Republicans Want To Make Sure Your Inboxes Are Filled With Spam (Unless The Spam Filters Block Democrats’ Emails)
from the oh-come-on dept
It would be nice if we could go at least a day or two without Republicans playing absolutely pathetic victims over made up moral panics. A few weeks ago, we debunked the nonsense story making the rounds in Trumpist media that a new study “proved” that “Gmail censored conservatives” by catching their campaign emails in their spam filter. The actual study showed that Gmail’s spam filter did, in fact, catch more Republican campaign emails than Democrat ones, but also that the reverse was true for Yahoo and Microsoft’s Outlook email programs, which flagged more Democratic campaign emails than Republican ones.
In other words, spam filters are imperfect, and lots of campaign emails either look like spam or an awful lot of users of every email program flag those emails as spam. This isn’t surprising. Over the years I’ve occasionally gotten onto email lists for candidates of both parties, and they are just filled with never ending nonsense emails that sure feel like spam.
And spam filters are not programmed to have any political bias to them. They’re programmed to react to what users describe as spam and to filter it out of your inbox. Don’t want your campaign emails to be spam binned? Don’t send so many spammish emails.
But, because Republicans simply have to make a nonsense controversy out of everything, they took that study (leaving out the Microsoft and Yahoo parts) and insisted they had a smoking gun proving that Google was “interfering with elections.” And, to keep this nonsense story going, they’ve now filed an FEC complaint, trying to argue that the Gmail spam filter (no joke) “made illegal, corporate in-kind contributions to the Biden campaign and Democrat candidates across the country.”
Oddly, their complaint does not mention Microsoft or Yahoo, nor suggest that those companies made the same “in kind contributions” to the Trump campaign or Republican candidates across the country.
It’s almost like this isn’t a serious complaint at all, or one based on any principal other than “look at how victimized we are.” The statement put out by the Republicans over this is just hilarious. Senator Rick Scott’s quote is laughable when you know what the study actually showed:
“As midterm elections approach, we are formally calling on the FEC to investigate the extent and intentionality of Google’s censorship of Republican fundraising efforts. This is a financially devastating example of Silicon Valley tech companies unfairly shaping the political playing field to benefit their preferred far-left candidates. Companies like Google don’t think you have the right to hear both sides: they’d rather make the decision for you.”
Yahoo? Microsoft? Nowhere to be mentioned at all. The fact that the study said those systems caught more Democrat emails? Not a concern.
And, really, what resolution are they seeking here? They’re basically demanding that Google turn off Gmail’s spam filters because they’re unable to write non-spammy campaign emails.
Of course, this FEC complaint will go nowhere. They just want it for the headlines. This is no different than back when Republicans also filed a similar FEC complaint against Twitter over the whole nonsense Hunter Biden laptop thing, and the FEC easily rejected it (even though the FEC currently has three Republican Commissioners and only two Democrats, along with one independent). Or the time they filed an FEC complaint because Twitter refused to give a blue check to a Republican congressional candidate due to her history of abusive postings on the site. That was also rejected. Also, putting fact checks on Donald Trump tweets? Not an FEC violation. Snap not wishing to amplify Trump Snaps? Not an FEC violation.
Basically, any time any tech company does anything that doesn’t put Republican whiners at the very tippy top of the list leads to them filing an FEC complaint. And each one gets rejected.
But in this case it’s doubly pathetic, given that they ignore how the study showed two other companies’ spam filters went the other direction — and you know they’d scream and cry louder than anyone if Democrats were so petty as to file an FEC complaint just like this one.
Either way, imagine if this actually succeeded, and Google turned off it spam filters during election season, filling everyone’s Gmail with thousands of spam messages? I’m sure Republicans would file an FEC complaint about that as well, claiming it was an evil Democrat/Big Tech/Silicon Valley plot to flood email inboxes and hide Republican campaign emails.
Filed Under: democrats, fec, republicans, spam, studies
Comments on “Republicans Want To Make Sure Your Inboxes Are Filled With Spam (Unless The Spam Filters Block Democrats’ Emails)”
'It's only okay when it helps us!'
‘Tech companies meddling with election-related messages are terrible and must be stopped! … When it comes to our stuff, we don’t mind if they meddle with elections in our favor by blocking the other party’s stuff.’
It’s just so very telling that the only takeaway they had from that study was that since one out of three email providers hit their stuff harder than the other party with the other two hitting democrats harder clearly that must be evidence of some anti-republican conspiracy.
You’re new here, aren’t you?
Re:
Yep, he really needs to read more from the site’s founder.
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I love how a supporter of this site spends his time sniping at Mike because Mike uses soft language which is effective at preventing people from dismissing his words out of hand, completely undermining that effort for a milimeter of e-peen and the short dopamine hit of meaninglessly dunking on someone.
Re: Re:
Mike can take some good-natured ribbing. I didn’t mean to be an asshole (only a smart-ass).
Re: Re: Re:
I saw the humor. I thought it was great.
Re: Re: Re:
I saw the humor. I’m also fed up with people shitting on the use of soft langauge to point out hypocrisy, in part because every time you shit on it you are also undermining some of the best ways to get a wedge into the thoughts of someone who has been trapped by irrational thought.
Harsh language is more direct about the hypocrisy at issue, but it will in most cases cause a defensive reaction in someone who supports the hypocrite, making them reject the accusation. Soft language, by contrast, doesn’t attack the hypocrite, and helps supporters digest the contradiction’s existence. And as the same contradiction keeps coming up, the supporter can, slowly in most cases, come to the conclusion that Mike was right.
But, the minor truth in our troll’s complaints, a dedicated group of insiders loves to just immediately shit on any soft language and prevent that entire process and I’m sick of it.
Can't wait for TruthEmail
So why don’t they just create ‘TruthEmail’ and all republicans can just sign up for that – it will be a beacon of free speech without any filtering (well as long as the emails don’t say something that will hurt trump’s ego)! That will really show google whose boss!
Re:
Well, one thing I don’t see mentioned in this story is whether the emails were spam. Did anyone actually want them, or intentionally sign up for them? If not, there’s your answer.
