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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”

#111

Post by chaosite »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #49
eli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it can't. A filter bubble is specifically defined as users getting personalized results for the same query based on what an algorithm knows about them. It's right there in the first paragraph on wikipedia. A hyper-partisan search engine that only showed results that favor one viewpoint would be bad, but it wouldn't be a filter bubble.

When I read the wiki page, I don't personally think much swivels on whether a human or algorithm creates the filter since the reason it's an issue is the end result. Or rather, "it's okay since it's not an algorithm doing it" doesn't wave away the concerns very effectively.

The argument you're responding to wasn't "it's okay since it's not an algorithm doing it". It was "it's not a filter bubble since it's not personalized".

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

#112

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

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…

> Comparing a search provider to a Journalism Outlet rather than a Librarian.

Well if you're going to start there its no surprise you reached the conclusion you did.

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

#113

Post by if_by_whisky »

Legion wrote: post #39
choward wrote: post #15

> DuckDuckGo's mission is to make simple privacy protection accessible to all. The main job of a search engine is to give me results relevant to what I'm searching for. Privacy is obviously a nice feature but if the results suck, I'm not going to use your search engine so privacy doesn't matter. Who are they to decide what is "disinformation". How do they know? I want to see all sides of a story and come to my own co…

> Who are they to decide what is "disinformation". How do they know? Making decisions about which information to rank highly vs. lowly is, you know, kind of the definition of a search engine.

Yeah there's a lot of "anti censorship" warriors in this thread, who seem confused about what search engines are for

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

#114

Post by kube-system »

dylan604 wrote: post #107
kube-system wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"unbiased" doesn't mean "unfiltered". For example, I don't want spam or malware in my search results. Search results should return good information that is relevant to your query, and filter out anything that is not that.

What if I'm doing research on the specific types of misinformation? I don't want results of sites telling me the misinformation is going on, but I want the actual bits of misinformation for proper attribution. There's always edge cases

You'll have the same challenges as the people who are researching spam or malware. I could see a use-case for a niche product that specifically doesn't filter bad results, but I'm pretty sure DDG wants to be a general-purpose search engine first.

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

#115

Post by freediver »

eli wrote: post #57
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.

Chance is that that many do, specifically if they are from Russia, India, China, Middle east.. so about half the world population?

Or anyone who considers them agnostic really, wanting to hear information from all sides before constructing a mental model of the situation.

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

#116

Post by myth_drannon »

Minor49er wrote: post #68
myth_drannon wrote: post #24

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

It started long before Trump. Here is a list of just a few examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

Right, but before it was done mostly secretly, with shame. Now censorship is normalized and announced proudly.

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

#117

Post by LudwigNagasena »

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#118

Post by avgcorrection »

The war is two weeks old and some people seem to want to inject the news from Ukraine straight into their veins. That also makes it easier for disinformation and propaganda to spread. Both sides have an incentive to spread propaganda (although moreso for Russia since this is not a righteous war on their part by any stretch of the imagination).

The Wikipedia page for the Ghost of Kyiv currently says that some sources claim that it is “an urban legend or war propaganda”. “Urban legend” is the most frequent name that I’ve seen. It would have been called “disinformation” if it had been fighting on the Russian side.

I doubt that most Western sources will be as critical of falsehoods coming from the Ukrainian and Western side compared to the Russian side. If the Ukrainian/Western side gets labeled as simply “false” (intent unclear) while the falsehoods coming from the Russian side gets labeled as “disinfo” then I would imagine that DDG could downplay Russian falsehoods while leaving up Ukrainian/Western falsehoods.

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

#119

Post by spywaregorilla »

dylan604 wrote: post #107
kube-system wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"unbiased" doesn't mean "unfiltered". For example, I don't want spam or malware in my search results. Search results should return good information that is relevant to your query, and filter out anything that is not that.

What if I'm doing research on the specific types of misinformation? I don't want results of sites telling me the misinformation is going on, but I want the actual bits of misinformation for proper attribution. There's always edge cases

If it's not appearing in the searches then it's not "going on".

If you're looking for what specific sites are saying, you can still do that.

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

#120

Post by [deleted] »

enragedcacti wrote: post #79
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…

> 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 DDG advertises on billboards, on the radio, on TV, etc. They are absolutely trying to attract an audience who doesn't all know what RT or Sputnik are.

[deleted]
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