What’s the best way to irritate people sending me political spam text messages?
Every day I get at least 5, and I just hit the button to block them and report as spam. I don’t want to reply to the messages since that will probably only make it worse. Is there somewhere I can register the number that’ll spam them back or something?
Edit: legal suggestions only, please
31 replies
You must be referring to ActBlue. I just send the links back to them at [email protected]. There needs to be a class action lawsuit against those assholes. We donated to Sanders back in 2016. They sold our info to EVERY democratic campaign in the entire country.
So THAT'S why I keep getting these things!
Yep. They’re as predatory as it gets.
didn't know this. explains a lot.
yeah i donated to sanders a decade ago too.
Yep. It all goes back to those assholes. I contacted them about it several times. They say it’s not them, but the indiviycsmpains that I need to contact. Only, those campaigns spam from ghosted numbers and automated emails.
So I lodged a complaint to the FCC and they told me to change my email and they won’t do anything to stop it.
So i told ActBlue that as a result of their predatory bulshit, I won’t be donating to the DNC ever again. An I will be suggesting others do the same.
Shouldn't you tell DNC that you wont be donating again because of ActBlue? I would think that has a higher chance of getting things happening. ActBlue probably doesn't care who you donate to, as long as they are hired to spam. But if DNC is told that people are actively dropping donations because of ActBlue, they'll probably tell them to stop or stop using them. At least one would assume so, but the world is mad and people insane so probably just best to move into the woods and read star signs.
The DNC won’t care.
Look, do ya want it to be effective, or not?
For some reason if I reply to them with an image they don't usually send any more. I don't know if it's because their message handlers can't process an MMS or if it intentionally gets added to an ignore list because of data costs.
I usually choose that particular Internet-famous image of a.... Well endowed black man. You probably know the one.
Nice, I think I'll send a goatse to the next one I get
Eat up data. Send the whole set of 40 images currently available at the url gap.zip.
If it's a failed MMS message that produces the results you could probably do that with any old image, rather than one that could specifically be construde as sexual harassment.
Also "penis as weapon" and "black men as exotic sexual body-objects" might not be tropes/meme-thinking you want to perpetuate in the world.
Plenty of other images that suggest penises don't have to be aggressive implements, and small dicked regular black dudes who are just regular people are a thing too.
Maybe penises surrounded by flowers, or penises dressed in silly miniture costumes.
I have a penis and hate the stigma. But I totally condone anyone wreaponizing my body against homophobic shitheads in homophobic cultures. Those people scam and emotionally manipulate the elderly for all they're worth
I didn't really get a vibe of that being the political spam messages from the post/comments. Maybe I missed something.
Oh, you don't know. Those aren't Americans, it's call centers being operated in Philippines, India, and Latin America. It's cheaper to hire them offshore and they don't have to conversationalists, they just have to send messages on a script.
If you ever get added to one of their directories that does calling, they'll have a soundboard of recorded woman introduce herself and shill for whatever candidate. You can ask them to speak to a human and they have a recorded response about being a human with "voice assisted tools".
It's a whole industry. When they're not hired by Americans for canvassing they're doing call scams on your grandparents with the same kind of tools. I hate them very deeply so they get my tasteful selection of gay porn and gore.
I'm aware of foreign call centers, but how does all that translate to you knowing the spam calls are from homophobic people?
Also, I don't think we we're talking about the commenters send your image specifically were we? I think they were using past tense and speaking about black men in general.
Also none of it mentioned the man was gay. I don't think you can just assume all foreign call center workers are homophobic shitheads.
This has been a very confusing interaction. I don't think we're on the same page at all.
Ah. My mistake. Not so much the Philippines, but India and Mexico have cultural stigmas that you can exploit if you ever have a day where you wish to be particularly upsetting to a phone scammer. It's obviously not all, but enough that it's worth rolling the dice.
We're probably not, sorry for that
https://share.google/FlD4TjhSc5jkCsvy1
Obviously nsfw
I think I saw a headline the other day,
TRUMP CAN'T HANDLE BBC
They pretty much hone in on people who reply. That shows an operating phone number and the get paid per interaction so they don't care if it's effective.
That said, I did get a couple months peace one time by sending gore from r/medizzy
They also don't use an infinite number of spoofed numbers, they try to limit the area code to one they believe is close to you. If you block and block and block eventually after a month they'll start to thin out.
Definitely don’t reply. I don’t think the mark as spam does anything for SMS. You can report to FTC but they probably have a huge bank of numbers so doesn’t make a huge difference.
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-robocalls-and-texts#political-robo
Maybe you can set up an automation on your phone to automatically block or delete messages with certain criteria (e.g. keywords, number status/unknown)
I just do what you are doing
But I've always wanted to look into those SIM services that let you text through a desktop app or browser. Then you could set up some sort of script that takes numbers from a CSV or something, uses text you curate in a dictionary to automatically spam these people back.
I think you should separate out your goals, is it to irritate (revenge motivated), or just to be left alone by them?
Because if it's to irritate, maybe you just shouldn't bother. A world with more and more irritated people probably isn't where you want to live, and probably isn't going to be a kinder world.
I donated a measley $10 to Dan Osbornes campaign. I'm getting endless texts for Kansas, Georgia you name it democrats
Lenny can be automated
“I’ll give you $5 to release the Epstein Files.”
Spamblocker
https://github.com/aj3423/SpamBlocker
I love that app.
Add your number to the do not call list, if they don't respect it, there are huge fines
There's a political exception to the Do Not Call law for politicians, put into the law, believe it or not, by politcians. (US context)
Hahahahahaha