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Censorship The Internet

DuckDuckGo To Down-Rank Sites Associated With Russian Disinformation (pcmag.com) 162

Posted by BeauHD from the controversial-decisions dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCMag: DuckDuckGo is now down-ranking sites associated with Russian disinformation in response to the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, but some critics say the change amounts to censorship. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg announced the down-ranking on Twitter. "Like so many others I am sickened by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create," he wrote in the tweet, which included the hashtag StandWithUkraine. "At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation," he added. Weinberg didn't elaborate on the decision, or how the down-ranking will work. [...] Weinberg was quick to defend the decision, saying it was necessary to provide relevant search results over disinformation. Not everyone is a fan of the decision. "So you are censoring your users? DDG now decides what is or isn't misinformation? This decision should be left to the user," wrote one user on Twitter.

"You've got that magic 'disinformation finder' eh?" wrote another user. "You're just sure you're going to only downrank things that are wrong?"

Others referenced DuckDuckGo's commitment to "unbiased search."
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DuckDuckGo To Down-Rank Sites Associated With Russian Disinformation More

DuckDuckGo To Down-Rank Sites Associated With Russian Disinformation

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  • for the last dozen wars of aggression and regime change attempts?

    treat every country equally, or don't pretend you give a fuck.

    • Oh, for the love of mod points.

    • Hopefully this will also downeank limeade Karlson

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      But what about my flaming hot asshole? How can you think about anything else when my fucking brown eye is BURNING? If you aren't thinking about my itching, burning asshole, you are part of the problem!

      Fuck your whataboutism. Russian whataboutism hasn't worked for 30 years, kinda like it's army. Get a new deflection technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Fully agree, and what I wonder is why anyone wants censorship or down ranking of certain content. That just lets the people who censor limit what people see. Now in the US there is a big push to censor content because one group thinks it is bad. This is why in the past the Supreme Court has often ruled to let everyone speak. It's called a debate, and when only one side gets to talk, you will never know what is really happening. You need to hear both sides, or three sides, or more. Then people can decide who

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by spun ( 1352 )

        If I want to hear both sides, I will go listen to them present their side in their space. I will not invite them into my house, to stand on my porch, and shout about their side. This does not make me a censor.

        Tell me, if a TV station does not renew a show, are they censoring it? If a newspaper does not print your letter, are they censoring you? No. In fact, if the government forced the TV station to broadcast shows they don't want to, or forced the newspaper to print all letters, that would be censorship. T

        • It must be comfortable being so brainwashed. You don't have to worry about being wrong. You say letting both sides speak is propaganda? Hard to believe anyone thinks the way you do. But there you go. Hearing speech you don't agree with obviously is something you can't stomach. That makes you weak. If you were a stronger person, you would be able to hear the other side. But you can't hear the other side, because it would cause too much cognitive dissonance. It's a good thing that everyone in the world isn't

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by spun ( 1352 )

            Fuck you dipshit. I stopped reading after the first sentence. You're wasting your time, because you don't matter at all.

            • Morons can't think of anything meaningful to say. You have proven yourself a moron. You really can't think of an intelligent response, can you? Of course not. Now you can spew curses again, because you are too dumb and angry to say anything intelligent. Spun can't spin an intelligent response, so Spun just spews.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by spun ( 1352 )

                Is this supposed to be a comeback? For fucks sake, what do you hope to achieve here? Are you so delusional that you think you have an audience cheering you on? It's just you and me pal, and I am not impressed.

                You don't deserve an intelligent response. You haven't made an argument, all you are doing is slinging grade school level insults. Are you twelve? Do you honestly think you are delivering some sort of genius level debate here? Sorry, all I see is exactly what you are accusing me off. So, just standard

      • Now in the US there is a big push to censor content because one group thinks it is bad.

        Yes, Republicans are resorting to banning books as well as burning books in the same fashion as fascists have done.

      • First, OP is either naive or full of shit. Countries don't have to treat reasonably functional democracies on their border the same as far-flung countries that would likely substitute one despot for another. Certainly the value of the human lives is the same, but the chance for beneficial intervention is much greater when the country is nearby and not a basketcase.

