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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”

#391

Post by tengbretson »

ScarletEmerald wrote: post #296
HeckFeck wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Would you trust a source of medical information less if it declined to present or link to information that breathing CO is healthy, drinking mineral spirits is fine, and handling mercury with bare skin is safe and fun?

Well let's flip this around. How many articles of misinformation advocating breathing CO would you have to read before you personally tried it?

If the answer is that you never would, then you are not advocating for something that protects you, just those that you see as inferior to you

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

#392

Post by diego_moita »

avgcorrection wrote: post #218
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…

> Also, freedom of speech is a principle applied on the relation of people with the state, an issue for public law. This is about a private enterprise and its relations with its users, subject to the regulation of private law. Have you been living under a rock? This narrow, don’t-tread-on-me version of freedom-of-speech has been criticized in the Zeitgeist for a good while now; many people want the same principles to…

> Have you been living under a rock?

> has been criticized in the Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist? As in Twitter/FB/Whatsapp and other social networks' blabbering?

Then yes, I've been living under a rock. I proudly refuse to be part of that cacophony.

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

#393

Post by renewiltord »

ScarletEmerald wrote: post #296
HeckFeck wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Would you trust a source of medical information less if it declined to present or link to information that breathing CO is healthy, drinking mineral spirits is fine, and handling mercury with bare skin is safe and fun?

Yeah, actually. Let me tell you about something that will illustrate. Once upon a time, Amazon had a flood of fake reviews. They would rate to 5 and be in terrible Engrish and the different styles were pretty easy to detect. I could use that as a signal that the product was bad and that the field of these products is likely risky.

Eventually, Amazon started getting rid of all these reviews. There are still fake reviews but they're more subtle than that. So now I have lost my signal that said "tread carefully for products in this class" and I have lost some signal that said "this product has fakers involved or in its competitors".

So now, yes, I trust Amazon less.

I am not making up a hypothetical universe. I am sure others have shared this experience.

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

#394

Post by 0cVlTeIATBs »

uejfiweun wrote: post #129
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, search is getting more and more broken... I remember all the "trump vs reporters" etc. compilations, that were funny... now searching for any of those terms (basically anything at all involving trump, or now russia) ignores almost everything in the searchbox, ignores all the small creators, just picks out the one keyword (trump/russia/putin/...), and show the CNN/MSNBC/... news related to that one term, and unre…

FYI, assuming you're talking about YouTube, you can still see these funny compilation videos by being smart with the way you apply filters to the search. To be honest I am actually reluctant to tell you this online because I think if YouTube knew about this they would remove it, just like dislikes.

Bilibili's search also seems to be just about as aggressive for videos on politically sensitive topics in China.

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

#395

Post by michaelmrose »

jaywalk wrote: post #377
michaelmrose wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I have followed a plethora of information from individuals on the ground and historical information from multiple sources. What I have posted is as close to objective reality as I can obtain and I am very confident it its veracity.

The fact that you have information from "individuals on the ground" and from "multiple sources" doesn't make the information correct or unbiased. What you posted may as well have come directly from Ukrainian state media. "Putin was jealous that Ukraine was doing so much better than Russia, so he attacked them for no reason to bring them back down" is just a laughable take on the situation.

It's also not what I said. I said Putin had a vision of a "Greater Russia" composed of the components of its former empire and reached out to grasp them before its declining strength made this impossible. This is literally what Putin said in prior speeches.

I also said that democracies on their doorstep are a dangerous precedent for the serfs the kleptocrats are presently robbing.

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

#396

Post by atlantas »

HeckFeck wrote: post #153
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.

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…

> I will now trust my own media and sources even less, if they rely on silencing the competition and insist on controlling

As you should! It's actually exactly what authoritarian governments like Russia do. They silence and control information, blocking out other sources aside from their own propaganda. Everything else is said to be dangerous disinformation.

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

#397

Post by danShumway »

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.

The entire quote in context:

> “[W]hen you search, you expect unbiased results, but that’s not what you get on Google,” Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine, writes on Quora. “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.”

"Unbiased" is a bad word to use, but what they were getting at is that Google tailors search results per-person based on a data profile. I don't see how anyone even at the time thought that this meant that DuckDuckGo was not ranking sites, that's what a search engine does.

I genuinely don't understand the controversy at all about this. "Who determines what is misinformation" is an argument for search engine diversity, not for destroying the entire concept of a search engine. Of course DuckDuckGo downranks and upranks sites.

The real controversy here is why after all of these years they still haven't gotten around to downranking W3Schools.

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

#398

Post by mardifoufs »

empthought wrote: post #378
mardifoufs wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aljazeera is literally the Qatari state media. That means they are the media outlet of a slave state controlled by an absolute monarchy . Tell anyone in the Arabic world that aljazeera is neutral or BBC like and you will get laughed at. Even RT is probably not on as short of an editorial leash than al jazeera. Your comment is actually an amazing example of why we should absolutely avoid media censorship (like the EU…

The BBC is literally the UK state media.

You ignored the "slave state with an absolute monarchy" part I think. Not like they are even comparable, unless you are saying the BBC journalists could justifiably be fearing for their lives if they criticize the UK government? All state media aren't created equal, and aren't equally independant. Otherwise the BBC, aljazeera and RT would be all equal since they are all state media after all.

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

#399

Post by [deleted] »

thepasswordis wrote: post #351
awb wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Do you do this in other elements of your life? “I’m not going to drink this veggie smoothie because they started adding honey and I don’t think sugar is healthy. I’m going to drink soda where at least they don’t try to hide that you’re drinking sugar.”

Yes, I do this with other parts of my life. One of the most frustrating experiences I ever had grocery shopping was when I tried to buy "fancy" mayonnaise at whole foods. I was trying to cook something "nice" and wanted to get the good stuff, so that's where I went. The package said in bold letters, "Mayonnaise!" or some such, and what I didn't realize until I got home was that it wasn't actually mayonnaise, but some…

[deleted]

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

#400

Post by shadowgovt »

danShumway wrote: post #397
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.

The entire quote in context: > “[W]hen you search, you expect unbiased results, but that’s not what you get on Google,” Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine, writes on Quora. “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.” "Unbiased" is a bad word to use, but what they were getting at is t…

I assume it's the "law of conservation of expertsexchange."

They don't downrank w3schools because something will just replace it. ;)

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