Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Apple Hid It, Gmail Buried It, and the GOP, along w Voters Paid the Price

Transcript

Apple Hid It, Gmail Buried It, and the GOP, along w Voters Paid the Price · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Who's going to vote for the guy? So, Telefrico voted
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in favor of defunding the police. And he personally wrote
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a bill to strip Texas police officers of their legal
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: protection because he wants to destroy the lives of your
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: police officers. And he personally introduced a bill to shut
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: down all five juvenile detention centers in Texas to let
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: violent thugs and gang members run wild in your street.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Good Thursday morning. Nice to have you with us on
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: the 47 Morning Update. And we've got two big stories
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: for you that are absolutely affecting the outcome of the
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: midterm elections. We are now being told that Apple News
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: deliberately hid stories reporting on the Democratic National Committee's financial
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: woes ahead of the midterms. This on top of big tech,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: making sure that fundraising emails from conservative causes and candidates
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: are not actually reaching your inbox. They're deliberately sending them
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: to your spam folder. And that is costing hundreds of
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: millions in fundraising to Republican candidates. We break down both
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: of those stories for you in just a moment. But
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: before we get to that, on October the 7th, 2023,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Israel firefighter Danny faced a nightmare no parent should ever endure.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: A terrorist attacked his community and he and his wife
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: sheltered in their safe room. Now, the worst part was
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: just yards away, his daughter and son-in-law were trapped inside
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: their home as it burned during the horrific attacks on
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: that day. There was nothing he could do to save them.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Danny has dedicated his life to rescuing others, yet in
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: the midst of unimaginable grief, He stepped forward to help
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: evacuate the survivors and care for his shattered community. Today,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: he continues helping rebuild. His story reminds us that behind
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: every headline is a real family, a mother, a father,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: a son, or a daughter whose life mattered. That's why
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: thousands of churches across America are going to be doing
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: something that's truly amazing. They are joining the Flags of
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Fellowship movement started by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Each flag planted as part of this powerful movement honors
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: a life lost. Each flag stands against hatred, and each
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: flag declares to the world that Israel is not alone.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I want you to join believers across America in this
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: powerful act of remembrance and solidarity with Israel. You can
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: learn how you or your church can make a difference
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: at joinfof.org. That's joinfof.org. It's the 47 Morning Update, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: it starts right now.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Story number one.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: There's a question that we've been talking about a lot
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: here on the show, and that is just how much
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: of an impact does big tech have specifically on the
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: elections when it comes to conservative candidates or hiding news
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: that may be damaging to Democrats so voters don't know
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: about it. Now, you put those two things together and, yeah,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: you can have an awful lot of influence on the
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: election if you think about it from that perspective. Well,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: now we've got new information, and it all deals with
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: the midterm elections that are happening right now. When you
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: combine this new info with the research that we've already
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: seen about Republican fundraising emails and how they've been put
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: into spam folders that is having a massive impact on
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: not raising money, because think about it. If you get
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: an email asking you to give money to a conservative
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: cause or candidate and it goes into your spam folder,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: You're way less likely to ever see it, meaning you're
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: way less likely to ever give. Well, big tech quietly
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: is putting the thumb on the political scales at a
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: level we never could have imagined. The Media Research Center
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: has just released an analysis. They are now accusing Apple
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: News of effectively blacking out one of the most damaging
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: stories surrounding the Democratic Party heading into the midterms. The
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Democratic National Committee's serious financial problems should be a top story.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: But it's nowhere to be found. Yeah. Now, the financial
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: problems are documented in federal campaign finance records. And according
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: to the Federal Election Commission, as of June 30th of
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: this year, the DNC reported having just 16.3 million in
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: cash on hand while carrying an 18 and a half
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: million dollar debt. Now, you compare that to the Republicans.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: The Republican National Committee has $ 128. 5 million in cash and
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: zero debt. And what does that mean? It means the
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: RNC has nearly eight times as much on hand as
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: the DNC. And we've known this for a while, which
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: is why the story becomes really interesting. This financial situation
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: has become so serious, apparently, that the DNC used its
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Washington headquarters as collateral for a $ 15 million loan. The
