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Google United States Politics

Google's Black Box Algorithm Controls Which Political Emails Land in Your Main Inbox (themarkup.org) 122

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Adrianne Jeffries, Leon Yin, and Surya Mattu, reporting for The Markup: Pete Buttigieg is leading at 63 percent. Andrew Yang came in second at 46 percent. And Elizabeth Warren looks like she's in trouble with 0 percent. These aren't poll numbers for the U.S. 2020 Democratic presidential contest. Instead, they reflect which candidates were able to consistently land in Gmail's primary inbox in a simple test. The Markup set up a new Gmail account to find out how the company filters political email from candidates, think tanks, advocacy groups, and nonprofits. We found that few of the emails we'd signed up to receive -- 11 percent -- made it to the primary inbox, the first one a user sees when opening Gmail and the one the company says is "for the mail you really, really want."

Half of all emails landed in a tab called "promotions," which Gmail says is for "deals, offers, and other marketing emails." Gmail sent another 40 percent to spam. For political causes and candidates, who get a significant amount of their donations through email, having their messages diverted into less-visible tabs or spam can have profound effects. "The fact that Gmail has so much control over our democracy and what happens and who raises money is frightening," said Kenneth Pennington, a consultant who worked on Beto O'Rourke's digital campaign. "It's scary that if Gmail changes their algorithms," he added, "they'd have the power to impact our election."
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Google's Black Box Algorithm Controls Which Political Emails Land in Your Main Inbox More

Google's Black Box Algorithm Controls Which Political Emails Land in Your Main Inbox

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  • gmail is free (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    so don't complain about what Google does with it...
    • That's what Lenin told the Russians. Is this a mere coincidence...or something more?

    • Soon college and health care will be free. Again you aren't allowed to complain.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        So, Gmail users get to vote for Google management now?

        Don't underestimate the power of democracy. There's been a concerted effort, I think, to discredit democracy, and it's not necessarily coming from Russia. The less involved common people are in democracy the more people who can afford lobbyists are in control.

    • Not one of the candidates does the accepted and standard confirmed-opt-in dance before subscribing people. And some don't give more than lip service to the notion of opt in.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by green1 ( 322787 )

        opt-in? many politicians don't even respect opt-out!

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by DeVilla ( 4563 )

          This is true. Various DNC campaigns in Iowa (where I have never lived) keep calling and paging me. They claim (incorrectly) that my name is Colin and that they have my number because I voted once in Iowa. (Again, never lived there. Never voted there.)

          When confronted enough, they claim "Colin" must have had my number before me. I've had this number since before 2000. The calls start a few election cycles ago.

          In any case, they claim they'll take my number off their lists, but it always winds back up o

      • Laws are for peasants, not kings.

      • Most businesses don't do it either. I get pay statements and all kinds of other shit for other Martin Espinozas. ATT is a major offender, so is HBO. Also ADP and Experian.

    • Yeah, but the proposed EARN IT Act that threatens and is borderline blackmail/extortion for the FAANGS means they have lots of things possible they might do to weaken/ turn off encryption as the AG wants. Curate the emails so the toadies pushing for STAZI like controls don't win in the upcoming election. Lots of ways innocent impartial AI might do this. As lobbyist's and donors control the laws, it is about time the gang make it clear who is the real master. Avalanche spam weighting is another non-discrimi
    • It's simpler than that: fuck Google and fuck you.

  • I only lament the wasted bandwidth

  • The more spam I get from Politicians (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @06:48PM (#59779956)

    the less likely I am to vote for them.

    I'll make an informed decision instead.

    • This is not spam. The testers signed up for the email lists.

      At least Mayor Pete hired competent people to manage his mailing lists.

      Elizabeth Warren completely failed to do that.

      Hint: If your emails look like spam, they will be treated like spam.