        In Ukraine's case, Putin has indicated that this is the first step in reviving the glory of the old empire. It really is best to nip this in t

  • Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies
    (Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies)
    Oh, no, no you can't disguise
    (You can't disguise, no you can't disguise)
    Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

  • DuckDuckGo's potential decent into darkness!

  • "So you are censoring your users? ..." wrote one user on Twitter.

    Down-ranking sites in search results is not "censoring users".

    • Depends on the reason. On its face - this reason is subjective/partisan.

      • Well, the default rankings are also subjective/partisan. Ie, you pay money, your ranking goes up. Now, partisan is not bad, when one side is clearly wrong and clearly lying and is well known historically known to be a congenital liar. Having "equal time" for all views is idiotic nonsense, and it has never existed and when media attempts this it ends up in silliness.

      • this reason is subjective/partisan.

        Which makes it speech protected under the 1st amendment. Hard to call that censorship.

        • That doesn't make it not censorship... Censorship is only illegal if the government does it. I'm not arguing that they can't do it - I'm arguing that they shouldn't. Philosophically - search algorithms should be content agnostic...

          • Philosophically - search algorithms should be content agnostic...

            So bring back keyword stuffing and search engines that eat that up? The whole purpose of modern search engines is to find as many data points as possible to assign a relative relevance value to one source over another. It's like you never used search engines before Google and don't know how good you have it. That's already far from content agnostic and it's mostly a good thing.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jbengt ( 874751 )

            Philosophically - search algorithms should be content agnostic...

            The whole idea of a decent search engine is to not be content agnostic. Otherwise noise would overwhelm the results.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        The problem becomes, what is misinformation? Consider the shape of the world. Someone claims it is flat and the idea of it being round is a globalist conspiracy to sell more globes. Sure sounds like misinformation. Someone responds, no the world is round, people have gone west and arrived at their starting point from the east. Sounds like not misinformation. Yet it is still misinformation someone else points out as the world is actually an oblate sphere. Then someone else points out that it is actually slig

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • who will be designing and running the secret non bias algorithms.

  • Are they going to have to exclude Republicans (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday March 10, 2022 @05:36PM (#62345521)
    like Twitter did with the White Supremacists?

    No Joke, that was why Twitter couldn't go after the White Supremacists, when they did their algorithms couldn't tell the difference between sitting Senators and Congressmen and the racists they were trying to ban.

    Could you tell the difference between Russian disinformation and say, Tucker Carlson's last rant about how great Vladimir Putin is (google it if you think I'm exaggerating for effect here, I'm not).

    Or are the going to try and make an exception process to avoid down ranking those sites.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      Could you tell the difference between Russian disinformation and say, Tucker Carlson's.

      Yes. The reason you can't is because you are left of Lenin in your views and compared to you everyone is right-wing.

      • Or maybe it's because both Putin and Carlson are lying every time they open their mouths? How do you tell the difference anyway, other than by reading the scroll bar at the bottom of the tv screen?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sinij ( 911942 )

          How do you tell the difference anyway...

          You will be hard-pressed to show that Carlson lies more than your average CNN or MSNBC pundit. Regardless, if you still getting your news from cable news then you are likely misinformed about everything.

          Speaking of which, have you seen Project Veritas latest expose on NYT and Jan 6? Go watch it: https://rumble.com/vwvplr-nyt-... [rumble.com]

          • I would argue that what CNN and NYTimes do is worse. At least with Carlson you know his "slant" and his claims are pretty blunt even if they're bullshit. CNN lies indirectly, through their choice of stories, frequency of coverage on a topic, careful manipulation of headlines, placement of images, etc. It's hard to point to a direct lie, but you can see them driving an overall narrative which is quite often largely at odds with reality.
          • More information from a CNN or MSNBC pundit? They're all owned by the same handful of billionaires. You need to seek out some alternative sources of information. Stop assuming that everyone just follows mainstream media like a fool and if you're doing that yourself stop. My recommendation is to start with Beau of the fifth column, Rebecca Watson and maybe Thought Slime. If you want to shock jock try Cult of Dusty. And use the fark.com politics and business tabs find stories from other media sources.

