Political content is refused outright on platforms that prohibit it

The requirementstatement

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

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.usecase + campaign.sample[]
Where it liveslayer: Message contentMESSAGE_CONTENT
How Ekas settles itdetectability: DeterministicDETERMINISTIC; Settled in code from the values you submitted. No model involved, no judgement call, same answer every time.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Wait on someone elseTERMINAL_EXTERNAL; Needs an external system or a waiting period, such as IRS propagation, a vetting result, or a carrier queue.
Who requires itauthorities: Klaviyo
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies when the use case is POLITICAL, and the submission target is KLAVIYO.

Why this rule existsrationale

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 itremediation

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 yourselfattestation

Ekas flags this from what you submit, but the fact that settles it sits somewhere only you can reach.

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

1Read 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.
2Budget for the political vetting to be redone against the new route.
3Do 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.

Notesnotes

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.

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 charactersBlockingBLOCKING MSG-009HELP reply must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKING MSG-011Opt-out confirmation must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKING MSG-018An MMS campaign must attach at least one sample media fileBlockingBLOCKING MSG-019Each MMS sample file must sit under its per-type size ceilingBlockingBLOCKING MSG-031Sample messages must be in EnglishBlockingBLOCKING

All message content rules

MSG-290 is one of 122 message content rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.