After All That Nonsense… Republicans Aren’t Even Using The Spam Backdoor They Forced Google To Create
from the you-did-what-now? dept
Do you remember all the nonsense from earlier this year, in which executives from the Republicans’ favorite spamming operation misread a study about how various email providers handled political mailings and absolutely flipped out? The study didn’t say what they claimed it said: that Google was nefariously sending GOP emails to spam filters. It showed that in an untrained inbox, Google was more likely to declare Republican political messages as spam than Democratic political messages (the same study also showed the opposite for Outlook and Yahoo Mail — those sent more Dem emails to spam than Republicans, but nobody complained about that). Of course, the same study showed that this differential in Gmail went away for anyone who trained their spam filter.
Of course, there was also the fact that Republican emails also… are way more spamlike. Even some of their biggest supporters admit that. Also, their tech talent is weaker, as we noted in a story about how Senator Marco Rubio lost his shit at Google… and only afterwards found out it was because his own tech team botched their email configuration, rather than Google doing anything nefarious.
Either way, Google (somewhat stupidly) caved in to this nonsense pressure after Republicans in Congress introduced a bill that would require all email providers whitelist political spam. In response, Google put forth a pilot program that would whitelist spam from recognized political candidates. The pilot program had to get FEC approval to make sure it wasn’t seen as an illegal in-kind contribution, which allowed the world to weigh in on the program, and they all, almost universally, hated the idea. Of course, the FEC’s determination was based solely on whether or not this was an in-kind contribution (it was not), and thus (begrudgingly) allowed the program to move forward.
So, now that the program has been in effect, I guess it’s time to check in on all those Republicans who demanded exactly this in order to make sure their spam messages go through. And… it turns out that exactly none of them have signed up for the pilot program, according to some reporting by Makena Kelly at The Verge:
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Verge that, nearly a month after the pilot’s launch, the RNC has not joined or even applied for the program, even as the party continues to mount political and possibly legal pressure against Google. The RNC did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the committee’s decision to abstain from the pilot program.
Perhaps part of the problem is that Google made it clear that it would remove any participant if more than 5% of their whitelisted emails were then flagged as spam, and GOP candidates and their spamming partners know there’s no way they can keep their emails so unspammy that they won’t all be designated as spam anyway.
As that article notes, it’s just a simple fact that Republicans seem to go a bit overboard on the spammy nature of their emails:
The volume of emails sent to individuals by the RNC has risen steadily as the midterms approach, according to data collected by the Archive of Political Emails and viewed by The Verge. Throughout 2020, the organization sent only one or two emails in a day — but by the end of the next year, it was common to see more than 10 emails in a single day and still increasing. For October 2022, the data shows 80 different fundraising calls sent in just the first seven days of the month.
The content of the RNC’s messages can also resemble spam, using misleading subject lines, excessive punctuation, and intimidating language around deadlines to encourage donors to send money immediately upon receiving the message. As part of the January 6th hearings, congressional investigators argued that former President Donald Trump raised more than $250 million for an Election Defense Fund to overturn the 2020 election results that never existed. While the money went to Trump and not the RNC, the committee often structures its emails in a similar style to the Trump campaign.
While the Verge article presents various theories as to why the Republicans haven’t signed up, the real answer is likely that it’s way more valuable for Republicans to play victims and to pretend that “big tech is censoring us!” as a messaging strategy, than to actually be part of the whitelist program. Republican officials make some excuses as to why they haven’t signed up, arguing that the program doesn’t do enough, but what Republicans really seem to want are big Fox News headlines whining about how censored they are by Google, rather than to actually use this program, which would only prove that it’s not Google that’s the problem, but their own email techniques and practices.
Of course, as the Verge piece also notes, Fox News story reveals that the GOP is just… bad at handling email:
In that same story, the RNC also confirmed that it only updated its message “segmentation to factor in recency of click, petition signature, and donation” last month. Email segmentation is standard for both political and commercial email programs, taking into account how often a recipient engages with messages before sending the email to them at all. (The RNC did not respond to requests for comment to clarify its email segmentation practices.)
“It’s absolutely standard practice and has been for over a decade to suppress what we call the ‘inactive people.’ Maybe they haven’t actually gotten around to unsubscribing, but they’re not really interested anymore,” Will Bunnett, principal at the digital firm Clarify Agency, said, describing the practice. “If the RNC just started doing that, they’re well over a decade behind.”
Filed Under: email, gmail, politicial spam, rnc, whitelist
Companies: google
Comments on “After All That Nonsense… Republicans Aren’t Even Using The Spam Backdoor They Forced Google To Create”
I’d say it’s like the dog that caught the car but that would be insulting to dogs everywhere.
Perhaps part of the problem is that Google made it clear that it would remove any participant if more than 5% of their whitelisted emails were then flagged as spam, and GOP candidates and their spamming partners know there’s no way they can keep their emails so unspammy that they won’t all be designated as spam anyway.
