[HN Gopher] Google gets the green light to flood US Gmail inboxe...
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Google gets the green light to flood US Gmail inboxes with
political spam
Author : samizdis
Score : 16 points
Date : 2022-08-11 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| chmod775 wrote:
| Considering that e-mail is essentially an utility at this point,
| this doesn't surprise me.
|
| In many countries it's considered vital to democracy that
| political campaign ads be privileged. I don't think the US are
| any different?
|
| Also from an outside perspective, the portrayal of the republican
| party in this article is again... eyebrow raising. Nice
| editorializing though. I guess polarization is still the main
| goal of political reporting?
| mattzito wrote:
| What do you see as polarizing/editorializing instead of factual
| reporting in that article?
| chmod775 wrote:
| Starts with the title: "Google gets the green light to
| _flood_ US Gmail inboxes with political _spam_ " instead of
| something like "Google gets green light to exempt campaign
| mail from spam filters".
|
| Then almost the whole article is dedicated to the best
| arguments of the opposition, while cherry picking a single
| proponent argument and presenting it in the worst possible
| light. The only time a non-opponent gets a proper quote is
| when Google is justifying having a pilot program - and
| they're more of a neutral party here.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| I think that's quite honest reporting given both the volume
| of emails that will be sent, and how unwelcome they will
| mostly be. (I mean, I'm not American, so I won't be getting
| those, but I know which folder they'd be going to if I
| were)
| chmod775 wrote:
| > I think that's quite honest reporting given both the
| volume of emails that will be sent, and how unwelcome
| they will mostly be.
|
| I prefer factual and un-opinionated over "quite honest".
| Where I come from the former is considered the proper way
| to report on politics. Anything else smells wrong.
| altruios wrote:
| Yep. Language like that is par for the course now...
|
| Recently more and more people caught on to the fact that for
| (most of) us, inflammatory language generates interests which
| translates to clicks.
|
| It's not about what you are saying but how you are presenting
| the argument.
|
| Thoughts no longer compete on the vector of 'truth', but on a
| new vector of 'stickiness' - where diction and presentation are
| significantly focused on in the pursuit of profit...
|
| Just like news journalists before us intended... /s
|
| In America: political mail is the greatest offender in this
| regard - information designed to be digested quickly, easily,
| and build 'trigger words' in their constituents... in
| traditional mail it's the biggest waste of paper (from the hand
| to the trash for a half a glance)... with email you give
| politicians with corporates backed finances running amok with
| targeted advertising.
|
| This is a future hell-scape of further political division and
| money flooded into the waiting mouths of advertisement
| agencies. This is not a pro-human decision - thanks to our
| current political landscape... This may be more appropriate
| with healthier and more stable democracies.
| quantified wrote:
| Just give me a UI button to add my own spam filter rule.
| mattzito wrote:
| There is- you can add filters that will route emails directly
| to spam based on the criteria you define
| kencausey wrote:
| I agree, but I'm hard pressed to come up with the appropriate
| criteria at least in advance of getting any real life
| examples. At the moment, I can't think of anything better
| than 'republican|democrat' but I bet that will generate both
| false positives and false negatives.
|
| That said, I doubt that I have to be concerned about it as
| I'm pretty unknown in political circles, other than having
| signed up for vote.org years ago.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 'm hard pressed to come up with the appropriate
| criteria at least in advance of getting any real life
| examples_
|
| A wide filter would be "ActBlue" and "WinRed." Otherwise,
| every jurisdiction has copypasta boilerplate in its
| political emails. Find yours and filter.
| zindlerb wrote:
| I setup a filter to archive any email with the phrase "paid
| for by" this has been pretty good at filtering all
| political spam. Although it may generate some false
| positives.
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