Judge Tears Apart Republican Lawsuit Alleging Bias In Gmail Spam Filter (arstechnica.com) 184
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A federal judge yesterday granted Google's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which claims that Google intentionally used Gmail's spam filter to suppress Republicans' fundraising emails. An order (PDF) dismissing the lawsuit was issued yesterday by US District Judge Daniel Calabretta. The RNC is seeking "recovery for donations it allegedly lost as a result of its emails not being delivered to its supporters' inboxes," Calabretta noted. But Google correctly argued that the lawsuit claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the judge wrote. The RNC lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in US District Court for the Eastern District of California.
"While it is a close case, the Court concludes that... the RNC has not sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith in filtering the RNC's messages into Gmail users' spam folders, and that doing so was protected by Section 230. On the merits, the Court concludes that each of the RNC's claims fail as a matter of law for the reasons described below," he wrote. Calabretta, a Biden appointee, called it "concerning that Gmail's spam filter has a disparate impact on the emails of one political party, and that Google is aware of and has not yet been able to correct this bias." But he noted that "other large email providers have exhibited some sort of political bias" and that if Google did not filter spam, it would harm its users by subjecting them "to harmful malware or harassing messages. On the whole, Google's spam filter, though in this instance imperfect, is not morally blameworthy."
The RNC was given leave to amend another claim that alleged intentional interference with prospective economic relations under California law. The judge dismissed the claim as follows: "The RNC argues that Google's conduct was independently wrongful because '(1) it is political discrimination against the RNC, (2) it is dishonest to Google's users and the public, and (3) Google repeatedly lied about it.' As established above, political discrimination is not prohibited by California anti-discrimination laws and so Google's alleged discrimination would not be unlawful. The latter two reasons do not provide a 'determinable legal standard' under which the Court could find the conduct wrongful; they rest on a 'nebulous' theory of wrongfulness which other courts have rejected." The RNC "has failed to establish that Defendant's alleged interference constituted a separate, independently 'wrongful act' that would be an appropriate predicate offense" but "will be granted leave to amend this claim to establish that Defendant's conduct was unlawful by some legal measure," Calabretta wrote. Google said in a statement: "We welcome the Court's finding that there are no plausible allegations that Gmail's spam filters discriminate for political purposes. We will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages."
"While it is a close case, the Court concludes that... the RNC has not sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith in filtering the RNC's messages into Gmail users' spam folders, and that doing so was protected by Section 230. On the merits, the Court concludes that each of the RNC's claims fail as a matter of law for the reasons described below," he wrote. Calabretta, a Biden appointee, called it "concerning that Gmail's spam filter has a disparate impact on the emails of one political party, and that Google is aware of and has not yet been able to correct this bias." But he noted that "other large email providers have exhibited some sort of political bias" and that if Google did not filter spam, it would harm its users by subjecting them "to harmful malware or harassing messages. On the whole, Google's spam filter, though in this instance imperfect, is not morally blameworthy."
The RNC was given leave to amend another claim that alleged intentional interference with prospective economic relations under California law. The judge dismissed the claim as follows: "The RNC argues that Google's conduct was independently wrongful because '(1) it is political discrimination against the RNC, (2) it is dishonest to Google's users and the public, and (3) Google repeatedly lied about it.' As established above, political discrimination is not prohibited by California anti-discrimination laws and so Google's alleged discrimination would not be unlawful. The latter two reasons do not provide a 'determinable legal standard' under which the Court could find the conduct wrongful; they rest on a 'nebulous' theory of wrongfulness which other courts have rejected." The RNC "has failed to establish that Defendant's alleged interference constituted a separate, independently 'wrongful act' that would be an appropriate predicate offense" but "will be granted leave to amend this claim to establish that Defendant's conduct was unlawful by some legal measure," Calabretta wrote. Google said in a statement: "We welcome the Court's finding that there are no plausible allegations that Gmail's spam filters discriminate for political purposes. We will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages."
Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Good (Score:4, Informative)
The opposite of Republicans isn't Democrats, and the center right (which is what the Democrats are) are far from communist.
The opposite of Republican is American patriot.
This fact is not up for debate or negotiation after the last 5 Republican presidents and Republican majority congresses.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
When you have to go back over 150 years to find a time when your political party was inarguably in the right about something, YOU MIGHT BE A REPUBLICAN!!
