The Republican National Committee has launched a lawsuit against internet giant Google, alleging that the corporation has suppressed their email solicitations ahead of the November midterm elections, which Google denies.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday evening in the District Court for the Eastern District of California, accuses Gmail of “discriminating” against the RNC by unfairly sending the organization’s emails to users’ spam folders, negatively impacting fundraising and voter turnout efforts in pivotal swing states.
In a statement to The Associated Press, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said, “Enough is enough; we are suing Google for their clear bias against Republicans.” “Google has routed important end-of-month Republican GOTV and fundraising emails to spam without explanation for ten consecutive months. We are committed to ending this obvious trend of bias.”
Google released a response disputing the allegations. “As stated numerous times, we do not censor emails based on political affiliation. Gmail’s spam filters follow user activities, according to company spokesperson José Castaeda, who also stated that the business gives training and guidelines for campaigns and strives to “maximize email deliverability while eliminating undesired spam.”
The complaint focuses on how Google’s Gmail, the largest email service in the world with around 1.5 billion users, screens solicitations and other content to prevent users from receiving excessive spam. Google and other big email providers create programs that flag communications that are likely to be seen as unwanted and send them to spam folders that are rarely, if ever, accessed by account holders.
According to the lawsuit, Google “relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam mailboxes during key moments in election fundraising and community building,” namely near the end of each month, when political groups tend to send more messages. “It makes no difference if the email is soliciting donations, voting, or community outreach. And it makes no difference if the emails are delivered to individuals who requested them “It is readable.
Google claims that its algorithms are neutral, but a North Carolina State University research published in March indicated that Gmail was far more likely to ban messages from conservative causes. Based on emails sent during the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, the study predicted that Gmail classified around 10% of emails from “left-wing” candidates as spam, compared to 77% of emails from “right-wing” candidates.
The survey indicated that Yahoo and Microsoft’s Outlook were more likely than Gmail to prefer pitches from conservative causes.
In April, the RNC utilized this study to ask the Federal Election Commission to investigate Google’s alleged “censorship” of its fundraising efforts, which it claimed amounted to an in-kind contribution to Democratic candidates and served as “a financially devastating example of Silicon Valley tech companies unfairly shaping the political playing field to benefit their preferred far-left candidates.”
Since then, the commission has approved a trial scheme that allows political groups to circumvent spam filters, allowing their fundraising emails to reach the principal inboxes of recipients. Gmail participates in the ” Verified Sender Program “, which allows senders to bypass standard spam filters and gives users the opportunity to unsubscribe from a particular sender. If the unsubscribe button is clicked, the sender should delete the recipient’s Gmail address from their distribution lists.
The RNC has not signed up to participate in the trial program as of Friday evening.
Republicans who have attempted to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election without parroting the most extreme and baseless claims about corrupted voting machines and stolen votes have frequently blamed large technology companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, for being biased against former President Donald Trump. Numerous state and local election authorities, courts, and members of Trump’s own administration have stated that there is no evidence of the widespread election fraud Trump claims to have occurred.