cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/36488526
My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail’s spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats. Indeed, according to recent reporting, Alphabet has “been caught this summer flagging Republican fundraising emails as ‘dangerous’ spam— keeping them from hitting Gmail users’ inboxes—while leaving similar solicitations from Democrats untouched….” Likewise, commenters on the FTC’s request for information regarding Technology Platform Censorship have complained that Google is using a partisan approach in administering its spam filters. And finally, as you know, similar concerns have resulted in ongoing litigation against Google in other settings.
This isn’t about Republican officials using Gmail, it’s about Republicans targeting Gmail addresses.
If you don’t want to be identified as spam, don’t send spammy content. Really that simple.
I am not telling that to republican politicians. There are clearly a lot of people who use gmail for republicans to care about it and I have seen people here worried gmail would stop respecting their filter settings. So I advise them to stop using gmail.
Article says similar spam from Dems got through.
It’a all going to boil down to heuristics and phrasing. Republicans are sending content more likely to be identified as spam OR reciepients are flagging it as spam more often.
… doesn’t it say Republicans claim similar spam from Democrats got through?
My main takeaway is the Republicans want to block Democrat messaging, and via projection, assume Google is doing the reverse.
No. A university study… I think.
So when I said “article” I meant the FTC letter OP linked to which, via footnote #2, in turn cites an article in New York Post which in turn cites the study.
A 2022 study by researchers at North Carolina State University found that Gmail flagged 59% more Republican fundraising emails as spam than Democratic ones during the leadup to the 2020 presidential election.
“We observed that the [spam filtering algorithms] of different email services indeed exhibit biases towards different political affiliations,” the researchers said at the time.
The consulting firm’s tests involved sending identical emails through Gmail, with the only difference being that one contained a WinRed donation link and the other contained an ActBlue link.
“The only difference between the two emails was the link,” the memo said. “ActBlue delivered. WinRed got flagged. That is not a coincidence.”
But I am confused: was a consultancy firm hired by the university? What kind of study contains a “memo”?
Even if it is indeed biased, surely Google is a business and can do as it pleases? Can Google/Alphabet get away with telling the FTC to eat a bag of dicks?
It could also be that winred is more often associated with spam because emails with winred links use a style more associated with other actual spam. Like if spammers use words like Trump a lot to try to scam victims, and a lot of those emails get flagged as spam, then the word Trump itself becomes more highly correlated with spam. And since the word Trump is highly associated with winred links, maybe winred gets caught up in the rule set/heuristics that associate Trump fundraisers with spam.
Ahh, fair point on the source. I should probably let myself wake up more before posting :P
You’re right though, it’s a weird “study”… feels more like a quick test I’d run locally to check my processes than anything with real rigor.
Compare the two, like side by side. Trust me one will clearly read as spam while the other reads as a typical fundraiser.