            Jus
          • Project Veritas is one of the least reliable and most misleading sources on the planet, but then for someone as far off the deep end of far right lunacy as you are, I guess that's just par for the course. Jan 6th was just a love fest right? The screaming mob that beat police officers would have just had a polite conversation with Congress about their batshit insane election conspiracy theories and why Congress should overturn it.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sinij ( 911942 )
              You don't have to trust Project Veritas and they are not asking you to, they always present video and audio evidence. At most, you could claim that context is missing.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by doom ( 14564 )

            You will be hard-pressed to show that Carlson lies more than your average CNN or MSNBC pundit.

            Actually, it's really easy unless you compulsively reject every reputable source of fact-checking as fake news.

            Seriously, the MSM is nothing to be excited about in terms of it's accuracy or (a worse failing, I think) the range of it's coverage, but compared to the right-wing agitprop sources it's remarkably excellent.

            Seriously, just look at Covid deaths and you'll get an idea of the quality of information in

        • Don't feed the trolls please. Just let the mods mod them down

    • They are downranking sites associated with Russia: RT and any number of other propaganda sources. As I say in a separate post below, we should be doing the same to Fox, NewsMax, etc. Search engines are supposed to return relevant results. Propaganda sources are irrelevant, so why should they be included in search results?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )

        ....we should be doing the same to Fox, NewsMax, etc

        You are not suppose to say the quiet part out-loud.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chas ( 5144 )

        Because that was the entire value proposition for DDG.
        Search results ostensibly free of meddling.
        You made a request, you got the unfiltered results of said query.

        Now? They're no different than Google.
        And if you're going to just be a half-assed Google, why should anyone not just go use the real deal?

        • Free of meddling? Define "meddling"? Changing the SEO?

          I use DDG because they don't track what I search for.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          Because that was the entire value proposition for DDG.
          Search results ostensibly free of meddling.

          Not according to their ads. It's more like search results free from anyone else ever knowing you searched for.

    • Tucker Carlson's last rant about how great Vladimir Putin is

      Ah yes, Cucker Carlson. The guy who wants to ban abortions to protect babies while cheering for a dictator who deliberately targets maternity hospitals [cbsnews.com] killing pregnant women and children.

    • Could you tell the difference between Russian disinformation and say, Tucker Carlson's last rant about how great Vladimir Putin is (google it if you think I'm exaggerating for effect here, I'm not).

      You're out of date, now he's spreading Russian conspiracy theories about Ukraine/US bio-weapon programs [globalnews.ca].

      It's getting to the point where I wouldn't be shocked if Carlson wasn't a Russian asset of some sort.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )

        I wouldn't be shocked if Carlson wasn't a Russian asset of some sort.

        I honestly doubt it. He and his employer are just shrewd at business. They know that his particular brand of bullshit sells well with their target audience. His only goal in life is to get ears and eyeballs on his content, thereby making truckloads of money.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Maybe it's easier when the source of the disinformation is a country, with known allocated IP blocks and TLD. The problem with white supremacy is that the source is the same as all the non-white supremacy posts.

    • Could you tell the difference between Russian disinformation and say, Tucker Carlson's last rant about how great Vladimir Putin is

      Do you want to? Or maybe you're happy deplatforming them both.

    • like Twitter did with the White Supremacists? No Joke, that was why Twitter couldn't go after the White Supremacists, when they did their algorithms couldn't tell the difference between sitting Senators and Congressmen and the racists they were trying to ban. Could you tell the difference between Russian disinformation and say, Tucker Carlson's last rant about how great Vladimir Putin is (google it if you think I'm exaggerating for effect here, I'm not). Or are the going to try and make an exception process to avoid down ranking those sites.

      What's truly funny is that you actually think you are making an argument against other people, rather than against yourself.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Could you tell the difference between Russian disinformation and say, Tucker Carlson's last rant about how great Vladimir Putin is (google it if you think I'm exaggerating for effect here, I'm not).

