US campaigners fear Apple's "aggressive" messaging filter in iOS 26
iOS 26 optionally hides messages from unknown broadcasters. A Republican campaign committee warns that this could lead to a massive drop in donations.
The Messages app in iOS 26 optionally filters out messages from unknown senders.
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A small change in iOS 26 could have a massive impact on election campaigns in the US, a campaign committee fears. With “aggressive message filtering,” Apple is ensuring that political text messages “will be treated as spam in the future,” warns the official campaign committee of the Republican Party for the US Senate NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee).
This will have a massive impact on fundraising, voter mobilization, and digital campaigns, according to a memorandum published by Punchbowl News.
Campaign committee expects millions in donations to be lost
The function will not only hide spam senders, but will also “push every political message into insignificance”. Unlike the network operators, Apple ignores the fact that the messages originate from verified senders, the NRSC complains. The campaign committee estimates that direct donations amounting to 25 million US dollars will be lost as a result. The Republican Party could even lose 500 million US dollars in revenue as a result, the organization believes. After all, 70 percent of smaller donations are collected via text message, and iPhones make up around 60 percent of smartphones in the USA.
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There are only a few weeks left until iOS 26 is released to the public, the committee notes. There is only a small window of time left to act, as Apple has not yet taken any further action, according to the NRSC.
iOS 26 integrates extended filter in Messages app
With iOS 26, Apple is expanding the filtering of the pre-installed Messages app, which now supports messaging via iMessage, SMS, and RCS and is extremely popular in the USA. At the user's request, messages from unknown senders generally end up in a separate view and are no longer signaled by sound and message. Only the app itself still indicates this with a small symbol in the main view. This function is already available in iOS 18, but so far it has been quite hidden and is likely to be activated only rarely. In the future, the app will indicate this prominently.
Apple has also integrated its local spam filter into the Messages app, which already worked reliably in the beta. iOS 26 is now available for testing as a public beta, and the update is expected to be released to the public in mid-September.
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