Have you ever gotten a text message asking you to vote for a particular candidate? It appears to be the latest trent to get voters.
It's called “text-ivism,” as companies use volunteers who campaign for votes. They start with the public voter file, then that file is matched to publicly available third party lists. Those lists are compiled by how we shop online or order food, like pizza, for example.
Bob Mann, Professor of Mass Communications at LSU calls it nefarious.
"It's a quick way to get your message in front of someone at a glance and that is sometimes all they need is just a quick, very simple message about a candidate or attacking the opponent, and texting has become the easy way to do that," Mann said.
Mann suspects that as this continues something is obviously going to have to be done.
"There is no way around this one and I think the laws and the policies are going to lag behind the ability to deal with this," he added. "I suspect if this goes on for another 2 or 3 years and gets bigger and bigger and people are getting spammed with these text messages, that Congress and legislators will have to do something about it, because people are not going to sit through it. Their phones are just become another way that politicians are intruding in their lives, and they have no way to stop it."
Mann says these text messages used to grab voters have become a cheap way to do this.
