# MSG-290 — Political content is refused outright on platforms that prohibit it

> A political campaign cannot be registered through an ISV whose own terms prohibit political message content, whatever the carriers allow.

- **Rule ID:** MSG-290
- **Layer:** Message content (`MESSAGE_CONTENT`)
- **Checks:** `campaign.usecase + campaign.sample[]`
- **Severity:** BLOCKING — Breaking this rule gets the submission rejected outright.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** Deterministic (settled in code from the submitted values)
- **Fix type:** Wait on an external system or a required interval
- **Required by:** Klaviyo
- **Applies:** Applies when the use case is POLITICAL, and the submission target is KLAVIYO.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/message-content/msg-290/

## Why this rule exists

Political messaging is registrable at TCR under a dedicated use case with its own vetting, so a committee that clears that vetting reasonably expects to be able to send — and then finds its platform refuses the category as a matter of its own policy. Klaviyo does exactly this. Discovering it after the vetting is complete and the election calendar is running is the expensive way to find out, and there is no appeal because nothing has gone wrong with the registration: the platform simply does not carry this business.

## How to fix it

Move the programme to a route that carries political traffic. That is a commercial decision only you can make — pick a provider whose acceptable-use policy permits political content, register the brand and campaign there, and budget for the political vetting to be redone against the new route. Nothing in the campaign record needs to change, so do not spend a cycle editing it.

## Check this yourself

**Have you confirmed in writing that the replacement platform's acceptable-use policy permits political content?**

1. Read the acceptable-use policy, then get the answer in writing from the vendor. This is a vendor term, so no error code or vetting result will warn you.
2. Budget for the political vetting to be redone against the new route.
3. Do not spend a cycle editing the campaign record — nothing in it is the problem.

*What wrong looks like:* A committee clears political vetting, expects to send, and finds its platform refuses the category as a matter of its own policy. There is no appeal, because nothing has gone wrong with the registration.

## Notes

Off-platform and provider-tagged. What the user has to do themselves: confirm the acceptable-use policy of any replacement platform in writing before rebuilding, because this is a vendor term rather than a carrier rule and no error code or vetting result will warn them. Deliberately not generalised — most routes carry political traffic, and applying Klaviyo's position as a superset would refuse legitimate campaigns everywhere else. Source: prohibited-content.md.