That I suspect is the real sticking point, in that if they sign up for the program they’d quickly be disqualified and it will be ever slightly harder to claim that it’s Google blocking their messages when Google can just turn around and show the numbers about how no-one wants their emails.
No, much easier to keep crying about how persecuted they are and how tech companies have it out for them than to risk providing the evidence that to the extent tech companies might not want them around it’s because their users don’t want them around.
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Re: Re:
Considering that we’ve seen numerous mass reporting campaigns by liberals, they would simply need to orchestrate a campaign whereby leftists would sign up and then spam report. If they could exceed 5%, then they get a campaign censored. We see this all the time on techdirt, so it would certainly be coordinated for google. Very smart of the Republicans not to take the bait.
Re: Re:
Where’s your proof of these accusations?
Re: Re: Re:
Drop your pants, bend over and all of the proof you ever offer up will be available.
Re: Re: Koby, Koby, Koby…
Do I get a lot of spam from democrats and left-wing groups? Yes, a shitload.
Did I see one of them whine about Google’s spam filter? Not even once.
Your false equivalence is showing.
Re: Re: Bravely Sir Koby ran away!
Hey Koby, what campaigns are being censored?
Be specific…
Re: Re:
While I’m not denying that these things can and do happen…
Maybe it’s because you need to look at yourself in the mirror.
No one HERE needs to start a damn campaign to flag your NeoNazi ass.
Re: Re:
“Considering that we’ve seen numerous mass reporting campaigns by liberals”
Have we? Or, is this the excuse you’ve been fed for your favourite candidate being legitimately outvoted?
Links, please.
Re: Re: Re:
I don’t know about “mass reporting” but I get a crap ton of political emails from every party, every day.
ALL of it is spam in my book!!
Re:
This raises the question of how these politicians got the email addresses. If nobody wants the mail, then, presumably, nobody signed up for it either. In which case it looks “spammy” because it is, in fact, spam.
Re: Re: Not Much of a Mystrery
I frequently get e-mails from MicroSoft offering to sell me spam lists, qualified spam lists, spam lists of people in particular businesses, and the like. I presume that I am not alone, because MicroSoft would not be sending these offers only to one person whose reflexive response is to send them to spamcop.
It seems likely that the Republican committees also receive such solicitations from MicroSoft. Perhaps their response is not the same as mine.
Re: Re: Re:
Are you sure the mails are actually from MS and not from someone posing as MS to give an air of legitimacy?
Re: Re: Re:2 Not Much of a Mystrery
Well, now that you mention it, yes, I am quite sure that the e-mails are from MicroSoft. I can tell because I examine the headers, and they show me the IP addresses of the spam servers connecting to my mail server.
Given the IP addresses, I can confirm that they are MicroSoft using a high-tech command-line tool called ``whois”. I have done that. There are also some DNS verification tricks which might be too complicated to to explain here, but which also assure me that the e-mails are from MicroSoft.
Spamcop also verifies that the e-mails are from MicroSoft servers.
Perhaps, though, it is that if they participated in the pilot program, they’d have one less excuse to Play The Victim.
Anyone here?
Understand that TECH doesnt work, unless there is human intervention? Manipulation of data? So that you GET what you want and NOT what you DONT want?
Or is it that republicans cant figure out that there is a SPAM button, and how to get RID of 99% of the crap they are getting.
Who has over 30000 in the inbox from 1 year?
Re:
Gemmy
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The joke is that the place is called “Sneed’s Feed & Seed” which is clever in itself and quite funny to those with a mature sense of humour but what’s really just hilarious about it is that if you look closely at the front of this store, Sneed’s Feed & Seed, you can see a line that reads “Formerly Chuck’s”. Now, this might go over the average viewer’s head as this, THIS, is peak comedy. I doubt anything will ever be as funny as the joke about Sneed’s Feed & Seed. Are you ready for this one? So, like I said, the place is called “Sneed’s Feed & Seed” and this sign says “Formerly Chuck’s”, which means that when Chuck owned the place, well, I don’t have to tell you…
The sign is a subtle joke. The shop is called “Sneed’s Feed & Seed”, where “feed” and “seed” both end in the sound “-eed”, thus rhyming with the name of the owner, Sneed. The sign says that the shop was “Formerly Chuck’s”, implying that the two words beginning with “F” and “S” would have ended with “-uck”, rhyming with “Chuck”. So, when Chuck owned the shop, it would have been called “Chuck’s Feeduck and Seeduck”.
