German Politician Thinks Gmail Constituent Messages Are All Faked By Google

from the not-how-it-works dept

Christopher Clay alerts us to the latest Google Derangement Syndrome from an EU Bureaucrat. Last year, we noted that various EU politicians kept insisting that all of the complaints about their awful plan were due to Google lobbying and astroturfing -- when the reality showed that nearly all of the lobbying came from legacy copyright players.

However, German MEP Sven Schulze must have thought he was really on to something in claiming he had real proof of Google astroturfing. In a tweet (in German) he claimed that because all of the complaints he's getting seem to come from people with Gmail addresses, it's proof of fakery. No, really. Here's a translation (courtesy of Google, of course) of his tweet:

Now coming back every second of messages about # upload filter & # Article 13 pure. Apart from the fact that these contents are not correct, ALL come from # Gmail accounts. 🤔Man # google , I know that you are angry, but ye have this # fake really necessary action?

Really now? Perhaps Schultze is unaware that (as of the most recent public stats), Gmail is used by 1.5 billion people. These days, it's pretty typical for lots and lots of people to use Gmail as their personal (and often professional) email address. To claim that seeing Gmail emails proves Google is astroturfing is... nutty. And, it would appear that Schulze's followers recognize just how idiotic this looks.

How do you say ratioed in German?

And many of those 4.5 thousand replies are ruthlessly mocking him for being completely clueless.

I'm guessing he'll blame Google for all those replies as well?

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: article 13, bots, copyright, email, eu, eu copyright directive, gmail, lobbying, sven schulze