Political text messaging
Political text messaging is the practice of sending text messages as part of a political ad campaign.
Growth of political text messaging
[edit]Text messaging as a tool for voter mobilization and campaigning has been explored for decades; many researchers had been using text messages to increase voter participation.[1][2][3] Text messages as a form of political messaging had previously been used sparingly, though the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign used text messaging as a significant arm of its outreach.[2] However, more recent elections have had significant increases in text messaging, due to decreased costs of texting compared to traditional canvassing.[2] Changes in voter behavior, such as increased smart phone usage, and decreased phone call interaction, have also encouraged political text messaging.[2][3][4] Even if only a small minority of individuals respond to each text message, the low cost and large numbers of texts sent out makes political text messaging useful.[4]
There is federal law against sending massive automated texts without consent.[5][6] Some experts suggest that political campaigns may get consent by burying it deep within a terms and conditions agreement.[6] A 2021 Supreme Court decision (Facebook Inc. vs Duguid et. al.) further loosened regulations,[7] suggesting that political texts do not violate a federal ban on robocalls and political campaigns did not need to recipients' consent as long as they do not use randomly generated numbers.[3][5] Many political parties and operations are able to retrieve publicly available voter registration information from state election registers, including exact phone numbers.[5][4] Many also use political data brokers for additional information to target text message recipients.[4]
In the 2022 election cycle, Americans received more than 15 billion political text messages.[3] The 2024 election cycle is expected vastly exceed the political text messages received in 2022.[3][4] Republicans outpaced Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio with political text messaging during the 2022 cycle.[4] In 2022, as a result of the increase text messaging, political text messages made up the largest source of complaints to the FCC.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Dale, Allison; Strauss, Aaron (October 2009). "Don't Forget to Vote: Text Message Reminders as a Mobilization Tool". American Journal of Political Science. 53 (4): 787–804. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00401.x. ISSN 0092-5853.
- ^ a b c d Zarroli, Jim (7 October 2020). "Getting Lots Of Political Messages On Your Phone? Welcome To 'The Texting Election'". NPR.
- ^ a b c d e Habeshian, Sareen (22 February 2024). "Why political campaigns won't stop texting you". Axios.
- ^ a b c d e f Popli, Nik (2024-07-03). "Why You Get So Many Political Campaign Texts—and What to Do About It". TIME. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
- ^ a b c d Ford, Ales (2023-01-26). "Billions of political text messages were sent last year — and there's little to stop more from coming". NBC News. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
- ^ a b Wade, David (2024-07-16). "How do you stop political texts on your phone? - CBS Boston". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
- ^ "Court says Facebook did not violate anti-spam law when it sent unwanted text messages". SCOTUSblog. 2021-04-01. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
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