BBC Experiments With Negative News Filters on its Homepage to Help Readers with Anxieties

From Journalism.co.uk:

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.

[Clip]

The web browser extension can remember all trigger words added by a user and blurs out sensitive content every time they visit the homepage. They have the option to unmute it and read the article at any time.

The developers see the limitations of such approach. For example, editorial judgement is needed to see how a topic is reported on.

Read the Complete Article

Filed under: News