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: DNC has pointed out that using its building as collateral
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: isn't unprecedented, they claim. And Democrats, they go, well, they've
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: done it before with previous lines of credit, so this
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: is not a big deal. Everybody calm down, right? Well,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: it's newsworthy, and the media knows this, and so does
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Apple News. In fact, even the liberal Washington Post covered
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: the story. They understood how significant it was. The New
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: York Times, by the way, also covered the DNC's internal
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: financial problems. Even ABC News covered the donor frustration. Politico,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: they covered it. The Guardian, they covered it. The Wall
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Street Journal has a report on major Democratic donors pulling back. Now, this, again,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: is a story that even the left is covering in
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: the media. So what did Apple News do? Well, according
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: to the Media Research Center, you could apparently consume the
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: most prominent stories Apple News was serving its users day
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: after day and never see this story break through. MRC
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: says its researchers examined the top 20 stories that were
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: promoted by Apple News at approximately 8.30 every morning from
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: January 1st through September 28th. They searched for coverage involving
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: the DNC, involving their fundraising, involving their debt, involving the
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: FEC in related terms. Their conclusion? Not one story about
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: the Democratic National Committee's financial crisis ever appeared among those
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: top 20 stories during the period that they monitored from
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: January 1 through September the 28th. MRC says it identified
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: 78 stories elsewhere dealing with the DNC's financial troubles, including
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: stories from publications Apple News regularly promotes on their front page.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Yet none of those financial stories made the top 20
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: at all in their snapshots. Now, MRC also said it
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: also seems to establish that Apple News, well, was pretty clear.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: They're serving up news that they want you to read
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: and anything that they don't like, like the DNC being
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: out of money or having real problems, we'll just move that, well,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: to the back of the office and you'll never see it. Now,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: this does have a big impact on the 2026 elections
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: because you're dealing with stories Americans see and they see
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: them almost every day on their smartphones. That is power.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: And if you don't tell them about what's happening with
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: the Democratic National Committee, you may not realize there is
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: a real problem with their messaging or a big civil
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: war going on between the Democratic Socialists of America and
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: the traditional Democratic Party. And that's what we see right now. Now,
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: researchers also said from not only the University of Iowa
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: and the University of Alabama. They study what happened when
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: political fundraising emails are sent through major email providers. And
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: their paper examined two episodes during 2025. And what they
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: found also deserves enormous attention. According to research, during one
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: 78-day period, Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo! routed emails containing win-read
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: donation links. Now, that's the Republican fundraising platform. To spam
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: folders while otherwise identical emails containing Democrat Act blue links
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: were reaching your inbox. Now, what does that mean? Well,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: same basic email. Change the fundraising destination from a conservative
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: to a liberal or a liberal to conservative to And
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: then what happens? Well, big tech decided if it's a
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Republican fundraising email, it goes towards your spam folder. And
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: if it's a Democratic fundraising email that reaches your inbox
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: right there at the top. The researchers also studied a
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: separate Outlook episode and attempted to measure what this actually
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: means in dollars and their estimates. Well, they were staggering.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: The New York Post, now reporting on the research, said
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: that the researchers estimate that Republicans lost roughly 117 million
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: in potential donations during the two periods they analyzed. They
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: said more than 142,000 estimated first-time donations were lost. Now,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I'm going to say that number again so you understand
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: just how big of an impact big tech is having
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: on this election. Big tech was able to make $ 117
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: million disappear. Now this wasn't merely an academic discussion about
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: whether somebody's email ended up in the promotions folder. No
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: political campaigns live on fundraising. They were getting the raw
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: data and fundraising pays for television advertising. Now, By the way,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: that same fundraising pays for digital advertising. It pays for staff.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: It pays for voter registration drives. It pays for field offices.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: It pays for get out the vote operations. It pays
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: for the mail that comes to your house. It pays
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: for everything required to actually win an election. And what
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: big tech did was they said, hey. if we send
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: out the emails fine but do we have to send
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: their actual email box or should we put all these
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: republican fundraisers in spam and then we can watch them
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: underperform by 117 million dollars that is shocking now the
