9 ms·

DDG is starting to get bad press a fair bit these days. There was also a sizeable backlash against their weird Ukraine-war virtue signalling. Seems they're no

by ta8645 4y ago

DDG is starting to get bad press a fair bit these days. There was also a sizeable backlash against their weird Ukraine-war virtue signalling. Seems they're not as single-mindedly focused on privacy for search users, as their initial mission statement suggested.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yegg 4y ago
Our product vision is "Privacy, simplified." Since 2018 we've been more than search. Our app puts multi-pronged privacy protection in one package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for Android, etc.), with a lot of effort to not break things while still offering strong protection -- an "easy button" for privacy if you will.
- pwned1 4y ago
  I've been a DDG user since your early days (you mailed me some DDG stickers when they were free). I was using DDG on every device and setting all of my family members to use the same on their devices. You lost me when you started telling us that you were going to start deciding what is unacceptable "russian propaganda" without any transparency into what that means or who will be deciding. Completely antithetical to your anti-bubble mission. It pains me to not be a cheerleader for you anymore, but that was such a betrayal that I can't get past it.
  - yegg 4y ago
    That is not what we are doing. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 On the search filter bubble, that is very still much what we do. To be clear, unlike some other search engines, we don’t alter search results based on someone’s previous search history. In fact, since we don’t track our users we don’t have access to search histories at all. Those other search engines show you results based on a data profile about you and your online activity (including your search history), and so can be slanted towards what they think you will click on the most based on this profiling. This effect is commonly known as the search filter bubble, but using DuckDuckGo can help you escape it. This does not mean, however, our search results are generally “unfiltered” because, for every search you make online, a search engine’s job is to filter millions of possible results down to a ranked order of just a handful.
    - gruez 4y ago
      So let me get this straight, you're against filter bubbles but are fine with filters for everyone?
      - Agamus 4y ago
        Yes, because internet searching requires general filtration, while filter bubbles do their filtering based on a specific user's previous searches. The former is necessary. The latter is... smelly.
      - orwin 4y ago
        Actually, i did not get his point but your simplification make so much sense. I'll try DDG again.
    - pwned1 4y ago
      You missed my point. You are anti bubble, but you create the bubble for me. With no transparency into what you're doing.
      - robonerd 4y ago
        Transparency is key. If the filtering is transparently disclosed on the results page with a note to the effect of "We've excluded results we consider to be Russian propaganda", then it all feels on the level and understandable, if not agreeable. Without such an upfront disclosure, it feels slimy and manipulative. It's the difference between hiding results, and hiding that you are hiding results. (Yes, I know it was disclosed on twitter. It should be disclosed on each results page, like Google's "some results were omitted because DMCA etc" disclaimers. That is precedent for this sort of disclosure.)
skrowl 4y ago
I switched to Brave search when DDG started censoring Ukraine war related news, and you should too. They jumped the shark. Search engines shouldn't be in the business of picking what content I see based on the owners of the search engines politics. Most other search engines are just reverse proxies for Google or Bing, so they inherit those biases.
- Goronmon 4y ago
  Search engines shouldn't be in the business of picking what content I see based on the owners of the search engines politics. Aren't all search engines in the business of picking what content you can see based on the politics of the owner?
  - Zak 4y ago
    In theory, search engines are in the business of picking what content you can see based on the business interests of the owner.
- yegg 4y ago
  That's actually not what is happening. We are not ranking based on my politics (or anyone's politics for that matter). We actually do not intentionally censor any news results, meaning media outlets are not being removed or their stories displayed so far down in the results they are effectively removed. That is, unless legally prohibited, you should find all media outlets in our results, and they should generally show on top if you search for them by name or domain name. If you are seeing otherwise, please me know and we will investigate. A search engine's primary job is to rank results, trying to put results that most quickly and accurately answer the query on top. We do this ranking in a strictly non-partisan manner. Ranking for news-related searches is particularly difficult because for most news stories there are often hundreds of media outlets covering the same story, many with similar relevancy in terms of keyword matching and popularity. As such, we look to another ranking factor to ensure just the top of the results aren't taken by obviously very low-quality news results so that users have more sources of relevant, high-quality news results to compare and choose between. The non-partisan factor we've found to help accomplish this is a rare, but well-documented history of a site's complete lack of news reporting standards, such as routinely using spam or clickbait to artificially inflate traffic, consistently publishing stories without citing sources, censoring stories due to operating with very limited press freedom, or misleading readers about who owns, funds, and authors stories for the site. And since we do not censor sites, even state-sponsored media in countries with very limited press freedom, these sites will still show up in results, and even on top like when you search for them directly.
eli 4y ago
Downranking Russian state propaganda from the search results for people searching general news about the war in Ukraine is useful and makes the results better. That isn't what most people are searching for in the top few results. Much of it is objectively untrue. Announcing the change isn't "virtue signaling," it's transparency. Surely HN would be more upset if the change was made and kept quiet.
- mistermann 4y ago
  How is Russian State propaganda identified?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hedora 4y ago
    The two most common ways are research into the ownership of the news outlet, and by provenance tracking stories from known Russian-owned sites to other outlets. That's combined with old-fashioned journalism, where people attempt to verify suspected propaganda stories by finding corroborating evidence. (Sometimes the Russian sites run true stories, after all.) This approach tends to produce some false positives, as there are news sites that don't fact check stuff before repeating it, and they end up being indistinguishable from state-sponsored propaganda to outside observers. I'm not sure how much it matters in practice if sites that routinely publish incorrect stories accidentally get misclassified. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-prop... http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
    - eli 4y ago
      I don't think there are any Russia-based independent news sites left, are there?
dontbenebby 4y ago
OTOH they do try to at least make sure the results are accurate. That's one reason I moved over from Google. I sure didn't feel lucky using THAT search engine.
hedora 4y ago
What should they do instead? Put all the links at the top of the first page? What search engine doesn't try to detect and downrank sockpuppet spam? How's that working out for them?

