An alarming study released last month showed that Google’s Gmail marks Republican campaign emails as “spam” 8.5 times more often than it does Democrat campaign emails. This bias has led to potentially hundreds of millions of fundraising losses for Republican candidates.
While it’s no secret Big Tech has suppressed conservative voices for years, this egregious, partisan assault on free speech is yet another wakeup call for all Americans. If they can do it to Republican candidates running for office, they can do it to you too.
The study’s findings are shocking. In Google’s algorithm, 68 percent of emails from Republican candidates are flagged as spam versus just 8 percent for Democrats. This means only 32 percent of GOP emails are effectively delivered. Big Tech is actively giving Democratic campaigns a massive fundraising advantage over Republican campaigns.
With email a key channel for raising money and securing votes, this could have a decisive impact in deciding election outcomes. For example, in Arizona the RNC has sent over 490,000 emails, and if 68 percent of these are marked as spam, 330,000 voters won’t see our Republican appeal. To show just how dangerously close this meddling and distortion could come to deciding elections, the last U.S. Senate race in Arizona was decided by just 79,000 votes.
Ultimately, this type of partisan censorship falls into a broader pattern of Big Tech hijacking platforms of political speech to tip the scales towards Democrats. Just two weeks ago, YouTube removed video of Chairwoman McDaniel’s recent conversation with President Donald Trump. Their reason? The president referenced issues with the 2020 election and the need to restore faith in our electoral system.
Last year, President Trump was removed from Twitter and Facebook. Just weeks before the 2020 election, Twitter suspended the New York Post’s account for breaking news on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal—a story that even the New York Times now admits is true. The Babylon Bee, a popular conservative satire site, was recently locked out of its account for jokingly referring to transgender Biden administration official Dr. Rachel Levine as a man, which the company considers “hateful content.” Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was also targeted for a similar post. These are a few of the big names. It’s impossible to quantify how many others self-censor, carefully wording their thoughts or keeping silent altogether out of fear of being silenced.
Leftist activists within Big Tech have decided that censorship is necessary to advance another goal: silencing what they deem “hate speech” and “misinformation.” And Democrats are more than willing join in these efforts. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the White House has been “flagging problematic posts” for Big Tech to censor because they contain “misinformation” about COVID and even called for more policing of information and speech.
We cannot let Silicon Valley oligarchs suppress free speech. Republicans have always believed in the importance of vigorous speech and thought to a free society. Recent trends prove that’s more important than ever. It’s time to hold Big Tech’s tiny tyrants accountable.
Heading into what will be historic midterm elections, Google’s e-mail suppression of Republican candidates is just the latest example of why Big Tech cannot be let off the hook. It’s clear what is at stake: not just the future of our country, but the free speech that made America what it is today.
Ronna McDaniel is the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Sen. Rick Scott is a U.S. Senator from Florida and the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), and Rep. Tom Emmer represents Minnesota’s 6th congressional district and serves as the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
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