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DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

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Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#21

Post by uejfiweun »

snowman-yelling wrote: post #19
uejfiweun wrote: post #3

I like DDG, but honestly, this is a really bad move. It is already harder for me to find certain sites in the rankings. I mean look at this, even searching for "drudge" doesn't even bring up a link to Drudge Report: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=drudge&t=h_&ia=web I liked DDG because it respected the user. Limiting what I can see in order to make sure I don't see "Russian disinformation" seems to me like the exact opposi…

Drudge was literally the first link in my results. Haha.

Weird. Maybe I got unlucky with some experiment rollout. My top links are Drudge Retort (some stupid parody), the link to the Drudge app on iPhone, and the dictionary definition for "drudge". Nowhere on the page is there an actual link to the site for me.

Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#22

Post by freediver »

I guess this did not age well:

“[W]hen you search, you expect unbiased results, but that’s not what you get on Google,” @matthewde_silva quotes @yegg

https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1114524914227253249

Also, they probably do not realize that they will have to start with Twitter if to be consistent.

Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#23

Post by Minor49er »

mrjangles wrote: post #20

Seriously what the f*ck makes Gabriel Weinberg think that myself, or anyone else, gives a damn about his personal opinion on what I should and should not be reading. The arrogance of these people is astounding. Also, absolutely zero of the standard base of Duck Duck Go users are the kind of people who don't understand what a Russian state controlled news site is, and why one would have to be careful reading it. Those…

Edit: Retracting my advocating for using Bing directly. As ColinHayhurst pointed out elsewhere in the comments, Bing is also excluding results, specifically RT and Sputnik (see the "Protection from state-sponsored disinformation" section):

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2022/02/28/ukraine...

Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#24

Post by myth_drannon »

Censorship on Google Search, Youtube didn't start with the Russian invasion. It started with the need to counter Trump. Very scary times.

„He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.“ — Friedrich Nietzsche, book Beyond Good and Evil

Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#26

Post by uejfiweun »

diego_moita wrote: post #11

Good! One more reason for me to remain a DDG user. This is the behaviour of responsible and accountable adults. "Censoring" is a word very badly understood and prone to manipulation. There are a lot of circumstances where suppression of information/opinion is justified: protecting intellectual property and copyrights, blocking doxing, prevent haters from doing harm against others, protection of military secrets or pe…

You're not wrong that they absolutely have the right to choose what results to display. Just like Twitter has the right to choose what content appears on their platform, and same with YouTube, etc. But my opposition is not from a legal standpoint, it is from a moral standpoint. I just think censorship and cancellation is wrong and immoral, even if it is legally allowed. I think it is immoral for some business executive to make sweeping decisions about what the commoners are / aren't allowed to see - it opens the door to far more dystopian control of our society.

Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#27

Post by eli »

freediver wrote: post #22

I guess this did not age well: “[W]hen you search, you expect unbiased results, but that’s not what you get on Google,” @matthewde_silva quotes @yegg https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1114524914227253249 Also, they probably do not realize that they will have to start with Twitter if to be consistent.

What does down-ranking disinformation sites globally have to do with complaining about Google customizing results based on its profile of you?

EDIT: The rest of the quote is “On Google, you get results tailored to what they think you’re likely to click on, based on the data profile they’ve built on you over time.”

Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#28

Post by TehShrike »

JohnDeHope wrote: post #5

My question is: DDG is to Google, as ___ is to DDG. What is ___?

I recently discovered Kagi and got into the beta in the last week. So far I've been happy with the results.

https://kagi.com/

I haven't been very happy with my ability to find things with DDG or Google lately, if Kagi can deliver good search results, I'll happily pay whenever they go out of beta

Re: DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”

#29

Post by andrew_ »

diego_moita wrote: post #11

Good! One more reason for me to remain a DDG user. This is the behaviour of responsible and accountable adults. "Censoring" is a word very badly understood and prone to manipulation. There are a lot of circumstances where suppression of information/opinion is justified: protecting intellectual property and copyrights, blocking doxing, prevent haters from doing harm against others, protection of military secrets or pe…

> So why shouldn't DDG have the right to choose what search results to display?

Oh they absolutely should, but they aren't free from consequence. And users will give them feedback on how they feel about it by voting with their feet, or searches, lack thereof in this case.

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