Mobile communications giant T-Mobile has on the low updated its terms of service to include fines if content runs afoul of its perceived violations of “hate speech and profanities.”
For now at least – this applies to marketing texts (application to person, A2P – commercial and enterprise service), rather than individual consumers. For example, businesses and campaigns emailing you will be subjected to this type of scrutiny – not messages you send to friends and family.
The changes, however, do come just as the campaign for next year’s election is heating up in the US.
And people previously “burned” by this heat, and their opposition stance to the current US administration, are closely looking at development of this kind.
The story right now is that starting January 1, T-Mobile has new rules for such users it has decided violate its rules, and therefore, bandwidth.
The core of this policy is something – somewhat unfortunately, too – dubbed, SHAFT – Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco.
And, the point seems to be to police messages sent via T-Mobile that are seen as being in violation of either legal – or “moral” issues, as the company sees fit.
Now, there was originally confusion about what T-Mobile might quietly be up to. (As of right now, and for the time being) it is A2P traffic that might violate the top tier, “severity-0/Sev” = of the company’s violations rules.
And that means, different tiers of violations that start if you want to use the operator for phishing, smishing, or social engineering – all of which incur “direct harm to individual users” – that fine would be $2,000.
Then there’s tier 2: “$1,000, for illegal content (included content must be legal in all 50 states and federally).”
Then we – start – coming to SHAFT. $500, please, if you violate – but not limited to – cannabis, marijuana, CBD, illegal prescriptions, and solicitation. Also profanity and “hate speech.”
Apparently, companies such as T-Mobile think they have the right to start issuing fines to people now.
One thing to keep in mind about T-Mobile’ SHAFT (rules), though it’s not quite well defined – is that they are in keeping with the nebulous concept of rules that other tech/telecoms companies have been adopting as of late.
The question of how exactly that will be enforced (nevermind what it actually means) for the time remains unclear.
But there is clearly the intent to live up to a certain political/ideological standard currently in place in the US.
