WASHINGTON - Today, the RNC, NRSC, and NRCC are filing a joint complaint with the FEC regarding Google’s censorship of Republican fundraising emails. This follows the publication of a non-partisan study by researchers at NC State, which found that Gmail, Google’s email platform, routed Republican emails to “spam” at a rate approximately 820% higher than similar Democrat fundraising appeals during the 2020 Election cycle.
“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.”– RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, NRSC Chairman Rick Scott, and NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer
Background:
- This complaint, brought by all three Republican national party committees, argues that Google’s overwhelmingly disproportionate suppression of Republican emails constitutes an illegal corporate contribution to Democrat candidates and urges the FEC to launch a formal investigation into Google’s biased practices.
- According to the referenced study, nearly 70% of emails from Republican candidates were sent to spam compared to less than 1 in 10 from Democrat candidates from 2019 to 2020. Overall, Republican emails were censored at a rate 820% higher than Democrats’.
- Conservative candidates raised $737 million on Republican fundraising platform WinRed from Gmail users in 2019 and 2020. We estimate Republicans accordingly missed out on $1.5 billion in contributions during the 2020 election cycle and over $2 billion since 2019.
- Additionally, according to the study:
- Gmail’s censorship of Republican appeals vastly exceeds its competitors Outlook and Yahoo, which labeled Democrat emails as spam at a slightly higher rate than Republican emails during the same time (27% and 14.2% more, respectively). This is crucial, because it shows that Google was an extreme outlier in suppressing Republican emails, and undercuts any argument Google might have that Republican email practices or individual user preferences are somehow to blame.
- The disparity in Republican vs. Democrat fundraising censorship increased as the 2020 midterms drew closer. Republican emails were marked as spam at a higher rate, while the rate for Democrat emails stayed the same.
- Even after the researchers opened emails sent to spam, Gmail would ignore the preference and continue to send such appeals to spam. The researchers found that Gmail still marked some Republican emails, but no Democrat emails, as spam even after they transferred “spam” emails back to their main inboxes.
- This all points towards either a gross failure of Google’s algorithm compared to its competitors or intentional sabotage of Republican email delivery demanding an FEC investigation.
- This continues a pattern of big tech censorship. Youtube removed a conversation between Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and President Trump from its platform earlier this month.
- For a copy of the filing, click here.
