Censored! Google Labels Email Promoting Kennedy Debate as “Dangerous”
American Values 2024 | June 27, 2024
By Leah Watson, Breaking News Reporter, The Kennedy Beacon
After being excluded from CNN’s Trump v. Biden show, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared he would hold his own debate at TheRealDebate.com (powered by X), where he will respond to CNN’s questions at 9 p.m. ET., in real time.
Kennedy supporters have been promoting this event by sharing the link on social media, in substacks, and in email listservs, but they’ve encountered predictable resistance. One promoter, who would like to remain anonymous, sent a Kennedy Beacon staff member information about the debate with a link to the livestream. After sending it, the friend replied. The friend’s email response reveals a bright red banner that Google had attached to the email
.The Google banner reads: “This message seems dangerous,” flagging the message as malicious, claiming that similar messages were used to steal people’s personal information, and asking people to avoid clicking links and downloading attachments.
The recipient of the warning was perplexed that this was attached to what he thought was a private email, especially because he had not altered his Gmail settings in any way.
“No filters, checkboxes, or any other settings that would have caused that red banner to show up on my end. I’ve never seen anything like that in any previous emails, and I’ve received a ‘million’ emails before this. My first impression was ‘Yikes!’ This is one hundred percent Google,” said the friend.
According to Byte Bite Bit, a website guide for computer hardware and software, these notices “may be triggered by various factors, such as messages containing malicious links, deceptive content, or being sent from a domain that fails to authenticate properly with email standards like SPF (Sender Policy Framework) or DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail).”
“This message seems dangerous” notices were implemented by Gmail in order to prevent people from falling victim to phishing scams. However, promoting a presidential candidate’s debate on a verified website powered by X hardly seems malicious or deceptive.
Kennedy and his supporters are no strangers to censorship. Last month, the short film Who Is Bobby Kennedy, produced by American Values 2024, was censored by Meta. After it was uploaded on YouTube, Google slapped a COVID-19 vaccine disclaimer at the bottom of the video, encouraging people to visit the World Health Organization (WHO) website.
When people tried to share a link to the short film on Instagram and Facebook, they received notifications that their content was violating “Community Guidelines” in regard to “spam”; “support or praise of terrorism, organized crime or hate groups”; “solicitation of sexual services”; and “sale of firearms and drugs.”
The Kennedy Beacon article “Are You Being Censored?” implores subscribers who are being shadow-banned or censored to send screenshots of these occurrences to American Values 2024 at censorship@av24.org.
American Values 2024 funds the Kennedy Beacon
