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They announced that their spam filter got to good and that they will allow political spam to go around their spam filter. https://www.androidpolice.com/gmail-p

They announced that their spam filter got to good and that they will allow political spam to go around their spam filter. https://www.androidpolice.com/gmail-political-spam-experiment/ https://www.androidpolice.com/gmail-political-spam-experimen...

jonas-w 4y ago
Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915287
smt88 4y ago
It's not because the filter was "too good," it's because political campaigns use hyper-aggressive email tactics that they learned from digital marketers. Trump's campaign(s) apparently took this to a new level (a friend of mine says he'd get up to 10 Republican emails every day, many of which had alarming subject lines) and now Republicans are claiming to be treated unfairly.
- mcintyre1994 4y ago
  I'm not in the US and I don't think I've ever been emailed by a political party in the UK where I live. So I don't know how it normally is. But one of my throwaway emails somehow ended up on a Trump campaign list in 2020 and it was pretty insane. I'd get multiple emails per day saying I'd been hand picked by Trump to do something, which was usually either to send him some money or fill in a survey. Once I was hand picked by someone to e-sign Trump's birthday card, and probably also to send him some money. I can definitely see how any remotely good spam filter would be catching a lot of that stuff. And also there was no opt-in before they started emailing me and their unsubscribe button never worked.
  - smt88 4y ago
    They get through spam filters by default in my experience. Gmail is pretty lenient on established companies that obey the CAN-SPAM Act. The issue is that many Republican voters were marking them as spam, which then taught Gmail to put them in spam for (at least) that user.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > Trump's campaign(s) apparently took this to a new level (a friend of mine says he'd get up to 10 Republican emails every day, many of which had alarming subject lines) and now Republicans are claiming to be treated unfairly. Classic Republican move: they do something bad, and when people complain about that, complain that they're being censored/cancelled/whatever. At that point, we're already in unfair competition area: when Republicans do everything they can to manipulate their voter base to donate money and Democrats refuse to engage in such tactics with their voter base (or at least keep the level down), how can anyone call that a "fair election"? Yes, it may be legal in terms of the law, but absolutely immoral.

jonas-w 4y ago

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915287

smt88 4y ago

It's not because the filter was "too good," it's because political campaigns use hyper-aggressive email tactics that they learned from digital marketers. Trump's campaign(s) apparently took this to a new level (a friend of mine says he'd get up to 10 Republican emails every day, many of which had alarming subject lines) and now Republicans are claiming to be treated unfairly.

mcintyre1994 4y ago
I'm not in the US and I don't think I've ever been emailed by a political party in the UK where I live. So I don't know how it normally is. But one of my throwaway emails somehow ended up on a Trump campaign list in 2020 and it was pretty insane. I'd get multiple emails per day saying I'd been hand picked by Trump to do something, which was usually either to send him some money or fill in a survey. Once I was hand picked by someone to e-sign Trump's birthday card, and probably also to send him some money. I can definitely see how any remotely good spam filter would be catching a lot of that stuff. And also there was no opt-in before they started emailing me and their unsubscribe button never worked.
- smt88 4y ago
  They get through spam filters by default in my experience. Gmail is pretty lenient on established companies that obey the CAN-SPAM Act. The issue is that many Republican voters were marking them as spam, which then taught Gmail to put them in spam for (at least) that user.
mschuster91 4y ago
> Trump's campaign(s) apparently took this to a new level (a friend of mine says he'd get up to 10 Republican emails every day, many of which had alarming subject lines) and now Republicans are claiming to be treated unfairly. Classic Republican move: they do something bad, and when people complain about that, complain that they're being censored/cancelled/whatever. At that point, we're already in unfair competition area: when Republicans do everything they can to manipulate their voter base to donate money and Democrats refuse to engage in such tactics with their voter base (or at least keep the level down), how can anyone call that a "fair election"? Yes, it may be legal in terms of the law, but absolutely immoral.