An iPhone update set to roll out this September is raising major red flags for conservatives. Fundraisers warn Apple’s latest “text filtration” system could cripple Republican outreach, shutting down voter communication just as campaign season heats up.
“It’s no surprise that Big Tech wants to stop Donald Trump and other Republicans from communicating with people, because they’ve tried every other method to interfere already,” said Sean Dollman, founding partner of American Made Media Company, parent company of Launchpad Strategies, which served as Trump 2024’s exclusive digital firm.
“Big Tech has suppressed him, suspended him, and banned him outright. And now they’re trying to make it so he can’t text anybody either. But MAGA won’t be stopped, and MAGA will always find a way.”
The update, iOS 26, will automatically push texts from unknown numbers—like those used for voter registration drives, campaign alerts, and fundraising efforts—into a separate folder with no alert notification. That means millions of conservative voters could never even see the messages meant to keep them engaged and informed. Democrats, who lean less on text campaigns, stand to lose far less.
This isn’t the first time Republicans have faced roadblocks from Silicon Valley. Back in 2022, a North Carolina State University study revealed Gmail marked over two-thirds of conservative campaign emails as spam while allowing most Democrat messages straight into inboxes. The GOP estimated that cost candidates a staggering $2 billion between 2019 and 2022 alone. Then-RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Senator Rick Scott, and Congressman Tom Emmer blasted the system at the time, saying, “Big Tech has been silencing conservative voices and actively working against Republicans for multiple cycles. Silicon Valley oligarchs are suppressing free political speech.”
History looks poised to repeat itself—this time through text messaging. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already sounded the alarm, warning the update could drain more than $25 million from GOP coffers. Meanwhile, Apple insists the filter—renamed “Screen Unknown Senders”—will simply tidy up inboxes by separating texts from numbers without prior contact. But with Republicans using text outreach two-to-one compared to Democrats, the political impact is clear.
Adding to the suspicion is timing. The change arrives just as Democrats scramble to recover from their 2024 collapse, when Joe Biden dropped out in the final stretch, Kamala Harris lost to Trump, and working-class voters shifted decisively toward the GOP. Now, with control of Congress hanging in the balance, conservative fundraisers fear tech “guardrails” could become the latest weapon in the digital war against their message.
Trump’s digital team is already fighting back, urging supporters to save campaign numbers in their contacts or reply to texts to avoid being filtered out. Recent fundraising texts reviewed by Fox News Digital carried urgent notes like: “From Trump: Did you save my number yet?” and “Download the Trump Contact Card to add me to your address book.”
The pattern is hard to ignore: first email, now text. Each time, it’s conservative campaigns footing the bill, while Democrats slip by with little disruption. And once again, it’s everyday voters who risk being cut off from the information they need to make their voices heard.
Democrats prove again that they can’t win without cheating