4 ms·

I’m the founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo. We are not (and never were) censoring results. I realize I caused the misunderstanding due to own my unfortunate phrasing

by yegg 4y ago

I’m the founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo. We are not (and never were) censoring results. I realize I caused the misunderstanding due to own my unfortunate phrasing in a tweet, and since then, how our news results rankings work has been highly misinterpreted. We (DuckDuckGo) subsequently made a help page to explain it in detail: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/news-rankings/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/ne... Tl;dr: we don’t censor, we don’t move things so far down that they are effectively censored, we don't evaluate individual stories or narratives for "truth", and we don’t rank based on any political agenda or opinions. This is just a summary though so would read the help page for details. I also put out a clarification thread about misconceptions that included this topic amongst others (like the fact that no, we’re not owned by Google), but the help page referenced above is the best and most thorough explanation of our news rankings. https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1515635886855233537 https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1515635886855233537

InCityDreams 4y ago
Hello 'yegg'. What's your stake in all this? Who are you?
- yegg 4y ago
  I am the founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Who yegg is is well known on HN, but you yourself are anonymous so it's a bit weird to see this exchange. Maybe (1) click on the name of the person before asking them who they are and (2) flesh out your profile to return the favor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo
- TheRealNGenius 4y ago
  Hello “incitydreams”, you first.
smotched 4y ago
Its not the results I'm worried about with DDG, after all you just use bing behind the scenes although I think there's some shenanigans there too. It's your deep financial ties to Microsoft that's worrying. And it seems you're willing to turn your back on privacy/tracking for your friends when Microsoft asks. https://twitter.com/shivan_kaul/status/1528879590772338689 https://twitter.com/shivan_kaul/status/1528879590772338689
- yegg 4y ago
  The tweet you referenced is no longer the case. See https://spreadprivacy.com/more-privacy-and-transparency/ https://spreadprivacy.com/more-privacy-and-transparency/. We’ve also since open sourced our web tracker block list (all our apps and extensions were already open sourced) and put out a help page detailing how all our web tracking protections work across platforms: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/web-tracking-protections/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/we... As for our private search engine, it is in actually way more than Bing at this point. We have approximately a millions lines of search code at this point, many tens of millions of dollars invested in them and a staff of about 200.

by yegg 4y ago

InCityDreams 4y ago

Hello 'yegg'. What's your stake in all this? Who are you?

yegg 4y ago
I am the founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo.
jacquesm 4y ago
Who yegg is is well known on HN, but you yourself are anonymous so it's a bit weird to see this exchange. Maybe (1) click on the name of the person before asking them who they are and (2) flesh out your profile to return the favor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo
TheRealNGenius 4y ago
Hello “incitydreams”, you first.

smotched 4y ago

Its not the results I'm worried about with DDG, after all you just use bing behind the scenes although I think there's some shenanigans there too. It's your deep financial ties to Microsoft that's worrying. And it seems you're willing to turn your back on privacy/tracking for your friends when Microsoft asks. https://twitter.com/shivan_kaul/status/1528879590772338689 https://twitter.com/shivan_kaul/status/1528879590772338689

yegg 4y ago
The tweet you referenced is no longer the case. See https://spreadprivacy.com/more-privacy-and-transparency/ https://spreadprivacy.com/more-privacy-and-transparency/. We’ve also since open sourced our web tracker block list (all our apps and extensions were already open sourced) and put out a help page detailing how all our web tracking protections work across platforms: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/web-tracking-protections/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/we... As for our private search engine, it is in actually way more than Bing at this point. We have approximately a millions lines of search code at this point, many tens of millions of dollars invested in them and a staff of about 200.