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sneed
The joke is that the place is called “Sneed’s Feed & Seed” which is clever in itself and quite funny to those with a mature sense of humour but what’s really just hilarious about it is that if you look closely at the front of this store, Sneed’s Feed & Seed, you can see a line that reads “Formerly Chuck’s”. Now, this might go over the average viewer’s head as this, THIS, is peak comedy. I doubt anything will ever be as funny as the joke about Sneed’s Feed & Seed. Are you ready for this one? So, like I said, the place is called “Sneed’s Feed & Seed” and this sign says “Formerly Chuck’s”, which means that when Chuck owned the place, well, I don’t have to tell you…
Finally, the secret way to beat a Republican has been revealed: force him to check his email.
Re:
Ongezellig predicted this.
I mean, yeah. For the same reason Greg Abbott doesn’t actually care that his Martha’s Vineyard stunt has actually made those asylum-seekers eligible for a visa they otherwise wouldn’t have been. They’re not doing these publicity stunts because of their practical outcomes, they’re doing them because they’re publicity stunts.
Re:
And specifically because they’re not interested in doing anything. They want to enrage their supporters to make sure they get re-elected and the only real legislation or policy or program they want to progress is money stuff like tax cuts for their donors.
Re: Re:
Well, its the only way they can get their supporters not to see just how badly they will be screwed by their elected representatives.
Re: Re:
Never underestimate your average Republican’s ability to vote against their own interests. Oh, you think those tax cuts are going to put extra money in your middle-class pocket and fix the local bridge before it collapses? Sucker.
Re: Right Circus, Wrong Clown
Actually, it was Ron DeSantis, using money intended to benefit Florida taxpayers.
He is running for re-election this year, and using state money for campaign stunts is certainly easier than raising his own funds. Sad to say I will have to vote for his opponent, “Chain-Gang Charlie”,.
Re:
I see nothing wrong with sending illegal trespassers to locations that have publicly stated criminals are allowed and welcomed.
Re: Re:
OK. What does that have to do with the asylum seekers who were following legal procedures who were caught up in the stunt? Who, it seems, are now being given a fast track to continue legal immigration after the court dates they got by following the rules were jeopardised.
Bonus: it seems that De Santis’s crew hired an illegal immigrant to carry out the stunt: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article267445097.html
Meanwhile the main idea I have to question is that if illegal immigration is so much of a problem in Florida, why De Santis had to target people in Texas for his stunt. I mean, I know the real reason is to fool xenophobic idiots, but surely even you would click at some point why this makes no sense.
I do agree with you on one point, though – people fleeing actual oppression would be better off dealing with people with some compassion and familiarity with the real world. The misdemeanor crime of crossing a border is far less problematic than the felonies a lot of “real Americans” seem to be committing on a regular basis, which apparently includes the people they want to vote for.
Re: Re: Re:
What people following illegal procedures were “caught” in the act of sending illegal criminal trespassers to cities that claim to accept and protect criminal trespassers? Never showed up in the NYT daily news feed.
So maybe one or two mistake was made? And they are being properly accommodated for the error?
Let’s see, where are are large mega groups in the thousands of illegal trespassers crossing, a state on the Mexican border, or one with no foreign border at all. Stopping them at the source takes far less effort than finding them 3 states away and fully dispersed into the public.
Ask yourself, are you more upset because the loud mouth hypocrites got called on their claims, to prove their claims… or because criminals were moved in the first place.
Because what this series of events has shown is that only one claimed sanctuary of so many has any intention of following through completely.
Their supporters aren’t known for their attention span or ability to see truth even as they are coughing their lungs up in an ICU…
I knew it.
It’s just like when Walmart greeters finally said “Merry Christmas” and Fox News still didn’t think it was enough.
The right wing is really just generating outrage for the sake of outrage. They’re an abandoned school building: no principles, and no class.
Re: Gotta scratch that persecution complex/fetish somehow
Well of course, it wouldn’t do for the Eternal (non)Victims to ever admit that they’re not in fact the poor persecuted victims they base so much of their self-identity on.
Re: Re:
They don’t want to play by the rules, is what I’m seeing.
They want to BE the rules.
And they’ve done more than their fair share to take over everything, to the point where their shitty ideology has spread to outside of the US.
Re: Re: Re:
Stephen threw up a quote a while back that described the mindset as believing that there are or at least ‘should be’ two groups: Those that are protected by the law but not bound by it, and those that are bound by the law but not protected by it.
Re: Re: Re:2 The quote and a link for full context:
— Frank Wilhoit
(Source)
Re: Re: Re:3
Much appreciated.
they only did it because they could! typical of those with power and how they abuse it!!
If only…
…Someone would do something about the 20 oversized posters sent to my snail mail box every day.
Re:
I’d assume you signed up for some very dodgy mailing lists during your Trump fanboy days. Do they allow cancellations, or do they hang on to the easy marks even if they complain?
Re: Re:
What the hell are you talking about?
Campaigns always buy the mass mailing addresses accounts from the post office directly.
It’s called a bulk mail account and it send an item to everyone on the route.