Re:Good (Score:3)
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
>The democrats are still pissed off that the Republicans freed their slaves. And if you downvoted this, you just proved my point.
So I won't downvote you, even though you clearly deserve "Troll".
Certainly you are aware that the two distinct groups of people switched parties - once Democrats became anti-racist, a lot of the racists switched parties. That is how Republicans freed the slaves and those kind of people are largely now Democrats? No? Yes? Either way you appear to be an idiot. since that info is readily available.
Re: Good (Score:4, Informative)
>It doesn't matter how many times this drivel gets posted, it doesn't make it right. Remember that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed largely by Republicans. Name a single politician who switched parties since then. Many are still alive.
And what happened? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed with bipartisan support but were championed by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson. Democrats became less racists, as a party. This disaffected a large portion of the racist Democrats. Then, as well, the Republicans had the brilliant "Southern Strategy", where they basically took all of their supposed morals and threw them out the window by courting these racists. That's right, they wanted them in their party! Which is even more disgusting, if you think about it. They were more interested staying in power at any cost than keeping racists from making policy.
> The only thing that changed is the elitists finally decided in the 70s that racism was bad. The yokels had known it all along.
Try the 30's - the New Deal coalition of the 1930s, led by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, brought together a diverse group, including urban working-class voters, farmers, and Black Americans, who were attracted by the economic relief offered by New Deal policies.
As far as the yokels having "known all along" that racism is bad, are you attempting to say that Republicans or so called conservatives, as a group, are less racist than Democrats at the present moment? I'd love to see your statistics on that one!
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
The democrats are still pissed off that the Republicans freed their slaves.
Can you cite a single quote from a Democrat where they even reference that Republicans freed the slaves, let alone show any sign that this has annoyed them. The only people who ever bring this up are the Republicans who want to deflect from the their current racism and attempts to defend slavery by saying that it was beneficial to some slaves:
Florida's State Academic Standards - Social Studies, 2023 [fldoe.org]
Re:Good (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:2)
It wasn't democrats trying to pretend they don't know what museums are to keep confederate statues up.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:2)
The stores themselves are a means of production (of services). They were also seized under soviet rule.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:3)
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:4, Insightful)
Rampant populism, a focus on "us vs them" problems (border, immigrants, china but curiously not as much Russia), the increasing abandonment of democratic norms and processes, desiring a single leader rule, the concept of "the media is the enemy of the people".
Now, I agree fascism is very nebulous term and gets thrown around flippantly but I think you could paint a picture of it to a good chunk of conservatives and they would agree with it so long as you didn't say the word.
I don't actually think most of anyone are actually fascists but the wing of Trump loyalists definitely are supporting it and the way he was able to overtake and capitulate the party is worrisome.
Re: Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Look, Jan 6th was the time to say "hold up, we don't do that." Instead it was a failed attempt to blame the left followed by years of playing it off as a simple bake sale that got a little animated.
Enabling that behaviour earned the right a fascist reputation. Own your shit.
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:5, Insightful)
The technically accurate term is actually right-wing authoritarianism, for which there is a long-established clinical diagnostic scale. The right-wing authoritarianism personalty traits from the scale are:
But yeah, they do hit pretty much every point on the diagnostic scale.
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Re: Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Lots of people are thinking that the country is divided, using an array of serious terms like "national divorce" to "cesession" to "civil war".
Yeah, republicans. https://newrepublic.com/post/1... [newrepublic.com]
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
You are a fascist, or at a minimum a fascist sympathizer. Your faux moral high ground is a pathetic and disgusting attempt to cover up the truth.
Re: Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:5, Informative)
It gets voted troll because it's just another trollish example of American exceptionalism. There is a small but astonishingly vocal group of people who think America is so amazingly extra super duper special that literally nothing like it ever happens anywhere else in the world every and therefore America is impossible to understand for anyone who isn't American.
The conclusion therefore is that America is a perfection of eagles or some shit and no one else can say otherwise, because they just don't understand.
Lots of countries have shitty politicians including evil ones who try to subvert democracy and they lackeys who will do whatever it takes and cause whatever damage they can to hold on to power. What's going on in America is not especially unusual by global standards.
