4 ms·

I'll believe this when the third result for "filled torus" isn't "Cum Filled Pussy Porn Videos" unless safe search is enabled. DDG's contextual awareness is aby

by ebg13 7y ago

I'll believe this when the third result for "filled torus" isn't "Cum Filled Pussy Porn Videos" unless safe search is enabled. DDG's contextual awareness is abysmal.

kazinator 7y ago
Confirmed. Wow!
chadlavi 7y ago
I do find that I get... a lot of porn images in any DDG image search past, say, the 20th image result. For literally any search term, it seems.
nice_byte 7y ago
i'm not getting porn but this is nonetheless a perfect example of how bad ddg is. first result is the "torus" article on wiki, which is _not_ what the query asks for. by contrast, google's top result is the "solid torus" wiki article - much better.
- kazinator 7y ago
  I reproduced OP's search result by turning the safe-search from "moderate" to "off", and searching for "filled torus" without quotes.
- ebg13 7y ago
  That's fascinating. If DDG's whole shtick is not profiling, what accounts for the difference?
auiya 7y ago
Maybe you just under-estimate the prevalence of porn searches on the Internet? Once could easily argue that your esoteric geometry search is likely not nearly as common as the results they returned you on what they surmised was a porn search with a typo for instance.
- ebg13 7y ago
  If the query engine cannot recognize that nothing in "filled torus" indicates anything remotely close to a desire for porn results, then it's just not good. A DDG search for "full prison" with safe search off returns, in order: xvideos.com, pornhub.com, xnxx.com, xnxx.com, serco.com (holy shit something actually about prisons sort of), xxxparodyhd.net, pussyspace.com, fox.com/prison-break, youtube.com, youtube.com That's ridiculously bad. I'm not sure it could be worse if they tried. If there's one astoundingly obvious way that Google's results are superior, it's that apparently they first ask themselves "is the user looking for porn? [Yes/No]" and then proceed from there.
- kazinator 7y ago
  Maybe they should simply re-label their settings, for starters. The safe search has three levels: "off", "moderate" and "strict". I would call this the "Adult content" setting, and the choices would be "prefer", "neutral", and "suppress". These would just map exactly to the semantics of the current three choices. Transitioning to the "prefer" option could require some dialog or check box tick-off to state that the search engine will emphasize adult material, and the user must confirm their adulthood to enable this mode. Thus under the "Adult content: prefer" setting, you would then be getting what you asked for. Your queries are interpreted as searching for porn, and "filled torus" behaves accordingly. Since the very presence of such an option might be seen as offensive, or as promoting pornography (i.e. that DDG is effectively a porn search engine since it has an option for preferentially finding adult material), that option could itself be hidden somehow. To access the option at all would require confirming through a dialog. Also, there should be a "kid friendly" version of duckduckgo at an alternative URL, with immutably safe settings and and possibly altered search behaviors for even greater safety. Parents could point at that, and block/redirect the main one. With that idea, what if simply one had to go to adult.duckduckgo.com to be able to search with safe-search "off", regardless of their settings? I.e. if you go to duckduckgo.com, then "off" is treated as "moderate". Only at adult.duckduckgo.com is it actually "off".
  - clarry 7y ago
    > I would call this the "Adult content" setting, and the choices would be "prefer", "neutral", and "suppress". These would just map exactly to the semantics of the current three choices. I honestly think a better idea would be tagging all results. A lot of the irritation with search engines seems to come from the fact that words can be so overloaded and ambiguous. It's unreasonable to expect that any search engine could return what you want in the first 20 results if there's no way to narrow down results by tags and categories. Porn shouldn't be the only category that gets special treatment. For example, sometimes I want to search about how to make foo, and I get pages and pages of results about... crafting foo in games. At that point I'd like to turn off all results that have to do with games or fiction. Or enable categories about.. actually making stuff? And speaking of games, it's fucking irritating that the results aren't tagged so when you try to look up information about a game in a series, you get tons of results about more recent sequels and it can be really hard to filter those out.
TwoBit 7y ago
OK,though is "filled torus" even a proper name? Looks like Google recognizes that you probably really mean solid torus.
- ebg13 7y ago
  Fine. Search for "full prison" instead. Worse yet, search for "middle school". Hell, searching for "cat" results in "Cat Porn Videos"! Searching for "zebra" results in "Zebra Porn Videos"! Searching for "dolphin" results in "Dolphin Porn Videos"! "ballet" gives porn!