Re: Re:
Maybe because only commercial emails fall under the definition of spam in the CAN-SPAM Act 2003. Political emails are exempt even if they fall under any other definition of spam. This is because many US politicians are so corrupt that they love exempting themselves from laws promoting decency of engagement with the public.
Re: Re: Re:
The legal definition of spam isn’t really the issue being discussed in this chain. The question posed by red AC is whether emails designated as Spam by google filters were, by some metric, considered spam by users. The legal definition of spam doesn’t factor into it.
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Explaining To Do
Yahoo and Microsoft demonstrated a bias, but at least they were in the same ballpark. 20% and 15% bias. Whereas google demonstrated a 60% bias. Some of the tables in the study look particularly damning for google. It’s difficult to envision this difference as being organic, and is why corporations strongly dislike the idea of anyone being able to examine their algorithm.
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Koby loves moving the goalposts and playing calvinball with the basis of his compalints.
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You have noted that moderation of spam is reasonable. The difference in percentage points of emails caught by a filter is not a reasonable proxy for ‘bias’. Doing so would assume the only or primary reason to filter campaign emails is partisan bias…not spam. So lets look at my subjective experience as an example of why that assumption is not necessarily accurate.
A quick glance at the campaign emails I absolutely did not sign up for show that, explicitly, for me, campaign emails are spam because I did not sign up for the newsletters. I therefore flag every campaign email I get as spam.
However, I get more republican campaign emails. Meaning the personal spam filter I have been training for years marks more Republican campaign emails as spam. Not as result of a partisan bias, on my part or Google’s, but as a result of the anti-campaign email bias I trained. (the one exception i might want to mention for completeness is the newsletter of the senator where I live, which is written in a very different style to campaign newsletters and is not used for campaigning, which is why I don’t generally include it in ‘campaign emails’)
A look at those emails in my junk filter show a number of spam email indications. Heavy use of capitals. An email that highlights words and sentences that it looks like it was a used college textbook. Constant calls to action. Words like “last chance” or “don’t wait” or similar language intended to instill FOMO. (Appeals to Fear). I’m still not even onto partisan criticisms. campaign emails are propaganda, and most are simply calls to action rather than an informative read. Indeed, anti-spam legislation always has to take care to carve out political messaging for a reason.
There are assumptions you make about how comparable the demographics of Yahoo and Microsoft are.
Yahoo and Microsoft are more favored by older demographics, for various reasons (i.e. Yahoo absorbed the email operations for a bunch of ISPs who merged over the course of the early aughts), and avoided by younger demographics, who either dislike microsoft, dislike paying microsoft for office 365, and are avoiding the privacy breech pit that has been yahoo.
This means that microsoft and yahoo are more likely to have older, conservative users, as opposed to google who has a broader base of users, though likely skewing liberal. Meaning Microsoft and Yahoo filter fewer emails in general, because of a demographic that is less likely to flag spam, filter fewer conservative campaign emails because the customers are more likely to be receptive to those campaign emails, and filter more liberal campaign emails because the demographics are less receptive to those campaign emails.
So, you haven’t established a partisan bias. You haven’t established that the bias is a result of partisan prefrence. You have simply established a bias. But any anti-spam system will be biased against spam. You have to establish a that the emails could not be considered spam, but as I note I have ended up on many campaign email lists without ever subscribing, not being in the appropriate district, not being in the appropriate state. They are by definition spam for me – unwanted, unneccisary, impossible to stop and do nothing but crowd my inbox.
If conservative origin campaign emails are determined to be spam more often, you haven’t begun to touch questions of what the source of that bias is. In a world in which no partisan bias is present, this result can still exist because the emails are not the same, how email lists are compiled are not the same, and the messaging is not the same, and all of those factor into whether an email is spam or not.
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Indeed, anti-spam legislation always has to take care to carve out political messaging for a reason.
Not always. The UK has robust anti-spam legislation that saw BoJo the Clown wind up £10,000 in the hole.
Re: Re: Re:
When I said “anti-spam legislation always has to take care to carve out political messaging for a reason”, I was mostly speaking of a legislative imperative. Like if I said “Democrats have to pass a minimum wage increase” I don’t mean they physically must, only that passing the increase is perceived as critical for continued congressional dominance. (this is an example of how to read the rhetoric I used, and I place no weight on the truth of the statement on minimum wage. Debating me on minimum wage is not a good faith discussion on my point.)
Your example is actually a great example about why I said what I said. Reading further into the article you’ve provided, No UK political party is compliant with PECR. Likely, much as happens in the US, MPs did not consider broader impacts of the changes made by the 2018 bill, in this case the impact on electioneering, and those that did seemingly some thought they had a legitimate use exception. Meaning, at least some of those who wrote or at least passed this bill assumed a political use exception existed either in the bill or was incorporated from elsewhere.
So, I was only citing a political imperitive to include a political messaging exception, but your own evidence that such exceptions are not included hgihglights that Johnson and others in government assumed there was one, making this an exception that proves the rule.
Re: Re: Re:2
Your follow-up comment is actually a great example about why I said what I said. The reason the Tories were fined is because politicians aren’t exempt from anti-spam legislation in the UK and EU nations. As Yoda says, “Reading comprehension you lack. To elementary school, go back you must.” (-_Q)
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Bojo regularly sat in the House of Commons from 2001-2008 and would have known about this legislation, dude. Why would he have any reason to believe that politicians are exempt from it?
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Hey look, there’s a simple explanation after all!
Their purpose is to pollute the public square and sow doubt so that they can point to those same doubts to claim that elections are invalid or rigged when they legitimately lose. And use those same doubts to pass laws that restrict access to voting because they do better in elections when fewer people vote.
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Or when the vast majority of those voting are white, middle-aged and elderly people with conservative values.
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Catch 22
“Of course, this FEC complaint will go nowhere. They just want it for the headlines. This is no different than back when Republicans also filed a similar FEC complaint against Twitter over the whole nonsense Hunter Biden laptop thing, and the FEC easily rejected it (even though the FEC currently has three Republican Commissioners and only two Democrats, along with one independent).”
