9 ms·

I fail to see how this could be called anything else without resorting to newspeak. It's politically motivated downranking of sources that the operators of DDG

by valvar 4y ago

I fail to see how this could be called anything else without resorting to newspeak. It's politically motivated downranking of sources that the operators of DDG are in ideological disagreement with. It's a way of exerting narrative control over public perceptions. Downranking sites that disrespect user privacy using trackers and similar is different, because it is not ideologically motivated. I guess you could call it censorship, but no-one except the site owners are going to take issue with it. A simple way to tell if something is political censorship is to ask: who will take issue with the absence of this piece of information that is being removed or hidden? If the answer contains groups of people that aren't just corporations, I think it's pretty clear what is going on. And I guess I have to repeat myself here: no, I don't personally belong to such a group in this context. I just happen to not want anyone telling me what I'm supposed to believe, even if I'm "on their side".

devwastaken 4y ago
As they said, you still have to sort top to bottom the results consistently. SEO "hacking" is a big problem, allowing sites to put themselves at the top even though they're not relevant to the search or are not the most common source of information that real users click on. You have to take action against those abuses by downranking. It just so happens that a big government, Russia, was caught doing this. Just because it may be "political" doesn't give it special protection.
roenxi 4y ago
The core feature of their product is "we will discard all the data on the internet except 10 links". They already "censor" nearly everything. It is completely reasonable to question their algorithms and processes. I don't see why Russian disinformation needs to be singled out given what is allowed in the corporate press every time the US starts a fight somewhere (can they please downrank all sociopath war mongers?). But while it may be political activism it isn't censorship. If you use DDG you ask for them to make judgement calls.

by valvar 4y ago

devwastaken 4y ago

As they said, you still have to sort top to bottom the results consistently. SEO "hacking" is a big problem, allowing sites to put themselves at the top even though they're not relevant to the search or are not the most common source of information that real users click on. You have to take action against those abuses by downranking. It just so happens that a big government, Russia, was caught doing this. Just because it may be "political" doesn't give it special protection.

roenxi 4y ago

The core feature of their product is "we will discard all the data on the internet except 10 links". They already "censor" nearly everything. It is completely reasonable to question their algorithms and processes. I don't see why Russian disinformation needs to be singled out given what is allowed in the corporate press every time the US starts a fight somewhere (can they please downrank all sociopath war mongers?). But while it may be political activism it isn't censorship. If you use DDG you ask for them to make judgement calls.