How to opt out of the billions of political text messages hitting our phones

With a few weeks to go until Election Day, excitement is mounting. Not just to see who will serve as the next President of the United States, but also, to put an end to the barrage of political spam texts.

A call-blocking service called Robokiller did an analysis of the 2022 Midterm election season and found Americans received 15 billion political text messages and 384 million political calls in 2022. Robokiller believes political texting is now the default campaign strategy for politicians and campaigners.

According to the FCC, campaign calls and texts are exempt from the National Do Not Call Registry requirements. But the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) contains specific rules they must follow.

The FCC says if you are receiving texts that you didn't ask for, report the sender by forwarding the texts to 7726 (or "SPAM").
Campaigns should also honor opt-out requests if you reply "STOP."

If you think you've received a political robocall or text that does not comply with the FCC's rules, you can file an informal complaint with the FCC at fcc.gov/complaints.