In November 2024, shortly following the 2024 United States presidential election, numerous Black Americans began receiving anonymous text messages referencing slavery and assigning them to a "plantation group" indexed by a letter or number. The messages appear to have been mass-generated by a computer program and contain slight textual variations, frequently addressing the recipient by their first name and containing other personal information. Some messages also included the N word, while a variant targeted Latino Americans with threats of deportation rather than slavery.[1][2]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation condemned the texts and announced an official inquiry into their source. The origin of the texts is unknown, with some of them apparently being routed through Poland using anonymizing software. Although some of the messages mentioned Donald Trump, who won the election, a spokesman for the Trump campaign denied any connection. A conservative radio host who received one of the texts claimed, without evidence, that they were the work of a leftist group attempting to make Trump look bad.[1][2]