The FEC rejected the complaint based on Twitter telling the FEC that they made their decision becaused the FBI and the DOJ were back channeling rommors that hacked misinformation was about to be released on Biden.
“The FEC wrote, “Federal law enforcement agencies apparently communicated to Twitter that they expected hack-and-leak operations by state actors might occur in the period shortly before the 2020 presidential election and warned that such a hack-and-leak operation might involve Hunter Biden” and “these circumstances appear to reflect a commercial, not electoral, basis for Twitter to have blocked users from sharing this information on its platform.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fec-twitter-legally-blocking-hunter-biden-laptop-stories-intel-warnings-hacking
Of course Mike has a catch 22 because he likes to pretend that his kind of back channeling between the DOJ and social media is not occurring.
Remember this time the DOJ had the laptop for a year and knew it was authentic, and knew the crackhead had abandoned it at a computer repair shop.
So their entire story about “rumors” of “hacked” materials was a false operation designed to give twitter plausible cover to suppress the story.
And it worked. The FEC bought the bullshit.
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Re: P.S.
P.S.
Mike will also ignore, or deny because I’m sure mike has the inside knowledge, that former General Counsel of the FBI James Baker was and still is deputy general counsel at Twitter at the time this back channeling was occurring and was most likely the point man.
Re: And your point is?
It’s completely irrelevant what the reasons were, the Republicans were just using it as a part of their bullshit propaganda campaign.
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Re: Re: So!!!
So you argument is that its okay for the DOJ to back channel lies to social media about about a hack to get social media to suppress a true story?
And I’m of the opinion given the player like James Baker that Twitter knew full well that the DOJ was feeding them bullshit. They just needed cover.
Twitter: ‘We can only take action if the material was hacked ;-).
DOJ: Oh yes we have read all these rumors that its a hack 😉
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Hey Chorizo try to buy any ale at a section 8 house lately?
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Re: Re: Re:2
Buy a spectrum lately?
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Sure did. But I’m not sure what my antique computer hobby has to do with you being a dipshit.
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Re: Re: Re:4 No Because You Cnat
No you didn’t because you cant. Mike however thinks you can because he doesn’t know the difference between owning a license to use the thing and owning the thing.
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Ebay sells classic ZX Spectrum hardware. I don’t own one because they weren’t built for a 60HZ electrical system, but I absolutely can purchase one that isn’t supposedly a license to own the hardware.
I have no idea with what that has to with your fever dream that a member of the Trump administration DOJ was also Twitters council and how that conflict of interest proves a left wing plot to suppress information
Re: Re: Re:5
As has been explained to you before, that was just a turn of phrase not to be taken literally.
Re: Re: Re:4
I have an antique computer: a Jacquard loom.
Re: Re: Re:2
No, but the other day I did successfully buy a beer from a pubic louse, so thanks for that advice. 🙂
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Of course Chozen likes to pretend that normal behavior like federal agencies regularly communicating with commercial companies and giving them heads up on security related issues are something nefarious. Considering the amount hacks and leaking of information during the 2016 election it would be strange for federal agencies not trying to combat it – and that is Chozen’s catch 22, explaining why a singular instance of this behavior is somehow nefarious, aka scary “back channeling”.
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Re: Re: Normal?
You think its normal in our constitutional republic for the DOJ to back channel false information to platforms to get them to suppress the information?
Again the DOJ had the laptop for almost a year. They knew it was authentic, they knew that the story about how it was obtained was authentic. Everything they were telling Twitter was a lie. They knew it was a lie. Twitter most likely knew it was a lie. The entire story about ‘rumors of a hack’ were solely intended to give Twitter and other social media legal cover.
That might have been normal during the soviet union. It might have been normal under Hoover. But it has never been legal!
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No, they don’t know it’s authentic – it’s presumed to be authentic. Until you have a iron clad chain of custody you can’t say it’s definitely authentic and it has been remarked on how messy the chain of custody was.
It took the New York Post’s forensic analysts 1.5 years to actually come come to the conclusion that some of the information on it is genuine but they can’t definitely say it about everything. What they said though was that the drive was in such a mess that some things couldn’t verified at all. Regardless, the e-mails and the Post’s interpretation and mischaracterization of them have been shown to be just bunk. When journalists on the Post refuses to put their name on the byline, when the editor of the Post adds a journalists name to the byline without the journalists knowledge it’s very telling that some shit is going on.
The most likely scenario here is that the federal agencies that had access to the hard-drive hadn’t yet vetted all the information contained on it (it’s still an ongoing investigation) and considering the black eye they got from all the shit going on during the 2016 election the heads up given to social media about the laptop was a way to limit the damage from a possible disinformation campaign aimed at the election.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Wrong
“No, they don’t know it’s authentic – it’s presumed to be authentic. Until you have a iron clad chain of custody you can’t say it’s definitely authentic and it has been remarked on how messy the chain of custody was.”
Appeal to Possibility fallacy
By late 2020 the FBI was getting subpoenas related to information from the laptop. Are you saying that the FBI used fake evidence to get subpoenas?
“It took the New York Post’s forensic analysts 1.5 years to actually come come to the conclusion that some of the information on it is genuine but they can’t definitely say it about everything.”
You are conflating the New York Times with the New York Post. The Post verified the information contained within the laptop in about a week by contacting the principles. It took the Times a year and half because they made no effort. That’s classic appeal to ignorance fallacy.
“The most likely scenario here is that the federal agencies that had access to the hard-drive hadn’t yet vetted all the information contained on it (it’s still an ongoing investigation) and considering the black eye they got from all the shit going on during the 2016 election the heads up given to social media about the laptop was a way to limit the damage from a possible disinformation campaign aimed at the election.”
Again back to #1 the FBI wouldn’t be submitting fake evidence to the court to get subpoenas in 2020.
Re: Re: Re:3
“Are you saying” – take that shit somewhere else. You seem to live in the belief that the information as a whole contained on the drive can only have two states, fake or real. In reality, you go through the information piece by piece and try to vet it which can result in actions that seek more information, like for example subpoenas.
