[danny_taco]

In my experience it doesn't do much. For example, I made the mistake of contributing to the campaign of a politician. Now I get texts from candidates all over the country. If I reply STOP to one, I just get sent more texts from another number, for another candidate in another state. I just got tired of replying with STOP after the 20th time. This just guarantees I'm never giving any money to any candidate ever again.

[solardev]

In a previous election cycle, I made the mistake of donating a few thousand dollars to several candidates. Since then, I get spammed through the year, and close to a major election, it's dozens of emails and phone calls and text messages every week.

Thankfully, Gmail catches 99% of the spam emails and my Pixel phone filters out spam texts and calls. It has a built-in Google Assistant mode that screens unknown callers with a robot voice picking up and asking them to describe what they're calling about. Most of the callers just hang up as soon as they hear that, and if they don't and actually say they're calling about so-and-so candidate, I just click the block button.

I tried to switch to iPhone for a few weeks (for iMessage), but the spam problem was SO bad (even with Robocaller and some SMS spam filtering app) that I switched back to Android. Google's spam blocking is phenomenal on the Pixel, but they barely even advertise it. It's an afterthought for them, but a lifesaver for me. My phone would be completely unusable without it.

----------------

In the back of my mind, I keep thinking it'd be cool to have an app that automatically looks up whoever the candidate is running against and automatically donating 10 cents (or however much) to their opponent every time they spam you. "Hi, it sounds like you're running in District _____ against ______. Because of this spam, I've donated 10 cents to your opponent. So far, this app has donated $1,234 to your opponent because of your messages. Goodbye!"

Our government is so corrupt and broken they're never going to fix any of this, so it's up to the technologists and market incentives instead...

[jbaber]

This last idea is good. If the machine can somehow be convinced it's actually financially detrimental to contact me, it could do some good.

It takes advantage of a difference from regular spam where there's nothing the spammer would dislike you to do.

[Shadowmist]

I thought about telling everyone to vote against whoever spams (phone/sms/email/mail/etc) the most. Chances are that whoever is funding the spam is expecting for a return on their investment to convince me to vote in a manner that is more beneficial to them than it is to me.

The problem is that once they identify you as voting against spammers it encourages them to false flag spam you from a PAC that looks like it supports their opposition.

[71bw]

>Google's spam blocking is phenomenal on the Pixel, but they barely even advertise it.

It's a feature that's good enough to warrant me replacing the otherwise superior Xiaomi dialer/SMS apps on my phone with the Google ones. I don't get the screen calling, but all the other parts work 80% of the time.

[mingus88]

I wish anyone from actblue would see this.

I gave a few small donations and foolishly didn’t use a disposable email address. That was over four years ago and I’m still getting over a dozen spam emails a day from candidates I have never even heard of.

Maybe there is some central actblue list I can opt out of but I don’t even think I created an account with them

Never donated a penny since

[DominoTree]

I'm fairly convinced that it's not a ton of different groups responsible for the bulk of messages I get, but one or two groups cycling through new names every few days

If I don't reply "stop" to anything, it seems like one day "Retired Democrats PAC" will suddenly stop sending me messages and "Save Democracy PAC" will suddenly begin, and that pattern is what makes me think a single group is behind a lot of it.

If I do reply "stop" to one, of course they will stop from that PAC, but a few days later another one will always pop up and pick right back up.

Every few days I send out a mass "stop" to all of the numbers I've gotten messaged by, and it usually gives me 3-4 days of peace.

[solardev]

Your campaign donations are a matter of public record and Actblue harvests them and repackages them to sell to political campaigns and operatives. It's a shitty business model that preys upon an unfortunate part of federal law that most donors don't know about.

[al_borland]

I donated $20 in 2016 and have regretted it ever since.

In the 2020 election cycle it seemed some of the texts had people behind them, so I’d reply and told them if they kept texting me I’d vote for the opponent out of pure spite. That was actually quite effective, but did have to say it to a half dozen people.

