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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”

#551

Post by snth »

moltke wrote: post #300
Imnimo wrote: post #290

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…

>Should I simply accept that this site is the correct top result for my users' queries, Yes, your users aren't using your search engine as an oracle for the truth, they're using it to find pages with similar text. It's their job (and specifically not yours) to determine how well the text they find corresponds with reality. Perhaps they're even aware the site is factually incorrect and enjoy reading it for the novelty…

Your view is completely opposed to all of the recent "Google search is totally broken due to garbage SEO sites" HN articles.

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

#552

Post by mattrighetti »

I want to play the devil's advocate: this is bad for DDG, but AT LEAST we know that they are doing this. It would have been a lot worse if they just did it without saying a word about it, right?

Now, if I want to get unbiased info on the ongoing conflict I’ll just switch to Brave or something better.

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

#553

Post by soueuls »

hedora wrote: post #449
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.

Funny how most of the comments here are complaining about how this proves there is western media bias. One of the main goals of the current Russian propaganda push in the US is to get people to lose confidence in reliable news outlets. They want us to believe that our best news outlets are equivalent to their basement troll farms that just fabricate stories day in and out. The two are not the same. Giving equal per s…

Western media helped start a war with Irak based on fake weapons of mass destruction.

If people lost trust on Western medias, it's not because of Russians, it's because we are constantly producing propaganda as well. It's just different.

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

#555

Post by JakeAl »

8note wrote: post #436
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…

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

I think https://50kft.com/ removes filters from Google, but you may have to change your clock to use it.

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

#556

Post by santoshalper »

tomc1985 wrote: post #530
TechBro8615 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It sounds like you're advocating for pushing censorship responsibility to the user. It is really irresponsible to be phrasing censorship as a "responsibility". Censorship is a tool of the weak and simple-minded so that they can maintain the illusions of a shared reality promulgated by whoever is in charge. The only responsibility should be towards the free and unadulterated flow of information, and yes, it is the i…

"My only exception is things I don't like"

How is blocking spam and advertisement materially different than blocking a foreign actor's propaganda?

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

#557

Post by confidantlake »

mardifoufs wrote: post #405
bhandziuk wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a source for this?

This is what the ukrainian embassy in slovakia claimed. I guess official ukrainian sources have been incredibly unreliable but I haven't seen any fact check on their claims >Czech law enforcement warns that public approval of Russia's invasion of Ukraine could be classified as a "crime of denial, questioning, approval and justification of GENOCIDE." There are already the first two cases of detainees incriminated in t…

Shouldn't it be the embassy in the Czech Republic or is it really the Ukraine embassy in Slovakia commenting on Czech law? Not trying to be difficult just generally wondering. Tried looking at the link but twitter wants me to sign up to view it.

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

#558

Post by kube-system »

verisimi wrote: post #490
kube-system wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have rediscovered why it is difficult to make a search engine. This is a problem that applies to all search results, not just politically charged content: human judgement is always required to write a search algorithm.

No - they are explicitly adding bias here. They are coding it into their algorithm. Frankly, I'd be surprised if there weren't implicit biases already there. But this is something new. Its overt, explicit.

There is nothing about this that is close to new. Everyone who runs a real search engine on the public internet has a need to explicitly code in edge-cases from time to time.

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

#559

Post by smoe »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #437
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…

This whole Ukraine war teached me a thing I haven't noticed before: I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. It's a sad state of affairs, but since the invasion started my only source of "news" related to the war is a few, and I a said a FEW, Youtube channels. I'm brazilian and one channel I recommend is Fernando Ulrich's channel. He interviewed (in english) a lot people (ukrainians,…

A very related problem is, that people often want to have information that simple doesn't exists or is not obtainable at this moment.

When I worked at a large news site, every time there was a significant event, people flocked to the usual sources immediately demanding answers NOW. Whoever gives any answer first or gives the most spectacular answer, wins. Be that traditional media, social networks, bloggers, politicians etc. Almost nobody cares about the veracity of the information if they feel good about themselves being informed and what they hear sounds right.

There is a ton a valid issues to be talked about when it comes about trustworthiness of different media. But I think also as societies we need to get better at living with ambiguity instead of basically asking to be click-baited constantly.

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

#560

Post by JakeAl »

orestarod wrote: post #493
verisimi wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. No, you can't. It really comes down to a choice of which unhinged violent group of psychopaths do you want to believe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqKfSbhm6yo This is a great explanation of the anarchist perspective. Great quote: "Ukraine has been this mess for many many many years of people arguing about which of authoritarian control fr…

Choosing who sociopath to believe is way down the road (and in my opinion not necessary in the end to "believe" anyone, you ideally have your judgement to filter out the noise and get the however little information). The step we still have not gotten past is to be able to listen to all the psychopaths in the first place. At this moment, the psychopath with the most strength near you prohibits other psychopaths from b…

As the X-Files used to say, Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate
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