Red Bull - European but Far right
Buy European but … Also with ethical considerations.
Red Bull might sound cool, but they have their own TV station in Austria. (servus TV) And that station js beyond far right. Spreading disinformation, and Russian propaganda, Corona Bullshi, Ivermectint, cleaning stuff with chlorid, climate change deniers, … If there is a conspiracy they support it …
(And it’s also not very healthy,…)
It’s greatly exaggerated, on ServusTV they just have all kind of people, so sometimes stupid people are there too. They have this format „Rechts-Links-Mitte“ (right left center) where they typically have around five people with heavily varying positions discussing with each other. So no, it’s not them supporting conspiracies but rather trying to find people for these discussions. On the other hand it means that the others get the chance to debunk fake news and conspiracies in those discussions, potentially getting viewers to change their position. You don’t achieve that by making these people not watch any discussions because “their guy” isn’t there anyway.
Before our election I liked watching their news since the ORF (öffentlich rechtlicher Rundfunk - our official TV where all the important stuff is) only talked about what’s wrong with so many people to make them vote for the FPÖ (far right party) and how they could be made reasonable again (blame on the people for voting for that party) while Servus TV talked about why people are voting for them and what other parties potentially could change to gain them back (blame on the parties for making decisions that led to losing voters to the FPÖ) (to clarify, I didn’t vote for the FPÖ and never world, I’m heavily opposing quite a few of their policies - regardless I can’t deny that they wouldn’t be as strong if our other parties acted differently, many people simply are voting for the FPÖ to express their protest which is why its good to discuss about what the other parties should change).
ServusTV also has great documentaries (mostly about Austria and neighbouring countries, for example about a group of mountains (sometimes even singular mountains), or about hiking trails, mountainbiking routes, ski touring, climbing, about a river, a lake, a city, a castle, a church, …).
My favourite aspect is that Red Bull heavily invests in sports, sponsoring many people that wouldn’t be able to follow their (often niche) sport without them.
Absolutely not a company that deserves a boycott imo. (I don’t buy anything from them though because I usually only drink water.)
Dude, they literally invite some of the biggest names in modern Eurofascism to be on their shows. The English-language portion on ServusTV’s politics is just a short introduction. Switch to the German-language one for greater depth.
I’ve watched them in the past myself for their mountaineering programs, but after learning about their far-right connections, I’m unlikely to do so again. Because, even in that sense, the mountaineering connection becomes quite suspect given the historical ties between fascist ideology, aesthetics and the mountains of southern Germany/Austria. Susan Sontag outlined it better than I can.
Redbull have been recognized times and times again to push athlete to take crazy risks for the stunt and advertising. People are dying.
Yeah guess what, pushing the governement to outnazi the nazis is as bad as being nazis themselves.
They aren’t pushing the government to do anything? But one of the most common reasons why people vote for the FPÖ is protest against the other parties (yes, it’s a stupid way to protest), so maybe talking about what they could potentially change to gain their voters back is a good thing.
That’s a half truth.
In that Format mentioned, they always make sure to have a 4 to 1 superiority in numbers against any center or left people and also only have them there for show. It is designed to tell people, that they are open for discussion. But in truth they spread far right propaganda and Russian propaganda. (Which is the same in Austria, since the FPÖ is famously “brought” and backed bay Putin.).
Recently their main host description of Ukraine was “drug fueled Nazi war mongers who attacked Russia”.
I have a hard time believing that, where did they say that?
And no, it’s simply not true that they’re making that 4 to 1 to the right, unless they changed that since December (haven’t watched R-L-M lately). At least until November it usually was balanced, so the occasional anti-mainstream people got fact checked quickly by the four others.
Is it like Jubilee?
This sounds dangerous tbh. I do not really watch ServusTV, nor do I know much about Red Bull business practices but stuff like the “Rechts-Links-Mitte” format sounds like they’re giving right wing extremists a platform to spread their misinformation and rhetoric. It might sound like a good idea to have opinions from all different kinds of people but media companies should have a moral duty to educate viewers and not foster misinformation by acknowledging every single opinion. That’s why you should be careful with things like these.
Furthermore the wikipedia article does mention ServusTV spreading misinformation about the covid vaccines, citing DerStandard and Tagesschau articles from 2021.
So all in all it seems the political reports on ServusTV should be taken with some suspicion. That does not mean they can’t have nice documentaries or sport broadcasts though.
As for Red Bull, they can’t really let ServusTV spread misinformation without actually supporting it. Probably makes them more money in some way. Might be a good idea to try out a suitable alternative energy drink if there is one.
It’s a double edged sword, yes. But in times like these (internet) people can present their views regardless, so I’d say its nice when they’re doing it somewhere where well-articulated and science-backed views get presented too and they can be fact checked. That’s how you win back people before they’re too deep in the rabbit hole, on the internet they quickly just fall into an echo chamber, only getting recommended similar articles, videos, … to the ones that they’re already reading/watching.
For people like me in the other hand it’s interesting to see from which kind of people they got some of their world views and makes it easier to prepare arguments against them.
I’d simply say discussions are a good thing for a democracy, I really don’t like the mindset of simply letting people fall out of touch with any mainstream information (which is mainstream for a reason) once they reject it on one topic. That leads to polarisation, radicalisation and a rising amount of voters for the pro-Russian parties.
Trump also would never have won if the USA wasn’t so polarised.