Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#1

Post by MaxHoppersGhost » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

If you google “tank man” and click on images in Bing and DDG either nothing shows up (Bing) or unrelated photos shows up (DDG). Images show up in Google.

What does HN make of this? I would think that Bing/DDG would have separate search results in China so I’m quite surprised to see this happening outside of China.

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#2

Post by officialjunk » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

i am getting google results outside of china for that search term. first result is the wikipedia article with that same title. and many image results as well.

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#3

Post by misterpigs » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

DDG: image searching "tank man": "blocked by safe search" and then "sorry no results here" when disabling safe search entirely

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#4

Post by zatertip » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

"tank man china" gets me the expected results on DDG

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#5

Post by maedla » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

dumb algorithm can't figure out the context of "Tank man"

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#6

Post by itsyaboi » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

Tested this on Bing/DuckDuckGo/Google/Yandex/Baidu. Only failed to show up on Baidu.

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#7

Post by jjulius » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

zatertip wrote: post #4

"tank man china" gets me the expected results on DDG

But no images on Bing for the same query.

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#8

Post by Multicomp » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

I confirm the symptoms happened for me as well. I used the !s bang to have startpage search it and startpage returned the image in the carousel and image results.

I'm not certain I can continue to use duck duck go if it is going to give me results subjected to CCP censorship. I switched to it from Startpage as it had a less shady reputation than the latter, but Startpage hasn't messed with my actual searches like DDG now has though.

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#9

Post by dbtc » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

"We all live in America" -Rammstein, 2004

"..." -..., 2021

Re: Ask HN: “Tank man” image search blocked on Bing and DuckDuckGo

#10

Post by srmarm » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

Does surprise me to be honest, of course the CCP no doubt does exert power over companies that want to work in China and this can influence behaviour outside the country too.

But surprised to see this so blatant and really quite clumsily too as easy to find in other contexts without difficulty.