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
No it gets voted troll because you guys can't stand the idea that you really don't know jack shit about the US. You watch a few movies, read a few online news pieces and you're experts in our politics all ready to tell us about the inner workings of our parties, government structure and policies. You don't have a clue. Your arrogance is stunning.
On the contrary, the typical American doesn't tell you how to run your country and frankly doesn't care. It is your country. Have your politics however you like. We don't express incredibly aggressive and ignorant opinions online (like you guys do about us) as if we actually knew anything. We don't. Just the same as you knowing literally nothing about us.
My Canadian inlaws are fucking hilarious to chat with, too. They say some of the dumbest most ignorant shit about the US. Not even necessarily just politicalparty stuff either. And like you guys here they are so absolutely certain in their beliefs. Based on nothing but reading the internet on occasion. But funny thing is the Canadians who moved here years ago will get into it with the ones who stayed there and try to correct their errors. The Canadians continue to insist they know better than the family members who have been here for 30+ years.
So, as expected I ate a troll mod but not until the EU crowd came online. Point proven. Thank you.
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:2)
The thing is, I don't see why you brought this up at all. This bit about whether or not Americans care about foreigners has nothing to do with what the grandparent was saying. The ascent of dictators has been repeated many times in many countries, there are a lot of commonalities. It isn't necessary to know all the details of American politics to see it happening here.
Also, and I feel like this comes up in many fields: being an American doesn't make you an expert on American politics. Americans get a lot of exposure to propaganda about American politics, but this does not make them more informed. It just makes them think they're more informed.
Re:Stop the hate speech (Score:3)
I must have hallucinate the years I lived in New Mexico then.
You are espousing more of American exceptionalism, that you're so super duper special that no one could possibly understand your unique delicate snowflake ass.
Some stuff (gun culture) is a bit of a mystery to the rest of the world and half of your own country. Your politics isn't. What you don't realise as someone who assumes America is the most unique country ever that the same patterns are observable in many other countries.
Causality (Score:2)
Re:Causality (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, they were warned to use SPF/DKIM several times and didn't. So they went to spam folder.
Shrug.
This is how it is supposed to work. They were dumb and got crushed for being dumb.
Re:Causality (Score:2)
Seriously? No wonder they get blackholed/spam-binned. If that was what was triggering it, it's widespread industry best practice for spam control. They may as well have been Nigerian princes looking to transfer millions to the USA.
They probably went to a fly-by-night lowest bidder for their mass e-mail service. No wonder alt-right social networks appear to be security sieves if the RNC can't even get that right.
At least two innocent possibilities (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
Well there's another possibility, and it's one that I think is the most likely: If lots of end users are flagging donation solicitations as spam, then Google's filters will start treating them as such.
Frankly, I flag EVERY solicitation email as spam. Doesn't matter if it's from candidates who hold positions I like, or candidates from the other side - I don't want those unsolicited emails at all.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:2)
Funny thing is (and I've commented on this before)... while I definitely lean to the left, I hardly ever see solicitation emails from Democrats - just Republicans.
I'd be curious to hear from folks who see the opposite, or who see equal amounts of email from both sides.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:5, Interesting)
I would say the amount of political solicitation emails I get is at least a 90/10 split favoring Republicans, if not higher. In fact I think they are more persistent than the Nigerian Prince that keeps offering me money.
So either the bias is deserved because they spam far more, or the bias is actually reversed and they eliminated all the emails coming from Democrats and only some coming from Republicans.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:3)
Or maybe it's because the Democrats know their audience and frequent requests for donations just wear people out?
The number of Republican requests for money is staggering - Donald Trump needs a legal defense fund! Disney is promoting homosexuality - donate to keep California money away from kids! etc. etc. etc. It seems they have raised a culture of fear - "OMG something you are against is happening! Donate now!" and are using fear as the mechanism to get money.
The democrats don't seem as prone to using fear to solicit, and likely only do it on really big things - like when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade where there's likely a lot of traction.
I mean, if you're being bombarded with money requests almost daily from the (R)s while the (D)s send out lower key campaigns that cover things that matter, chances are the latter will go through a spam filter.
It's also likely the SuperPACs behind the (R)s use the same fear to get money so it's all just "SOMETHING BAD IS HAPPENING DONATE!" "BIDEN JUST COUGHED! DONATE" that most reasonable people just end up deleting as spam. I mean, I bet there are probably still a lot of reasonable (R) voters out there who just want out of this crap and actually do work.
