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Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#111

Post by yamtaddle »

hablog wrote: post #27
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is your attitude not equivalent to "I can't trust myself to see things I disagree with, I am so weak-willed that there is the horrific danger that I will start believing them"? There are reasons someone might want to find those links, even if they disagree with them. When Google hides them from you without your consent or ability to opt out, they're treating you as if you were a child. Or perhaps more like livest…

> I can't trust myself to see things I disagree with, I am so weak-willed... The thing is, this likely is true for him. Most people are not equipped to deal with the onslaught of aggressive memes from the internet. Unfortunately, this is an unsolved social problem, and "export my memetic censorship reflex to MEGACORP" is a pretty bad way of doing things. I think a likely way of solving this problem (protecting not-es…

> The thing is, this likely is true for him.

It's true for basically everyone. Smart people, "rationalists", et c., fall for scams, nutty scientific or conspiracy theories, advertising, romantic political or economic ideas, cults or scam-religions, and other crap all the time.

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#112

Post by coconut08 »

smoldesu wrote: post #96
coconut08 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is not a search engine's job to filter their results based on acceptable politics. the only explicit filtering out they should be doing is filtering out manipulation, explicitly illegal content, spam, fraudulent content and stuff like that. aside from that the filtering algorithm should be largely neutral and unbiased. it's not a search engine's job to refuse to answer search results because the owner finds it dis…

Does bad-faith propaganda not qualify as fraudulent content?

yes they should obviously be filtering out or downranking manipulated and fraudulent propaganda content. these policies would have existed before the invasion happened so there would be no reason to say that you are going to be downranking russian information unless you are planning on adding additional filtering and manipulation to the ranking on top of what you would normally do to content. they should be filtering all content neutrally and equally, not filtering russian content more because the owner wants to inject politics into their algorithm.

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#113

Post by yegg »

zerr wrote: post #102
mattkevan wrote: post #68

I've used DDG as my main search engine for about 4 years now. Until recently I found I was still having to go to Google for specific queries, mainly answering coding problems. But in the last 6 months or so, Google's results have gotten so bad and DDG has continued to improve to the point where I no longer bother with !g. When I do use Google I often find myself in the strange position of not actually being able to f…

Isn't DDG a Bing front-end? So did Bing improve recently?

No, we're not. See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35980451

But more to answer the OP, we've been making a lot of investments to improve our results (along with other things) -- high-level updates posted quarterly at https://duckduckgo.com/updates

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#114

Post by wand3r »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #75
mattkevan wrote: post #68

I've used DDG as my main search engine for about 4 years now. Until recently I found I was still having to go to Google for specific queries, mainly answering coding problems. But in the last 6 months or so, Google's results have gotten so bad and DDG has continued to improve to the point where I no longer bother with !g. When I do use Google I often find myself in the strange position of not actually being able to f…

I use chatgpt, the version with web browsing, instead of Google search some of the time and it does pretty well.

Is this available to "normal" people yet?

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#115

Post by valianteffort »

thatnerdyguy wrote: post #92
ummonk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was crazy to see suggestions to wear masks or claims that covid was airborne getting "fact-checked" by the media only to reverse their position months later after WHO put out new statements. In particular, the phrase "no credible evidence" was wildly thrown around without mentioning whether there were any credible high-powered studies that had even attempted to find evidence of the phenomenon.

Uh... are you suggesting that at some not-insignificant point into the pandemic someone credible was arguing COVID was NOT airborne?

Yes I believe it was the WHO or US government (the only sources I was following at the time) that explicitly stated they "did not have evidence" covid was airborne.

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#116

Post by tehjoker »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #95
ummonk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was crazy to see suggestions to wear masks or claims that covid was airborne getting "fact-checked" by the media only to reverse their position months later after WHO put out new statements. In particular, the phrase "no credible evidence" was wildly thrown around without mentioning whether there were any credible high-powered studies that had even attempted to find evidence of the phenomenon.

With hindsight we can see their mistakes but isn't following the expert line the best thing to do in an uncertain situation?

Unfortunately, we've learned that the experts are there mainly to reinforce whatever makes businesses money. That's who gets access to the airwaves and government press conferences. So if you think there's an alternative reality that might be unprofitable, you have to figure it out for yourself. The best COVID info is and was on Twitter since 2020. Just stunning amounts of primary lit being shared with expert opinion. You have to tune your bullshit sense though, and unfortunately that might require having a science background...

This is how many people realized that COVID is airborne and that only N95 and better respirators provide real protection. People now discuss air cleaning, the impacts of Long COVID, etc. The vaccines were seized upon by the political parties as a wedge issue to force the economy open. They help with medical system capacity, but do not block transmission and Long COVID.

You can find an ongoing science based pandemic response policy at https://pandemicjustice.icu

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#117

Post by yegg »

bitL wrote: post #69
rlpb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge benefit of DDG for me is that I can use it in a private browser window and it just works without stupid popups getting in the way. In contrast Google is far less useable for a quick search. This alone is why I have DDG as default and I only drop back to Google when I'm struggling to find what I want. Most of the time DDG is fine for me.

Recently so many unrelated sites pop up a tiny Google login window somewhere on the page, obstructing what I want to see, like as if Google was super desperate for more tracking and engagement. Like why would I like to login to Google while viewing a forum about skyscrapers if I just wanted to read about the progress of some construction? Passive-aggressive at its core.

Note that we added support to remove those Google login pop-ups on third-party sites within our apps/extensions. See https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/we... for details and https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/we... for the full list of other protections.

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#118

Post by STM32F030R8 »

f6v wrote: post #73
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> despite no proof that it isn't a possibility Because you don’t get to come up with a “theory” and dump the burden of the proof on someone else. That’s incredibly stupid. Not how how science and common sense work.

Since when? It may not be a good argument but should we be deplatforming people over it? Go to Reddit front page right now and try to find something that isn’t a poorly argued political post. What’s the difference? Just because you may disagree with someone it doesn’t mean they NEED to be silenced.

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#119

Post by crazygringo »

mattkevan wrote: post #68

I've used DDG as my main search engine for about 4 years now. Until recently I found I was still having to go to Google for specific queries, mainly answering coding problems. But in the last 6 months or so, Google's results have gotten so bad and DDG has continued to improve to the point where I no longer bother with !g. When I do use Google I often find myself in the strange position of not actually being able to f…

Can you give some examples of queries Google is unable to find desired results for?

Re: Advertise on DuckDuckGo Search

#120

Post by ipaddr »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #95
ummonk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was crazy to see suggestions to wear masks or claims that covid was airborne getting "fact-checked" by the media only to reverse their position months later after WHO put out new statements. In particular, the phrase "no credible evidence" was wildly thrown around without mentioning whether there were any credible high-powered studies that had even attempted to find evidence of the phenomenon.

With hindsight we can see their mistakes but isn't following the expert line the best thing to do in an uncertain situation?

Trusting in appointed experts instead of critical thinking is the worst thing to do in uncertain times.
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