this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
297 points (86.3% liked)

Mildly Infuriating

35040 readers
752 users here now

Home to all things "Mildly Infuriating" Not infuriating, not enraging. Mildly Infuriating. All posts should reflect that.

I want my day mildly ruined, not completely ruined. Please remember to refrain from reposting old content. If you post a post from reddit it is good practice to include a link and credit the OP. I'm not about stealing content!

It's just good to get something in this website for casual viewing whilst refreshing original content is added overtime.


Rules:

1. Be Respectful


Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.

Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.

...


2. No Illegal Content


Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.

That means: -No promoting violence/threats against any individuals

-No CSA content or Revenge Porn

-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)

...


3. No Spam


Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.

-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.

-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.

-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers

-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.

...


4. No Porn/ExplicitContent


-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.

-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.

...


5. No Enciting Harassment,Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts


-Do not Brigade other Communities

-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.

-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.

-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.

...


6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.


-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

...


7. Content should match the theme of this community.


-Content should be Mildly infuriating.

-At this time we permit content that is infuriating until an infuriating community is made available.

...


8. Reposting of Reddit content is permitted, try to credit the OC.


-Please consider crediting the OC when reposting content. A name of the user or a link to the original post is sufficient.

...

...


Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Lemmy Review

2.Lemmy Be Wholesome

3.Lemmy Shitpost

4.No Stupid Questions

5.You Should Know

6.Credible Defense


Reach out to LillianVS for inclusion on the sidebar.

All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
  1. never signed up for anything like this,
  2. never donated to or signed up for emails from the DNC, et al.,
  3. political texts like this come all the time, and
  4. I hesitate to reply “stop” because I don’t want them to know this is a live number (is my instinct here outdated/inapplicable?)
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 129 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Hey there we’re the krazy kaucasians for Kamala…

Wait a second, let’s just go with White dudes for Harris

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You ever see the show Modern Family? I want a new show starring the husband from that show, about a wholesome totally not racist white guy who goes about life COMPLETELY oblivious to how his actions are percieved by other people.

Almost like a not racist version of Mr Magoo.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

that could be any of the 4 husbands on that show, to varying degrees. you'll have to be more specific.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

The white one

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 month ago (7 children)

For sure don't in any way respond, just report spam and block the number. Lots of these things are phishing attempts, trying to get you to give personal information (or even money), and aren't connected to the things they mention.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

~~Lots Most~~ Pretty well all of these things are phishing attempts.

Follow parent's advice.

Never, ever, ever respond, even reverse-uno.
Otherwise, you've helped them.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just to note - white dudes for Harris is a real group.

I still wouldn't click the link, I'd go direct to their site if there was an interest there, just noting that it is a real group.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Yep, I looked them up just to see but, like you said, the fact that it exists doesn't mean anything. I didn't find anything (good or bad) associated with that phone number - could be spoofed.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Got 9 in one day. If they include a name it’s never mine

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (4 children)

What the fuck… how can people in the US live with something like that? And how does this not massively hurt her chances?!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

how can people in the US live with something like that?

We've had a number of deeply corrupt individuals in charge of our federal department meant to police this sort of thing.

And how does this not massively hurt her chances?!

Even odds are that it's meant to.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Most don't get that many. OP is likely targeted in the systems. My guess is that he votes often in the primaries and has shown interest elsewhere, like by signing up for communications or donating to or volunteering for campaigns.

I just checked my spam and I've received four political texts in July.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

The politicians made sure to exempt themselves from all the consumer protection, anti-fraud laws. They live in bubbles where their own political agendas are too important for limitations.

But I suspect, because my brand new phone number gets a lot of political spam, that 1) a lot of people can't live with it and change their numbers to escape or 2) a lot of it is recycled burner-phones, previously used to launder donations to fit legal donation limits. But it's given me a personal rule to never make a donation from my real phone or allow my real phone to become associated with any political process.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Use their numbers to sign up for stuff

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I have a Pixel. I did not realize how bad this gets until work made me take an iPhone as my work phone. Holy hell. No amount of "Delete and report as junk" helps.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Your country is crazy.

I get maybe 3-4 spam messages a year and those are all scams, not ads, much less political ads (which I don't think would even be legal)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have never once received one of these messages. Doesn't happen to everyone.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Is the reason I dont ever see these because pixel hides these

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

Lately my Pixel cant even keep up with all of them and some are slipping through. Going into the spam folder is almost comical.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago

Respond to nothing. Block everything.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (2 children)

God damn I love my Google phone. Every once in a while I check my call logs and spam text folder to see the hundreds of calls and texts it screens for me, without any notifications. It's nice

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

It is easily the most important feature on my phone. The call screening and spam blocking is unparalleled. I don't think I have had anything blocked that shouldn't be, and it maybe messes up 5 or less times a year.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Call screening is honestly one of the best features to ever come to a phone. I really wish this could be added to every handset.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Hey, it's White dudes for Harris. We're getting ready to promote Kamala Harris this November and we need your help. Our first call is this Monday at 8pm EST - will you join us?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

Your number is on a list of real numbers with real identities associated with them that was sold to them. Data brokers sell this information daily. They already know your number is real, but in order to comply with the law, they have to provide you with a legitimate option to opt out, so you will actually stop receiving correspondence from them if you ask them to stop (it is legally required). If not, they could be subject to a fine, but you'd obviously have to file a complaint with the relevant regulatory body for that.