I mean, there's no need to request donations practically daily - most people don't want to donate more than once per year or so - and when they want to do more, they probably want to do it as a monthly contribution which you can set up during a few strategic times when people feel more charitable.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:2)
The number of Republican requests for money is staggering - Donald Trump needs a legal defense fund! Disney is promoting homosexuality - donate to keep California money away from kids! etc. etc. etc. It seems they have raised a culture of fear - "OMG something you are against is happening! Donate now!" and are using fear as the mechanism to get money.
It's also worth noting that one of the things they mention in corporate anti-phishing training is that fostering a sense of urgency is a common technique in social engineering attacks. That approach would probably trigger spam/phishing flags in modern email-sanitizing software trained for that phishing tactic, no matter who was using it. It would be trivial to take that same email, swap DNC for RNC and white supremacy or police brutality where Republican mail outs use LGBTQ or some other evangelical/Trumpist hot button, and the email likely would still get spam filtered.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:3)
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:2)
They could be sending the same amount, but it's possible (and correlates with recent election results) that a large cross-section of email recipients find the RNC fundraising emails and whatnot to be unwanted shit clogging their inbox because they fundamentally disagree with the RNC to the point of taking any action further than pressing the delete key.
I know I've reported more than a few because I really don't want to buy anything they're selling, where I'll just simply delete similar emails from candidate campaigns out of an abundance of apathy.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:2, Interesting)
I get spam from both parties and I want neither, but it still dumped the Democrat garbage into my inbox until I wrote a filter specifically to trash it.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:5, Informative)
Im not American.
Never lived in America.
Wont ever be eligible to vote in America.
Never signed up to *anything* related to a US political party.
Just checked my Gmail spam folder, and in the past 24 hours Ive received 43 begging emails from legitimate Republican candidates. 2 from Democrats.
To me, they are spam. They belong where they ended up, in my spam folder.
I dont give a shit if they are legitimate Republican begging messages, they are spam - I never requested them, I dont want them, they send them anyway.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a ton of these too and am also not American. All right wing spam.
I actually lean quite far right but these emails are so spammy it's a joke. Some of them even look like unpaid invoices or debt collection notices.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:2)
OR... the RNC uses a lot of the dog whistles that get things flagged as militant/extremist, and beyond that they know exactly who they're targeting and write 'spammy' emails to them for the same reason the spammers do - it works on that audience.
Re:At least two innocent possibilities (Score:2)
I get loads of their emails, and, saying as I live in England, and have never even visited the USA, I have absolutely no interest in receiving them; so they all get flagged as spam.
Also, relative to politics in the UK and Europe, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is at the extreme right of the Overton Window, comparable to the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, and everyone else in the US is in lunatic nut-fringe territory.
user feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd guess that some people that received these emails marked them as spam, thus helping Google's filters to filter more similar messages. If users call your messages spam then maybe they are.
Re:user feedback (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd guess that some people that received these emails marked them as spam, thus helping Google's filters to filter more similar messages. If users call your messages spam then maybe they are.
I mark ALL political email as spam. I am as unpleasant as humanly possible if they phone me. I even send back nasty text messages if they approach me that way.
No one, will change their mind about who to vote for based on a phone call or an email.
Re:user feedback (Score:2)
I'd guess that some people that received these emails marked them as spam, thus helping Google's filters to filter more similar messages. If users call your messages spam then maybe they are.
If users are the ones controlling the filters, then Google sure as hell isn't. "Filters" under any level of control by the unwashed masses are now manipulated every time for nefarious gain. Especially politics.. To assume otherwise is to assume spam doesn't exist anymore.
If we were being honest, all political emails are spam, and damn near every registered voter would see it that way at this point. If 98% of all email flying through the airwaves is legitimately flagged/blocked as spam, then "political" sits at the 98.1% threshold.
The real fix? Get your politics out of my damn inbox. People have work to do. Go back to spending a hell of a lot less effort spamming inboxes and start showing The People you're a leader by action. Show that you can speak intelligently for more than 90 seconds which is all you're going to get by design from the three-ring circus of monkey shit-throwing we call a televised "debate" these days.
