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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”

#51

Post by enragedcacti »

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.

I really don't understand this view point. Isn't a search engine's entire job to effectively 'censor' the parts of the internet that aren't relevant or helpful to your search query?

Is it censorship for them to downrank flat-earth content when you are trying to learn about how to chart a flight? Flat-earthers certainly have a lot of ideas about how charting a course on a flat earth works but that doesn't mean it's helpful to a reasonable person.

At least in their case they truly believe it, with disinformation the entire goal is to exploit DDGs users to pretty much everyone's detriment. Of course if I search for "RT ukrainian conflict" RT should show up, but do you really want your search engine to default to providing results from someone with a very clear agenda and a history of abusing their influence to carry out that agenda?

Of course its possible that the net is too wide, but I find it weird that there is a slippery slope censorship argument going on when search engines have been trying to serve authentic results and beat out inauthentic ones for 20+ years.

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

#52

Post by ricardo81 »

throwmeariver1 wrote: post #37
ricardo81 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the comparison with newspapers, maybe 40 years ago that was one of the limited ways of information discovery but we've had the web since then. People are free to discover the world's information and given the saturation of that information, differing points of view on it. However, with two dominant search engines (Google and Bing/DuckDuckGo/Yahoo) there is little diversity and so censorship has more impac…

The internet is probably the biggest threat democracy has ever faced. I am ok with your romantic point of view of the informed masses but it’s a fallacy that in the end will cost us all our future. Because these people live and engage in extreme bubbles they get sucked into no matter if it’s left or right. I can only urge everyone who is for total tolerance to read K. Poppers the “Open Society and it’s Enemies” quite…

Not quite sure I'm following. The "romantic point of view of the informed masses but it’s a fallacy" may apply to push techs like social media feeds more than search engines.

There aren't that many universal truths when it comes to political situations. Asking a search engine what time of day it is in Tokyo, the GDP or Ghana or whatever is entirely more objective.

I would say the onus is on people to understand sources of information and how to interpret them. If we're in a position where you're saying X% of the population will swallow what they search for, that makes search engines extremely dangerous, making the search engine an arbiter of truth is questionable. Does anyone at DDG have in depth knowledge of the political situation in Eastern Europe or what is truth and not? I would guess not, so they've no way of measuring it. It doesn't help that DDG's entire results are Bing's, who knows whether Bing is already pre-filtering them? I would guess DDG do not know that.

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

#53

Post by gibrown »

giaour wrote: post #33

Lot of hot takes and hostility in these comments, which is honestly kinda surprising. If your reaction to this news is negative, ask yourself, should DuckDuckGo downrank SEO spam? Then ask yourself how disinformation written to "go viral" on social media and in search results is different from SEO spam.

Exactly. Every search algorithm requires making judgements about how and what to rank. Explicitly marking sites as "disinformation"/"spam"/"seo" is exactly a part of building a good global web search.

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

#54

Post by kube-system »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #38
eli wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

Downranking "disinformation" could be seen as creating the sort of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble that Weinberg often denigrates. > As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. The choices made by these algorithms are not transparent. I don't think it's unfounded criticism. One problem i…

Filter bubbles are personalized. This is not personalized.

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

#55

Post by pphysch »

livinglist wrote: post #30
jcadam wrote: post #10

Goodbye, DDG.

but what are the alternatives?

The selling point of DDG is "pro privacy" i.e. non-interference with its users, now that this is shown to be BS, there is no reason to use it. Might as well use Google/Bing for bigger features... But probably something better out there.

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

#56

Post by chriscjcj »

uejfiweun wrote: post #21
snowman-yelling wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For the last couple years, I think the Drudge Report itself has actually been a parody of the Drudge Report.

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

#57

Post by eli »

TehShrike wrote: post #40

I want to use a search engine that puts all its effort into down-ranking sites that I'm not searching for

Doesn't seem incompatible. I assume most people searching for general news about Ukraine are not seeking for Russian state media's take on it.

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

#58

Post by TehShrike »

tpoacher wrote: post #50
TehShrike wrote: post #40

I want to use a search engine that puts all its effort into down-ranking sites that I'm not searching for

I want one which doesn't decide this for me, no-matter how "good for me" it may be, and relies exclusively on my search query to decide what is most relevant. If you really want to flag disinformation, I'd be fine with some sort percentage reliability value or something along those lines, right next to the result. Preferably something that I can also order results by. Totally happy with a 'caveat emptor' clause regar…

Exactly. If I'm searching for Russian propaganda, I should see Russian propaganda in my search results. If I'm searching for good bicycle reviews, I should see good bicycle reviews.

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

#60

Post by gibrown »

pphysch wrote: post #47
giaour wrote: post #33

Lot of hot takes and hostility in these comments, which is honestly kinda surprising. If your reaction to this news is negative, ask yourself, should DuckDuckGo downrank SEO spam? Then ask yourself how disinformation written to "go viral" on social media and in search results is different from SEO spam.

SEO spam is... spam. No one wants spam, and usually has obvious indicators of SEO manipulation. Q: Who determines what is "Russian disinformation?" A: Teams of "specialists" funded by the US/UK governments (Bellingcat, Atlantic Council, etc).

The people writing the search algorithms decide, just like they decide what a "good" algorithm is.
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