Rubio Accuses Google Of Election Bias, Censoring Campaign Emails

Authored by Rita Li via The Epoch Times,

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) blamed Google for allegedly filtering his emails to supporters in the run-up to the midterms this fall, describing on May 21 his current situation as being in “purgatory.”

The senator said that up to 90 percent of his campaign emails to supporters with a registered Gmail address never reach their inboxes but go to the spam folder. He said it comes after his Democratic opponent Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) announced a year ago she would run against him in the 2022 midterm elections.

“Marco Rubio for Senate is in @Google purgatory. Since a Pelosi puppet announced she was running against me, they have sent 66% of my emails to REGISTERED SUPPORTERS with @gmail to spam,” Rubio wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

“And during the final weeks of finance quarters, it climbs to over 90%,” the post reads.

Marco Rubio for Senate is in @Google purgatory

Since a Pelosi puppet announced she was running against me they have sent 66% of my emails to REGISTERED SUPPORTERS with @gmail to spam

And during the final weeks of finance quarters it climbs to over 90%

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 21, 2022

The Epoch Times has reached out to Google for comment.

Rubio currently serves as a two-term senator for the state of Florida, and is facing Demings in Florida’s 2022 general election on Nov. 8. As the Sunshine State prepares for its primary on Aug. 23, the Republican senator has been holding an average lead over Demings among registered voters.

Republicans filed a joint complaint on April 27 with the Federal Election Commission to investigate Gmail’s algorithm—which “makes it much harder for Republicans to reach their supporters” than Democrats and stifles the fundraising efforts of Republicans—as claimed by researchers at North Carolina State University (NCSU).

The GOP groups said Google’s algorithm could potentially cost them over $1 billion.

“Gmail marked 59.3% more emails from the right candidates as spam compared to the left candidates, whereas Outlook and Yahoo marked 20.4% and 14.2% more emails from left candidates as spam compared to the right candidates, respectively,” the NCSU study shows (pdf).

Although researchers said no evidence suggests that the classifications are “deliberate attempts” to influence voters, “their SFAs [spam filtering algorithms] have learnt to mark more emails from one political affiliation as spam compared to the other.”

Last week, Politico first reported that Republican senators held a private meeting with Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer at Google, over email bias claims against the company.

“Mail classifications in Gmail automatically adjust to match Gmail users’ preferences and actions,” a Google spokesperson said in a previous email, responding to the NCSU study.