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DuckDuckGo is Bing, we know this because when Bing accidentally censored all image searches for "tank man", all image results disappeared from DuckDuckGo as wel

by kats 5y ago

DuckDuckGo is Bing, we know this because when Bing accidentally censored all image searches for "tank man", all image results disappeared from DuckDuckGo as well. Bing already announced that they were doing this, so maybe DuckDuckGo doesn't have any choice about it. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/microsoft-remove-rt-apps-ban-russian-state-owned-media-ads-2022-02-28/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/microsoft-rem... > The company said it would not display any state-sponsored RT and Sputnik content, de-rank their search results on Bing and not place any ads from its ad network on those sites.

jaywalk 5y ago
> maybe DuckDuckGo doesn't have any choice about it. Did you read the linked tweet? "At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation." Sounds like they very much had a choice, and chose censorship. If they didn't and are actually just subject to Bing's whims, then they're lying. Neither of those are good.
- empthought 5y ago
  >chose censorship This is not what the word "censorship" means.
- kats 5y ago
  Yeah but just thinking about how this would work. For sites like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, or Yahoo search, they don't have hundreds of engineers maintaining their own search engines, they must just call some Bing API. The Bing API must return the search results already ranked. (Otherwise what would be the alternative?) So the down-ranking of russian sites would happen upstream of DuckDuckGo.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Implementing a context based downranking policy on the results when they use a search engine (Bing) over which they probably have almost 0 ability to tweak or fine tune before the query sounds like an incredibly hard thing to do. You'd have to do a lot of contextual analysis and understand not only the query but also all the results the API gives you, after the search is already done. That seems even more complicated than just having your own search algorithms at that point. It's possible but it's hard to believe they'd go through that effort and coincidentally come up with something very similar to what Bing started doing too. I don't want to assume they are lying but this can very well be just an attempt at free PR when the truth could be just that it wasn't their decision at all. ddg does not seem to be very upfront over their almost total reliance on Bing in the first place. I mean IIRC when the tank man picture disappeared from bing and thus from DDG too, duckduckgo acknowledged the problem but it didn't seem like they could do anything about it but wait until Bing fixes the issue.
decadancer 5y ago
How exactly is it bing? Refaced and operated by microsoft? Refaced and scrapped results from bing? Any more info on this?
- Skiiing 5y ago
  When you do a search on DuckDuckGo, they query Bing using an API and show the results that Bing return. DuckDuckGo is mostly Bing with some extra "value-added" embellishments.
- latexr 5y ago
  > Any more info on this? https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so... > We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google).
latexr 5y ago
> DuckDuckGo is Bing, we know this because when Bing accidentally censored all image searches for "tank man", all image results disappeared from DuckDuckGo as well. We know it because they’re open about it. The information was public before that incident. https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

by kats 5y ago

jaywalk 5y ago

> maybe DuckDuckGo doesn't have any choice about it. Did you read the linked tweet? "At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation." Sounds like they very much had a choice, and chose censorship. If they didn't and are actually just subject to Bing's whims, then they're lying. Neither of those are good.

empthought 5y ago
>chose censorship This is not what the word "censorship" means.
kats 5y ago
Yeah but just thinking about how this would work. For sites like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, or Yahoo search, they don't have hundreds of engineers maintaining their own search engines, they must just call some Bing API. The Bing API must return the search results already ranked. (Otherwise what would be the alternative?) So the down-ranking of russian sites would happen upstream of DuckDuckGo.
mardifoufs 5y ago
Implementing a context based downranking policy on the results when they use a search engine (Bing) over which they probably have almost 0 ability to tweak or fine tune before the query sounds like an incredibly hard thing to do. You'd have to do a lot of contextual analysis and understand not only the query but also all the results the API gives you, after the search is already done. That seems even more complicated than just having your own search algorithms at that point. It's possible but it's hard to believe they'd go through that effort and coincidentally come up with something very similar to what Bing started doing too. I don't want to assume they are lying but this can very well be just an attempt at free PR when the truth could be just that it wasn't their decision at all. ddg does not seem to be very upfront over their almost total reliance on Bing in the first place. I mean IIRC when the tank man picture disappeared from bing and thus from DDG too, duckduckgo acknowledged the problem but it didn't seem like they could do anything about it but wait until Bing fixes the issue.

decadancer 5y ago

How exactly is it bing? Refaced and operated by microsoft? Refaced and scrapped results from bing? Any more info on this?

Skiiing 5y ago
When you do a search on DuckDuckGo, they query Bing using an API and show the results that Bing return. DuckDuckGo is mostly Bing with some extra "value-added" embellishments.
latexr 5y ago
> Any more info on this? https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so... > We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google).

latexr 5y ago

> DuckDuckGo is Bing, we know this because when Bing accidentally censored all image searches for "tank man", all image results disappeared from DuckDuckGo as well. We know it because they’re open about it. The information was public before that incident. https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...