BBC experiments with negative news filters on its homepage to help readers with anxieties

At Least 70 Countries Have Had Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds - The New York Times – “…Despite increased efforts by internet platforms like Facebook to combat internet disinformation, the use of the techniques by governments around the world is growing, according to a report released Thursday by researchers at Oxford University. Governments are spreading disinformation to discredit political opponents, bury opposing views and interfere in foreign affairs. The researchers compiled information from news organizations, civil society groups and governments to create one of the most comprehensive inventories of disinformation practices by governments around the world. They found that the number of countries with political disinformation campaigns more than doubled to 70 in the last two years, with evidence of at least one political party or government entity in each of those countries engaging in social media manipulation. In addition, Facebook remains the No. 1 social network for disinformation, the report said. Organized propaganda campaigns were found on the platform in 56 countries…”

• The Global Disinformation Order 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation – Samantha Bradshaw . University of Oxford Philip N. Howard . University of Oxford

BBC experiments with negative news filters on its homepage to help readers with anxieties

journalism.co.uk – As one third of audience switches off from news, the public broadcaster is testing a tool that would allow readers to blur out stories that may impact their mental health – “Would you filter out bad news if you could? This is the question that Alicia Grandjean, software engineer at BBC and Tim Cowlishaw, senior software engineer at BBC R&D, wanted the audience to answer. The developers got this idea when a colleague organised an office mental health day to make the team think about the impact technology has on well-being. “We knew from other research that many young people are turning away from news because it was affecting their mental health,” said Grandjean. So the duo came up with a simple-sounding idea – if specific words, such as ‘knife crime’ or ‘murder’ trigger anxiety in readers, they can use a filter that would blur out sensitive content on the BBC homepage. A trigger warning would then inform the reader that the article contains keywords they marked out as sensitive. The team decided to blur out the headline, text and any pictures rather than removing the article altogether with an experimental algorithm that is not yet available to public…


Emily Cauble (DePaul), Presumptions of Tax Motivation, 105 Iowa L. Rev. ___ (2020):

Rebuttable presumptions are scattered throughout the Internal Revenue Code and the Treasury Regulations. In many cases, they are employed in service of determining a taxpayer’s motive or state of mind. They are not, however, always utilized when motive or state of mind must be assessed. In some contexts, courts are called upon to examine all relevant facts and circumstances in order to divine a taxpayer’s state of mind – which facts are relevant and the weight to be accorded to various facts are not specified ahead of time except to the extent set forth in judicial precedent. At the other extreme, in yet another subset of situations in which tax outcome turns on motive or state of mind, tax law provides that a given fact establishes an irrebuttable presumption of a given motive. In between the two extremes, tax law makes use of a variety of tools including rebuttable presumptions. When a rebuttable presumption is at work, the proof of a specified fact is deemed to establish the existence of a given state of mind, unless the party who is disadvantaged by that state of mind determination presents sufficient evidence to overcome it.

In response to these challenges, several localities recently enacted or proposed taxes targeted directly at large businesses, with revenues allocated explicitly for a designated purpose. Localities are gravitating toward targeted taxes for several reasons. Some assert that the success of large employers within the locality contributed to, or even directly created, these challenges. Perhaps most importantly, targeted tax laws serve a clear expressive function. Depending on the locality’s primary objective, targeted taxes may be problematic and counterproductive.