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: researchers by the way looked at just how big of
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: a disparity there was between the two. And one thing
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: is clear. If you're a radical leftist advocating for the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: radical left and trying to raise money, your email is
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: not going to spam. At 2022, by the way, North
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: Carolina State University study famously found that Gmail sent 77
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: percent of right-wing candidate emails in its experiment to spam,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: compared with just 10% of left-wing candidates in the same
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: time period. Outlook and Yahoo showed bias in the opposition
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: direction in that study, they said. And the researchers said
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: in that study, it was very clear that there were
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: efforts by the companies to influence voters. Google, of course,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: strongly disputed the methodology and conclusions surrounding that research. And
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: guess who report on that? You guessed it. The Washington Post.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: But here's why all the new research matters. We're no
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: longer just talking about theoretical differences in where emails land.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Researchers are now trying to quantify. The financial consequences and
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: their estimates are in the nine figures. So put these
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: two stories together. On one side, you have the Media
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Research Center saying Apple News failed to prominently feature stories
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: exposing the Democratic National Committee's major financial problems. On the
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: other side, you have an academic researcher, or I should
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: say researchers, from two prominent American universities, finding episodes where
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Republican fundraising emails linked to, again, WinRed, were disproportionately routed
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: to spam, with an estimated loss of $ 117 million in fundraising.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: $ 117 million is the difference many times between winning a
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: national election and losing a national election. Are you connecting
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: the dots? Listen to what I'm telling you here. Because
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: not only do these two stories affect information, it also
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: affects voter turnout. And this money that they didn't get
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: to raise because the emails are going to spam was
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: money that would have been used to get out the
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: vote for conservative candidates. Now, both of these powerful technology companies...
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: are clearly standing between political organizations and the American citizens.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And that's the bigger story here. Big tech doesn't have
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: to delete a story to diminish its impact. It now
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: simply can make the story harder to discover for you
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: to find it. And an email doesn't have to be banned.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: It can simply land somewhere most people never look, their
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: spam folders. And that's why this story and transparency matters.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Because an Apple editor deciding what appears at the top
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: of Apple News can literally daily influence millions of people
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: into believing what is important and what is real and
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: what is not real or what is happening and what's
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: not happening. And an email algorithm deciding whether a political
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: fundraising appeal lands in your inbox or your spam folder
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: can determine, well, whether you ever see it and the
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: actual outcome of a future election. And that's why they're
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: doing it. All of these decisions made by the radical
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: left were done for one reason, to win an election
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: and to control the outcome of an election. This is
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: a massive disadvantage if you're a conservative. It's a massive
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: advantage if you're on the liberal side of things. And Americans,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: by the way, have every right to demand answers about
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: how these decisions are being made. And with the midterm
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: elections approaching, this isn't an abstract debate anymore about Silicon Valley.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: This is about political power. Now, the DNC entered the
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: summer with 18.5 million in debt, 16.3 million in cash.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: The RNC had 128.5 million and no debt. Those are
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the facts. Americans deserve to know them. And Americans also
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: deserve to have confidence that when they voluntarily subscribe to
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: any type of political communication or choose to support a
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: candidate or a technology company that is out there that's
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: trying to act like their big brother or picking and
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: choosing winners, they should stay out of it because they
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be able to stand between you and your choice
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: and who you support. And by the way, this goes
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: on both sides of the aisle. But then again, this
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: is big tech, right? This is exactly what they want
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: to do. They want to tell you who to vote for,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: and they want to tell you who's good, and they
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: want to tell you who's evil, and they want to
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: control your inbox. And now we know that not only
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: was Apple News controlling what news stories you saw on
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: your phone, but they were also, big tech, controlling exactly
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: where your money may have gone or not gone by
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: making sure that when conservatives asked you for help, you
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: never knew they asked.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson. please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast right now. And for more in-depth news,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast, and we will
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: see you back here tomorrow.