Get Ready For Political Spam… On Your Mobile Phone

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the oh-please-no dept

We’ve had a number of stories about political spam on Techdirt, and while I was hoping politicians would get the message that pissing off voters is a bad policy, it seems they’re not getting it. After some discussion, the Federal Election Commission has said it’s ok for politicians to send political spam messages as SMS text messages to mobile phones. They’ve taken away the disclosure requirements saying who paid for the ad, because there just isn’t enough room in an SMS text message… Yes, the thinking here is completely backwards. They should have just banned political spam (SMS or otherwise) outright as a dangerous practice. The article points out, by the way, that without the disclosure rules, it’s possible that political supporters could get creative – and do things like send fake political spam from a competitor, knowing it’ll piss off voters.