By Joe Arney
Illustration by Dana Heimes
Think your phone鈥檚 blowing up with spam text messages from candidates and campaigns?
Buckle up鈥攜ou ain鈥檛 seen nothing yet.
The Federal Election Commission鈥檚 for campaigns is Oct. 24. Expect a ton of texts as that date approaches, said Bridget Barrett, an assistant professor of advertising at the University of Colorado Boulder鈥檚 College of Media, Communication and Information.听
What can you do to dodge the digital deluge? Not much, she said.
鈥淭his has been an extremely contentious election season,鈥� said Barrett, who studies digital marketing and political communication. 鈥淐ampaigns are chasing every advantage right now, and as long as texting continues to work, they鈥檒l keep doing it.鈥澨�
There鈥檚 no single way most people wind up on a list to receive campaign texts. Usually, she said, you gave money at some point, or you signed up for something without realizing that you were giving your number to a political organization. It might also be through a merchandise sale, or if you fill out an online poll.
鈥淭here are different national rules and state laws around list swapping among different companies and fundraising organizations, and many different data privacy laws at different levels鈥攂ut once you鈥檙e on a list, you鈥檙e likely to get texts from people you did not directly opt in with,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard because there are so many ways for your data to be collected and then shared.鈥澨�
鈥淐ampaigns are chasing every advantage right now, and as long as texting continues to work, they鈥檒l keep doing it.鈥�
Bridget Barrett, assistant professor, advertising
There are a few steps consumers can take to silence the annoying alerts. Replying STOP every time you get one of these messages will, eventually, cut down on the number of texts you get, 鈥渢hough it probably won鈥檛 stop them altogether,鈥� she said.听
Another step is to be discerning about giving out your information. 鈥淐onsider using services where you can create burner email addresses, and think twice before handing over your phone number,鈥� she said.听
Barrett also advised consumers to register their phones through the Federal Trade Commission鈥檚 Do Not Call registry, though candidates and campaigns are exempt from the听protections it offers. Voters can also to remove their phone numbers;听however,听she said, that is unlikely to be a source for texts like these.听
Longer term, Barrett is watching the arms race between phones and campaigns鈥攅specially how political camps will respond as mobile service providers and handset manufacturers introduce better spam filters to protect user data.听
She鈥檚 also interested to see whether campaigns start limiting this kind of outreach, especially if they see it鈥檚 turning people off.
鈥淣o one is concerned about that right now, because they鈥檙e still seeing a return on their investment,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here might be a postmortem in the future to look at whether this is sustainable鈥攐n the right, we did see some burnout and a decrease in donations after the 2016 election鈥攂ut right now, the only concern is getting people elected.鈥澨