One more reason not to use SMS/MMS and use nothing but fully end-to-end-encrypted apps, such as Signal Private Messenger (my recommendation).
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher
What's happening? Beginning January 1, 2024, T-Mobile is instituting three new fees for non-compliant traffic that result in a Severity-0 violation. A Sev-0, (Severity-0) represents the most harmful violation to consumers and is the highest level of escalation with which a carrier will engage with Bandwidth. This applies across all products (SMS or MMS, Short Code, Toll-Free, and 10DLC) that traverse T-Mobile's network.
The non-compliance fine(s) (USD) will be assessed for every Sev-0 violation issued as follows:
Tier 1: $2,000, for phishing, smishing, and social engineering Social Engineering refers to the practice of targeting individuals in a way that manipulates individuals to reveal private information like credit card numbers, or social security numbers. Tier 2: $1,000, for illegal content (included content must be legal in all 50 states and federally) Illegal content includes, but is not limited to, Cannabis, Marijuana, CBD, Illegal Prescriptions, and Solicitation. Tier 3: $500, for all other violations including, but not limited to, SHAFT Please review the T-Mobile Code of Conduct Section 5.2 for a list of all disallowed content What do I need to know? If traffic continues to receive Sev-0 violations, carriers maintain the right to suspend a brand and remove access to their platforms, and Bandwidth may block traffic.
What do I need to do? Ensure that all traffic leaving your network is wanted and compliant.
We recommend you review the following resources to ensure you are following the most up-to-date messaging requirements:
Messaging compliance and best practices Messaging fraud mitigation practices Section 5, “Prohibited Campaign Content,” in the T-Mobile Code of Conduct
Originally posted by Paten: It looks like it might be aimed at organizations rather than individuals but I could be wrong.
Doesn't matter whom it is aimed at, rather that it is aimed at all! It's not their bandwidth if a customer pays for it. Nanny policies like this will end up getting a lot of people killed in the future.
___________________________ No thanks, I've already got a penguin.
Posts: 2890 | Location: Lake Anna, VA | Registered: May 07, 2012
I understand that it's still bad policy but I'm just saying it's unlikely you and I have to worry about being fined for inviting friends out for a night of binge drinking.
Instead of fining people, why don't they just terminate their service.
How do they expect to collect their fines?
My one paypal account I use once a year for my xbox live service got hacked somehow recently along with my rarely used ebay account to buy a best buy gift card. I was able to stop everything after that and it took paypal over a week to refund me.
Then they emailed me saying it matched my purchasing activity even though I sent them all the evidence so I promptly closed my bank account and my paypal account. Now I have paypal collections calling which I blocked.
If Tmobile fines my credit card, I can just contest it then close it. It's why I refused to move my tmobile auto pay to my debit card.
I'm thinking this might be aimed at the people who I don't have any relationship with who send me spam texts and phishing calls trying to scam money from me. But it could be used against organizations I might have a connection to like the NRA, the Republican Party or some other political group that employees at T-mobile may not agree with. So obviously they would need to clarify exactly who they are targeting while promising not to interfere with political speech.
If you look at her original Tweet and accompanying screenshot, you'll see the reference to the SHAFT materials. I believe the H in shaft refers to Hate-Speech.
Whatever that is.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”—H.L. Mencken
Posts: 9187 | Location: West Michigan | Registered: April 20, 2006
Cancelation of Service is certainly the most effective option, but that raises the question of what other providers are in the market that are worth moving too?