This time around, I keep getting texts asking for $40. Most I report as spam, others I say stop. But it seems these lists are distributed out far and wide, so removing the name from one, or 10, doesn’t do much.

Like you, I will never again donate to a politician and will encourage everyone else to save their money. No one should pay money to be harassed. I’m not sure how they think this is a good idea or will win people over.

[coldpie]

> In the 2020 election cycle it seemed some of the texts had people behind them, so I’d reply and told them if they kept texting me I’d vote for the opponent out of pure spite. That was actually quite effective, but did have to say it to a half dozen people.

I tried sending Goatse back to them, but whatever text spamming software they're instructed to use doesn't support receiving images, unfortunately :)

[sseagull]

I've been interested in donating before, but this is actually the main thing holding me back. I get so little spam and unwanted messages (email and text), and I am trying extremely hard to keep it that way.

So thanks for validating my decision :)

[left-struck]

Use a email alias service like simple login, duck duck go’s private duck address etc You can disable that email alias and never receive emails sent to that address again

I wish we had something similar for phone numbers

[FergusArgyll]

https://github.com/sdushantha/tmpmail

Super-throwaway email addresses in the terminal

[ryukoposting]

One of the blessings of having a loved one in politics is that I know who is/isn't selling their lists. There's only a small handful of organizations who adhere to a firm "no list buying, no list selling" policy. Whoever you donated to apparently has dreadful data ethics. Once your number is in a major political/nonprofit consultancy's database, they'll happily hand it out to all of their other clients. You have to trust that the campaign you support isn't going to give them that data... which is, of course, impossible to know from the outside.

[blackeyeblitzar]

Note that US law has carve outs for politicians and their campaigns. They are exempt on both email and phone spam as I recall.

[latency-guy2]

These people are terrorists to my email filters, what can I do to make their behavior really hurt?

[teeray]

This is why we need the OS to allow us to build filters to block them

[sharpshadow]

Why is it necessary to give them your number if you do a donation? It seems many here have the same negative experiences.

Is it an optional field? If not one could practically enter any digits or can one get punished for that?

[trollbridge]

Your phone number and e-mail address are more valuable to ActBlue than that $20 was.

The credit card input screen was just there to make you feel comfortable consenting to endless SMS texts for life.

[redserk]

Actblue requires a phone number and email address.

As far as I know, physically mailing a check is the best way to avoid sharing information as you only need to provide your name, address, and employer. This information is the only federally required information.

[kccqzy]

That's exactly my experience, except that I used my email instead of my phone number. That one little contribution (maybe $10) caused an endless stream of spam. And of course I forgot to give them a distinct To address after emotions are stirred up after their incendiary propaganda message on the donation page.

[hdx]

Same happened to me, I replied saying I'd vote for Trump if I got another message ... never heard from them again ;)

[rdtsc]

Ha! Worked for me, too. Heck it’s a minor request from a future president ready to run a country. Next week though “Hi I am Tim. I need that $40”. Well played, I only made the deal with Kamala, after all, ;-)

[sedatk]

I think it doesn’t matter if you stop know. I know people still getting spammed today after donating to Obama in 2008.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I had some woman use my email (I have an OG mac.com email), when donating to her local ASPCA.

They sold it to a liberal political group, who then sold it to an extreme liberal group.

I get dozens, sometimes hundreds, of spam emails, every day, with the most batshit insane messages. It’s especially bad, now, with the US election coming up. The one saving grace, is that it wasn’t a right-wing group. They make the ultra-liberals look like a bunch of teetotalers.

Since she used the iCloud.com variant of the address, I simply nuke all emails that specify that, as a destination. Apple won’t let me block the domain, so I have to apply the rules, after they fill my inbox.

Sometime in there, one of the spammers figured out that icloud.com will also receive iMessage texts, so they have started coming to that, as well (so far, it is from legit political groups. I don’t expect that to last). I delete and report as junk. I very rarely respond with STOP.