There isn't a clear line, and there probably cannot be one. First of all, more than just 'degree of separation' matters. You also need to know what fraction co

There isn't a clear line, and there probably cannot be one. First of all, more than just 'degree of separation' matters. You also need to know what fraction comes from bad sources. If it is 3 fronts stacked, you are still essentially dealing with the bad source. I see 2 options: 1) Flip it. At what standard do I eliminate e.g. 20% of all funding. Or more generally, plot repugnancy against the percentage of funding sources lost, and pick an optimum 2) Make news matter. It might not feel objective to drop a deal for 3 degrees of separation when you read a story. After all, there is probably other stuff that has 3 degrees of separation. However, by reacting to that news you: * Outsource information gathering to Journalists, who are specialized and do it for many more people than you * Increasing the impact of journalism. By making investors care about what is written about them. The second point matters, because fear of bad PR is essentially the only capitalist force that pushes companies towards moral behavior.