Politico is owned by the german Axel Springer SE, a publisher that also owns Bild, Fakt (polish) and Welt among others.
The publisher and its news outlets (with the aforementioned Bild, Fakt and Welt most prominent) is a main driver for a news coverage and reporting that is jointly responsible for the rise of the far right in Germany and Europe.
Politico itself has published so-called Native Ads, a form of advertisng that is designed like op-ed articles and other opinion pieces in a way that is hard to differeentiate from regular, non-sponsored content, mostly for fossile fuel companies but also healt insurance, finance and weapons industries. (Source 1, Source 2).
That sums up to a news outlet that should not be shared, not be trusted and hence, not be posted here. It was not an issue mostly since this outlet wasn’t posted here often , but recently, Politico articles are getting posted very frequently again, so I suggest the ban now.
Edit: lost a word
Edit 2: it should be noted that there is another publisher with a similar name (Springer Nature with several subsidiaries), but that company os not affiliated with Axel Springer SE and has different issues.
It’s not like there’s an abundance of EU focused titles. They often have good and pertinent articles, just judge by article.
Outright banning one of the most influential sites in the EU bubble is just making this corner of the internet even more blind sighted by extreme left orthodoxy instead of being a corner of healthy and interesting debate.
Is there any option between banning and doing nothing? I do get the impression that some of their articles are decent, and I would agree that they’re not that right wing in general (in contrast to Bild and Welt).
i think it is necessary to occasionally see what ‘the other side’ is pushing, just to be prepared.
so i’d say autotagging posts pointing to certain domains with a “warning” label (like for example https://ground.news/ is doing) might be the better approach.
but lemmy afaik does not have a feature like this; so banning might be the next best thing 🤷🏻♀️
I wouldn’t care if it was every now and then, but recently the frequency of Politico articles being shared here has skyrocketed - mostly by a single user, but I have seen them being posted by others, too.
Yes, they have some well written and researched articles, which I shared.
Maybe forcing every title with politico to have [Warning] as the next best thing
The wikipedia article section this links to highlights that the publisher endorses : US European alliance, reconciliation between Germans and Jews, support for Israel, European integration, oppositikon to PiS. Not exactly a far right rag then.
You’re so deep down the Overton Window that none of those things register as explicitly far right to you?
US European alliance
America is snatching people off the streets, silencing dissenting voices, threatening countries with both economic and military attack, and building concentration camps.
support for Israel
Israel is a genocidal ethno-state.
The 2025 letter has been signed by over 7500 citizens, 400 academics, including 31 Nobel Prize winners.
As in 1925, we scientists, philosophers, writers, artists and citizens of the world, have a responsibility to denounce and resist the resurgence of fascism in all its forms. We call on all those who value democracy to act:
- Defend democratic, cultural and educational institutions. Call out abuses of democratic principles and human rights. Refuse preemptive compliance.
- Join collective actions, locally and internationally. Boycott and strike when possible. Make resistance impossible to ignore and costly to repress.
- Uphold facts and evidence. Foster critical thinking and engage with your communities on these grounds.
Nope, the wikipedia article referred to the transatlantic alliance which Trump and others are now dismantling. That is what the publisher endorsed : the transatlantic alliance established after WWII.
Support for the existence of Israel is mainstream, yes. Even though it committed war crimes that will probably soon be judged as a genocide by court.
Fully with you on fighting fascism. Not the same as fighting conservatives and the center right.
Is there such a list to begin with?
Also fuck Axel Springer.
Yes, in the community sidebar.
Maybe instead of banning, add a disclaimer tag instead? I have no idea about the overhead for the moderators or if automation is a possibility.
We use Politico all the time as a generally reliable source on Wikipedia. The sponsored content is obviously shitty, but it’s clearly distinguished by its “Sponsored” mark. If that goes, then banning it as a source might be a level-headed response.
And yet, if you read Wikipedia’s own pages on Politico and Axel Springer it is clearly not a reliable source…
We’re keenly aware of Politico’s controversies when we use them as a reliable source. We consider them to have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and sorry to say, we’re generally better at sussing that out than most people – not inherently but because that’s what years of writing encyclopedic prose does to a mf.
Is the average social media user capable of sussing out fact from fiction as rigorously though?
This discussion is about their potential for propaganda and viewpoint manipulation on Lemmy after all, not as a citation in an encyclopaedia.
Of their many daily articles how many would be deemed acceptable to Wikipedia and how many not? There must be a ratio where Wikipedia calls time. As Wikipedia only picks the parts that are relevant, the untrustworthy articles would be ignored. That’s not the case on social media though where some users are spamming articles as if it’s an RSS feed.
As Lemmy/PieFed grows in users, the likelihood of bogus articles climbing up people’s feeds, legitimising the articles, also increases.
This is an issue that needs nipped in the bud earlier rather than later IMO.
Well, you shouldn’t.
+1
Politico Europe as a main driver of the far right, which it persistently criticizes, investigates and denounces.
Why are you on this vendetta?
That is not what I wrote. Don’t rip stuff out of context.
Then I misunderstood your second paragraph on the “main driver”.