      • Given spam is commonly associated with fraud, perhaps it's not much of a surprise that Beto, an Irishman trying to present as hispanic, is one to complain about this.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xenx ( 2211586 )

        At least Mayor Pete hired competent people to manage his mailing lists.

        You claim that, except I am getting spam email from Pete's campaign. Even if I had signed up, 10 emails in less than 2 days is spam.

      • Well, a lot of it is spam. What I've found is that I sign up for a candidate's messages during a campaign, and maybe some affiliated groups, and then after the election when I click "unsubscribe" I get some bullshit form that asks me questions. That's not necessary, just give me an unsubscribe button like a normal person. So I click "spam" a few times and it goes away.

        That's why so much of it is in spam.

    • Basically the algo I use to deal with all spam. The companies that spam me the most are the least likely to get my money. Or in this case, my vote.

  • ...as I got no spam political emails neither in my inbox nor in my "spam" folder at all... ...which is a great sign as I would love to see the whole current politician gangs to be jailed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      The article is about the results when a user CHOOSES to sign-up for political emails from presidential campaigns.

  • When I look at my outlook (hotmail) mail, even Microsoft promotional emails do not show up in the primary inbox (the focused one). If I purchase something from the store, the receipt goes in there, but if they do a follow up for promotion it goes into another tab (or spam), even if I "sign up".

    Signing up is not an open check for unlimited obstruction. If people consistently skip your email content, the filters will learn to not ignore them. It is that simple.

    What we learn from this is Pete Buttigieg, and An

  • Ditch Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by noobiedoobiedo ( 6194604 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @06:53PM (#59779986)
    Moving off google is the only good answer

  • "Main" Inbox? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @06:54PM (#59779992)

    You're telling me people use those bullshit filtered views of their inbox instead of just looking at the fucking inbox?

    • People tend to use tools that are convenient, and some of those people don't recognize the risks. Since they vote, I care a lot about what things may improperly influence incautious people.

    • Exactly... I turned those extra inbox things off as soon as they introduced em.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Falos ( 2905315 )

        1) Leave autofilter on
        2) Complain about autofiltering
        3) ???
        4) Bitch about slashdot not supporting emoji quotes

    • No. I just keep them as secondary spam boxes. I never look at them, but it keeps shit out of the inbox.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Shocking! People who chose to have their emails "smartly" organized don't agree with 100% of the decisions Gmail's "smart" algorithm made?!

      Unbelievable.

  • What's frightening is that people are so easily swayed by money and political propaganda. It's very zombie like.

    People don't know their true power. [twimg.com]

  • Google used to mark the Easter Sunday on the Calendar. Now, it no longer shows in there. You will have to find another calendar for that. But Google made sure Super Tuesday is marked in there.
  • As long as none of them land in my Inbox, I'm happy.
  • Gmail is my only mail. I am a heavy email user for 50 years. I just looked at my google spam, I have zero Political Letters. I check the other places a message might by pass by my inbox nothing Political was found. Perhaps this topic is simply a Hate posting. I love all the thing Google does for me. The haters are the evil here!

  • Warren and money (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ka9dgx ( 72702 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @07:19PM (#59780092) Homepage Journal

    Long ago, I signed up with Warren's campaign... never once did they ask me to do something... it was always, ALWAYS about giving money. It's no wonder her emails get filtered out as spam... they never talk about anything but sending them money... like all spam emails do.

    Don't blame the black box when it gets things right.

    • Re:Warren and money (Score:4, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @07:29PM (#59780128)
      Maybe she should be running to be a Nigerian Prince instead of U.S. President.

    • Long ago, I signed up with Warren's campaign... never once did they ask me to do something... it was always, ALWAYS about giving money. It's no wonder her emails get filtered out as spam... they never talk about anything but sending them money... like all spam emails do.

      Don't blame the black box when it gets things right.

      Along those lines, I once learned to never give any of them money. You'll be bombarded with them asking for more money forever. You'll actually start hoping they lose their next election so they leave you alone.

