Here’s what to do about those annoying political text messages

Moments before Kamala Harris made a last-minute appearance during SNL’s cold open this weekend, Maya Rudolph as Harris pretended she was going to write to every voter in the US – of course, digging into the flood of messages we’re all getting sent to our phone numbers from and on behalf of presidential campaigns.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it feels like a daily squall spam text messages from both campaigns are worse than ever. In fact, I’ve already voted, but even that hasn’t spared me the frustratingly urgent and increasingly erratic text messages reminding me that THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFE! That DEMOCRACY IS ON THE BALLOT and that DONALD TRUMP WANTS TO IMPRISON YOUR GRANDMOTHER. Or that KAMALA HARRIS WILL APPOINT TERRORISTS TO HER OFFICE. Luckily, based on the 800,000 text messages I get every day, the only thing I need to do to make things better is CLICK HERE TO DONATE.

By the way, this is one of the many reasons why the default messaging app on my smartphone is not the messenger I use on a daily basis. Data brokers who are in the business of buying and selling our personal information without our knowledge are truly disgusting and despicable individuals, but that is a topic for another day.

The question for now is: what can be done with political campaign texts?

Well, there’s good news and bad news.

Let’s start with the bad news. No many you can do. However, you’re not completely out of luck if you’re tired of all the texts. First of all, let’s start with the low hanging fruit:

Texting “STOP” in capital letters in response to these texts may be interpreted as a refusal command by automated systems sending these messages. Some texts even invite you to do this. Moreover, the “STOP” command can (I emphasize power) remove your number from the sender’s database. Meanwhile, you can also try this:

“Another thing people can do if they receive unwanted text messages is to forward those spam messages to the Federal Communications Commission,” John Verdi, senior vice president of Future Privacy Forum, told a local Chicago news channel. This can be done by redirecting text messages to the short text code 7726, which means SPAM for the range on your phone.

If you ever feel the need to donate to one of the campaigns, it would be wise to create a one-time email account when doing so. So the inevitable barrage of election information you receive will be directed there. Last but not least, keep in mind that some percentage of the political texts you see on your phone on Election Day are likely coming from scammers. Think before you click.