Re:user feedback (Score:2)
" Simply put, to protect users at scale, we rely on machine learning powered by user feedback to catch spam and help us identify patterns in large data sets... 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."
https://workspace.google.com/b... [google.com]
So democrats get worse spam filtering? (Score:2)
So they are saying the spam filters don't work as well for Democrats than Republicans? I think Democrats may have a case then...
"tears apart"? (Score:3)
The judge found it troubling that the filter clearly showed bias, but found that a) other providers filters also show bias so it may be part of the process, and b) as a matter of culpability under the law, the gop failed to prove malice and intent.
Basically the judge AGREED with the basic premise of the suit, it just didn't reach a certain standard of law.
I'm not sure that's correctly characterized as "tearing it apart".
Re:"tears apart"? (Score:5, Informative)
The judge did not agree with the basic premise of the suit. From the actual judgement itself:
[...] the Court does not find the RNC’s allegation that Google was knowingly and purposefully harming the RNC because of political animus to be a “reasonable inference.
In other words, the judge said it was wrong to conclude that Google knowingly blocked the emails out of political animus. The large email blasts probably simply fell afoul of normal anti-spam heuristics.
Re:"tears apart"? (Score:2)
Read the summary: ..."
"...Calabretta, a Biden appointee, called it "concerning that Gmail's spam filter has a disparate impact on the emails of one political party,
Read again what I wrote.
The judge agreed there was a troubling bias.
The judge disagreed that it was provably purposeful.
The RNC claimed "Google is blocking our emails because of bias"
The judge agreed that the first part IS happening. They didn't prove the 2nd bit.
Questions of law vs questions of fact (Score:5, Insightful)
"The judge found it troubling that the filter clearly showed bias"
Judges do not decide questions of fact, so the judge here has considered the plaintiff's claims on the assumption that the plaintiff's allegations are true and found that the allegations would not support the claims even if proven.
However, since the questions of fact were not been settled, the judge cannot contradict the allegations. That doesn't mean the allegations were proven, nor were they disproven.
Re:"tears apart"? (Score:2)
The judge found it troubling that the filter clearly showed bias, but found that a) other providers filters also show bias so it may be part of the process
I'd guess it's because Republican emails are more likely to use language typically found in spam. I don't get political mail from either side, but I am a lifetime member of the NRA and I used to get a lot of stuff from them... and wow was it spammy, and that was the mail that made it to my inbox. Then I checked my spam folder and found that most of it was going there. So, I actively marked the few messages that did make it to my inbox as spam, and pretty soon I didn't see any of them.
FWIW, I am very pro-gun, but anti-NRA. Well, actually, I'm very much a fan of the training arm of the NRA, they're serious people who do a great job. I find the political arm of the NRA pretty disgusting, though. I actually agree with their political goals, but I cannot abide people who lie and exaggerate the way they do when trying to scare their members into coughing up more money. The reason I'm a lifetime member is because I'm a firearms instructor in my spare time, and you have to maintain your membership to maintain your instructor certifications. Paying a lump sum was easier than remembering to pay every year.
Re:"tears apart"? (Score:2)
It's quite disgusting how the NRA has finagled themselves into being a requirement for so many things. A lot of ranges require you to be a NRA member because they offer range insurance, for example.
Re:"tears apart"? (Score:2)
It's quite disgusting how the NRA has finagled themselves into being a requirement for so many things. A lot of ranges require you to be a NRA member because they offer range insurance, for example.
Yeah. I wonder what would happen if the NRA separated their membership into two, so you could choose whether to join the training/safety arm but not the political arm. I have absolutely no problem giving money to the former, for instructor credentialing, for range insurance, or even just to support an outstanding organization that does great things for the firearms world, but I don't want to support the political arm. It sounds like you may feel similarly.
Actually, I'd love to support the political arm, too, if they'd just acquire a little integrity.
Duh? (Score:3)
Oh no! Crazy as fuck blasts get stopped??? (Score:2)
What's next? Content filtering??
So they block emails about global warming?!? and elections stolen?!?
Anyway... so Twitter has been renamed
RNC chooses to spam (Score:3)
Yup, that's Republicans alright. Moral midgets, through and through.
Where my "correlation is not causation" peeps? (Score:4)
This would be an excellent time for them to point out that excess RNC mails caught in the spam filter does not prove that they were sent to the spam filter merely because of political bias, and that it's a result that would also be consistent with RNC mails comprising more spam.
