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The AfD is flirting with Nazi history – but moral outrage alone won’t stop the far right
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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The "funding" comes from advertisement on social media, which is the dominant way people, especially those most likely to fall victim to propaganda, consume news. Sure, public media still exist, but they are far less relevant.
This isn't about "alternatives," it's about a failure to adequately regulate. Imagine if Der Spiegel posts an anonymous article - without verifying the identity of the author - alleging that Jews are coming to enslave your children. Yet this situation is exactly what social media are currently like, and the kind of content that spreads on there like a cancer.
It's tempting to find the good in other people, and if they vote for obvious racists, there must be something to it other than racism. And while people are not innately evil, the vast majority can be easily manipulated by the forces of evil weaponizing people's lowest instincts. It is those forces that should be tackled at the root, instead of letting them run rampant and ineffectively trying to quench the fires they start.
https://www.influencer-marketing.de/the-state-of-german-influencer-marketing-report-2025/
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/finanzen/ertrag-rundfunkbeitrag-100.html
Looks to me like influencer receive €1 billion while the public broadcasters receive €8 billion.
Many influencer also oppose the fascists.
The public broadcasters have the resources but they waste them. I can't believe in so much incompetence. The elite wants the popularity of the AfD, without them gaining an absolute majority.
You're missing the point, and not comparing apples to apples (influencers are only a small segment of the ad market; public broadcasters do much more than report news).
Yes, those €8 billion could be spent more effectively from the perspective of tackling fascism by stooping down to their level and flooding the waves with propaganda against fascism. This is not the situation we should want.
As long as public media remain committed to (trying to) reporting in a balanced way - as they should! - it can never compete with fascist propaganda that is not afraid to willfully lie. It is the fascist propaganda that must be tackled at its root.
They are:
The quoted number above should be their share.
Must be spent! By law that's why they are collected. Not spending them on political education is the first step towards propaganda.
That's not the best way to handle it. Truthful education would have prevented the current situation.
Balanced is already giving an equal share to lies. They have to tell how it is. If people trust them then lies lose their power.