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.
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.
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.
Banning newspapers? What are we talking about? Wtf
Yes, they have some well written and researched articles, which I shared.
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.
Maybe forcing every title with politico to have [Warning] as the next best thing
I’m acutely against blanket bans of news sources. Even one as ostensibly anti working class and European pronciples as politico.
The comments may be mixed on this but the voting at least suggests people find this important to consider. I definitely wouldn‘t be against a ban considering what other things have been banned for similar reasons.
I would prefer people find a different news source and not read politico at all but if they post it they should at least provide an archive link and a bot sticky should give context about the source. Many users clearly think higher of their media literacy than it actually is.
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.
In your list, Politico is classified as a reliable source specifically on the topic of american politics. This community is only about american politics when they are affecting Europe directly. And if I understand your definition of a reliable source correctly it is about whether events and relevant topics are mentioned and not about how they are framed, right? So take the facts out of sources but do not automatically accept the framing of the facts from the source, am I correct?
Also, this isn’t only about the factuality and bias, it is also about denying Axel Springer the clicks.
In your list, Politico is classified as a reliable source specifically on the topic of american politics.
Yes, that’s correct. “Base” Politico is a publication about American politics. For European politics, we turn to the sister publication Politico Europe. We use Politico Europe all the time as a reliable source for European politics. The reason it’s not mentioned on that perennial sources list is because the list is for oft-discussed sources, and Politico Europe isn’t that discussed, mainly because “base” Politico has functionally the same reputation for accuracy and fact-checking and is therefore treated as a proxy.
And if I understand your definition of a reliable source correctly it is about whether events and relevant topics are mentioned and not about how they are framed, right? So take the facts out of sources but do not automatically accept the framing of the facts from the source, am I correct?
You have the right basic idea, but it’s more complicated than that. We acknowledge that literally every source we’re going to use has a bias; what we don’t tolerate is a source letting its bias interfere with factual accuracy – not just on the individual points but the cohesive whole of the work. Dishonest framing that takes verifiably true individual points and turns them into an inaccurate whole makes for a bad source, and we try not to use sources that do this.
We also strongly examine conflict of interest, what other sources with good reputations for reliability are saying, etc. If we feel a biased source has reliability for accuracy, the rest falls more into our neutral point of view (NPOV) policy. It’s hard to summarize, because the RS and NPOV pages, despite their length, already summarize these source guidelines about as well as you can without stripping away important nuances.
I’m still wondering if you understand that Wikipedia and a news forum are different contexts. I don’t undeestand why you apply the same criteria you use for one context to another. For example, you might be fine with native ads, because you analyze every bit of information. For a news forum where people scroll through casually, it’s really bad because native ads are designed in a way that readers should miss these tiny hints and take it not as an ad. Different context, different approach to consumation, different issues with such things.
And even if Politico was perfect itself, it’s still owned by a shit corporation that shouldn’t get our clicks.
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.
That page says
Politico is considered generally reliable for American politics. A small number of editors say that Politico is a biased source.
So maybe that small number of editors is correct
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).
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.
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?
That would not fix the issue of giving clicks to Axel Springer.
Is there such a list to begin with?
Also fuck Axel Springer.
Yes, in the community sidebar.
Politico Europe as a main driver of the far right, which it persistently criticizes, investigates and denounces.
Why are you on this vendetta?
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.
If you want to link users (and/or ping them) you need an additional @ in fron of everything. It’s not verdi@tartr.nuage-libre.fr but unstead it’s @verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr. Some apps also show suggestions for autocompletion when you start with @ and enter the first letters.
Many thanks 🙇
Ground News is BS for people without critical thinking skills. What they think is left is often considered centric conservative or flat out neoliberal outside the USA.
That is not what I wrote. Don’t rip stuff out of context.
Then I misunderstood your second paragraph on the “main driver”.
+1
