4 ms·

I think you're framing the discussion in the wrong way. Yes, if you're looking for "Russian Disinformation", you should be able to find it. But if I'm looking

by bena 5y ago

I think you're framing the discussion in the wrong way. Yes, if you're looking for "Russian Disinformation", you should be able to find it. But if I'm looking for "U.S. midterm elections", I shouldn't get Russian disinformation. What is the problem with modifying the algorithm to favor actual information over disinformation? Or sites that are known to propagate disinformation? The only thing I could say is that it's weirdly specific to Russian disinformation. Disinformation should be disfavored no matter the country of origin.

username3 5y ago
I shouldn’t get American disinformation, but your trusted sources are untouchable.
- danShumway 5y ago
  All general critiques about DDG aside, it is absolutely untrue that search engines never target American news sources for downranking. Google/DDG and other sites have removed and downranked American news sites on multiple occasions. Scroll through this very comment section and you'll find someone complaining about DDG's handling of Drudgereport[0]. It was not that long ago that we were having really fierce debates about when and how aggregators and algorithms should filter/downrank vaccine misinformation, and a ton of that debate revolved around downranking American news sources and commentators. ---- [0]: I do want to note that it isn't immediately clear to me that DDG did downrank Drudgereport, and sometimes people just get kind of conspiratorial about things, but I'm taking commenter at their word since I assume they have some source for that they just didn't mention.
  - username3 5y ago
    They won’t down-rank American disinformation from sources they trust or sources they favor. This can all be solved by adding an option for results without down-ranking political disinformation.
    - danShumway 5y ago
      > They won’t down-rank American disinformation from sources they trust or sources they favor. Nobody suppresses a source that they trust. Of course search engines don't downrank sources that they think are trustworthy. Why would they? There's also nothing specific to America about that, DDG also doesn't suppress foreign news sources that it personally trusts as accurate, because... they're sources they trust. That sentence is a frankly kind of impressive effort to rephrase a critique that is essentially, "I disagree with their decisions, and I think the sources they trust aren't actually trustworthy" as some kind of much broader general criticism, like search engines are bad for not making editorial/ranking decisions that are the opposite of what they think are the correct editorial/ranking decisions to make.
      - username3 5y ago
        > Why would they? They should down-rank their trusted sources when their trusted sources publish disinformation. The problem is they don’t.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        danShumway 5y ago
        > They should down-rank their trusted sources when their trusted sources publish disinformation. If search engines thought that their trusted sources were publishing disinformation, they wouldn't be trusted sources. You just disagree with their decisions about what is trustworthy, that's all. There's nothing deeper going on, it's not surprising that a search engine trusts a source that it trusts.
        username3 5y ago
        > If search engines thought that their trusted sources were publishing disinformation, they wouldn't be trusted sources. You’re confusing propaganda sources with fallible trusted sources.
nerdponx 5y ago
The problem is not "U.S. midterm elections" but "Ukraine invasion 2022". Part of the problem is that defining "relevance" is hard, and quickly descends into gray areas and morality. Russian disinformation about Ukraine is relevant in that it actually is content about the Ukraine invasion in 2022. But it's not relevant in that it's not facts about the Ukraine invasion in 2022. Maybe there should be a button that lets users opt-out of "factual only" results to see the full uncensored internet, much like how there is a button that lets users opt-out of porn filters. For that matter, we should have more filters, but users should be able to see what they are and opt out of them manually. Porn, violence, suspected "disinformation" and conspiracy theories, etc. I would love to have all of these turned off by default, but be able to re-enable them selectively. Of course, that means you still have the problem where one organization (or a handful of organizations) gets to dictate what is considered "disinformation", but that's arguably a separate problem from not letting users control their experience.
- jonhohle 5y ago
  Ultimately isn’t “disinformation” control exactly the problem? There are abundant examples of disinformation just being information that was 24-96 hours ahead of the news cycle (sometimes 6-9 months). DDG has now decided that they are editors because their perspective is “correct”, but on what authority?
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
Why would they show Russian information about the war when you search for Midterm elections? The issue is that they are introducing a manual intervention in the algorithm out of political motives. They are not automatically a great authority on correctness of information regarding the war. I don't think DDG has investigators on the ground in Ukraine. Of course ultimately all search engines will apply some criteria for correctness or relevance of information. Maybe we should applaud DDG for at least being transparent about it. So in the end presumably you have to pick the search engine just like you pick your other news sources. It is just a pity that DDG previously advertised itself as "unbiased", and now they throw that goal out of the window. Still it feels like the search engine feeding me results that they want me to find, not the ones that I most likely would want to find.