    • The opposite (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      I gave money to Warren, and I get daily emails asking me to help with a phone bank or to knock on doors.
      • Why give money to a fake socialist when there's a real one running? Vote Bernie! I am! We are changing the laws of supply and demand and at ballot box! Free shit for everyone!
        • Did Bernie's email get through the filters then?

        • We're building a revolution [wikipedia.org] based on the belief that faith in repetitively stated ideologies is a fundamental principal in achieving a progressive agenda! We can't lose! Bernie 2020, or 2024 (if he's still alive)!

    • This is because Bernie started the whole bullshit donor purity tests, which he holds over the heads of the other candidates. So, unless your name is Steyer or Bloomberg, panhandling for donations is a massive part of keeping your campaign viable.

      I find the insistence that the average working man be expected to fund campaigns ironic, as it comes from the same folks who constantly bitch that the rich aren't paying their fair share.

      "We're going to get big money out of politics and make the rich pay their shar

    • I haven't seen political spam do anything more than "Vote for me" and "Send Money". There may be that oddity out there, but hasn't come across me yet.

  • One thing that makes Gmail's spam and such filters work really well is that it's based on Google's giant data collecting algorithm.

    If you write an email that most people either click "spam" or "delete" immediately, Google learns that and it gets sorted as spam for other users, as well as marking your mailings as potential spam the next time you send them.

    So the real takeaway is to quit writing generic emails that people see and click delete on and write more engaging emails where they may read and process.

    T

  • You could just, you know, have elections that aren't determined by how much fundraising candidates can wring out of people. You could have actual campaign finance laws with teeth like the civilized world. It's not obligatory to auction political offices. Gmail isn't the problem here.

    • You could just, you know, have elections that aren't determined by how much fundraising candidates can wring out of people. You could have actual campaign finance laws with teeth like the civilized world. It's not obligatory to auction political offices. Gmail isn't the problem here.

      Until we get said laws about campaign finance Gmail is very much the problem here. They have far more impact than a few Russian ads on Facebook.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        I suspect Jon "password" Podesta would agree - he relied on Gmail for all his campaign emails, but was "hacked" when someone tried to login to his gmail account and tried the password "password".

      • Uh, why would anyone use Gmail in the first place?
        I don't know about the USA but every ISP I've ever used offers email addresses, and yes, they filter out spam too, using global spam systems, but... Gmail? Why?
        I use a 3rd party program and my ISPs email address and my emails aren't mined for data that can be used to try to get ads past my privacy settings (I'm not using Chrome, either). At least they're not mined by Google for data...
        And as has been said already by others, if I want to know about a politici

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tippen ( 704534 )

          Uh, why would anyone use Gmail in the first place? I don't know about the USA but every ISP I've ever used offers email addresses, and yes, they filter out spam too, using global spam systems, but... Gmail? Why?

          People don't want ISP-based email addresses because that means their email address changes when they change their ISP. Given that two of the most important ways of contacting people these days are their mobile number and their email address, who wants to go through the hassle of changing those when you can avoid it.

          That's not even taking into account the other big problem of using email addresses as your login for all those internet sites, services and memberships out there. Yes, you can change (most of) th

    • How? Considering Michael Moore's free speech (Score:5, Informative)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @08:00PM (#59780266) Journal

      I would love to see how you "get the money out of politics" while respecting freedom of speech. That would be really cool; I just don't see how it can be done.

      I think most would agree that if I print up some flyers saying "Trump sucks because ..." and I hand those out to my neighbors, that's protected free speech.

      If you and I together print and hand out flyers, still free speech, right? Note we spent $100 printing the flyers.

