651–660 of 865 posts
Anyone upset about down ranking propaganda need to get their priorities straight. Why would you want to use a search engine that serves intentionally bad information?
Considering rags like WSJ, NY Times, Economist, CNN and Al Jazeera doesn’t have the same consequences it seems like the only propaganda you’re opposed to is the propaganda you disagree with.
How about greater transparency around the trustworthiness of sources? Maybe that would be a better way than censorship to slow the rampant spread of misinformation across the internet?
Full disclosure, I work for Neeva. Our search engine is different. With Neeva, we give you more information about the source and you get to decide which news sources you trust. You are in charge of deciding what is right for you -- not global tech companies making decisions in private rooms.
Suppose I go off and make a search engine, with my own algorithm for ranking search results. At first it works great. And then five years later, I find that, by a quirk in my algorithm, I find that a new site has risen to the top of all my results. This new site was created as a prank, and it contains authoritative-sounding but incorrect answers to common questions. The results returned are still relevant to my users…
Whatever quantification is used is an implicit kind of 'censorship', and the 'relevance' of results for a given string is inherently a value-judgement. That's where the value of a search engine comes from. We choose search engines based off how good its value judgements are.
So, I wish DDG released more details here, because this announcement otherwise just sounds like standard practice. Abusing "quirks in the algorithm" is just called SEO, and it's been a cat-and-mouse battle between search-engines and abuse. Without details, it's harder to interpret this move generously.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been waffling between whether or not I think this is a good thing. I am curious on your thoughts: A lot of malicious actors have learned how to game the search ranking algorithms by making carefully crafted lies that are easily spread as truths online quickly. They are able to get their fake news to spread (and this rank higher) in ways that legitimate sources can't. Most people only ever look at the first page…
>Most people only ever look at the first page of results when searching for answers, and, let's be honest, take those answers for the truth. Do you? The argument I'm hearing is that most people are stupid and those stupid people aren't smart enough to know better, so the smart people need to control their lives to "protect them." I'm not sure if you realize this but this was the same argument used to perpetuate slave…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"My only exception is things I don't like" How is blocking spam and advertisement materially different than blocking a foreign actor's propaganda?
Blocking spam is done by the consumer of information, blocking a foreign (and domestic) actor's propaganda is done by the entity with the power of dissemination of information. You don't see Google censoring ads much.
There's nothing in their business they censor more.
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.
Nothing more, nothing less. To think there's some objective "unbiased" search result is naive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I really want is to have a setting where I can turn these kinds of filters on and off, or to different/customized priorities. Search is a tool for me to use: give me better control of the results that I can get. Choosing between different ranking algorithms would be wonderful too, to skip around different SEO strategies
It sounds like you're advocating for pushing censorship responsibility to the user. I agree this would be nice — in fact you could consider uBlock Origin a form of client-side censorship that already exists. In practice, I'm not sure how much adoption such a system would get, if used for censorship purposes. The main problem is the underlying truth that most censorship proponents are not actually pro-censorship of th…
All this does is sort is allow gamification of search results based on the time of creation for the content. The quality of search instantly will go into the dumpster.
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.
For me, this move by DDG will have the opposite effect of what is intended. I will now trust my own media and sources even less, if they rely on silencing the competition and insist on controlling what I access "for my own good". Such dirty tactics are insulting, even more so when delivered under a sneering benevolent guise. As if they have perfect knowledge of my motives and wishes. What if I'm genuinely curious as…
So you know the whole thing is not principled but rather political.
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…
> I liked DDG because it respected the user. Unless you were searching for anything recipe-related, in which case they will push results from their partner 'yummly'. Or if you were trying to get literal result from you search string, which it will apparently silently ignore if it doesn't find enough results. Honestly, I'll dump DDG in a heartbeat whenever I find something even marginally better. Their only edge is th…
I was only on the wait list for a couple of weeks before getting an invite; worth jumping in.