iOS 26 Message filtering upsetting fundraising politicians that want to annoy iPhone users...
Apple will be automatically sorting unknown texts into a new category in iOS 26. That's irritating political groups that rely on donations via spam texts.
Messages Unknown Senders filter annoying political groups
Text message filtering based on carrier spam lists and third-party apps have existed on iPhone for years. Apple is expanding this capability and improving sorting with iOS 26, but that could lead to other issues.
According to a letter shared by Punchbowl News, first discovered by Daring Fireball, iOS 26 could severely impact political groups' ability to solicit donations from users. The letter was written by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which says it could see $500 million lost in GOP revenue.
The letter incorrectly suggests that iOS 26 treats unknown callers as spam, which is a separate filtering category. Instead, it will be treated as "unknown," which it is if the user has never interacted with the number or if it isn't in their contacts.
That said, the system could certainly lead to users missing the texts -- especially less technically sophisticated ones. Unknown texts don't notify users by default, nor do they place a notification badge on the app icon.
There are several settings available that we'll get into in a moment, but again, those only apply to those that know to look or care. The letter isn't wrong in its assertion that Apple's new feature could lead to missed opportunities to collect political donations.
Spam versus consent
The biggest issue I take with the letter is its assertion that it needs to deliver unsolicited text messages to users. These political entities have gone through the trouble of ensuring the laws allow them to text people constantly, and carriers have even allowed the behavior.
Apple's steps to ensure users have some sanity and control over their messaging inbox undercut these efforts. The estimated $25 million revenue hit to the NRSC is certainly not negligible.
However, it isn't Apple's problem to solve. Not to mention, investigations show that a lot of political donation campaigns are overly aggressive, use deceptive tactics, and rely on elderly folks with mental health problems to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Whether or not these political entities are acting legally isn't up for debate, but their necessity certainly is. Especially when a lot of the texts are mostly attempts to trick people into thinking (insert political name) is texting them directly asking for $20.
The NRSC is just going to have to suck it up and find a new way to get donations. One way would be to let users opt into text messaging alerts and educate them on how to add key numbers to their Contacts app.
Even if Apple isn't categorizing political texts as spam, the behavior of the texts certainly feels like spam. And while these political entities might not like it, I certainly welcome the granularity and control iOS 26 provides.
iOS 26 Messaging app changes
There are a lot of tiny changes to the iOS 26 app that'll make managing messages from SMS, RCS, and iMessage a bit easier. There are more categories than just spam and unknown, plus there are fine-tuned controls in Settings.
Messages categories are easy to access
In Messages, the top right shows a standard "filter" icon. Tap that and you'll see Messages, Unknown Senders, Transactions, Promotions, Spam, and Recently Deleted.
Transactions has subcategories including Finance, Orders, and Reminders.
Unlike Mail categories, users don't have a way to recategorize messages. For example, a message from Twelve South should be under "Promotional," but it still shows up in "Unknown Senders."
There are some controls available in Settings -> Apps -> Messages. The Unknown Senders section has a few toggles and options.
Screen Unknown Senders is what sends things like political texts to the Unknown Senders category. It's on by default, but can be toggled off.
Allow Notifications has four toggles -- Time Sensitive, Personal, Transactions, and Promotions. If users would like to get notified and have a badge show up on the Messages app icon for one hour, then toggle any or all categories as desired.
So, all is not lost for the NRSC and other political campaigns. Simply educate constituents to toggle these settings as needed.
Otherwise, perhaps it might be a good time to rethink how to get political donations outside of cold calls and spammy unsolicited texts. While it was necessary and worked with previous generations, it likely isn't going to fly in the notification-overwhelmed masses of today.
Apple is right to have these filters on by default and it at least provides toggles. Above all, no one should be relying on unsolicited, incessant text messages to fund a political movement.
It's 2025, get people to sign up for a newsletter. Don't waste time going after Apple for a perfectly reasonable feature.
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Comments
If you send me txt messages asking for money, I'm unlikely to EVER donate to you again.
That lawsuit was actually about Gmail, not Messages / texts, allegedly being biased by flagging Republican candidates' mass emails as spam (but not Democratic candidates' emails). What was funny about that case (which was dismissed by the judge with prejudice - meaning it can't be refiled) was that the systems the RNC used to send the emails did not properly employ DKIM, PSK and DMARC while the DNC's servers did. That is why the messages were going to spam; it had nothing to do with political bias. But rather than just properly configure their email servers' authentication, they chose to sue for the right to use those unsecured servers to solicit donations without getting flagged as spam.
I would call that useful practical AI tech, I don’t care about AI when it comes to drawing social media pictures this however is a perfect example of what useful AI can/could be helping to solve a persistent problem.