Americans receive 'threatening' automated calls telling them to stop criticising Trump

'You've been warned,' the voice on the other line says

People have been receiving 'threatening' calls about their 'derogatory' comments regarding US President Donald Trump (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

People are getting automated “threatening” messages telling them to stop posting “derogatory” comments about US President Donald Trump.

The so-called robocalls are said to be coming via the Ownage Pranks app, as Gizmodo first reported.

The beginning of the message is a man introducing himself as “Russell from the Citizens for Trump Foundation,” a grassroots organisation formed during the 2016 election.

However, it remains unclear whether the group is actually behind the phone calls.

There was no immediate response to requests for comment from the group.

“Ok, you’ve been warned. We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” the messages said, adding “Have a nice day.”

Brett Vanderbrook of Dallas, Texas said the voicemail he received “was kind of threatening. I was dumbfounded at first and then creeped out.”

He said he posts fairly regularly on social media about issues like gun control, immigrant rights, and advocating for LGBTQ issues, but felt none of his public posts were “derogatory towards the President.”

A man’s voice said to Mr Vanderbrook: “We’ve been monitoring some of your posts and it does seem that you’ve been making some rather negative comments about President Trump.”

“Listen, we’re going to have to ask you to lay off on the negative and derogatory posts about President Trump, okay?,” the voice said.

The calls also ask recipients: "what’s your problem, anyways? Don’t you want to make America great again?,” parroting Mr Trump’s famous slogan.

It appears the calls began sometime in July and even people in Canada have reported on social media that they received them.

Another recipient Eric Wright of Florida, told Gizmodo he “talks s*** about Trump all the time” publicly via Twitter and privately via Facebook posts.

He put a recording and transcript of the voicemail on YouTube in an effort to warn people.

“It’s really shady...an older person like my grandma could believe it and thinks she’s being watched,” Mr Wright said.

Both men said their numbers were private, which means these robocalls may not just be the result of going through a list of phone numbers akin to the ones purchased by telemarketing companies.

At least some of phone calls reported originate from Florida area codes, but robocalls are difficult to trace with the number of web-based phone services.

A spokesperson for Ownage Pranks told The Independent its service "are not automated robocalls at all. They're done manually by people using the app who know the call recipients. There is a live person on the other end...Robocalls require automation and random dialing of a database of numbers - which our app does not do. "

The company said it has guidelines that "clearly states that people should only be calling people that they indeed know themselves. The people who app users call manually through the app are generally expecting it. If not, and it's simply being used in an attempt to harass in any way, user accounts are banned immediately."

If people want to take action, the company website has a way to block a person's number from receiving such calls.

To avoid receiving such calls, some people have also taken to registering their numbers in the National Do Not Call registry.

"Additionally, any number that is ever called using the application will get a pre-recorded message when calling that number back “You’ve been pranked by ownagepranks.com”. It also provides them an option to immediately block themselves from ever being called by the service again," the spokesperson explained.