      If that's protected free speech, how is it different for Michael Moore and his friends to print up some copies of a mockumentary? Him and his buddies spent several million doing that, yes. Do you cap how much you can spend on your free speech? Funny thing there is nobody complained about Moore spending millions on political movies promoting leftist politics, when somebody made a similar (though perhaps more accurate) conservative movie, the internet went ape shit and the Obama administration tried to say it's illegal. I can see why somebody doesn't like "the other team" promoting their ideas, but doesn't the first amendment give us the right to do that?

      I do have a weird idea for donations directly to campaigns. Under current law, you have to report who donated to which candidate. So for example everybody knows that Clinton was mostly financed by Wall Street, so we know whom she owes favors to. What if that was reversed? What if the FEC released donations to the candidates quarterly and the candidates were NOT allowed to see who contributed? You could donate to a candidate who represents what you believe in; the candidate wouldn't know that you did, so you couldn't "buy" a politician so easily.

      It's a hard problem.

      • The differences between the examples that you give and what happens today are:
        1. That documentary presented facts, not opinion.The fact that you label it "leftist politics" reflects more on your politics than his.

        2. It didn't tell you to vote for a particular candidate.

        3. You know who made the documentary, unlike much of the dark money that is supporting superpacs today. Some of the dark money has come from overseas, which is illegal, but the Citizens United decision (combined with the fact that this admin

        • I find it interesting that you look at this series of politicians:

          Clintons: Started with a less than a million, ended with $240 million (gained $239 million)

          Obama: Started with $1 million, ended with $40 million (gained $39 million)

          Trump: Started with $3,700 million, ending with $3,100 million (lost $600 million)

          And you figure that it's Trump making money from the presidency. ROTFL! That's fucking hilarious!

          There are a LOT of bad things to point out about Trump.. more than enough. Pretending he's Clint

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by whoever57 ( 658626 )

            I don't think you can read. Go back and read my post: I never mentioned Clinton or Obama.

            But to answer your lame attempt at a point: Clinton and Obama made their money after leaving the Whitehouse.

            Finally, you have a logic error. Just because Trump is a terrible businessman and loses money from his businesses does not mean that he isn't benefiting from would-be donors putting money into his businesses and reducing his losses.

            And there is no independent validation that he was ever worth anything like the num

      • I do have a weird idea for donations directly to campaigns. Under current law, you have to report who donated to which candidate. So for example everybody knows that Clinton was mostly financed by Wall Street, so we know whom she owes favors to. What if that was reversed? What if the FEC released donations to the candidates quarterly and the candidates were NOT allowed to see who contributed? You could donate to a candidate who represents what you believe in; the candidate wouldn't know that you did, so you couldn't "buy" a politician so easily.

        Say you're running for office and I drop in and ask you for some favors that if you guarantee will net you a $200 million contribution from me. You agree and next quarter you have $245 million in donations. Unless you normally expect that amount you can be fairly confident that I've contributed $200 million. If there's any doubts I can just keep the receipts from transferring the funds. Now maybe I could be a little sly and only have donated $190 million in the hopes that there'd be enough small donations t

        • > you guarantee will net you a $200 million contribution from me. You agree and next quarter you have $245 million in donations.

          Well yes, if one person contributes four times as much as everybody else combined, it's going to be noticeable that the total is now 5X. If it cost $200 million to get a politician's attention, that would be a major improvement.

          When I read the first part of this next part I thought you were missing something a bit obvious, but then I realized you've got a great idea:
          --
          I think th

  • "The investors" put in the fix for their candidate, obviously

  • If that email address was someone who actually likes Buttigieg - for example - then it could be harmless and useful targeting.

    I personally do NOT want to see fundraising emails from Warren, but wouldn't mind getting them from Buttigieg. If this is what happens because Google knows me well enough to target ads, that's fine.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      I think their "smart" filtering (organizing) is a bit confused by a dozen different candidates for the same office... Or I suspect mass emails sent from mass-mail services are being marked as mass-marketing emails, which, these are.

      A nothing burger IMHO.

  • ... I don't use your stuff.