No, I just used the wrong name – but it’s irrelevant to the point I was making.
No, they verified a miniscule amount of information which means that the authenticity of the drive was very much undecided.
Both the NYT and NYP reported in March this year that they had verified a larger selection of e-mails, out of over 120,000 e-mails. Do you have any idea how time-consuming it is to go through that amount of data and verify it? And the only fallacy here is yours, because the Post certainly had an incentive to verify the information in a timely fashion but it still took until this year to come to the conclusion that the laptop is likely genuine.
And that is your biggest fallacy, thinking that questioning the veracity of every piece of information contained on the drive is the same as saying it is all fake.
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Re: Re: Re:4 Falus in Uno Falsus in Omnibus
“And that is your biggest fallacy, thinking that questioning the veracity of every piece of information contained on the drive is the same as saying it is all fake.”
Falus in uno falsus in omnibus after having the drive for almost 3 years know if anything on that drive were found by the FBI to be false the entire drive would be inadmissible.
You are demanding a standard of proof that simply does not exist.
Argument from High Standards fallacy.
Re: Re: Re:5
…the FBI to be false the entire drive would be inadmissible
The entire drive is already inadmissible. Any and all information found on it would need to be verified by other sources. Proper chain of custody wasn’t followed, and the data on it had been accessed hundreds of times by someone other than Hunter Biden.
I certainly wouldn’t vouch for any data on a computer out of my possession for 3 years. Would you?
Re: Re: Re:5
No, because that standard isn’t used on information and it’s also not used outside the courts. And you are also missing the legal loop hole it would create – if that standard would be used on information it’s essentially a get-out-of-jail-free card, just put fake information on your computer or phone and suddenly any evidence becomes inadmissible.
Not at all, I just pointed out that chain of custody is a thing and that no one has actually been able to prove that everything on the drive is authentic. That doesn’t in any way mean that some of the information isn’t authentic.
Re: Re: Re:6
A slim majority of what’s on the drive could be authentic and the lack of a proper chain of custody would still taint the legit “evidence”. Nobody can be sure of who put the data on the drive and/or when they put it there.
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Re: Re: Re:7 Conspiracy Theory
At this stage the belief that the laptop is somehow a Russian ploy is just a conspiracy theory.
Re: Re: Re:8
But a conspiracy theory with substance. After all, 2020 wouldn’t be the first US Presidential election that Russia interfered in to try and get Trump into the Oval Office.
Re: Re: Re:8
Generally, conspiracy theories require an enormous number of people to keep quiet and/or are implausible on their face for obvious reasons. There is also generally little to no substance to them.
In this case, however, there really aren’t that many people who would have to know but stay quiet, it’s hardly implausible given both the extremely sketchy chain of custody and the fact that Russian operatives have already been shown to do similar things in the past for more-or-less the same end, and much of the data has been shown to be compromised. We also still have no idea who dropped off the laptop in the first place; maybe it was Hunter, but it could also be someone else for all we know. Indeed, the repairman never claimed it was Hunter who dropped it off. As far as conspiracy theories go, it’s one of the more plausible ones I’m familiar with.
Additionally, Stephen never specified that it was a Russian ploy. It’s far from unlikely that it was, but it’s also entirely plausible that it’s something Giuliani and/or the owner of the computer shop came up with, or that the guy who dropped it off was not a Russian operative but just some random pro-Trump person or a member of the Trump campaign.
The only thing Stephen said was that a large amount of the data on the laptop could not be authenticated, that the chain of custody was highly suspect, and that, because of these two things, we don’t have the slightest idea who put the data on the drive and/or when they put it there. Perhaps it was a Russian operative; perhaps it was someone else trying to create a scandal; and it may be that, as unlikely as it appears right now, that it was all Hunter Biden’s doing. Regardless, we don’t know who it was, so the information on the laptop—as evidence—is tainted. There are simply far too many unknowns and far too much suspect about the whole thing for it to be considered good evidence right now, and that’s unlikely to change.
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Re: Re: Re:9 Onus Pprobandi
“Additionally, Stephen never specified that it was a Russian ploy. It’s far from unlikely that it was, but it’s also entirely plausible that it’s something Giuliani and/or the owner of the computer shop came up with, or that the guy who dropped it off was not a Russian operative but just some random pro-Trump person or a member of the Trump campaign.”
onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat.
Then Stephen can prove it.
Re: Re: Re:10
https://time.com/6052302/andriy-derkach-profile/
Re: Re: Re:10
?
I was going based on the facts as presented already, and stating possibilities based upon which facts we have and which facts we don’t have. The only things that were proven based on your own assertions are that the laptop was Hunter’s (at least at one point) and that some—but not all—of the data on that laptop was verified. There are also undisputed aspects: the computer-shop guy was a Trump supporter, the next person to see it and to have access to the laptop in question was Rudy Giuliani (not the FBI), and the computer-shop guy never identified the guy who dropped the laptop off in the first place. We literally have zero information on the person who dropped that laptop off.
The fact that, after (possibly) Hunter and before anyone else like the FBI or independent investigators, we have two Trump supporters and a completely unknown person on the chain of custody means there was plenty of motive and opportunity for the data on the laptop to be modified, and that a significant amount of the data found on the laptop could not be verified is sufficient to demonstrate that it could have happened.
In order to disprove these as possibilities, you’d have to present evidence that proves them to be impossible given that the entire factual basis for my presenting them as possible—even plausible—is based upon things you have asserted and citations already presented here.
Are you saying it’s implausible for a known Trump supporter to have faked some of the data? That’s a weak argument.
Re: Re: Re:11 Completely Untrue
“n order to disprove these as possibilities, you’d have to present evidence that proves them to be impossible given that the entire factual basis for my presenting them as possible—even plausible—is based upon things you have asserted and citations already presented here.”
Completely untrue in law. To be admitted into the court evidence has to be “competent.”
Your argument is appeal to possibility which is not the same thing as “reasonable” its proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal law. Not proof beyond a “possible” doubt.
