Thread by @random_walker

At Princeton CITP, we were concerned by media reports that political candidates use psychological tricks in their emails to get supporters to donate. So we collected 250,000 emails from 3,000 senders from the 2020 U.S. election cycle. Here’s what we found. electionemails2020.org

Let me back up: this is a study by @aruneshmathur, Angelina Wang, @c_schwemmer, Maia Hamin, @b_m_stewart, and me. We started last year by buying a list of all candidates running for federal and state elections in the U.S. We also acquired lists of PACs and other orgs.

Next, the key bit for data collection: we created a bot that was able to find these candidates’ websites through search engines, look for email sign up forms, fill them in, and collect the emails in a giant inbox. We verified manually that each step works pretty accurately.

We analyzed a snapshot of about 100,000 emails collected up through June 25. While the emails are nominally about different topics, most are clearly about fundraising. There is a common pattern: draw readers in with a deceptive subject line and then move to a fundraising request.

Manipulative tactics that nudge people to open the emails are the norm. We classify six types ranging from sensationalism to faking the From: field. The typical sender used at least one such tactic in about 43% of emails. Most senders — 99% — use them at least occasionally.

Manipulative tactics in donation requests are also common. Vague claims of donation “matching” are ubiquitous. More devious: asking you to fill out a survey and, once you've filled it out, making it look like a donation is required to actually submit what you’ve typed.

You may wonder who falls for these tactics. We hypothesize that older Americans are particularly vulnerable to the kinds of user interface manipulations that we see here. Academic research clearly indicates that digital literacy is correlated with age.

We’re used to seeing these tricks on shopping and travel websites but manipulation in the political sphere is a threat to democracy. While there’s a lot of worry about targeted advertising, manipulative emails — despite being extremely effective — have flown under the radar.

How do campaigns get your email? When you sign up, your address might also be shared or sold to other campaigns. We found 348 instances of email sharing by 200 entities. The majority of these entities had no privacy policy and only 25% disclosed their email sharing practice.

We focused on manipulative practices because we felt there was a gap in the research, but we have built a rich resource that can be used to answer questions about political communication, campaign strategy, A/B testing, and even the spread of misinformation.

You can browse all our emails at electionemails2020.org (updated every few hours).
Here’s our working paper: electionemails2020.org/assets/manipul…

We’re still collecting data and will release the full corpus and updated results after the election.