Digital Life
Isaac Newton taught us that every action is met with an equal and opposite reaction.
His law also applies to the internet. As proof, I offer the birth and growth of online fact-checking organisations.
To paraphrase a near-contemporary of Newton’s, it is a fact universally acknowledged that, if websites can publish what they want, whenever they want, unchecked and without restraint, and also make it available to everyone in the world, we must be in need of fact-checkers.
Of course, this problem is not new. In America in the late-19th century someone coined the term ‘yellow journalism’, to describe sensational reporting aimed at selling newspapers rather than striving for accuracy. That is now called ‘clickbait’ and it’s everywhere online.
Over 200 years earlier, as printing became cheaper and more efficient, there was a huge growth in the publication of pamphlets promoting outspoken views and sold for profit. Jonathan Swift and Dr Johnson were famous for writing them.
In a sense, they and the yellow journalists were doing just what their successors on Twitter, Facebook and their own websites are doing today. Like them, they were expressing a specific opinion and provoking comment and argument.
In past centuries, comment came in the form of speeches, newspaper articles and counter-pamphlets. Today, it comes also on Twitter, Facebook and blogs.
There’s little or no restraint on publication now. Even if the regulators of social media notice misleading, dangerous or just plain false postings and delete them, you can still publish such stuff on your own website. It may lead to retribution if you upset someone with deep pockets, or break the law, but it probably won’t.
So I welcome the rise of independent online fact-checkers. They have no power, of course, beyond embarrassing a transgressor and putting the record straight. But if you say something that is challenged by one of them, you are on thin ice and, if nothing worse, will look a fool.
It’s a tiny industry at the moment. My favourite example in Britain and by far the biggest (which isn’t saying much: there were only 22 employees in 2019) is fullfact.org. It’s a charity and has a fine reputation for holding politicians and others to account for doubtful claims. Facebook uses it to check posts.
It’s also worth looking at Politifact.com, another non-profit organisation, which focuses on politics. I especially like their ‘accuracy gradations’ of statements: they score them on one of six levels, from ‘true’ to ‘pants on fire’.
Of course, respectable organisations already take pains to check facts before publishing anything. I’ve been corrected by the admirable team at The Oldie more than once. News agencies like AFP (factcheck. afp.com) and Reuters (reuters.com/ fact-check) publish fact-checks; so does the BBC (bbc.co.uk/news/reality_check).
We should not think these fact-checkers are beyond reproach. It’s the oldest question of all: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? But their creation is encouraging.
So, for the moment, let’s applaud them. They may be self-appointed, and far from accountable, but they do have reputations to lose. If their fact-checking were ever found to be suspect or biased, they’d quickly wither.
I hope this peril will compel them to act with integrity and probity. It would be cheering to think so, anyway.
The new tax-free limits include three crates of beer, two cases of still wine and four litres of spirits, plus the same amounts of tobacco as before and £390’s worth of other goods – or £270’s worth if you’re arriving by private plane or boat. You must declare any acquisitions above these levels. This does not yet apply to the whole of the UK: the rules for Northern Ireland are still under discussion.
For passengers to non-eu countries, other tax perks are disappearing from airside shops. They will no longer be able to buy Vat-free perfume, electronics and clothing, as there were worries that the tax concessions were not always passed on to customers.
Nor will non-eu visitors to Great Britain be able to claim VAT refunds on their purchases in British high streets if they want to take the goods home in their luggage. They will be able to avoid VAT only if they have the goods shipped to their home address. This concession now includes EU addresses. The government suspected fraud because some visitors claimed a VAT refund but the goods never left the UK.
This move has dismayed stores and shopping villages that sell billions of pounds’ worth of items to high-spending international tourists because they might switch their holidays to other European countries.
Many airports outside the EU allow duty-free shopping on arrival as well as departure and there are moves to persuade the EU to adopt the practice. Outlets at EU airports called ‘tax-free’ in reality sell tax-paid goods with just local sales tax discounted.
If you know what you might buy, check prices before you leave home. Not every tax-free purchase is a bargain.