Where did racist text messages sent to young Black people across metro Atlanta come from?

ATLANTA — “You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest location,” read the text message a metro Atlanta woman received this week. “Please be aware that you will be searched and that there will be weapons on deck.”

Channel 2′s Audrey Washington spoke with the mother of one woman who, like countless people across the country, received the text message.

“I was angry, but I really wanted to know how did the message generate,” the mother said.

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The text messages went out to people around the country right after the election.

Police have investigated reports from California, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. They say most of the recipients of the texts were Black and young.

On Friday, Channel 2 Action News reached out to the phone service company, TextNow.

In a statement, the company spokesperson wrote:

“TextNow has uncovered that one or more of our accounts was used to send text messages in violation of our terms of service.  As soon as we became aware, our Trust & Safety team acted quickly and disabled the related accounts in less than an hour. As part of our investigation into these messages, we learned they have been sent through multiple carriers across the US and we are working with partners and law enforcement cooperatively to investigate this attack.”

“TextNow is proud to be an inclusive service offering free mobile calling, text, and data to millions of Americans. We do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send messages that are intended to harass or spam others and will work with the authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future.”

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On Thursday, Washington spoke with 13-year-old Kayden Reynolds about the text message he received.

“I was scared,” Kayden Reynolds told Washington.

“What were you scared of?” Washington asked.

“That I was going to get picked up out of school and have to pick cotton in slavery,” Reynolds said.

Associate Professor of Information Systems at Emory University Rajiv Garg said more regulations and policies are needed to stop the harassment.

“This is truly horrible and scary,” he said. “Maybe these phone companies can say we’re going to block these messages and we’re going to inform.”

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