      There is a difference? Sorry, but disinformation doesn't stop being disinformation just because it's not Russian. That's one of the big problems with the internet, you can host almost anything from almost anywhere, so a lot of Russia's disinformation will come from non-Russian sources, often sources that spread other forms of disinformation, like Tucker Carlson.

  • Much as I agree that Russia should stop its invasion of Ukraine, this is an all around disastrously dumb idea. Obviously, the first question, as with all "disinformation prevention" and "fact checking is: how do you actually know what is and is not true? Does DuckDuckGo have access to an all-knowing superbeing that provides them with universal truths?

    But even if they were able to technically do this, they still shouldn't. The whole reason why Google has become basically useless is because they started interfering in what the Page ranking should actually be. Any search engine that tries to manipulate its results, even for in principle decent ends, makes itself technically obsolete.

    Finally, it is not the task of search engines to police morality. Even if this sort of actions didn't lead to technical obsolescence, they would still make the company morally evil. This is a first step on the path to becoming one of the stereotypical tech companies who sell their soul for advertisements.

    • No, it's the right idea. DDG is downgrading known propaganda sources. We know who they are here in the US: Fox, OAN, NewsMax, Ben Shapiro, etc, etc. Reputation matters, and search engines have a duty to rank reliable sources above propaganda. They are custodians of information. Editorial discretion must be exercised if these guys are to be useful. Search engines need to avoid gigo: they must prevent garbage from going in.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Q-Hack! ( 37846 )

        The fact that you only list one side, shows ignorance. News agencies on all sides fall into the propaganda pit. You simply can't see the left's propaganda since it agrees with your own personal biases. Might I recommend the following site to help you get out of your little bubble. https://www.allsides.com/media... [allsides.com]

        • The fact that you only list one side, shows ignorance.

          No, the GP is right on the money. The news organizations (of which Fox is *not*, by the way, as they win libel suits by presenting their "fair and balanced reporting" as "entertainment of which no reasonable person would take as fact") listed proclaim facts which are not proven with evidence. That is also not opinion. Stating something as facts when they are not, such as "the election was stolen", is fraud. They're a cancer on society. You want to have conservative opinions, that's fine and dandy. You want

          • they win libel suits by presenting their "fair and balanced reporting" as "entertainment of which no reasonable person would take as fact"

            This is called The Maddow Defense [duckduckgo.com]

            • 'Presented as opinion' and 'No reasonable person could possibly take this guy seriously' (even though all his viewers do) are not the same, no matter how much the bOtHsIdEs people defending conservatives pretend otherwise.

        • Care to substantiate your claim?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )

          I'm what most would call "a lefty", but I 100% agree with your sentiment. You absolutely cannot call out the likes of Fox news while completely ignoring the less-than-honest news outlets on "my" side. In general, I find that getting your news from ANY "24-hour news cycle" type network is a bad idea. No matter what your leaning is, the types of stories and coverage on any of those networks is selected 100% on what will keep your eyeballs on their channel. Unless you're really good at looking past the spin

    • You idiot. Promoting the idea that everything is equally credible and it is impossible to determine truth is the idea. Quoting the summary of the previous Slashdot article here:

      The goal of the videos is to inject a sense of doubt among Russian-language audiences as they encounter real images of wrecked Russian military vehicles and the destruction caused by missile and artillery strikes in Ukraine, according to Patrick Warren, an associate professor at Clemson who co-leads the Media Forensics Hub. "The reason that it's so effective is because you don't actually have to convince someone that it's true. It's sufficient to make people uncertain as to what they should trust," said Warren, who has conducted extensive research into Russian internet trolling and disinformation campaigns. "In a sense they are convincing the viewer that it would be possible for a Ukrainian propaganda bureau to do this sort of thing."

      Search engines all tank results based on relevance and reputation for accuracy and objectivity is a big part of that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Obviously, the first question, as with all "disinformation prevention" and "fact checking is: how do you actually know what is and is not true?

      DuckDuckGo and every other half decent search engine has been filtering malware and phishing sites since day one. The same techniques can be applied to Russian disinformation posts, e.g. looking at the source of the material, looking for deceptive use of reputable logos and URLs etc.

