My Journey to the Center of America’s Political Spam Text Hell

Political text messages you receive may not be intended for you, and opting out has proven ineffective.

The author of this article has been inundated with political spam texts, receiving over 725 in the current year alone, nearly ten per day during peak times. Most of these messages are intended for a relative, "John," who lives in California and has made small donations to Democratic candidates, a stark contrast to the author in New York who has made no political donations. Despite repeated attempts to opt-out by replying "STOP" or other keywords over 49 times since 2021, the texts persist from various numbers and campaigns. The author investigated the source, discovering that many texts link to ActBlue, a Democratic donation platform, and contain tracking codes that often reference Sterling, a data company that uses AI to identify potential political donors. Sterling compiles databases with personal details and reportedly sells or rents this information to campaigns. FEC records indicate substantial payments from Democratic committees to Sterling, with tracking codes on texts received by the author frequently containing "Sterling" or related identifiers. The CEO of Sterling acknowledged that their company handles texting at scale and rents data to multiple campaigns, stating that while no database is perfect, matches with moderate confidence are generally accurate enough for use. The CEO suggested that recipients should not respond to stop the messages.

The deluge of political text messages targeting the author, often misdirected due to data mix-ups involving companies like Sterling, highlights a systemic issue in political data aggregation and communication. Sterling's business model of compiling extensive voter profiles and renting them to campaigns, combined with the high-frequency, low-cost nature of peer-to-peer texting, creates an environment ripe for such errors. The campaign's reliance on AI to predict donations means even moderately confident matches are deemed valuable, leading to a broad net cast that ensnares unintended recipients.

This practice directly impacts individuals by creating a constant stream of unwanted, often irrelevant, solicitations, eroding privacy and causing annoyance. While Sterling's CEO suggests non-engagement as a solution, the persistence and volume of these texts indicate a flaw in the data pipeline that is unlikely to self-correct. The potential for legal recourse, though arduous, suggests a possible avenue for relief, but it underscores the difficulty in stemming the tide of misdirected political communications driven by data-driven fundraising strategies.