Nowadays, the work of the NAACP often revolves around the text message – specifically software that allows members of the civil rights group to easily send a large number of texts to other people, including non-members.
Last year, when the coronavirus pandemic complicated other forms of organization, the NAACP used text messaging software to encourage 12 million people to vote and many others to fill out their census forms.
But now the NAACP says its SMS campaigns and similar efforts are being threatened by other advocacy groups by some of the country’s largest phone service companies, including AT&T and T-Mobile.
This month, wireless companies are starting to put in place a system that requires organizations that run SMS campaigns to complete an application and be subjected to a ‘trust score’ determined by an entrepreneur’s computer algorithm. The companies did not say how the scores would be calculated, but if a score is too low, an organization will have strict restrictions on its text messages.
“With these kinds of programs, anyone behind a curtain can make arbitrary decisions,” said Jamal Watkins, senior vice president of the NAACP.
The election campaign in 2020 experienced a flood of text messages, which irritated many recipients, including some who said there was no easy way to stop the messages. Industry experts said the wireless service providers are struggling with the future of texting themselves as more communication moves to data-based apps like WhatsApp.
‘It’s a relic, like fax machines. There is so much spam. I’m sure they’m excited to get rid of it one day, ”said Sean Heiney, founder and chief operating officer of SignalWire, a technology company that provides SMS services.
The possible repression by AT&T and T-Mobile is causing a stir among progressive organizers who say the system is ripe for abuse. According to organizers, the scores will be based on an unknown formula without any possible appeal, which increases the prospect of algorithmic bias, and that a third-party provider that handles the trust points has ties to a major donor to the former president Donald Trump.
Eighteen groups, including the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Sierra Club and the NAACP, signed a letter this month to Democratic lawmakers and President Joe Biden asking them to intervene. There has been no official response yet.
The timeline for compliance continues to change, but under the new system, organizations such as the NAACP will have to complete detailed questionnaires about not only themselves but also the types of SMS campaigns they plan to run – even if they do not know exactly how they will use future text messages.
The oversight of the points system will be a new entity, the Campaign Registry, which calls itself a ‘reputation authority’ and is a subsidiary of Kaleyra, a communications company in Milan. The registry said in a LinkedIn report last year that wireless service providers will now have ‘visibility of’ who ‘and’ what ‘of every message campaign’ by corporate brands. However, the rules apply not only to businesses that send a lot of texts, but also to non-profit organizations that generally do not have large marketing departments.
“This is a black box that favors companies over non-profit and community-based organizations,” Watkins said. He said the NAACP’s current SMS campaigns would be “unsustainable” if the registry went through.
Text banking services have become popular over the past three years as a primary way for political campaigns and advocates to reach out to convey their messages. Volunteers or paid employees can do this from their lounges by using prescribed language to text strangers, and the messages do not count as big spam because each text is sent individually with a click or a tap. Both the Biden and Trump campaigns used the tactic in last year’s presidential race.
The move by AT&T and T-Mobile, along with a few smaller wireless service providers, is the industry’s latest attempt to regulate the practice before it even starts.
“We want all groups and organizations to be able to communicate effectively and reliably with their intended audience via text messages. Our policy protects our customers from unwanted texts, while ensuring that messages they receive are delivered, “an AT&T spokesman said in a statement.
Businesses will have to pay a new fee as part of the renovation, but registered non-profits, charities and similar groups will be spared, the spokesman said. She did not respond to follow-up questions.
Once enacted, possibly in June, AT&T may block more texts going to AT&T customers, and other service providers may do the same for their customers.
A T-Mobile spokesman said in a statement that the changes would help ensure that customers who want to receive text messages will always receive them and prevent bad actors from appearing to others.
Verizon, the other major U.S. wireless service provider, does not participate in the campaign registry, but may decide at a later date. A Verizon spokesman said he had no information about the decision.
VoteAmerica CEO Debra Cleaver, a nonprofit group that registers voters and provides text-based information on how to vote, said the program was devastating to her organization and would not even affect spammers who send fraudulent texts. not.
“It leaves us with very few or no channels to get time-sensitive information in the hands of voters,” she said. “We choose texting because 90 percent of it is read within three minutes.”
The idea of calculating profitable organizations for trust based on an algorithm is moving forward just as researchers and governments are increasing their investigation into decisions that are automatically made by computer. Biased algorithms are blamed for exacerbating discrimination in areas such as housing, job search, and criminal penalties.
Trust scores or risk scores are widely used online to filter emails for spam, to prevent clashes from websites and for other security purposes, although they have been criticized for lack of transparency.
Nonprofit organizers said they saw no information on how the wireless service providers and the campaign register would prevent biased results in their trust.
“I would have extensive questions about what the confidence figures are going to include,” Cleaver said. ‘Who is going to determine the algorithm? What will it contain? What will the process be if you want to appeal against it? ‘
She said VoteAmerica is already a federally approved non-partisan charity for tax purposes and that the carrier should work on that basis. “The idea of telecommunications companies assigning confidence figures to registered non-profit organizations is ridiculous in light of their long history of exploiting and abusing consumers,” she said.
It is unclear how the campaign register weighs possible bias. A spokesman for the registry did not want to answer questions or make anyone available for an interview, saying the organization was ‘very busy’.
AT&T and T-Mobile did not respond to questions about the trust score system.
Heiney, of SignalWire, said there may be reason to worry that the industry will create a single gatekeeper for whom mass texts can be organized.
“We serve customers on all sides of the political spectrum,” he said. “If there’s a change where one organization approves goods, it’s probably a big deal, and hopefully the FCC and other watchdogs will look into this to ensure honest messages.”
A spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission declined to comment.
Watkins of the NAACP said he was particularly concerned because one of the private data companies that is a contractor for the project, Aegis Mobile, has a long bond with a donor to former President Donald Trump’s campaigns. The donor, Jeffrey Goettman, was executive chairman of Aegis, according to a LinkedIn profile, and later served in the Treasury division under Trump. He is currently working for a Republican candidate for governor in Virginia.
“His politics and profile are extremely worrying in this space,” Watkins said. “This is not to suggest that conservatives can not be fair,” he added, but to be so in agreement with Trump, “is deeply disturbing.”
Neither Aegis nor Goettman responded to requests for comment.
WMC Global, another data company that acts as a rating agency for the project, said on its website that it would earn a number of points within minutes, based on factors such as consumer complaints, fraud cases and ‘established business practices’. develop a holistic development view of the company’s corporate and stakeholder history and give a score based on the risk assessment. The company did not respond to a request for an interview.
If a trust score is low, an organization can pay more for additional investigations from an approved vendor, but there is no guarantee of a better result, SignalWire said in a 3,000-word letter to customers about them. to help guide the registration process.
“Any messages sent to AT&T customers by an SMS campaign after June 1 are subject to heavy filtering and possible clogging,” SignalWire said.