Re: Re: Re:12
I’ll have you know, sweet thang, that I don’t sub on the first date.
Re: Re: Re:12
And there’s prefectly reasonable doubt here.
A minimum of two trump supporters have access to the data. The identity of who dropped on the laptop is unknown.
That’s a massive chain of custody violation there, and the evidence here is NOT “competent.”
The plenty of reasonable doubt here.
Re: Re: Re:9
I never said whether or not Stephen said the Russians had anything to do with the laptop. It was me who deliberately implied that it was likely the Russians based on my knowledge of their interference in the 2016 elections. I’m autistic. That means I’m plain-spoken and when I do imply things, that implication is clearly there. Anything extra is what you read into it.
Re: Re: Re:10
I never said you did. I was talking to Chozen, not you.
And as someone else with autism, I’m the same way, so I totally get that.
Re: Re: Re:
Are you assclown seriously still claiming it IS Hunter’s laptop and somehow relevant to Joe Biden’s whatever?
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Re: Re: Re:2 10%
‘10% held for the Big Guy’
Of course the son holding the kickback for the VP and future President doesn’t matter at all.
Re: Re: Re:3
*Assumption. Unproven.
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Re: Re: Re:4
“Another former Hunter Biden partner, US Navy veteran Tony Bobulinski, later revealed that “the big guy” was Hunter’s dad, then the Democratic candidate for president”
https://nypost.com/2022/04/04/hunter-biden-grand-jury-witness-was-asked-about-deal-with-chinese-firm-and-the-big-guy/
Re: Re: Re:5
Irrelevant. We have evidence that the meetings described never happened.
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Re: Re: Re:6 Where
Where? Please elaborate.
Re: Re: Re:7
The times the meetings were supposed to occur, the public records show that Biden wasn’t having such a meeting.
Re: Re: Re:3
Quick question: How does Hunter Biden’s alleged corruption compare to, say, the corruption of the adult Trump children? They were given cushy government jobs they didn’t deserve and made hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves explicitly because their father was the sitting president.
I mean, Old 45’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, got a $2 billion payout six months after leaving the White House. That happend because of the personal go-ahead of Mohammed bin Salman, a Saudi royal who had built a relationship with Kushner during the Trump administration…and who had helped cover up the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, for which the U.S. (under the Trump administration) refused to condemn bin Salman. Sure seems like a huge quid pro quo there.
But sure, tell me more about Hunter Biden’s laptop. 🙃
Re: Re: Re:4
Not OP, but your point about Trump’s corruption is irrelevant. I happen to agree Trump is a scumbag, and without doing any research I’m assuming your corruption story is likely true.
But just because The Right is bad does not mean The Left is in any way innocent. More and more it’s looking like the Biden laptop story was perfectly legitimate, and I for one am upset that the story was suppressed.
Re: Re: Re:5
Yes, the corrpution of Trump’s adult children doesn’t mean Hunter Biden should be left off the hook. Go after all of them.
But if you’re asking me which one I should give more of a shit about…well, to quote The Weekly Sift:
You tell me which situation I should care about more.
Re: Re: Re:5
How was the story suppressed? Did Twitter get it pulled from the New York Post‘s website? Didn’t think so.
Re: Re: Re:3
Was the ‘son holding the kickback’ you back when Ronald Reagan was in the Oval Office? Enquiring minds want to know.
Re:
One might want to check who was in charge of the DOJ when the story broke in the first place…it wasn’t Merrick Garland.
Tell your asshole republican friends that they might want to make sure they know that if a fuckup happens under their watch, it’s their fucking responsibility.
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Re: Re: Nope
Want to bet what party those DOJ lawyers vote for?
Re: Re: Re:
You should ask the idiot who hires the ‘best people.’
Democrats didn’t control the executive branch. Trump did. So if you’re unhappy that his band of incompetent toads didn’t do what you thought is right, go fucking talk to them about it.
Fucking fools like you bitching at us about your choices for who to run the government isn’t going to work here, you whiny little twatwaffle. It’s your fucking choices that led to this fucking problem. Start owning it.
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Re: Re: Re:2 You Realize You Are Wrong
You realize you are wrong. Federal employees fall under Title 5. You just cant fire them.
Much like Mike most of your arguments about government and law are argument from ignorance. Just because you think its true doesn’t make it true. Do some research before you spout of you dipshit.
Re: Re: Re:3
That’s the best you can come up with dipshit? With the last administration being a revolving door of morons who’s only talent is snorting trump’s taint?
Nice try shirking your responsibility, asshole. It still ain’t gonna work – if you people had a problem with it, you people should’ve fucking done something about it. Full fucking stop. Don’t blame your incompetence on someone else.
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Re: Re: Re:4 lol
Ah, dad’s mistake is upset. 3
You are a moron. You thought you could just fire these people. When shown you cant you fly off the handle.
Pathetic little joke.
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Re: Re: Re:5
Uh-huh. Keep on that impotent limp-dick kick of being powerless against the Democrats, despite controlling the DOJ at the time. We like you weak little fucks showing us that at every turn, you’re the most gullible and easily outsmarted segment of the population.
Fucked something up? It must be the Democrats fault!
Wassamatter? You pissed that despite all your fucking degrees the DATE that this happened tripped your stupid ass up? Goes to show you that diploma mills are worthless.
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Re: Re: Re:6 Not
Not tripped up at all load that should have been ended on your mothers face along with your uncle’s. I just know the law and know that federal employees just cant be fired. You live in a fantasy land.
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Re: Re: Re:7
Awww, sorry to see you so angry, Chump.
Next time read the shit you post. Don’t be mad at me because you didn’t read your own stuff, fuckface.
You’re a fucking dumbass.
Your degrees are from a diploma mill.
And what’s worse is that you know it, don’t you?
Re: Re: Re:8
Even if the validity of Chozen’s degrees were not in question, it’s funny that this is where he chooses to validate them: a website filled with people he loathes while he rants about how dearly he carries the water for a President who can’t stand his race or his sexuality.
Trump truly is supported by the “best” people.