  • I have always hated Google sorting my emails. I want to sort my own emails with my own rules. Just please make that easy. No joke, I've had gmail bury important recruitment emails from competing companies...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      You could just pay $2/month for your own email.

      • Doesn't internet access come with at least 1 to 5 free emails anyway?
        It does in Australia.
        My email address hasn't changed since at least 1993... though admittedly I regretfully changed from that ISP when they got taken over and things went sour, fast, so I do pay $25/year for it now, though I have free email addresses from my current ISP - that I don't use.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DogDude ( 805747 )
          Yup, most ISP's in the US offer free email, too, but yes, you end up eventually having to switch, so that's why I pay for my email, too. And, I have my own domain, which is great for making unlimited throwaway addresses.
  • I hope to never hear from any of these democrats. Politicians are bad in general. The reason I like Trump is that he is not a career politician. KAG 2020.

  • Isn't it possible that some campaigns use bulk email services that are used for "promotions" and thus their email servers are marked as "promotion"?

    Besides, as fundraising solicitation from a political campaign IS a promotional email, they are promoting a politician.

    I read my gmail account on my cellphone, and thus bypass any such "organizing" effort by Google.

    It's important to note the emails weren't removed, deleted, or marked as SPAM, they were simply directed to a particular folder in the GMAIL app.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      'campaigns use bulk email services that are used for "promotions" and thus their email servers are marked'

      Not only possible but probable. Guaranteed none of the email is generated from the domain of the sender, hence the algorithm sees historical 'penis pill' offers from the sender and marks it as spam.

      Either way, the mail is delivered. Users reviewing their spam folder who transfer the mail to the inbox fixes the issue.

      The above is a major simplification of how their spam filter works as there's a

  • I don't want it, I don't need it and it hopefully lands in Spam or I'll block it with a filter.

  • What political ads in my gmail box? I never see any, ever.

    Am I lucky, or am I one of the Great Unwashed who isn't worth marketing, pandering, or proselytizing to?

  • I lived in Nancy Pelosi's district 15 years ago. I hit the spam button on every email I get from her and yet they still appear in my inbox. She's still sending me emails to the email address I only ever used for cali government websites (DMV, FTB and such) (but that is another thread).

    conversely many things I'm actually interested in seeing in my inbox end up in spam even when I tell google that they aren't spam. And this is with a paid org, not "free (you and everyone you communicate with are the product)"


  • Mike Masnick over at Techdirt had a good take on this yesterday:
    "No, Google Isn't Hiding Elizabeth Warren's Emails To Promote Mayor Pete"
    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200226/22551943992/no-google-isnt-hiding-elizabeth-warrens-emails-to-promote-mayor-pete.shtml [techdirt.com] (Techdirt)
    (from the not-how-it-works dept)
    And, logically, it comes down to who writes the copy the least like spam
  • Feel free to send all political ads to my trash.

    kthxbye

  • There's something shady going on with a lot of gmail. They really don't want companies to reach out directly to their customers (same for non profits).

    IE, check out this dark pattern: If you're getting spam miscategorized (which happens a lot for mail lists of a certain size), it's not enough to just click not spam. You'd think clicking that would whitelist that address. Nope. You have to go to the trouble of setting up a filter to override gmail's spam behavior. If you don't, the mails will keep gett

  • Can someone tell me how to get the republican candidate in Oregon to go to spam? I mean I've marked several messages as spam, unsubscribed, set up a filter, sacrificed a bucket of KFC, wtf does it take to get them OUT of my primary Gmail box?

    • Get real e-mail and stop using free shit. Freedom of the press belongs to he who owns the press. Buy your own press and the freedom can be yours too. Use someone else's press and you have to abide by their rules. Let your testicles descend from your belly into your bag. It is quite an amazing experience.

  • But I keep getting fucking spambot texts which is way more annoying.
  • I've not had one - not a single solitary one - email about the US elections. Long may it remain like that.

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