Links must not be intended to deceive or cause harm
The requirementstatement
Embedded links must not be designed to mislead the recipient or deliver harm.
- Severityseverity
- BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- campaign.sample[] + link destinations
- Where it liveslayer
- Message contentMESSAGE_CONTENT
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- AI · formAI_FORM
- A semantic question about what you wrote: whether a description matches a use case, whether a name looks like a filed entity. Judged by a model against written criteria.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Hard stopHARD_STOP
- Not remediable. Resubmitting will not help, and anyone offering to fix it is selling you a rejection.
- Who requires itauthorities
- CTIAT-MobileTwilioTCR
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
Phishing and malware delivery are Severity-0 findings carrying "cease all messaging", and the audit scope explicitly includes the landing page and any downloaded artifact — not just the SMS body. This is judged on intent and presentation, not on the URL string.
How to fix itremediation
Remove any link whose presentation misrepresents where it leads or what it does. Link text and destination must match.
Rules you will hit next
Other message content rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.
MSG-008Opt-in confirmation must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-009HELP reply must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-011Opt-out confirmation must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-018An MMS campaign must attach at least one sample media fileBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-019Each MMS sample file must sit under its per-type size ceilingBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-031Sample messages must be in EnglishBlockingBLOCKING
MSG-101 is one of 122 message content rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.