by bena 5y ago

username3 5y ago

I shouldn’t get American disinformation, but your trusted sources are untouchable.

danShumway 5y ago
All general critiques about DDG aside, it is absolutely untrue that search engines never target American news sources for downranking. Google/DDG and other sites have removed and downranked American news sites on multiple occasions. Scroll through this very comment section and you'll find someone complaining about DDG's handling of Drudgereport[0]. It was not that long ago that we were having really fierce debates about when and how aggregators and algorithms should filter/downrank vaccine misinformation, and a ton of that debate revolved around downranking American news sources and commentators. ---- [0]: I do want to note that it isn't immediately clear to me that DDG did downrank Drudgereport, and sometimes people just get kind of conspiratorial about things, but I'm taking commenter at their word since I assume they have some source for that they just didn't mention.
- username3 5y ago
  They won’t down-rank American disinformation from sources they trust or sources they favor. This can all be solved by adding an option for results without down-ranking political disinformation.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > They won’t down-rank American disinformation from sources they trust or sources they favor. Nobody suppresses a source that they trust. Of course search engines don't downrank sources that they think are trustworthy. Why would they? There's also nothing specific to America about that, DDG also doesn't suppress foreign news sources that it personally trusts as accurate, because... they're sources they trust. That sentence is a frankly kind of impressive effort to rephrase a critique that is essentially, "I disagree with their decisions, and I think the sources they trust aren't actually trustworthy" as some kind of much broader general criticism, like search engines are bad for not making editorial/ranking decisions that are the opposite of what they think are the correct editorial/ranking decisions to make.
    - username3 5y ago
      > Why would they? They should down-rank their trusted sources when their trusted sources publish disinformation. The problem is they don’t.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - danShumway 5y ago
        > They should down-rank their trusted sources when their trusted sources publish disinformation. If search engines thought that their trusted sources were publishing disinformation, they wouldn't be trusted sources. You just disagree with their decisions about what is trustworthy, that's all. There's nothing deeper going on, it's not surprising that a search engine trusts a source that it trusts.
        username3 5y ago
        > If search engines thought that their trusted sources were publishing disinformation, they wouldn't be trusted sources. You’re confusing propaganda sources with fallible trusted sources.

nerdponx 5y ago

The problem is not "U.S. midterm elections" but "Ukraine invasion 2022". Part of the problem is that defining "relevance" is hard, and quickly descends into gray areas and morality. Russian disinformation about Ukraine is relevant in that it actually is content about the Ukraine invasion in 2022. But it's not relevant in that it's not facts about the Ukraine invasion in 2022. Maybe there should be a button that lets users opt-out of "factual only" results to see the full uncensored internet, much like how there is a button that lets users opt-out of porn filters. For that matter, we should have more filters, but users should be able to see what they are and opt out of them manually. Porn, violence, suspected "disinformation" and conspiracy theories, etc. I would love to have all of these turned off by default, but be able to re-enable them selectively. Of course, that means you still have the problem where one organization (or a handful of organizations) gets to dictate what is considered "disinformation", but that's arguably a separate problem from not letting users control their experience.

jonhohle 5y ago
Ultimately isn’t “disinformation” control exactly the problem? There are abundant examples of disinformation just being information that was 24-96 hours ahead of the news cycle (sometimes 6-9 months). DDG has now decided that they are editors because their perspective is “correct”, but on what authority?

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

Why would they show Russian information about the war when you search for Midterm elections? The issue is that they are introducing a manual intervention in the algorithm out of political motives. They are not automatically a great authority on correctness of information regarding the war. I don't think DDG has investigators on the ground in Ukraine. Of course ultimately all search engines will apply some criteria for correctness or relevance of information. Maybe we should applaud DDG for at least being transparent about it. So in the end presumably you have to pick the search engine just like you pick your other news sources. It is just a pity that DDG previously advertised itself as "unbiased", and now they throw that goal out of the window. Still it feels like the search engine feeding me results that they want me to find, not the ones that I most likely would want to find.