* CNN…

Authorities across the United States are investigating after racist text messages – some with references to “slave catchers” and “picking cotton” reminiscent of the country’s painful and bigoted past – have been received by children, college students and working professionals from unrecognized phone numbers

* A sample…

* NBC…

It is unclear who is behind the mass text messages, what motivated them or how they obtained phone numbers for swaths of Black people. But some of the anonymous numbers appear to be tied to TextNow, a text messaging service that allows users to obtain untraceable, “burner” phone numbers.

A TextNow spokesperson told NBC News in a statement that it is aware of the messages. “As soon as we became aware, our Trust & Safety team acted quickly, shutting down the accounts involved within the hour,” the statement said. “TextNow is proud to be an inclusive service offering free mobile text and data to millions of Americans. We do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages and will work with the authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future.” […]

A spokesperson for the CTIA, the official trade association representing the wireless communication industry, told NBC News in a statement that several wireless carriers were impacted by the mass texts and the association is “pushing back on the aggregators which handle text message campaigns like this from the outset.”

Those wireless companies have got to crack down hard on all of these mass texts. Yeah, they make money off of them, but too bad.

* The vile messages were sent to Illinoisans, too…

Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued a statement in response to reports of racist text messages from anonymous senders to Black and Brown Americans, including students, around the country.

“Hate has no place in the state of Illinois. Full stop. I am outraged by reports of these offensive, racist texts and am particularly saddened to learn these hate-filled messages have even been received by students, including in Illinois. I urge any Illinois resident who has received one of these racist text messages to contact local law enforcement or the Help Stop Hate Helpline, or to file a complaint with my office’s Civil Rights Bureau.”

* Raoul has been active on this topic for quite a while now. From a 2022 press release…

Attorney General Kwame Raoul expressed support for the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) proposal to help cut down on unwanted text messages by requiring mobile wireless providers to block texts from invalid, unassigned, or unused numbers, and from numbers on a Do Not Originate (DNO) list. In addition, Raoul and a bipartisan collation of attorneys general are asking the FCC to continue pushing the wireless industry to help protect consumers. […]

Illinois is a member of the national Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force, which investigates and takes legal action against the telecommunications companies involved in illegal robocalls.

In 2022, Raoul joined a coalition of 33 attorneys general in filing a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court defending the anti-robocall provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

In August 2019, Raoul joined a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from all 50 states and Washington D.C. in partnering with 12 phone companies to create a set of principles for telecom companies to fight robocalls. In June 2019, Raoul, in cooperation with the Federal Trade Commission, announced a major crackdown on robocalls that included 94 actions targeting operations around the country that were responsible for more than 1 billion calls. Raoul has also submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission urging the adoption of its proposed rules on enforcement against caller ID spoofing.

This has to stop.