The best part is that fully half of these are addressed to my mom…
Did your mom also install a random sketchy app from the app store and click “Allow” when it asked to access her contacts?
Because my mom did, and I get all kinds of spam. 😠
The invention of smartphones and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Hard agree!
I downgraded to a pseudo dumb phone a few months ago, and it’s been life changing in all the best ways.
i don’t even do sms on my ‘dumb’ phone.
when the phone makes a noise, it’s either low on battery (or, if it was plugged-in, fully charged), an alarm or timer i set, or a very high probability of being a legit call (the carrier has reasonably-effective blockers for spam, bots and spoofed origin calls).
Totally respect that.
I tried a month of dumbphone but realized there was a minimum of “smart” I needed in a daily driving device. My compromise was a low-end smartphone in a flip phone form factor which is just smart enough for what I need.
Personally I keep my installed apps to a minimum, heavily use Firefox on mobile with uBlock Origin, and heavily curate what’s allowed to send notifications and when, so my phone is quiet and not distracting but there when I want it/need it
jfc I hope you reported that app.
No idea what app it was. Mom was just like “my phone got hacked so i got a new one” and a new phone number with it. 🤦🏻♂️
damn is that why I get so much spam and my number keeps getting spoofed by scammers?
I’m in Missouri and I got one from some ghoul of a Republican today. It was very off putting. I fucking hate those fascist fucks.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Google Messages automatically blocks most political spam now. I’ve only gotten a few that slipped through in the past few months.
If my grandmother makes it to the next election I might move her to an android phone for this reason alone. Her iPhone doesn’t block the spam at all, and even appears to not have a way to delete the messages
Protip: don’t scribble shit out in screenshots. Too easy for people to figure out what’s underneath. Put filled in rectangles over whatever you don’t want people to see so there’s nothing that shows through. Most built in photo editors on phones have this functionality.
Filled in rectangles are so cold and impersonal. The scribbles are organic and remind me I need to brush my hair. Who cares if someone reverse engineers OP’s mom’s name?
This is why I’ve started blasting the fuck out of every one of them. You do enough cursing and insulting, they tend to actually stop texting and calling. I got sick of having to tell them to fucking stop the spam, which didn’t work. But, amazingly, after a few days of going batshit on every one of them, they’ve stopped almost entirely. No texts at all in three days for me, though my wife and dad still get them.
STOP
“I’m just gonna vote for the last person that texted me” : the demo these assholes are targeting.
I took will vote for this dudes mom.
I’ve lived in and was registered in 3 states in the past 4 years - currently in a swing state. Before I began blocking political texts and emails a month ago, I counted over 40 emails and over 15 texts per day, every day, plus phone calls every week.
Fortunately Google messages filters all of it to spam and makes it very easy to toss whatever doesn’t get filtered into spam. Here’s mine from Wisconsin!
I got one that threatened me saying they will know if I voted or not.
It was also sent to the wrong address and someone else had to give it to me asking if I was ok when they saw the hand written threat.
It’s fucking insane.
I wish this was what I got. At least I could reply to these with a “fuck off” even if no one reads it. I hate the flyers I get in the mail all the time. Wasteful as fuck and no way to stop it. I’ve thought about collecting them all and dumping them on the doorstep of my county’s Republican party office though.
You need to use VeroSMS or something to block all the political bs. Best thing I ever did
This looks promising. If it works as advertised you have done me a great service! Thanks for the info.
There are a couple like this and I use them. They work great. The only thing you need to be careful is sometimes they stop sms mfa codes, but it’s gotten so good that doesn’t seem to happen anymore. It’s easy to toggle on and off, and you can whitelist by different criteria if it happens to grab things it shouldn’t. Here is what my block looks like:
I have always assumed I get these due to some activist work I did 10+ years ago, but it seems particularly bad this cycle.
“American democracy”
I just delete and report junk
