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.
PSA: Don’t use gmail. Sure, it is a good email and is free. And you may not care about privacy, even though you should. But the bigger danger is your e-mail being tied to your wider google and youtube account. Get banned for spamming youtube live chat, or writing “inappropriate” comment, or maybe for using ad-blocker in the future, and you can say goodbeye not just to your youtube account, but emails and drive data. This has already happend in the past, when youtube algorithm evaluated votening in livestream chat by sending 1 or 2 as spam and banned peoples entire google accounts.
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.
Article says similar spam from Dems got through.
… 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?
“The only difference between the two emails was the link,” the memo said. “ActBlue delivered. WinRed got flagged. That is not a coincidence.”
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.
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.
I’ve had about enough of these fascist snowflakes.
If their staff weren’t incompetent and understand SPF records, DKIM and DMARC, they wouldn’t be flagged as spam. But when morons who don’t understand the tech fail at using it, it’s not the systems fault for identifying it as garbage. Source- me, 25 years supporting email systems.
Those don’t guarantee delivery. A known spam domain or IP, among a few other things, can also result in blocks.
And are also the sender’s problem.
Maybe Republicans should stop trying to scam us, then.
Then what would make them Republicans? Just the bigotry?
Yeah, like in the good ol’ days
Back when men were men. And women couldn’t vote.
And small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
https://workspace.google.com/blog/identity-and-security/an-overview-of-gmails-spam-filters
User feedback, such as when a user marks a certain email as spam or signals they want a sender’s emails in their inbox, is key to this filtering process, and our filters learn from user actions.
Maybe a lot of people just mark it as spam for some reason, wonder why that could be? Could it be because they simply don’t like your emails and think they feel spammy? No, that couldn’t be it, it has to be that the same company that kissed up to Trump also just hates republicans now for some reason! /s
Lol. Send me the email. I’m not just going to filter it. Y’all are so bad at email I could reply all and tank your email chain with an all hands message of my asshole. Seriously, Republicans what even is this? If you don’t want it marked as spam don’t send it to people who don’t want and didn’t ask for it.
They damn well better continue to filter spam as spam. Republican political campaign emails are more like a chain letter than an actual advertisement.
and those spam filters get trained by people marking emails as spam. Its funny that they publicly just admitted that they are less popular than democrats from a source that cannot possibly have been biased.
The better honor the filters I have set to keep that shit far from my inbox. I trust 3 week old gas station sushi more than any thing a republican can say.
Only a few years since “but her emails[sic]” and now senators are conducting official business on a pubcloud mail provider.
Superb, fucking with the spam filters will make the transition away from gmail so much easier.
