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> DuckDuckGo's mission is to make simple privacy protection accessible to all. The main job of a search engine is to give me results relevant to what I'm searc

> DuckDuckGo's mission is to make simple privacy protection accessible to all. The main job of a search engine is to give me results relevant to what I'm searching for. Privacy is obviously a nice feature but if the results suck, I'm not going to use your search engine so privacy doesn't matter. Who are they to decide what is "disinformation". How do they know? I want to see all sides of a story and come to my own conclusions. I don't need big tech babysitting me.

eli 5y ago
Is this materially different from filtering other abuse like SEO spam? Would you choose to keep spam in your results to reach your own conclusion?
- cato_the_elder 5y ago
  > Is this materially different from filtering other abuse like SEO spam? Yes it is. The undesirability of spam is much more universal than "misinformation", and its definition is much less controversial. And we don't care whether the spam is Russian, American, Nigerian or whatever. The motivation in this case is clearly more paternalistic compared to filtering spam.
  - eli 5y ago
    Yeah I just don't agree with any of that. Spam is infamously hard to identify and consistently define. My spam is your content. I'd argue what Russia is doing here is spam. They're laundering their message through media outlets with domains with much stronger SEO positioning than any official government domain. (You may disagree this is "spam" but that's kind of my point.) Meanwhile I think there's pretty broad consensus that if you doing a general search (and not specifically seeking out opposing information or alternate views) that you do not want the top results to be intentionally false.
    - xg15 5y ago
      > My spam is your content. Tell me of one person who wants to read unsolicited viagra offers and all that stuff. > I'd argue what Russia is doing here is spam. Problem is that there are a lot of half-truths embedded in pro-russian media outlets and many things that, how false they may be, seem to be their genuine viewpoints. I think it would be better to engage with that stuff and separate the half-truths from the lies instead of simply hiding everything away.
      - eli 5y ago
        > Tell me of one person who wants to read unsolicited viagra offers and all that stuff. The people who buy viagra from those unsolicited offers. Spammers have been offering that product for decades because it works. People buy it. "Spam" is mostly just stuff you don't want to read. > I think it would be better to engage with that stuff and separate the half-truths from the lies instead of simply hiding everything away. It's not gone, it's just no longer near the top of a query for "what happened yesterday in Ukraine?" If you're looking for one answer to that question, Sputnik or RT is definitely not the best source.
Legion 5y ago
> Who are they to decide what is "disinformation". How do they know? Making decisions about which information to rank highly vs. lowly is, you know, kind of the definition of a search engine.
- if_by_whisky 5y ago
  Yeah there's a lot of "anti censorship" warriors in this thread, who seem confused about what search engines are for
  - larvaetron 5y ago
    > there's a lot of "anti censorship" warriors in this thread You say that as if being "anti censorship" is a weird, or bad thing. What reasonable person would agree that being "pro censorship" is an ideal stance?
    - if_by_whisky 5y ago
      Anti-spam utilities exist to filter out (aka "censor") spam. Disinformation is spam. I'm pro filtering spam and perhaps even a reasonable person. There you have it.
      - larvaetron 5y ago
        > Disinformation is spam. I believe, at a fundamental level, this statement is far too ambiguous to be considered a reasonable conclusion.
  - OtomotO 5y ago
    A search engine is for finding information. Misinformation is a kind of information.
- xg15 5y ago
  War seems to be the only situation in which it is somehow morally imperative to only get one side of the story...

eli 5y ago

Is this materially different from filtering other abuse like SEO spam? Would you choose to keep spam in your results to reach your own conclusion?

cato_the_elder 5y ago
> Is this materially different from filtering other abuse like SEO spam? Yes it is. The undesirability of spam is much more universal than "misinformation", and its definition is much less controversial. And we don't care whether the spam is Russian, American, Nigerian or whatever. The motivation in this case is clearly more paternalistic compared to filtering spam.
- eli 5y ago
  Yeah I just don't agree with any of that. Spam is infamously hard to identify and consistently define. My spam is your content. I'd argue what Russia is doing here is spam. They're laundering their message through media outlets with domains with much stronger SEO positioning than any official government domain. (You may disagree this is "spam" but that's kind of my point.) Meanwhile I think there's pretty broad consensus that if you doing a general search (and not specifically seeking out opposing information or alternate views) that you do not want the top results to be intentionally false.
  - xg15 5y ago
    > My spam is your content. Tell me of one person who wants to read unsolicited viagra offers and all that stuff. > I'd argue what Russia is doing here is spam. Problem is that there are a lot of half-truths embedded in pro-russian media outlets and many things that, how false they may be, seem to be their genuine viewpoints. I think it would be better to engage with that stuff and separate the half-truths from the lies instead of simply hiding everything away.
    - eli 5y ago
      > Tell me of one person who wants to read unsolicited viagra offers and all that stuff. The people who buy viagra from those unsolicited offers. Spammers have been offering that product for decades because it works. People buy it. "Spam" is mostly just stuff you don't want to read. > I think it would be better to engage with that stuff and separate the half-truths from the lies instead of simply hiding everything away. It's not gone, it's just no longer near the top of a query for "what happened yesterday in Ukraine?" If you're looking for one answer to that question, Sputnik or RT is definitely not the best source.

Legion 5y ago

> Who are they to decide what is "disinformation". How do they know? Making decisions about which information to rank highly vs. lowly is, you know, kind of the definition of a search engine.

if_by_whisky 5y ago
Yeah there's a lot of "anti censorship" warriors in this thread, who seem confused about what search engines are for
- larvaetron 5y ago
  > there's a lot of "anti censorship" warriors in this thread You say that as if being "anti censorship" is a weird, or bad thing. What reasonable person would agree that being "pro censorship" is an ideal stance?
  - if_by_whisky 5y ago
    Anti-spam utilities exist to filter out (aka "censor") spam. Disinformation is spam. I'm pro filtering spam and perhaps even a reasonable person. There you have it.
    - larvaetron 5y ago
      > Disinformation is spam. I believe, at a fundamental level, this statement is far too ambiguous to be considered a reasonable conclusion.
- OtomotO 5y ago
  A search engine is for finding information. Misinformation is a kind of information.
xg15 5y ago
War seems to be the only situation in which it is somehow morally imperative to only get one side of the story...