by ta8645 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yegg 4y ago

Our product vision is "Privacy, simplified." Since 2018 we've been more than search. Our app puts multi-pronged privacy protection in one package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for Android, etc.), with a lot of effort to not break things while still offering strong protection -- an "easy button" for privacy if you will.

pwned1 4y ago
I've been a DDG user since your early days (you mailed me some DDG stickers when they were free). I was using DDG on every device and setting all of my family members to use the same on their devices. You lost me when you started telling us that you were going to start deciding what is unacceptable "russian propaganda" without any transparency into what that means or who will be deciding. Completely antithetical to your anti-bubble mission. It pains me to not be a cheerleader for you anymore, but that was such a betrayal that I can't get past it.
- yegg 4y ago
  That is not what we are doing. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 On the search filter bubble, that is very still much what we do. To be clear, unlike some other search engines, we don’t alter search results based on someone’s previous search history. In fact, since we don’t track our users we don’t have access to search histories at all. Those other search engines show you results based on a data profile about you and your online activity (including your search history), and so can be slanted towards what they think you will click on the most based on this profiling. This effect is commonly known as the search filter bubble, but using DuckDuckGo can help you escape it. This does not mean, however, our search results are generally “unfiltered” because, for every search you make online, a search engine’s job is to filter millions of possible results down to a ranked order of just a handful.
  - gruez 4y ago
    So let me get this straight, you're against filter bubbles but are fine with filters for everyone?
    - Agamus 4y ago
      Yes, because internet searching requires general filtration, while filter bubbles do their filtering based on a specific user's previous searches. The former is necessary. The latter is... smelly.
    - orwin 4y ago
      Actually, i did not get his point but your simplification make so much sense. I'll try DDG again.
  - pwned1 4y ago
    You missed my point. You are anti bubble, but you create the bubble for me. With no transparency into what you're doing.
    - robonerd 4y ago
      Transparency is key. If the filtering is transparently disclosed on the results page with a note to the effect of "We've excluded results we consider to be Russian propaganda", then it all feels on the level and understandable, if not agreeable. Without such an upfront disclosure, it feels slimy and manipulative. It's the difference between hiding results, and hiding that you are hiding results. (Yes, I know it was disclosed on twitter. It should be disclosed on each results page, like Google's "some results were omitted because DMCA etc" disclaimers. That is precedent for this sort of disclosure.)

skrowl 4y ago

I switched to Brave search when DDG started censoring Ukraine war related news, and you should too. They jumped the shark. Search engines shouldn't be in the business of picking what content I see based on the owners of the search engines politics. Most other search engines are just reverse proxies for Google or Bing, so they inherit those biases.

Goronmon 4y ago
Search engines shouldn't be in the business of picking what content I see based on the owners of the search engines politics. Aren't all search engines in the business of picking what content you can see based on the politics of the owner?
- Zak 4y ago
  In theory, search engines are in the business of picking what content you can see based on the business interests of the owner.
yegg 4y ago
That's actually not what is happening. We are not ranking based on my politics (or anyone's politics for that matter). We actually do not intentionally censor any news results, meaning media outlets are not being removed or their stories displayed so far down in the results they are effectively removed. That is, unless legally prohibited, you should find all media outlets in our results, and they should generally show on top if you search for them by name or domain name. If you are seeing otherwise, please me know and we will investigate. A search engine's primary job is to rank results, trying to put results that most quickly and accurately answer the query on top. We do this ranking in a strictly non-partisan manner. Ranking for news-related searches is particularly difficult because for most news stories there are often hundreds of media outlets covering the same story, many with similar relevancy in terms of keyword matching and popularity. As such, we look to another ranking factor to ensure just the top of the results aren't taken by obviously very low-quality news results so that users have more sources of relevant, high-quality news results to compare and choose between. The non-partisan factor we've found to help accomplish this is a rare, but well-documented history of a site's complete lack of news reporting standards, such as routinely using spam or clickbait to artificially inflate traffic, consistently publishing stories without citing sources, censoring stories due to operating with very limited press freedom, or misleading readers about who owns, funds, and authors stories for the site. And since we do not censor sites, even state-sponsored media in countries with very limited press freedom, these sites will still show up in results, and even on top like when you search for them directly.

eli 4y ago

Downranking Russian state propaganda from the search results for people searching general news about the war in Ukraine is useful and makes the results better. That isn't what most people are searching for in the top few results. Much of it is objectively untrue. Announcing the change isn't "virtue signaling," it's transparency. Surely HN would be more upset if the change was made and kept quiet.

mistermann 4y ago
How is Russian State propaganda identified?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hedora 4y ago
  The two most common ways are research into the ownership of the news outlet, and by provenance tracking stories from known Russian-owned sites to other outlets. That's combined with old-fashioned journalism, where people attempt to verify suspected propaganda stories by finding corroborating evidence. (Sometimes the Russian sites run true stories, after all.) This approach tends to produce some false positives, as there are news sites that don't fact check stuff before repeating it, and they end up being indistinguishable from state-sponsored propaganda to outside observers. I'm not sure how much it matters in practice if sites that routinely publish incorrect stories accidentally get misclassified. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-prop... http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
  - eli 4y ago
    I don't think there are any Russia-based independent news sites left, are there?

dontbenebby 4y ago

OTOH they do try to at least make sure the results are accurate. That's one reason I moved over from Google. I sure didn't feel lucky using THAT search engine.

hedora 4y ago

What should they do instead? Put all the links at the top of the first page? What search engine doesn't try to detect and downrank sockpuppet spam? How's that working out for them?