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DDG declared themselves part of the Ministry Of Truth earlier this year and I jumped ship immediately to brave search: https://twitter.com/yegg/status/150171648

DDG declared themselves part of the Ministry Of Truth earlier this year and I jumped ship immediately to brave search: https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1501716484761997318 https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1501716484761997318 I will have nothing to do with any of their products and no longer recommend them to others.

cedilla 4y ago
I refuse to believe that anyone who thinks that 1984's main takeaway is that there is no objective truth and that any attempt to stand against propaganda is a greater crime than the propaganda lies themselves has actually read it. The problem with minitru is that 2 plus 2 does not, in fact, equal 5. It's not that saying one fact is true is somehow immoral.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  >I refuse to believe that anyone who thinks that 1984's main takeaway is that there is no objective truth and that any attempt to stand against propaganda is a greater crime than the propaganda lies themselves has actually read it. The issue has never been about truth itself. It's always been that you should allow no single entity to be the arbiter of what is the truth, because everyone has an agenda, and organizations have multiple people with multiple agendas.
yegg 4y ago
I (the author of the tweet you referenced) commented on this subject on this thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597340. We didn’t do that, e.g., we actually did not (and do not) censor anything for political purposes, we don’t do any URL-level fact checking, etc.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  No one gets to be the decision maker on what is misinformation and what isn't. Nobody is the exception to that rule. No matter how good faith and good their intentions are. It's not how you're doing it, it's that you're trying to do it at all that is the problem.
  - yegg 4y ago
    Except we're not doing it at all. The above comment references our news rankings help page, which has the most detailed explanation of how they work: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/news-rankings/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/ne.... In actuality, we have no definition of misinformation, are not fact checking any articles or stories, etc.
Terretta 4y ago
Speaking of truth, what prompted you to call yourself akin to a natural phallus on HN?
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  I don't like the naturalistic fallacy (nor any others) that people use to justify things as being Good™. And dicks are objectively* funny so "naturalistic phallacy" makes makes for a funny phrase, that implicitly mocks the Naturalistic Fallacy but it's too long her for a HN username. *In the military this is considered objectively true, and drawing dicks on things is one of humanity's oldest memes.

cedilla 4y ago

I refuse to believe that anyone who thinks that 1984's main takeaway is that there is no objective truth and that any attempt to stand against propaganda is a greater crime than the propaganda lies themselves has actually read it. The problem with minitru is that 2 plus 2 does not, in fact, equal 5. It's not that saying one fact is true is somehow immoral.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
>I refuse to believe that anyone who thinks that 1984's main takeaway is that there is no objective truth and that any attempt to stand against propaganda is a greater crime than the propaganda lies themselves has actually read it. The issue has never been about truth itself. It's always been that you should allow no single entity to be the arbiter of what is the truth, because everyone has an agenda, and organizations have multiple people with multiple agendas.

yegg 4y ago

I (the author of the tweet you referenced) commented on this subject on this thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597340. We didn’t do that, e.g., we actually did not (and do not) censor anything for political purposes, we don’t do any URL-level fact checking, etc.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
No one gets to be the decision maker on what is misinformation and what isn't. Nobody is the exception to that rule. No matter how good faith and good their intentions are. It's not how you're doing it, it's that you're trying to do it at all that is the problem.
- yegg 4y ago
  Except we're not doing it at all. The above comment references our news rankings help page, which has the most detailed explanation of how they work: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/news-rankings/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/ne.... In actuality, we have no definition of misinformation, are not fact checking any articles or stories, etc.

Terretta 4y ago

Speaking of truth, what prompted you to call yourself akin to a natural phallus on HN?

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
I don't like the naturalistic fallacy (nor any others) that people use to justify things as being Good™. And dicks are objectively* funny so "naturalistic phallacy" makes makes for a funny phrase, that implicitly mocks the Naturalistic Fallacy but it's too long her for a HN username. *In the military this is considered objectively true, and drawing dicks on things is one of humanity's oldest memes.