Google Messages users should be able to disengage from an unwanted group text without having to block the individual people in it.

 

Leaving one conversation should not require ending individual communication with everyone in it.

 

Google has already made important progress with Rich Communication Services (RCS). In RCS group chats, users can remove themselves from the conversation. But traditional SMS and MMS group conversations do not provide the same capability.

 

That leaves users with a frustrating problem: they may want—or need—to stop receiving messages from one particular group conversation while still remaining in contact with some or all of the people in that group individually.

 

Those are two very different choices.

 

Someone should not have to choose between continuing to receive messages from an unwanted group conversation and blocking people they still need to communicate with.

 

This affects ordinary conversations

 

There are countless reasons someone may reasonably want to leave a group text.

 

A person may have been added by mistake. A workplace conversation may no longer involve them. A family or social group may continue long after they want to participate. A conversation may become overwhelming, contentious, or simply irrelevant.

 

Yet in an SMS or MMS group conversation, there may be no straightforward way for that person to say, in effect:

 

“I no longer want to participate in this conversation, but I still want to be able to communicate with these people individually.”

 

That should be a normal option.

 

For people experiencing bullying or abuse, the problem can be much more serious

 

This issue goes beyond inconvenience.

 

Someone experiencing bullying, harassment, or abuse can be included in a group text where messages are used to intimidate, demean, pressure, embarrass, or emotionally harm them.

 

That person may desperately want to separate themselves from the group conversation while still needing to communicate with certain participants individually. In some circumstances, continued communication with another participant may even be legally necessary.

 

Blocking every member of the group is therefore not always a reasonable solution.

 

For someone attempting to establish safety, boundaries, or emotional distance, an unwanted group conversation can become another avenue through which harmful communication continues to reach them.

 

People should have greater control over that boundary.

 

Google can give users a better option

 

We recognize that SMS and MMS operate differently from modern RCS messaging and may not technically allow someone to “leave” a group in exactly the same way an RCS chat does.

 

But that should not prevent Google Messages from providing a practical solution.

 

We are asking Google to develop a feature that allows a user to permanently disengage from a specific SMS or MMS group conversation without blocking the individual participants.

 

Whether that is accomplished through filtering future messages from that particular participant combination, suppressing the conversation locally, or another technical solution is ultimately for Google's engineers to determine.

 

The goal is straightforward: users should be able to stop receiving messages from one unwanted group conversation without severing their ability to communicate individually with the people in it.

 

User control matters

 

Text messaging is woven into our families, friendships, workplaces, schools, and everyday lives.

 

Users should have reasonable control over which conversations they continue to participate in.

 

For most people, this feature would simply make Google Messages easier and less frustrating to use.

 

For someone dealing with harassment, bullying, abuse, or another difficult interpersonal situation, it could mean something much more important: the ability to establish a digital boundary without unnecessarily cutting off other lines of communication.

 

We are asking Google to give Google Messages users a clear and effective way to disengage from unwanted SMS and MMS group conversations while preserving their ability to communicate individually with the people involved.

 

Leaving one conversation should not require ending individual communication with everyone in it.

 

Please sign this petition and join us in asking Google to give users this choice.