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Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is accusing Google of censoring his campaign emails, stating that his campaign is in “Google purgatory.”
Rubio tweeted on Saturday morning that 66% of his campaign emails to “registered supporters” with a Gmail address have been sent to a spam inbox since a “Pelosi Puppet” announced she is running against him.
“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 tweeted. “And during the final weeks of finance quarters it climbs to over 90%”
Rubio and Rep. Val Demmings, D-Fla., are running for the U.S. Senate in the Sunshine State.
Rubio’s tweet comes just days after Politico reported that several Republican senators held a meeting with Google’s chief legal officer, Kent Walker, on Wednesday to talk about a study on how the company deals with campaign emails – finding that Google’s “Gmail leaned toward the left.”
GOOGLE’S GMAIL FAVORS LEFT-WING CANDIDATES, SENDS FAR MORE EMAILS FROM CONSERVATIVES TO SPAM: STUDY
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., walks to the Senate subway after a vote in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (Photo by Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The study, performed during the 2020 election, found that “Gmail marked 59.3% more emails from the right candidates as spam compared to the left candidates.” It said that there’s no evidence to suggest that the marking of spam email from political campaigns are deliberate attempt to influence voters, however.
Outlook and Yahoo leaned toward the left in marking party candidates’ emails as spam, but by a far less percentage than Google.
The meeting, hosted by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., was described by a source to Politico as “short of hostile, but confrontational.”
A Google sign inside Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. A Paris court has convicted the company in a copyright infringement case over online publication of French books. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
“Google deflected, refused to provide any data, repeatedly refused to answer direct questions,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas said.
The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News, but has previously maintained that “political affiliation has absolutely no bearing on mail classifications in Gmail.”
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Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, walks to a Senate Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. (Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Political affiliation has absolutely no bearing on mail classifications in Gmail and we’ve debunked this suggestion, which has surfaced periodically from across the political spectrum, for many years. Mail classifications in Gmail automatically adjust to match Gmail users’ preferences and actions. Gmail users can move messages to spam, or to any other category. Gmail automatically adjusts the classifications of particular emails according to these user actions,” a Google spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
