(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – Google’s alleged political bias was at the center of a bill Sen. John Thune, and over 20 other Senate Republicans introduced that would ban email providers from using algorithms to sort through federal political campaign emails.
The bill led by Thune (R-S.D.) is a reaction to a North Carolina State University study finding that Gmail sent a higher percentage of Republican candidates’ emails to spam than Democrats.
The bill has also received support from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The bill would ban email providers from applying filtering algorithms to federal political campaign messages if implemented. The bill would also require email providers to give information to campaigns when requested and produce quarterly reports on Republican and Democrat emails being sent to spam.
According to reporting by Fox News Digital, Thune revealed that “Almost 70 percent of [Republican] political communication was sent to spam,” citing North Carolina State’s study on Gmail’s practices.
He noted that when North Carolina State did a “similar analysis of Democratic emails… only 8 percent had been sent to spam,” adding, “clearly there was some algorithm that was being used that was manipulating what people were… seeing.”
However, Google denies filtering emails to disadvantage a specific part.
According to a spokesperson for Google, the company does not “filter emails based on political affiliation, and we’re working on increasing transparency data for bulk senders, including campaigns, in our suite of tools for senders.”
Yet the company expressed it was looking forward to working with lawmakers “to ensure Gmail is providing users with the best experience.”
