this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
282 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

66783 readers
4612 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
282
Customer is mistakenly accused of text spamming for repeatedly replying STOP to political texts (www.phonearena.com)
submitted 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A Visible customer was recently the victim of what seems to be a misunderstanding of the company's automated spam detection system. According to the user, after working with customer service to reactivate an account, the response from the company alleged that the deactivation was due to the account being flagged for excessive text messaging — or spam, as that is against the company's terms and conditions.

However, there is one problem: the user states this wasn't spam, but rather they were responding "STOP" to a barrage of unsolicited political messages. This situation has highlighted a potential conflict between automated spam detection systems and legitimate user responses, especially in the context of increasing political text messaging.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 104 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Hindsight is 20/20 but this could have been avoided by just not replying and blocking the number instead. Replying "STOP" just verifies that it's a good phone number and that you're reading their texts. Then they collect that information and sell it to other spammers.

[–] zewm@lemmy.world 52 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Exactly what I do. Don’t respond and I just block and report.

I do the same for phone calls from unknown numbers. I just press the volume button to mute the ringer and let it time out. If you hang up or pickup you get added to the list as active.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Android has a feature where you can just ignore an incoming call. It doesn't hang up it just stops playing the ringtone and goes back to the home screen.

[–] zewm@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

On iPhone it’s just pressing any of the volume buttons once. It will mute the ringer and let it go to voicemail.

[–] greybeard@lemmy.one 1 points 16 hours ago

Same on Android.

[–] SMillerNL@lemmy.world 22 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

I’m pretty sure the US has a law that requires people to stop texting you after you send STOP. Additionally, service providers like Amazon will just remove subscriptions if they receive a STOP.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 39 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

That would be really useful if the people behind these texts were subject to US laws.

[–] DogEarBookmark@reddthat.com 9 points 21 hours ago

Or STOP meant "stop," not "yes daddy give me more texts"

[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 35 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

the US has a law

Laws? What about them? We don't follow laws here anymore.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 7 hours ago

Can't remember ever hearing about spam calls being prosecuted. And judging by the volume I think its fair to assume they never are.

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago

To be fair, we only selectively enforced them before. And now we selectively enforce... worse shit.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yes but they're all based in India so it doesn't matter.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 7 hours ago

90% of mine are local.