If you do not attempt to opt out, they cannot be fined for spam if this is part of a legitimate donation campaign. If you don't reply, they will continue sending messages to you in the future. It costs them almost nothing to do, so even if they didn't know your number was real, they would do it anyway. Most of the people who donate from these messages don't reply through text message anyway. And if this were an actual scam, then there is nothing they gain from receiving a text back so long as you do not open their link. But again, in order for legal action to be taken (since these political reach outs are legal and not spam so long as there is an option to opt out), you must first try to opt out.

EDIT: Feel free to block the number after opting out. If they are legitimate (though the name is really fishy), then opting out will remove your number from all of their solicitors' lists, so you won't get texts or calls from different numbers working for the same campaign. Again, replying doesn't give them anything even if it is a scam, as your number was obtained from a real list sold to them by a data broker; they already know the number is in service. Just don't click the link in the text, and don't reply with anything other than stop.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (14 children)

Pretty sure they won’t keep messaging me after I blocked their number and reported spam

load more comments (14 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] possiblylinux127 22 points 1 month ago

"White dudes for Harris"

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

A few different things contribute to this and, unfortunately, there’s very little you can do to fix it. I’ve spent (wasted) a ton of time trying to prevent it on my end.

  1. If you used your phone number on your voter registration, reregister immediately without your phone number. This is public information and it’s where these things start.
  2. Find contact info for your local, county, and state parties. All sides. Call them up and ask that your information be removed from their database(s). You might have to escalate a bit because usually phone bankers don’t know how to do it or don’t understand why you want privacy. Worst case scenario you can pull out a sob story about an abusive ex and how your information isn’t supposed to be public at all. That will usually get your shit pulled.
  3. While you’re on those calls, try to find out where they either send or pull their data from. Next go there and do step 2 again.
  4. Repeat step 3 as many times as it takes.

However, individual candidates who may have received a copy of your data or canvassed you might not get the notice. Eventually their copies of your data might get leaked. You have no control over this and no recourse. I know this from personal experience. Through a unique mixup with a name, I have slowly watched my data go from politician to politician to now general spam. It’s not coming from data brokers because the only place the mixup happened was with political data.

Best of all, the FTC doesn’t give a shit. If someone “manually” sends you a political text, it doesn’t require prior consent. The “manual” setup for this is a bunch of VoIP shit that doesn’t actually go back to a real human ever and is about as “manual” as the fully automated assembly lines from How It’s Made where a human is standing nearby with a clip board saying “yup that’s a widget.”

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

is my instinct here outdated/inapplicable?

Yes.

It's so cheap to send SMS messages, and you don't pay for undeliverable messages, so they can just send to random numbers.

They also receive deliverability responses for each number. So they know whether a phone received the message whether or not you reply.

Finally, if you reply STOP you're unlikely to fit their demographic very well anyway. As in... they're not trying to reach the type of people who will actively try to avoid receiving these messages.

That said, there's probably no point replying STOP because most firms just wont honor it in the long term. As in they might not message you for the remainder of that particular messaging project (campaign), but they'll just start a new campaign tomorrow with a new sender and no "STOP" requests.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Every 4 years.

First_time_?.jpeg

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

welcome to the election season in the United States.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

White dudes for Harris? This name seems a parody

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Political messages also are allowed to circumvent the CAN-SPAM act and other messaging regulations. I have plans to just leave my phone in airplane mode until mid-November. Sure, people may think I died, but at least I'll have peace.

They (politicos) argue it's necessary to get the word out, one party in particular has a habit of sourcing their messaging through various vendors that may or may not follow the rules.

Legally, they must honor stop. They can be reported and fined too.

...of course in real life, it's super hard to stop all this trash messaging nobody wants. Wonder how much carbon this spamming generates.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I keep getting texts from Donald for some reason

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

My wife gets a ton of political texts intended for me. Best I can tell is because her cell phone number is under my name with T-Mobile. (Used to be a Sprint account before the merger) I've never used her number to sign up for anything under my name. So it would seem either Sprint sold it or an employee leaked it or something.

I have a Google voice number and pretty much don't get political texts. The Google voice number rings a T-Mobile prepaid phone, that number doesn't get political texts either.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

I just got this same bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

when it started getting really bad, i started replying stop. it maybe made things a little better but i still get a fair number if these (including this one). it definitely hasn't made it any worse.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Good thing my browser doesn’t keep cookies, or that might’ve leaked my Google info. But here’s what the link goes to:

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Why is it so obsessed with "white dudes"? Even if you are soecifically tagreting them, it seems odd to keep repeating it, especially since people who are goinf to vote a black woman of asian origins as preaident should tend not to be white supremacists

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Political organizations and non-profits are exempt from this list.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›