Eight House Republicans on Tuesday joined their Senate counterparts in proposing legislation aimed at curbing left-wing political bias in email services’ spam filters.
Like its Senate counterpart, the House bill would force email providers like Gmail, to publish quarterly transparency reports. According to a summary, the reports will need to include information about the number of times the provider has flagged particular GOP or Democrat campaign email as spam. According to a press release, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R.Ariz.) leads a group that includes eight GOP legislators in introducing this bill.
A March North Carolina State University (NC State) study exposed how Gmail marked of 67.6 percent of right-leaning candidates’ emails as spam and 8.2 percent of left-leaning candidates’ emails as spam.
In response to the NC State study, Senate Republicans passed legislation on Wednesday which would prohibit email service providers from labeling certain campaign emails spam.
The bills also prohibit large email platforms to use spam-filtering algorithms for political campaign emails, unless the recipient explicitly labels them as spam. In addition, the bills would authorize political campaigns to request a report on information about the number of emails that reach intended recipients’ inboxes and require large email platforms to provide best practices to campaigns on steps that can be taken to increase the number of emails that reach intended recipients, according to the bill summary.
Google’s spam-filtering practices impact about 130.9 million Americans because Gmail holds over 50 percent of the U.S. email market, according to EnterpriseAppsToday.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and Elise Stefanik, Chairwoman of the House Republican Conference (R–NY), House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Chairman Tom Emmer (R–MN), are all co-sponsors for House Political BIAS Emails Act.
“It is un-American for these companies to be incorporating any political bias into their algorithms,” McMorris Rodgers said in a statement. The findings of the NC State study represent “the latest example of Big Tech abusing their power to shutdown free speech and censor any viewpoint that does not fit the liberal ideology. This bill … reins in Big Tech’s power to control what we can see and hear. The answer to speech we disagree with should always be more speech.”
Following the NC State report’s results, the NRCC (Republican National Committee), Republican National Committee and National Republican Senate Committee all filed a combined complaint with Federal Election Commission.
GOP senators met with Google leadership in May, after which Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said “Google deflected” and didn’t provide meaningful answers to senators’ questions.
“Consumers should be able to choose what they want to see, not Google,” Sen. John Thune said in a statement about the Senate companion bill he introduced. “It’s long past time for Big Tech to be held accountable for its blatant bias, and this bill would be an important step in that direction.”
Conservatives under attackGoogle can be reached at 650-253-0000 to demand transparency and equal treatment for conservatives. We can help you if your information has been blocked. Contact the Media Research CenterContact formHelp us to hold Big Tech responsible.
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