There's One Easy Way to Stop All of Those Political Texts
A simple "STOP" reply should work — but there are other methods to prevent political texts from clogging your messages.
Published July 22 2024, 12:56 p.m. ET
With election day looming closer, most people are being inundated with political texts, often from various campaigns asking for donations or reminding people to vote. But sometimes, these text messages are annoying and constant, becoming more of a burden. How do you stop these political text messages?
How do you stop receiving political texts? It's incredibly easy to unsubscribe..
Whether your party affiliation has changed or you're just not interested in receiving text messages from a specific campaign anymore, according to the Federal Communications Commission, it should be incredibly easy to unsubscribe from the messages.
For starters, most text campaigns will honor a simple "STOP" reply message, allowing you to remove yourself from the automatic text list. By doing so, you are revoking consent to be included in robotext roundups.
That said, if you didn't give a specific political party your consent to be added to the text message list, you can also report the messages as spam. According to the FCC, forwarding the text to 7726 (or "SPAM") will report it as a spam message.
If replying "STOP" and reporting continued messages to the FCC doesn't work, the next step is to block the unwanted numbers. Most phones also have the option to filter out numbers not already in your contacts, further reducing the political text messages you receive.
Not every text sent from a number claiming to be connected to a political campaign is legitimate, so always be careful before clicking on links in text messages, especially if you don't recognize the sender.
Why am I getting so many political text messages?
Unfortunately, in the terms and conditions of a lot of websites, it's stated that putting your number in these places allows a company to share and sell your information, which could result in some of the political text messages being received. Automated text messages sent via auto dialing (similar to robocalls) require the user's consent before texting, while messages being sent manually do not require prior consent.
Again, the block button is sometimes the most reliable way to clear your text inbox of these unwanted messages, especially when some of the above messages don't work. This is also why it's important to be careful when handing out your number online, regardless of the reasoning.