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Re: Re: Re:9 Latino is Not a Race
Latino is not a race. Its a common culture shared by the people of Latin America. Its WASPs in America and a few dumb Latinos who ignorantly think its a race.
There are white Latinos, there are black Latinos there are Chinees Latinos, there are Jewish Latinos there are ginger Latinos (Canelo Alvarez lol).
What does this mean? We will sleep with anybody!
Re: Re: Re:10
Yellow AC never said latino was a race. That said….
Funny note, a light skinned man with a “black” grandfather is “black”. Light skinned, dark skinned, doesnt matter. Race is a construct and bigots are flexable when it comes to finding a group to ‘other’.
Jewish isn’t a ‘race’. As a label it is in fact two very different things, those who practice judaism, and those whose families are closely decendend from historic jewish/hebrew groups and have predispositions toward specific patterns of appearance but may no longer individually practice Judaism. Bigots don’t make a distinction, and so the out group “jewish” exists, and the word we use to describe that combined cultural and ethnic group in modern times is ‘race’, because it is how the social construct of ‘race’ as come to be used as times have changed and so have the targets of bigotry and the language used against them.
Your discussion of “There are white Latinos, there are black Latinos there are Chinees Latinos, there are Jewish Latinos there are ginger Latinos” actually highlights something else I imagine you wail about, intersectionality. That is to say, a white Latino has concerns that are different from a Chinese Latino, that are different from a Jewish Latino, that are different from a black Latino, but a concern for Latinos would be a concern for most if not all of them.
And that is where your point is pointless. If someone is endorsing hatred of Latinos, their supporters generally don’t care that you are a ‘white’ Latino or a ‘black’ Latino or a ‘Chinese’ Latino. And its not better when they accept you because you ‘pass’ for the in group, because if they ever need new scapegoats you might not pass anymore.
And I don’t see how your willingness to sleep with the orange-skinned man has any applicability to the desire of his supporters to see anyone they deem Latino removed from the country and deported, ragardless of citizenship, regardless of ethnicity, simply because the orange-skinned man told them Latinos are the reason for the economic struggles plaguing the predominantly white former middle class the US since the 80s.
Re: Re: Re:11
All it really says is Chozen is a slut for Trump and he views it as such a compliment he’d brand it on his urethra.
For a guy who claims to have multiple engineering degrees he really does fall for the stupidest stereotype-schmuck bait.
Re: Re: Re:12
All it really says is Chozen is a slut for Trump…
Nah, sluts have more dignity and self-esteem. 😉
Re: Re: Re:13
Both things Trump can’t stand in other people, especially the ones with pussies.
They're like children
It’s like they’re 5-year olds squabbling over a toy! How immature are these people?
Funny, that,...
funny that ‘Pubic-ans, who actively state themselves as being ‘holier than thou’ yet who seem to have never read the part where it is stated: “if you do well, will you not be accepted?”
Need one continue the warning of what happens when one does NOT do well,…?
oh. riiiight, forgot.
the ‘Pubic-ans just write their own law to obliquely or vaguely state that (only)they did no wrong,.. got it.
Luckily, we don’t have much of a problem with spam from politicians here in the UK because we have anti-spam laws. The last time it was tried, in fact, the Tories led by BoJo the Clown wound up £10,000 out of pocket. Now, if we could only make the law apply internationally so we can get after all those ‘Nigerian princes’!
Re:
Wow. Good for the UK, but how did that happen? In many other countries, politicians exempt themselves and their buddies from such laws. For example, in Canada, political parties are exempt from the do-not-call list. And all the parties used to send phone-spam, leaving no non-spammers to vote for (except the really fringe ones like the Communist Party).
Re: Re:
We have the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, which the UK Government had to make law. As for the US, I believe you guys have the CAN-SPAM Act 2003. Why has nobody invoked it?
Re: Re: Re:
Possibly because the First Amendment to the US Constitution makes it very hard for the government to ban what undoubtedly is political speech. The price is worth it because the First Amendment (unlike the Fourth and Fifth, as far as I’ve seen) today still is useful for preventing government overreach.
Re: Re: Re:
Wikipedia: “The explicit restriction of the law to commercial e-mails is widely considered by those in the industry to essentially exempt purely political and religious e-mail from its specific requirements.”
“The CAN-SPAM Act is occasionally referred to by critics as the “You-Can-Spam” Act because the bill fails to prohibit many types of e-mail spam and preempts some state laws that would otherwise have provided victims with practical means of redress. In particular, it does not require e-mailers to get permission before they send marketing messages.”
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Ill Wait
Ill wait to see what an investigation, if there is one, shows. Its easy to say ‘the algorithm works this way’ without having to show any evidence that affect.
Twitter denied shadow banning and then the Jan 2020 hack and the revealed admin panel showed Twitter was lying.
Re:
Point to the button that says “shadowbanning”.
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Re: Re: Shut Up
Yes blacklist and shadow banning are different.
Shut up.
Re: Re: Re:
Are you going to point to the fucking button or not? You’re coming off as quite the lightweight, little guy.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m asking because the GUI for the admin tool has no button for “blacklist” or “shadowban”. Everyone who jumped to that conclusion was just falling for their own confirmation bias that Twitter must be doing something nefarious.
What it does have though are buttons for looking at information related to blacklists.
Re: Re: Re:2
Like this button? 🙂
Not a concern, or just not relevant? Gmail’s market share is over twice that of Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s put together.
Re:
And? The point is that if gmail’s filters catching more republican emails is evidence of bias so serious that it needs to be looked into by the government then the other two are also biased by the same argument, yet not a mention is made of them.
‘Bias regarding election-related communications is only a problem when it’s not in our favor’ kinda undercuts the legitimacy of the concerns and exposes it as nothing more than grandstanding and/or outright hypocrisy.
Re: Re:
It seems more that spam filters catching more Republican emails proves Republicans are more biased toward spam.
Re: Re: Re:
Or at the very least that the recipients are more likely to flag them as such on Gmail.