      While mistakes do happen, overall it's better than the alternative. We did try doing nothing about it, and look where we ended up: interference in our democracies was widespread and unpunished.

    • Obviously, the first question, as with all "disinformation prevention" and "fact checking is: how do you actually know what is and is not true? Does DuckDuckGo have access to an all-knowing superbeing that provides them with universal truths?

      This argument comes up all the time but the fact is you don't need to make it perfect, nor do you need to push to the boundary where there's a grey line. Take for example the following.

      1. Vaccines save lives - Obvious correct and something which any reputable health ministry will corroborate. Don't block
      2. Vaccines contain chemicals which can cause adverse reactions - Possibly true. What's the article say, there may be details which mash together disinformation with correct science to give an air of legitim

  • This MUST be done in the US, too. Specifically, it must be applied to all "conservative" outlets like OAN, Fox, NewsMax, etc. These are propaganda machines. It is a travesty that they get listed in Google News.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xwin ( 848234 )
      Yes! The "liberals" are the defenders of free speech. As soon as all the "conservative" outlets are closed down and there is no more opposite opinion, the "truth" as defined by the "liberals" will prevail.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        As soon as all the "conservative" outlets are closed down and there is no more opposite opinion

        Good thing you put "conservative" in those scare quotes, as OAN, Fox, NewsMax, etc. are not conservative in any reasonable definition of the word.

  • A relative of mine was rambling about "Russia gonna false flag" tonight, and I asked "you mean like Colin Powell holding up a vial of something like baking soda and pretending it was nerve gas at the UN?"

    Or you mean like the Gulf of Tonkin? Or the USS Maine (which was later ruled an accident by our side with no Spanish involvement)? Or the evidence [unionleader.com] that strongly suggests the USS Liberty was a false flag ordered by LBJ (and the Israelis were merely following orders from DC on this one)?

    Or how about a very re

  • Search engines are unqualified to judge this. So are politicians. So is the press.

    • Search engines are unqualified to judge this. So are politicians. So is the press.

      But that begs the question: Do you believe you are qualified to judge? I know I'm not. Best I can do is work from history. If someone has lied to me 10% of the time, I'm still going to give their words more credibility than someone who has lied to me 90% of the time. That's the best any of us can do I'm afraid.

    • for the rest of us. Everyone has a conflict of interest. Everyone is biased.

      I can think of only one valid argument for censorship/deplatforming/editorial discretion: attentional bandwidth. There's too much derp and propaganda out there. The signal gets drowned in the noise

      But I want control over my own filter. I don't want someone else imposing his biases on my information. I want my own biases!

      The problem with search engines is there's someone running them from a server farm. Something decentralized and di

  • Users rely on search engines for relevant results. Propaganda sources are irrelevant, so why should they be included in search results?

    And, yes, when outlets like RT, Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Ben Shapiro, etc, etc,, are manifestly dedicated and committed to dissembling, disseminating lies and creating havoc, then, of course, they should be downgraded, deprecated or even ignored altogether.

    If you're searching for the latest climate change predictions, then results from Science magazine, Nature, American Physical S

  • Will the universe implode or will the first hit be "almost true" ?

  • This would seem to have a trivial solution. Add a flag saying "This site has been associated with Russian disinformation", and give the user the *option* of blocking flagged sites from their search results.

    People who want the sites blocked, who approve of DuckDuckGo's current way of doing things, can still block them. People who are curious about Russian disinformation strategies can seek them out. People who are curious about DuckDuckGo's "flagging" strategy can examine which sites have been flagged. E

  • Just have a checkbox. "I want to be lied to by Russia" and let people choose for themselves.

  • I feel it's dangerous to rely on "disinformation" as a criterion for downranking search results. Paul Revere's "The British are coming! The British are coming!" would be a tweet or a TikTok today. Would a loyal Briton have thought that "disinformation"? Should it have been downranked? Would that same person have permitted reports of the conditions on the HMS Jersey?

    Any company or individual that attempts to control the spread of information this way is taking on a staggering responsibility. Incorrectly cl

  • Time to switch to an unfiltered search engine.

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