At least it would if they actually understood what the phrase "correlation is not causation" actually meant.
Postmaster opinion (Score:2)
Re:Postmaster opinion (Score:2)
Its very frustrating dealing with Google as a medium sized sender
This sentence explains your entire post. You are involved in sending bulk email that at least some recipients consider to be spam. Google responds by tagging the emails as spam, as is their design.
Personally, I use GMail specifically because it has spam filtering that is unrivaled by any other system. I don't know who your "senders" are, but I'm going to bet that if their email reached me, I'd mark them as spam too.
Re:Postmaster opinion (Score:2)
I've never had anything I marked not spam get classified as spam.
I get hundreds of spams a day on my gmail and the false positive rate is minuscule.
You're mad because you're a spammer, and your spam isn't reaching people. Stop spamming, spammer.
Overheard at the fireplace (Score:2)
"It's a f---g filter for chrissake! We got a gazillion things to worry about, and they're worried about SPAM! If they ever bring this up again, so help me, just use the last bit of ammo reserved in that chamber...
Re:Overheard at the fireplace (Score:2)
"It's a f---g filter for chrissake! We got a gazillion things to worry about, and they're worried about SPAM! If they ever bring this up again, so help me, just use the last bit of ammo reserved in that chamber...
If it turned out to be true, you don't think that the largest email provider opting to decide who can and can not see what ideas is not bad? Not even on /.? Or is this one of those "nothingburger" gaslighting techniques?
So ... (Score:2)
... the judge admitted they were biased, but concluded that the bias wasn't in bad faith?
How are we supposed to use that for today's two minutes hate??
Theren must be some smart repubs somewhere (Score:2)
Clitoris not as sensitive as Republican on Net (Score:2)
Re:Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:5, Informative)
Google gave the RNC instructions for applying for a filter bypass. The RNC simply failed to bother and decided to file suit. https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
Re:Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
Re:Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:4, Informative)
Next are you going to say diabetes is racist?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does the filter only affect RNC emails? Couldn't Google just remove the filter?
1. You get flagged as spam when your recipients mark you as spam.
2. It affects all political e-mails, not just RNC.
3. The RNC has long used alarmist rhetoric to fundraise...OMG, Biden will destroy the world and take you guns away and make your kids trans! In the early 2000s, they had officials getting on TV talking about Democrats enacting Sharia Law FFS. Your and my political beliefs aside, you must concede that Republicans are primarily an opposition party. Their messages tend to be more about the downfalls of the Democrats being in power than the benefits of electing Republicans. They thrive off fear. They tell you the world as you know it will end if a Democrat gets elected. Democrats do this as well, but have higher ratio of positive messages to negative messages. "The Sky is Falling" messages are both a common spam tactic as well as a huge nuisance for people who disagree. "Hope and Change" is less triggering and less likely to get flagged as spam than "American Carnage."
It's not at all surprising that the party that uses alarmist messages and tactics gets mistaken for spam more often than the other party.
The spam algorithm has no political motives and was not engineered for a political cause. It's a cold, unfeeling, elaborate math equation. It's as much biased against Republicans as diabetes is racist. Sure, people of color, especially Black Americans, get diabetes more than White Americans, but diabetes has no notion of race. It's just that a greater percentage of African Americans engage in behavior that leads to diabetes...similarly, a greater percentage of Republican operatives send e-mails that resemble common spam. No one would consider a disease racist, even if it disproportionately affects one race over the other. Similarly, a spam filter is neutral, cold and unfeeling. It doesn't know a Republican vs a Democrat...it just flags messages that resemble common scam and spam tactics.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly, a left wing judge basically agreed with the RNC but said that a) it is not illegal to discriminate against Republicans in CA and b) that section 230 protects Google against all content-based lawsuits
The former is pretty obvious, the latter seems rather topsy turvy to me, since section 230 applies to protections against not moderating/editorializing content on a public website, not looking in private communication or positively editorializing content, the last section being explicitly removing the section 230 protection.
IMHO the lawsuit is just a pathway to SCOTUS to have section 230 properly defined, right now it seems to apply pretty much to protect FAANG from everything, even though it was only meant to protect public comment sections on small websites, so eg Slashdot wouldnâ(TM)t have to hire a moderator.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:3)
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
It was intended to allow moderating out spam and Cp and other odious crap of no value not to push anyone's political agenda.
