Ian Smith was doing homework in his school's computer lab the night after the election when he says he received a text message ordering Black people to report to plantations for slavery. He wasn't the only one — the same message began appearing on phones across the United States.
"It's just like, oh this is a joke but y'all are comfortable enough to say this joke That's a problem. That's the disturbing part," Smith said.
The FBI says it's aware of the messages and is investigating with the Justice Department and other authorities.
"This is potentially a hate crime and it's even possible that you might call this a racially motivated violent extremist threat," said Ken Gray, former FBI special agent.
Some of the messages mentioned the incoming Trump administration.
A campaign spokesman said, "the campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages."
The messages sometimes use the recipients' names, raising questions over how this is being done.
Experts point to data breaches that contain sensitive information.
"When we take pieces from each one of those data breaches and we cross compare it with things like social media publicly available profiles we can discern certain markers whether it's gender or race," said Nikolas Behar, adjunct professor of cybersecurity at the University of San Diego.
Authorities are urging anyone who receives these texts to report them.
"Really, other than being careful about what messages you view, what text messages you open up, there's very little you can do. There's no apps that can protect you from receiving such a message," said Gray.
