General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe DuckDuckGo Users Furious at Its Response to the War in Ukraine
Last week, Gabriel Weinberg announced that his company would be combating Russian disinformation. Like so many others I am sickened by Russias invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create, he wrote on Twitter. At DuckDuckGo, weve been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.
Although the move was more or less in line with how other major online platforms have been responding to the Russian invasion, pushback from DuckDuckGos user base has been pronounced. More than 30,000 users on Twitter have responded to Weinbergs post with largely negative comments about the decision, accusing the company of engaging in censorship and injecting bias into search results. Breitbart ran a piece attacking DuckDuckGo as Diet Google, and high-profile libertarian YouTubers have also told their followers to stop using it.
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DuckDuckGos executives have been trying to quell the unrest. The whole point of DuckDuckGo is privacy, Weinberg wrote back to one of his critics. The whole point of the search engine is to show more relevant content over less relevant content, and that is what we continue to do. The company also released an official statement, which read in part, Its also important to note that down-ranking is different from censorship. We are simply using the fact that that these sites are engaging in active disinformation campaigns as a ranking signal that the content they produce is of lower quality, just like there are signals for spammy sites and other lower-quality content.
DuckDuckGo didnt originally set out to be a conservative-friendly free speech platform, even though many of its users seem to see it that way. Its core promise to users is that it wont track searches in order to curate results, a practice that Google relies on. As Google has faced accusations of de-prioritizing conservative content, though, users have also flocked to DuckDuckGo for what they perhaps mistakenly saw as unmoderated search results.
https://slate.com/technology/2022/03/duckduckgo-russian-disinformation-downranking.html
AZProgressive
(29,322 posts)The pro Russia people cry very loudly when one of their sites or commentators are moderated on social media.
Russian disinformation is garbage and there should be a lot less of it.
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)provide and could care less what some "libertarians" think.
Demovictory9
(32,324 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,283 posts)DuckDuckGo seems to be preventing wingers from seeing Russian propaganda, alas.
JHB
(37,133 posts)Simply using the platform because it doesn't track isn't the "right wing thing". It's the paranoid "woke tech companies are out to get me" thinking that is.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,789 posts)underpants
(182,281 posts)I hear their ads all the time if Im on that radio station.
Radio ads are pretty cheap I think and they clearly are going after an older crowd. I read that Joe Rogan was promoting them as another source thats not google.
intheflow
(28,407 posts)Not tracking/collecting information is a very liberal concept, going hand in hand with freedom of information ideals. But the Freedumb crowd assumes not tracking searches = the wild, wild west where white men run shooting and raping and lynching to own the libs.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)I hope I'm wrong.
Hugin
(32,778 posts)DDG will probably gain 100x that many by doing the correct thing. If the Spotify affair is any precedent.
NJCher
(35,434 posts)I dont see what the problem is. There are other sources for Russian lies if thats what they want.
underpants
(182,281 posts)and they expect to have daily confirmation.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,157 posts)and they want to be able to game search engines by spamming the lies. This is about Breitbart and its allies wanting free marketing from search engines.
Hugin
(32,778 posts)Tiny little porcine hooves than do the obvious free market thing and start their own fricking search engine.
Oh, wait, they are incapable of work or appealing to a big tent.
At least this private enterprise gave notice of their intent. Not a requirement.
intheflow
(28,407 posts)Typical Republican reaction to a business trying to conduct its business with ethics and integrity, two concepts anathema to the GQP.
dalton99a
(81,073 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)who promptly quit. Reportedly this week Yandex is looking to sell its media division, Firefox will no longer provide services, and no doubt more to come.