FTFY.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
Re:Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:5, Insightful)
To say that would imply google is specifically targeting them and filtering their messages regardless of the user's wants/desires (which would make spam filtering useless and meaningless and essentially allow spam/malware companies to sue for blocking their content).
The reality is they most likely wrote emails that are filled with misinformation and "begging for money" (like most spam/malware/ransomware does) and google filters those messages (going to YOUR SPAM FOLDER.. so its not like you never get them, they are categorized as SPAM).. if you wanted to, YOU can flag it as not-spam from those sources, but in my personal experience, google's spam filter is pretty good.. not perfect, but almost everything it flags as spam, I agree with that its actually spam. Take a look here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/09/republican-democrat-political-fundraising-emails for information on the differences in emails from the respective parties.. (hint: while both parties tend to use some level of hyperbole and trickery, the republicans go MUCH further which of course would make it look very much like spam, like republican emails with subject lines such as "Your flight is CANCELED" with no indication that they were political emails until you opened them – the sender was labeled as "urgent notice" (In this case, it turned out the email was warning me that I was about to lose access to a proffered dinner with Donald Trump.)
Keep in mind, spam filtering for most "intelligent" is based both in suspect sources/IPs as well as content that has been routinely flagged as spam (or immediately deleted by others) so their metrics indicate the email is unwanted.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
Re:Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:5, Insightful)
But hey can't let facts get in the way of fueling the conservative persecution complex.
Re:Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
If they weren't relying on section 230, then they wouldn't be guilty of anything - they could block whomever they want... The only reason there is even a case here is because of 230's neutrality requirements..
on the flip side, they would incur liability for what users are saying on their platform...
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2, Informative)
Best part is that it was a Biden appointee that wrote this decision. It's not like it's going to get better elsewhere.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like Google's spam filter, you are free to look for another e-mail provider.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:3)
...If you don't like Google's spam filter, you are free to look for another e-mail provider.
Sounds great. I wish this argument would accelerate. It would really open people's eyes as to how much the nope-not-a-monopoly world, has become a complete fucking corrupt monopoly, and now comes with collusion Kung-fu grip.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:3)
Because we don't believe in slavery and forced labor?
Was there only one wedding cake maker in the entire city?
Is there only one email provider?
I think all of this is pretty silly, but if you take a principled position only when the issue goes your way, it's not a principled position.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
Those users had only one email address, yes.
Totally different situation to the cake maker.
Btw, I think they should have been spam boxed as they didn't use the provided bypass feature provided by Google, so fuck 'em if they can't follow the process.
Otoh, the cake maker nor any other "creative" is required to create a message they don't like but they -are- required to make a cake with no message, the same as anyone else who walks in to a cake making business.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
Those users had only one email address, yes.
They could easily get another... or they could configure gmail to forward to another, with its own spam filtering.
Totally different situation to the cake maker.
Nope, it's exactly the same.
Re: The best part (Score:3)
concerning that Gmail's spam filter has a disparate impact on the emails of one political party, and that Google is aware of and has not yet been able to correct this bias
Are the filters not based on the preferences of gmail users? That means people don't want to hear from the RNC.
Re: The best part (Score:2)
It would appear you are wrong.
https://workspace.google.com/b... [google.com]
Simply put, to protect users at scale, we rely on machine learning powered by user feedback to catch spam and help us identify patterns in large data sets
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
Mailing lists are a thing. And a person subscribing to one has no bearing on how many other recipients are involved.
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:3)
Re: Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
From TFS:
emails not being delivered to its supporters' inboxes
It would seem that it actually is.
Re:Google guilty as fcuk of filtering RNC emails (Score:2)
Google is acting like the Stasi steaming open envelopes.
No, Google is acting like the recipient's secretary, opening their boss's incoming mail and putting it into separate "important mail" and "junk" in-trays. If the recipient doesn't like that, they can give their secretary robot new instructions (mark as "not spam", whitelist the sender, etc) or fire them and get a new provider. Just as they could with a human secretary. If the sender doesn't like it - tough.
Would they be able to sue because they sent a leaflet in the mail to someone who is rich enough to have office staff handle their mail, and those staff threw the leaflet away?