Re: Re: Re:
It wouldn’t surprise me. Republicans seem to be generally more focussed on fundraising through scaremongering and hatred and I’ve seen some gloriously misleading mails from them shared online. There’s also been suggestions that they tend to be a little less diligent in making sure that they are only sending to actual supporters rather than mailing lists gathered from random sources.
So, people seeing those will be more likely to send them to spam. All in all, it seems possible that this is just another run of the cycle where right-wingers do something untoward, then whine when they face the natural consequences of their actions.
Re: Re: Re:2
Who could possibly think messages like
look like spam?
Re:
A fact which I previously used to show how the bias may not the result of partisan influence from the provider. One read of the information is that Yahoo and Microsoft as email providers are more likely to be used by older and therefore conservative US users, given their long decline from popularity. Therefore, the personal preferences training spam filters are more likely to consider democrat emails spam, and therefore resulting in the filters labeling emails coming from those addresses spam, but that bias is not a bias of yahoo or Microsoft, but of the efforts of the users.
The ubiquity of Gmail and the stark difference of results in the smaller sample size can actually help suggest that the results of a junk mail filter are based on the preferences of the users, not the companies. This is not fatal to claims of unfair partisan bias, it is still possible that a team of google programmers exist simply to identify and flag republican campaign emails, but with this possibility fitting the evidence just as well, it is fatal to the conclusion the evidence must show unfair partisan bias. The article is simply pointing out that to make the claim of partisan bias, the results of the microsoft and yahoo demographic must be accounted for.
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Re: Re: Oposite Equally Porbable
Or the relatively small servers are simply not worth gaming. Yahoo and Microsoft are large enough to say that statistically they should mirror gmail. The fact that they don’t is evidence that something is going on with gmail.
No I have postulated that it could be external. Its possible that 527s create bots to subscribe to and then flag republican fundraising in effect gaming the gmail algorithm.
However, frequently big tech knows when its being gamed and just choses not to do anything because they like the way they are being gamed. Twitter for example knows full well that the NYT’s 50,000,000 followers are bullshit.
Re: Re: Re:
If you want to claim as fact that Gmail has an “anti-conservative bias”, you need to provide more than the claim itself. What evidence do you have that proves Gmail administrators are personally and intentionally putting all emails from conservative/right-leaning political campaigns and institutions into spam folders?
Re: Re: Re:2
I would assume “Gmail” refers to the service and not the organization. A service could have an “anti-conservative” bias even if the administrators do not, e.g. if spammers are more likely to include “conservative” keywords and the Bayesian filters pick that up. But “conservative” is an ill-defined term, and Gmail’s spam rules and training data are not public, and so far all evidence looks pretty weak… so, probably any such bias would be unintentional and barely significant, and difficult to prove.
Re: Re: Re:3
That’s my point: Everyone who claims “Big Tech” has an “anti-conservative bias” wants us to think it’s the people in charge ordering that bias be put in place. But the simpler explanation is the most likely: Algorithms such as spam filters have been trained by users of all kinds in a way that makes those algorithms appear to have a bias against conservatives.
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Re: Re: Re:2 You Are So Stupid
I’m saying that it may not be g-mail at all. Interested parties could simply be gaming the algorithm. If candidate X wants to hurt candidate Y, candidate X could simply hire people to create a bunch of bots sign up on candidate Y’s mailing list and then flag candidate Y’s e-mails as spam. If done enough this could trigger the algorithm to filter candidate Y’s e-mails as spam for everyone.
Now from history when interested parties use bots to trigger various BigTech algorithms BigTech usually knows. Twitter knows the NYT’s 50,000,000 followers is bullshit. Bias determines if big tech does anything when it knows its system is being gammed.
Re: Re: Re:3
They chip on your shoulder is the size a giant sequoia.
Re: Re: Re:3
You sound exactly like Jhon Smith, he would create these extremely complicated and contrived scenarios just to prove a point of his. And just like your idea, his never happened nor would they ever happen.
Why don’t you change your name back to what it used to be as you sound more and more like one of the trolls who frequented Techdirt in the past.
Re: Re: Re:3
So what? Proving that’s the case would only prove that certain users of Gmail have a certain political bias. It wouldn’t prove that “Big Tech” (read: Alphabet) is intentionally biasing its filters to fit that same bias independently of, or in direct cooperation with, those users.
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Re: Re: Re:4 Has Twitter Done Anything
Has Twitter or other big tech done anything about major media like the NYT gaming their algorithms with bots?
Not enforcing your rules is just as much a form of bias as enforcing your rules. If Joe Rogan, Dave Ruben, Ben Shapiro had the number of fake bot account subscribers as the NYT etc. there would be hell to pay. But Twitter looks the other way when they agree with the politics of who is manipulating their algorithm.
Google does the same thing. You see all these leftwing channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers but every video only has a few thousand views. Those subscribers are bots intended to game the algorithm.
Could Tim Pool ever get away with that? No he would be banned in a heartbeat.
Re: Re: Re:5
Dunno. I don’t even know if that is actually a thing that’s happening. [citation needed]
So… not at all unless it’s done intentionally unevenly? Something which you have yet to demonstrate?
[citation needed]
Again, [citation needed]
[citation needed]
So you mean YouTube? That’s not actually evidence of bots. Plus, I see all these rightwing channels that fit the same criteria, so even if true, that’s not evidence of bias.
That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
You have not provided any evidence that this would be the case.
Re: Re: Re:6
When twitter cracked down on bots, it was right-whingers who complained the most about all their followers vanishing.
Re: Re: Re:7
Which, of course, is only evidence that they were the loudest complainers about it happening; it doesn’t even demonstrate that it did happen, let alone any unevenness in the results or actual bias in the enforcement.
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Re: Re: Re:7 Exactly
Exactly and hte NYT still has 50,000,000 followers and about 0.001% engagement which means that they are mostly bots.
Yet twitter never cracked down on this.
Like I said google doesn’t either. The typical far left channel will have 1-5% of their subscribers viewing a video.
A typical channel has about 20-30%.
Re: Re: Re:5
Yes or no: Can you prove, with evidence/citations of fact from credible sources, that Alphabet has intentionally rigged the spamfilters in Gmail to filter a majority of emails from conservatives into the spam folders of a majority of Gmail users?
