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"Exclusion lists" in Germany: The Volkswagen Group cancels all ads on the political blog Die Achse des Guten

June 29, 2022
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An anonymous user spits his poison on Twitter against Die Achse des Guten (The Axis of Good), a political blog run by the publicists Henryk M. Broder, Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch. The Audi company does not ignore this, but servilely promises to examine the case. A few days later, the site's ad media partner Taboola cancels all ads on Achgut.com at the instigation of a “premium customer” who stayed in cover. This endangers the existence of the site. The VW Group and the associated company Audi play a particularly inglorious role. An employee of the company even unabashedly used a well-known jargon to Achgut publisher Henryk M. Broder and referred to the group's "exclusion lists".

One thing at a time
"Ouch," wrote an anonymous informer with the appropriate name "WahnSager" (madman in German) on Twitter on June 10th to the Volkswagen subsidiary Audi: "Are you sure that you are on oh well (bad enough!) in the environment of the liar, anti-vaccination and corona trivializer #Homburg are well represented with your advertising?? (Screenshot from today) @volkswagen".


The "madman" refers to a contribution by the critic of the Corona measures, Stefan Homburg. The economist is Professor i. R. for public finance at the Leibniz University in Hanover and guest author of Achgut.com. Nothing more needs to be said about his Corona posts on Achgut.com in recent years: Homburg's warnings and criticisms have now been largely confirmed and are more or less the current state of knowledge. And that's probably the problem with Twitter figures like "WahnSager."

Now one might think that the assessment of journalistic contributions and the acknowledgment of anonymous denunciations are not necessarily the core business of the wholly-owned VW subsidiary Audi. A company that, like the Volkswagen Group including Audi, has largely chained its existence to the Chinese market shouldn't be waving its "compliance rules" too conspicuously.

Inclusion and Exclusion Lists
An "Audi Official" replied to the Twitter user as follows:

"Thank you for this hint! Such ads are displayed automatically and we have no influence on the placement. However, we will review the case and revise our blacklist accordingly."

A somewhat irritated request from Achgut.com publisher Henryk M.Broder (you can find the entire exchange of emails on Achgut.com) to Audi read: "I find it amazing that you react so servilely to an unfounded denunciation and immediately "revise" your blacklist to offer. would you please enlighten me on the criteria used to create your blacklist and who has had the honor of being included on that list so far?”

He received the following reply: "I'm sure you understand that we are investigating any leads that reach us. And that is exactly what we reserve the right to do in this case: an examination of the medium on which ads for our company are displayed. And the ongoing revision of our ad inclusions and exclusions lists". So much for Cornelia Böhm from the Audi Social Media department.

Henryk M. Broder then wrote the following email, to which no further reply was received:

"Dear Ms. Boehm, I am not sure whether you are aware of the implications of your statement,

at AUDI there are "inclusion and exclusion lists". You may not have learned in the training for your current job that not so long ago this was a task that fell under the purview of the RSHA [Reich Security Main Office], with rather unpleasant consequences for the excluded, as you can read about here. Just the impartiality with which they handle the terms including and excluding is hard to bear. It would be good if you would reconsider – and perhaps talk to your superiors – what the exclusion of people, groups or companies who are sanctioned for anonymous denunciation means. I don't like to imagine that such a practice could be part of the AUDI corporate culture."

Is a police clearance certificate enough?  
"Now we know that there are inclusion and exclusion lists at AUDI that are constantly being revised," writes Broder on Achgut, "which presumably means that some get in and others get kicked out. Does this only apply to ads or also to customers? Does someone who wants to buy an AUDI car have to present an ancestral passport or is a police clearance certificate sufficient? AUDI AG is a company of the VW Group, active worldwide and committed to the spirit of the times. The Volkswagen Group is partly a state-owned company with a large blocking minority from the state of Lower Saxony (“VW Law”)."

"Our advertising media partner Taboola let us know bluntly in a telephone call, which was also attended by the "State Manager for the roof region"  Thomas Koch, that at the beginning of our cooperation they had no problems with our (since unchanged) content, but now they are playing in a different league and deal with large listed corporations. And they would have complained (the conversation is documented as a transcript). During an internal "review" all sorts of voodoo were called in, including, of all things, the assessment of "NewsGuard", a (self-promotional) "trust tool for the Internet", i.e. a kind of private-sector ministry of truth, related to the "fact checkers" à la “Correctiv” (of which NewsGuard is happy to take judgment)."

"Achgut.com had revealed  in a series about the corrupted "trust  tool": "The company "NewsGuard" tries to ruin Achgut.com economically by character assassination. It is often about pharmaceutical and vaccination-critical contributions. One of NewsGuard's biggest financiers is the media group Publicis, which has been accused of criminal pharmaceutical campaigns in the United States. Finally, with the help of Newsguard, Achgut com was “a bit Islamophobic” and – listen and be amazed – “deny the effectiveness of the vaccine”. Overall, the throwing out of Achgut.com shows a perfect symbiosis of the ideology of large companies and wokeness."

"Our readers saved us"
In the past there was no lack of attempts to economically ruin Die Achse des Guten, because this is the only way to get rid of an uncomfortable medium that has been reporting truthfully for 18 years.

"As early as 2015, an employee of the large agency Scholz & Friends tried to bankrupt us under the motto "No money for the right" by also forcing our advertising agency at the time to terminate the cooperation with us. Since then, our advertising business has recovered only slightly, as experience has shown that you can never get off the so-called "blacklists". Read all about this in our dossier “Denunziantengate”.

Back then, our readers saved us with donations and sponsorships, for which we are eternally grateful. However, the current situation is even more threatening, because our effort and our offer have grown significantly, but we continue to provide Achgut.com free of charge for everyone and do not want to change this. The events ultimately show the relevance of Achgut.com in the public debate. What is discussed on Achgut.com is in the world. It can no longer be ignored. And that's why the Axis should go. Our anchoring in the liberal bourgeoisie is particularly disturbing. And that's where the concerted action to harm us comes from. You don't have to bring out such artillery against insignificant media.

The loss of most advertising income hits us hard, as donations and sponsorships alone are not enough to keep Achgut.com going. We at Achgut.com will be advising on how to deal with this situation in the next few days. Please understand that there are no new posts today, tomorrow we will continue reporting as usual until further notice. Until then, we have only one appeal:
  • Support us with a sponsorship or a donation so that achgut.com can continue to appear. Our reserves are not sufficient for long-term continued operation.
  • Of course, we understand all readers who cannot support us financially in these difficult times, and we are all the happier about those who do.
  • Incidentally, everyone can help us by publicizing and spreading the word about this attack on freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
  • In particular, customers of the Volkswagen Group and Audi can express their opinion directly to these companies, whether by e-mail, via social media or in person at their trusted dealer."
Audi
Cornelia Böhm: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corneliab%C3%B6hm//

Volkswagen:

Taboola:
 
"We know that numerous employees of the Volkswagen Group like to read us, because Achgut.com always takes a stand for the car as an individual means of transport for self-determined citizens. Dear employees of the VW Group, pass this scandal on to your colleagues, your protest to your superiors is particularly important."
 
"It's not just about us, it's about the freedom of all of us. Thank you to all of our readers and Democrats in this country."

Henryk M. Broder, Dirk Maxeiner, Fabian Nicolay.

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