[g-b-r]

Can we freaking sell them dumbphones, then, and stop destroying portable computers for everyone else with that excuse?

Which incidentally is often just a pretense for other motives?

If computers have suddenly become so dangerous for normal people, and they want smartphones nonetheless, add to them a dumb-mode encouraged at the initial setup, and requiring some third party assistance to turn it off once enabled..! (and forbid apps to change their behavior if it's not enabled)

[ValdikSS]

Lots of dumb phones are trojaned on a firmware level. Trojans are different, but in general they allow the third-party (malware author) to accept SMS and forward them over internet. This is used to register accounts on a services which requires a phone number.

Here's my article about that from 2021. It's for the devices sold in Russia, but this issue is worldwide: https://habr.com/ru/articles/575626/

And here's more detailed research of two particular devices: https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/trojan-digma/

[mlrtime]

"Can we freaking sell them dumbphones"

Nothing is stopping the guy at Walmart or Tmobile from selling them dumbphones, or are you implying they are forced to?

[RunSet]

Try letting the blame trickle down from the pyramid's apex instead of blaming the footman.

Here is the first iPhone ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bvfs4ai5XU

The ad depicts it as a mere phone instead of a potentially hostile Turing machine. There is equivalent messaging in the android ecosystem but its advertising is not so ubiquitous.