappeared within about a week.

How do you know if a text is spam?

If you receive an unsolicited text message, assume it’s spam. If the message has a sense of urgency and asks you to do something right away, that’s a big red flag.

And whatever you do, never click on any links – many contain malware or lead to fake sites that look legitimate but will give your donations to the scammers instead of the campaign.

The only time it’s OK to click on a link in a text is if it’s from someone I know well, like a family member or close friend. I’m now sometimes skeptical of such people and will call or text them directly before opening the link to make sure it was sent to me.

Scammers often use fake phone numbers (including area codes) to appear genuine – don’t be fooled.

Other ways to spot a scam include:

“Short code” numbers. According to a call blocking service called Robokiller, roughly 60% of spam messages come via short codes, which are five or six digit phone numbers. The same goes for strange, long numbers. “Nice to meet you last night” messages from people you don’t know. You might be tempted to reply with “I don’t know you,” but it’s better to delete/report/block them. If you reply, they’ll know you have a valid number and you’ll be hounded further. Misspellings, poor grammar, or misspellings of names. “You’ve won a prize” messages from companies, sweepstakes, debt relief, job offers, messages asking for personal information of any kind.

There’s an app for that

Several apps for iPhone and Android devices can act as an extra line of defense by filtering spam calls and texts reported by other users. I’ve used several of these apps in the past, including NoMoRobo, Robokiller, and YouMail.

To get the most out of it, you’ll need to sign up for a subscription, which varies in price but can cost anywhere from $5 to $15 per month, and also gives you a full-featured service that significantly silences your phone, helping to prevent unwanted calls.

But the only surefire way to stop scammers is to stop paying them, so share this information with everyone you know to put them out of business for good.