If yes: Please show your work.
If no, or if you refuse to directly answer the question: Please show yourself the door.
Re: Re: Re:6
…yeah, that’s about what I thought would happen.
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Seems like my long held belief that the only good republican is a dead one has become more of a fact than an opinion these days. Do they even hear themselves at this point? It’s like they are asking to be eradicated so we can finally have some actual peace and progress in this country.
Re: Let's not entertain beliefs like this.
You might not realize that you are advocating for violence, but your belief would be dangerous in ruthless people and on its face is worse than
“the only good Democrat is one who doesn’t vote”
Re: Re:
There are as many, if not more, non-violent ways for someone to die as there are violent ones. And, of course, there’s always ‘doing the world a favour’.
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Re: Could Be Bad Actors
Could be explained by political hacks at some 527 creating bots and signing up for mailers just to flag them. That’s right up the alley of the crap leftist 527s pull. Ill wait to see the outcome of a formal investigation.
Simple observation: one of the ways that Google recognizes possible spam in Gmail is the sudden appearance of tens of thousands of identical email. There are other clues, including the linguistic content, the number of messages in the collection that have invalid/deleted Gmail addresses, etc. Many years ago, too many to admit, I wrote some spam detectors. The art and science has come a long way since and machine learning has added a whole new dimension. Google has an advantage due to the number of people with Gmail addresses and, therefore, any spam blast becomes obvious almost immediately.
Re:
Exactly. If the spam filter gave the original message a mid to low probability, that probability skyrocketed by magnitudes the moment it was detected that the same message was sent to thousands of recipients in a short period.
If you have a grasp of the underlaying technology, it’s very easy to realize that blasting out thousands of e-mails tend to trigger spam-filters.
But.. Google!!!
You won 2 to 1, you ungrateful schmucks.
What a dishonest article
Did you even read the study? Yes both Outlook and Yahoo slightly favored Republicans (~15 to 20%). Outlook blocked basically everything, both sides and Yahoo blocked basically nothing, both sides. Gmail, on the other hand favored Democrats by 60%. They blocked essentially all Republicans messages and no Democrats. I am not asking for more spam, I think the Outlook model is the best, but at least you should be honest in your reporting.
Re:
What a dishonest read. If I block 50% of democrat camoaign emails as spam and 80% of republican campaign emails as spam, I ‘favor’ democrats by 60%. It does not mean I filer “…essentially all Republicans [sic] messages…” (99 or 100%, depending on rounding) nor “no Democrats [sic] (0 or 1%)”. You have, as it seems, increased the discrepancy by ~70 percentage points.
However, since you haven’t read any comments, you are unaware that you’ve failed a basic bias test. You’ve assumed that these emails could not be treated as spam. You’ve ignored whether differences in Republican (R) strategy and Democrat (D) strategy might result in more (R) emails sent out, (R) emails being more likely to be sent to non-subscribers, and (R) emails making more dire calls to action/appeals to fear that are a hallmark of spam emails.
For your position to be accurate, you have to assume that emails sent by both sides are pretty identical in every way. Otherwise, it is completely reasonable one side might have an email campaign strategy that has broader appeal and is less likely to be flagged as spam, causing the discrepancies in filtering that have nothing to do with partisan bias on the part of google.
And then you have to consider that conservative voters are in the minority in the US, based on party affiliation and decades of voting data.
Re: Re:
I failed to include a line clarifying that my 50/80% numbers are entirely fictional, used simply to illustrate a point about how the gmail user was distorting numbers.
Re: Re: Re:
“60/90 > 9/10 because 60 > 9!
Re:
Which is it, 60% or “essentially all”?
Re:
You can’t simply subtract percentages like that. They have to be taken from the same whole, and we don’t know that the number of Democratic emails was equal to the number of Republican emails.
Gotta love the logic
Gmail is the largest email provider.
Republicans use the service to send more emails than on Yahoo and Outllok.
Therefore, more emails sent = more chances the mail will be marked as spam.
Nope, according to Republicans, this is yet another example of “big tech” censoring their message.
Also, here’s a hint for them: the emails are probably getting flagged as spam because people either didn’t sign up for the email or because it looks like spam. To fix the issue, the solution is to let people opt out or change the email so it doesn’t look like spam.
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Re: Realitive
The is how what % is filtered relative to another. 1.5B Gmail users, 225M Yahoo users. As a % they should be close they aren’t.
Re: Re:
Word Salad on the menu tonight!
Re: Re: Re:
I was going to have spam salad, but I’ve changed my mind because I prefer Pek. 😉
Principle
principle: a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.
principal: first in order of importance; main.
or
https://cdn3.whatculture.com/images/2013/09/seymour-skinner-600×338.jpg
Spam
I just checked my spam folder and was surprized to find Jewish News, articles criticising Biden and Dems, as well as articles supporting Trump. This illogical censuring is taking down our country. My parents made sure we knew about the world’s situations pertaing to governments and politics and what to look for to prevent America from becoming unfree.when it’s too late, we will alk live out the errors of our ways.
Report lies
Itsnottherepublicans is the democrats that twist and post false information get thefucking story straight but then youre in bed them so we wouldn’t expect less your fucking lies needs to be pushed for defamation and the lies that they are!!!!. Publish the truth or remove your business from social media !!!
Re:
Can’t read, huh? It’s literally the Republicans who are demanding this and went to court (and later lost).
Here in the real world, you can’t just point to people and say “no, you” when the actual evidence suggests it’s your favorite team who are trying to fill your box with spam.
But, again, we know why: because they’re targeting gullible people like you who will believe literally anything they tell you.
I mean, I get that you just dropped in on this random post a year after it was written, so you haven’t read Techdirt, but… um… the idea that we’re “in bed” with the Dems is fucking ridiculous given how often we criticize them too.
So… it’s defamation to say what the GOP is actually saying, because “ALan” doesn’t believe it could be true?
Hey Alan, please be careful out there. It’s a dangerous world for someone as clueless as you are.
Huh?