Bloomberg: GOP Stumbles in Suit Claiming Google Censors Donation Emails. “A Republican National Committee lawsuit accusing Google of routing emails to Gmail users’ spam folders was tossed out by a judge who said the internet giant fairly concluded they were unwanted messages.”
Daily Beast: Inside the Battle to Be the Trumpiest Streaming Channel. “As Donald Trump faces mounting legal problems, the former president has consistently turned to one of his favorite YouTube channels, the fiercely pro-MAGA ‘Right Side Broadcasting Network,’ to spin the news in his favor. And yet, RSBN—as it’s colloquially known—is facing criticism for not being Trump-y enough from an unlikely source: current and former staffers.”
Engadget: US political parties’ views on Twitter have changed dramatically in two years. “Republicans’ and Democrats’ views of Twitter have moved in opposite directions since Elon Musk’s takeover last fall. A Pew Research poll published today found that Republicans are more likely to see the social platform in a positive light than two years ago, while Democrats’ views have moved on a divergent path.”
Washington Post: Inside a private portal from GOP campaigns to local news sites. “The top Republican campaigns in Illinois used a private online portal last year to request stories and shape coverage in a network of media outlets that present themselves as local newspapers, according to documents and people familiar with the setup.”
New York Times: Five Takeaways From the House G.O.P. Hearing With Former Twitter Executives . “House Republicans on Wednesday summoned former Twitter executives to answer to accusations that the social media platform has tried to silence voices on the right, but the hourslong hearing yielded new revelations about how the company failed to limit hateful speech or material that could incite violence, sometimes altering its own rules to avoid doing so.”
Wall Street Journal: Google Didn’t Show Bias in Filtering Campaign-Ad Pitches, FEC Says. “The Federal Election Commission has dismissed a complaint from Republicans that Google’s Gmail app aided Democratic candidates by sending GOP fundraising emails to spam at a far higher rate than Democratic solicitations.”
New York University: Exposure to Russian Twitter Campaigns in 2016 Presidential Race Highly Concentrated, Largely Limited to Strongly Partisan Republicans. “The study, which included researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Trinity College Dublin, and Technical University of Munich and examined social media users’ behaviors and attitudes in both April and October of 2016, also concluded that there was no relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior. Despite these results, the researchers caution that Russia attempts to alter the outcome of the election may have had other effects.”
Wall Street Journal: Germany Dismantles Suspected QAnon-Inspired Terrorist Group. “The group was inspired by the QAnon conspiracy that has spread worldwide from the U.S. and has been linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, as well as the German Reichsbürger, or Citizens of the Reich, movement, which rejects the German state and its institutions, the prosecutor said.”
Mississippi State University: MSU Libraries takes Mississippi Republican Party papers online for first time. “Historical papers of the Mississippi Republican Party, held by Mississippi State Libraries since 1980, are available online for the first time. A new finding aid—or descriptive guide—now helps researchers in electronically examining and understanding the content of the collection which dates back to 1928.”
Washington Post: The GOP went to war against Google over spam — and may win. “It’s unclear what impact Google’s spam filters have had on the GOP’s fundraising, if any. Nevertheless, Republicans have waged a pressure campaign that has included public Twitter offensives and private discussions with Google chief executive Sundar Pichai. GOP lawmakers have introduced draft legislation in both chambers of Congress.”
The Miami Student: Facebook algorithm may favor the Republican party, study co-authored by Miami University professors finds . “New research from Miami University has shown that a change in the Facebook algorithm may have increased the visibility of posts from local Republican parties. Professors from Miami and Wright State University (WSU) found that, despite posting more, Democratic parties received significantly less interaction on their posts.”
Phys .org: Local economic data encourages legislators to open emails—but only Democrats. “Personalizing outreach to legislators to include the local economic impact of an issue can increase engagement with research among Democratic, but not Republican, legislators. The findings, published in the journal Implementation Science, support including economic evidence when communicating with legislators, but also signal the value of tailoring communication by political party.”
NBC News: Facebook’s 2018 algorithm change boosted local GOP groups, research finds. “A change to Facebook’s recommendation system likely accounted for a disproportionate boost in visibility and engagement to conservative political groups on the social media platform starting in 2018, according to research published Wednesday. The research, published in the journal Research & Politics, looked at posts from the pages of nearly every county party in the U.S. and found a marked increase in shares, comments and reactions to Republican posts.”
Reuters: U.S. Bill Would Bar Google, Apple From Hosting Apps That Accept China’s Digital Yuan. “Republican senators want to bar U.S. app stores including Apple and Google from hosting apps that allow payments to be made with China’s digital currency, amid fears the payment system could allow Beijing to spy on Americans.”
Phys .org: 1 in 5 state GOP lawmakers in far-right Facebook groups, study says. “In a year-long review of the 7,383 seats in state legislatures in the 2021-2022 session, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) found that 4,011 seats were held by Republicans. Of those GOP lawmakers, 872—21.74%—had joined far-right Facebook groups, according to the report, ‘Breaching the Mainstream.’”
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