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.

  • catharso@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 months ago

    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 🤷🏻‍♀️

    • CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      6 months ago

      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.

      • CAVOK@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Is it me? Am I the offending user?

        I don’t think there’s enough content on lemmy yet to ban news outlets based on ideological purity of the owners, and its doubt there will ever be.

        I think it’s a good enough source and should not be banned.

      • Pip@feddit.org
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        6 months ago

        Yes, they have some well written and researched articles, which I shared.

        • Pip@feddit.org
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          6 months ago

          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.

          • Zombie@feddit.uk
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            6 months ago

            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.

            https://stopreturnfascism.org/english/

            • Pip@feddit.org
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              6 months ago

              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.

  • bossito@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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.

  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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.

  • Edens Zero@feddit.org
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    6 months ago

    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.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    6 months ago

    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).

    • CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      6 months ago

      Some news outlets are being removed only when the articles are about certain topics and Xitter is only to be linked through xcancel. But besides archive.org I don’t know what would provide access to articles without giving Axel Springer the click. And AFAIK automatic flags like “Treat article with caution due to [factor]” don’t exist in Lemmy.

      • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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        6 months ago

        There’s probably topics that politico is more obviously biased about (e.g. Israel?), so we could remove those.

        Can you set up a comment bot and pin its comment under every politico post?

  • verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr
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    6 months ago

    I’m acutely against blanket bans of news sources. Even one as ostensibly anti working class and European pronciples as politico.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    Like, if you see an article marked “sponsored” by UnitedHealthcare and then take everything they say at face value, that’s just because the reader’s dumb.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    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.

    Is there any proof for that? I keep hearing the claim often but never once is any kind of proof presented.

    • verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr
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      6 months ago

      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.

      how do you @Pip@feddit.org turn this 👆 into this 👇?

      Politico Europe as a main driver of the far right, which it persistently criticizes, investigates and denounces.

      And then you use ground news as some kind of purity test, as if it’s worth any consideration. 10/10 chances they use an LLM to summarise their descriptions of news orgs. Only a complete fool (or lazy fool) would even entertain the idea politico is anywhere close to being left leaning or using ground news for anything at all.

      • Pip@feddit.org
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        6 months ago

        Then I misunderstood your second paragraph on the “main driver”.