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Campaigns still sending political texts after Election Day
The election may be over, but for many, all those political spam texts still haven’t stopped coming. FOX 5's Josh Rosenthal has the story.
WASHINGTON - The election may be over, but for many, all those political spam texts still haven’t stopped coming.
"I got one like ten minutes ago," Rob Williams told FOX 5 Thursday evening in Northwest D.C.
He’s far from the only one. Social media users are posting comments including, "Why am I still getting political texts?" and "it’s over, please give me peace!"
So, why have the texts kept coming?
"I think people are surprised to get these text messages after the election is over," explained John Jay College of Criminal Justice Associate Professor of Public Policy Adam Scott Wandt. "But realistically, everyone’s paying attention and it’s a great time for special interest groups, political action committees and even cyber criminals to reach out to us over text hoping we engage with them."
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Wandt said the groups can often get phone numbers through voter registration records, marketing companies, data brokers and data leaks too.
"Just about all of us have had our cell phone, email address, and name leaked out or put into a data set in one way, shape, or form. So, we shouldn’t be surprised at all when we get these types of messages," said Wandt, who added that people should never reply to the texts, and instead, report them as spam and block the number.
"Even if you tell them to stop, and they’re required to stop, and they are going to stop, nothing prevents them from selling that information to another party who will use it for the same exact reason."
While Wandt doesn’t think the texts will ever go away completely, he does expect them to level off in the coming weeks and months.