Who Does Political Spam Influence? And In Which Direction?

from the get-real dept

The folks at some anti-spam company actually seem to think people will believe their bogus study suggesting that political spam will impact the election. That seems highly unlikely. While it certainly looks like voters on all sides are making their decisions on some fairly questionable and misleading info, it seems highly unlikely, whoever you’re voting for, that it was some piece of random spam that influenced your choice. The article also doesn’t seem to distinguish actual email messages from campaigns with straight out spam — as both are discussed in the article. On a personal note here are two political “spam” stories that I’m dealing with this election week. Last Friday I received a political email from a relative who I haven’t spoken to in months, which was cc’d to 30 or so folks who I don’t know at all. Now, my Inbox is full of angry shouting back and forth, screaming all the talking points, half-truths and out-of-context spin we’ve all been having shoved down our throats for the past few months from both major parties. It’s completely clogged up my inbox, making it much harder to find other emails… such as the one from one of the two major political parties (why bother naming which one) clearly sent to my email address (from which you should be able to distinguish what my name is), but addressing me as “Dennis Chuck.” I know that (tragically) political spam is exempt from CAN SPAM, but what this certainly seems like spam to me. I certainly didn’t sign up for political messages from this (or any) political party — and if I did, it wouldn’t be using the name Dennis Chuck. So, either someone else signed me up, or (more likely) they bought a bogus email list from a spammer with all sorts of junk like that in it. Apparently politicians haven’t learned about double-opt out. Either way, one thing is clear: the only thing this political spam is influencing me on is that our politicians continue to be somewhat clueless when it comes to technology.


Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “Who Does Political Spam Influence? And In Which Direction?”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
2 Comments
Elive45 (profile) says:

Political leader

All the Political leaders working in different ways and they all right in his working things. But I want to say one thing that is we also have some responsibly as a public different people post different things on https://my-assignment.help/my-assignment-help-review/ site. We should support every Political leader because they do work for us.

Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...