Summary: I objection concerning spam texts and regard why I’m so hesitant to fair answer STOP to unsubscribe.
I moved out of Texas a few years ago. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear akin any statewide midterm candidates have heard concerning that. In the former month, I’ve gotten dozens of texts akin this, normally multiple per day:
Some of the texts I received during operating on this post
They appear to be mostly from Republicans, but I’ve gotten a small bit of everything — texts from Democrats, independents, PACs, unbiased pollsters, evidently biased pollsters, equal those weird false emblem texts that went around. I don’t recall signing up for anything, and certainly would never have intended to, but plainly my figure got on a catalog somehow.
This is beautiful annoying, since content is my highest-signal communication channel. Most of what’s in there is from family and friends, affirmative the occasional 2FA code. The small red notification bubble method a lot additional on Messages than another apps — which of way is exactly why politicians, marketers, and scammers desire so seriously to get in there.
It’s not fair the elections, either — this has been getting noticeably worse complete time. This twelvemonth I’ve started to get a ton of these types of messages, sometimes as many as one a day:
It turns out, notwithstanding seeming all individual and handwritten, that if you answer STOP, these messages additionally disclose themselves to be part of a larger campaign. (Shouldn’t this be illegal, by the way?)
So it seems akin the resolution is to answer STOP to all of these and eventually you won’t get as many, right?
Except I haven’t done that. I don’t desire to do that. Except for that “experiment” above, I have alternatively chosen “Delete and Report Spam” for all sole one of these texts… equal although it doesn’t appear to do anything.
What’s insane to me is that Apple has really added a Spam directory to Messages, and there are a few things in there. But equal although I’ve been reporting all this material as spam for months, if not longer, none of the new messages I get appear to get filtered into the Spam folder.
So again, why not fair answer STOP to these messages? Why am I so averse to doing that?
After several reflection, I think I figured it out: replying alongside STOP feels akin I’m accepting this imagination of the world.
If I answer STOP, I’m basically saying, “Okay, you’re allowed to dispatch me any you want, and afterward I have to dispatch rear STOP for you to tap it off.” And I desire to basically refuse that framing. Mass-texting and spam campaigns shouldn’t get that correct by default, and the burden shouldn’t be on me to individually opt-out of all sole one of these campaigns.
So if you’re study this and you activity on iOS at Apple, please help. This feels akin a awesome use case for all this new Apple Intelligence (similar to the AI adblock experiment I ran a during back). If I study item as Spam, perchance an choice could pop up to “Filter messages akin this to Spam?” or something, and afterward the unwanted content gets added to a catalog of examples. So afterward next period I get a content from an unidentified number, the LLM says the catalog of spam examples, and if the new communication is similar, it goes to Spam. (That’s fair off the top of my head; I’m certain there are equal improved ideas to combat this.)
Recently, I did discover a “Delete and Stop” option, which auto-sends the STOP communication for me. But it seems akin “Delete and Stop” and “Delete and Report Spam” are mutually exclusive. You’d think that reporting as spam would additionally auto-send a STOP message, but the figure of texts I’ve gotten from Don Huffines notwithstanding reporting all one suggests otherwise.
Hopefully things volition calm downward following the election. But for goodness’ sake, person delight do item concerning this. I was going to say we fixed this issue for email, but I’m not really certain we did — these days I get lots of promotion messages notwithstanding continually trying to opt out on all sole website whenever I acquisition something. And I get multiple spam calls a day too, equal although I’m on the Do Not Call registry. So perchance we’re fair doomed to be eternally pestered by whoever wants our prosperity or our vote. Here’s expecting they don’t fig out how to enter my Slack. ⧈