by ebg13 7y ago

I'll believe this when the third result for "filled torus" isn't "Cum Filled Pussy Porn Videos" unless safe search is enabled. DDG's contextual awareness is abysmal.

kazinator 7y ago

Confirmed. Wow!

chadlavi 7y ago

I do find that I get... a lot of porn images in any DDG image search past, say, the 20th image result. For literally any search term, it seems.

nice_byte 7y ago

i'm not getting porn but this is nonetheless a perfect example of how bad ddg is. first result is the "torus" article on wiki, which is _not_ what the query asks for. by contrast, google's top result is the "solid torus" wiki article - much better.

kazinator 7y ago
I reproduced OP's search result by turning the safe-search from "moderate" to "off", and searching for "filled torus" without quotes.
ebg13 7y ago
That's fascinating. If DDG's whole shtick is not profiling, what accounts for the difference?

auiya 7y ago

Maybe you just under-estimate the prevalence of porn searches on the Internet? Once could easily argue that your esoteric geometry search is likely not nearly as common as the results they returned you on what they surmised was a porn search with a typo for instance.

ebg13 7y ago
If the query engine cannot recognize that nothing in "filled torus" indicates anything remotely close to a desire for porn results, then it's just not good. A DDG search for "full prison" with safe search off returns, in order: xvideos.com, pornhub.com, xnxx.com, xnxx.com, serco.com (holy shit something actually about prisons sort of), xxxparodyhd.net, pussyspace.com, fox.com/prison-break, youtube.com, youtube.com That's ridiculously bad. I'm not sure it could be worse if they tried. If there's one astoundingly obvious way that Google's results are superior, it's that apparently they first ask themselves "is the user looking for porn? [Yes/No]" and then proceed from there.
kazinator 7y ago
Maybe they should simply re-label their settings, for starters. The safe search has three levels: "off", "moderate" and "strict". I would call this the "Adult content" setting, and the choices would be "prefer", "neutral", and "suppress". These would just map exactly to the semantics of the current three choices. Transitioning to the "prefer" option could require some dialog or check box tick-off to state that the search engine will emphasize adult material, and the user must confirm their adulthood to enable this mode. Thus under the "Adult content: prefer" setting, you would then be getting what you asked for. Your queries are interpreted as searching for porn, and "filled torus" behaves accordingly. Since the very presence of such an option might be seen as offensive, or as promoting pornography (i.e. that DDG is effectively a porn search engine since it has an option for preferentially finding adult material), that option could itself be hidden somehow. To access the option at all would require confirming through a dialog. Also, there should be a "kid friendly" version of duckduckgo at an alternative URL, with immutably safe settings and and possibly altered search behaviors for even greater safety. Parents could point at that, and block/redirect the main one. With that idea, what if simply one had to go to adult.duckduckgo.com to be able to search with safe-search "off", regardless of their settings? I.e. if you go to duckduckgo.com, then "off" is treated as "moderate". Only at adult.duckduckgo.com is it actually "off".
- clarry 7y ago
  > I would call this the "Adult content" setting, and the choices would be "prefer", "neutral", and "suppress". These would just map exactly to the semantics of the current three choices. I honestly think a better idea would be tagging all results. A lot of the irritation with search engines seems to come from the fact that words can be so overloaded and ambiguous. It's unreasonable to expect that any search engine could return what you want in the first 20 results if there's no way to narrow down results by tags and categories. Porn shouldn't be the only category that gets special treatment. For example, sometimes I want to search about how to make foo, and I get pages and pages of results about... crafting foo in games. At that point I'd like to turn off all results that have to do with games or fiction. Or enable categories about.. actually making stuff? And speaking of games, it's fucking irritating that the results aren't tagged so when you try to look up information about a game in a series, you get tons of results about more recent sequels and it can be really hard to filter those out.

TwoBit 7y ago

OK,though is "filled torus" even a proper name? Looks like Google recognizes that you probably really mean solid torus.

ebg13 7y ago
Fine. Search for "full prison" instead. Worse yet, search for "middle school". Hell, searching for "cat" results in "Cat Porn Videos"! Searching for "zebra" results in "Zebra Porn Videos"! Searching for "dolphin" results in "Dolphin Porn Videos"! "ballet" gives porn!