Google allows verified political campaigns to bypass Gmail spam filter
🧵 Google just made Gmail worse on purpose. Starting Sept 8, campaigns & PACs can bypass spam filters more easily to hit your inbox with fund-raising emails. Why? Because Republicans sued claiming bias, lost in court, got dismissed by the FEC too & Google caved anyway. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/u...
Jennifer C16🧵2 The RNC’s bias claim was tossed by a federal judge as “pure speculation, lacking facts.” The FEC dismissed it too. There was no bias. There was no case. Google rewrote inbox rules for millions of us based on a grievance that had zero legal or factual backing. That’s it.
meg11.bsky.social5It sometimes takes awhile but I always return those with a thank you for reminding me to donate to an opponent! They do remove you if you do it enough!
Peggy Stuart5If a phishing sender has a Gmail account you can report them. I wonder if we can report fundraisers as spam here as well. Our own Gmail accounts abusing us? support.google.com/mail/contact...
Lisa ⚖️🌎2Will deactivate my gmail account after the first campaign/PAC crap.
Averie Maddox2I am about done with gmail. I tried to turn off the AI features and toggles that allow them to read my mail. But that deactivated categories like Spam/Social/Promotims. That was bad enough. Maybe I’ll go back to yahoo! Mofo gmail hacks suck
(Debbie)🐕🐈🐘🐼☕️🎶⚖️🌊2Son of bitch🤬 I guess I'll have to get another email but then I have to let all my acquaintances and businesses know. What a pain in the ass🤬
Thomas Long17I fully divorced myself from google 18 months ago. It was difficult, given that I had a gmail account for 15 years, and cloud storage… But it was worth every bit of the effort. I now use proton email and DuckDuckGo browser. Make the switch before they completely sell you out to fascist overlords.
Ahmet9It is shit like this that will be the doom of Google. They had pretty much all of the good will you can get for a website/company, but every single day they make moves that alienate people and look for alternatives.
Citizen X7They want to scam all the grandmas in the nursing home thinking all the "Urgent!" Political Emails in her inbox have to be paid
Xy, First Minister of Furries and Autism4i'll say it again, the moment someone comes up with a full-featured gmail replacement that actually, like, works like an email client should and has basic IMAP hooks and everything, i'm jumping ship. and I say this as a fucking _alpha_ adopter of gmail. i don't care anymore. god.
Boaz • MyTurn /A Space2Some colleagues think Google is still having the “don’t do evil” motto. Shrug.
Jim Dukelow2Validating my decision a while back to abandon Samsung/Google.
This isn't just a story about rogue spam PACs and fundraising firms like PTP and Mothership that the party hasn't reined in. There's a cottage industry of spam vendors, and the DCCC/DSCC's fundraising bears the hallmarks of elder financial exploitation, just toned down. Side-by-side comparison 👇🧵
Adam Bonica41Tactic 1: Manufactured urgency. Deadlines and countdown pressure.
ray.13I stopped donating because I can't get off the lists, can't stop the spam.
dubyahehtch.bsky.social2Right? This is some underhanded nonsense purposely geared towards the elderly that I got from Elect Diverse Democrats 2026 [C00910653](affiliated with CHC BOLD PAC [C00365536]) last year, apparently less than 3 weeks after formation.
san3clemente.bsky.social1I was thinking a version of this earlier today. There are binders full of consultants employed to suck up money for the party. This is one version. Another is the Super PAC industrial complex. DSA candidates are more likely to refuse big donors, hence the threat to those orgs
Stork1Putting the words "Steve Kornacki's shocking statement" in an email's subject line seems especially egregious.
Cassandra1@rainierrambler.bsky.social & @schubertstan.bsky.social, were we just talking about this? Or maybe I'm just remembering my angry internal monologue
Eric Blair42@adambonica.bsky.social is doing praiseworthy work here digging up dirt that many would rather have hidden. A key is “the DCCC/DSCC’s fundraising bears [similar] hallmarks of elder financial exploitation.” It’s the top of the party. This is on Schumer and Jeffries to change.
flatline42.bsky.social32@laurajedeed.bsky.social this is why the mainstream Dems are afraid of the DSA. They have a good grift going and having to actually govern might spoil the profits.
Ariel Méndez8Strangely enough, having just gone through an application cycle with a graduating senior, a lot of colleges are using the same techniques to recruit potential applicants.
Noah Dahl5Really more folks should be paying attention to this trend—because wheyher or not you want to admit it, it affects how voters view the Democratic party as much as any branding campaign would—and consequently voters enthusiasm.
🏳️⚧️Manticorn☸️3Republicans do the exact same thing, of course, so Dem leadership probably operates under the assumption that they must abandon principles and ethics to stay competitive against the greater evil, the same way they forfeited on trans segregation, Israel and the border wall in many campaigns.
