Using censorship to fight censorship (don't actually do this) - DuckDuckgo to donkrank russian sites related to war.

[Blademaster91]

7 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Sure I used the word misinformation, but there isn't much difference between misinformation and disinformation when the media parrots the governments stance. 

There is a difference when the Russian government controls the media and have shut down independent media while threatening anyone reporting anything else with jail time, I don't want to get political at all here but some people aren't seeing the difference.

[wanderingfool2]

9 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

There is a difference when the Russian government controls the media and have shut down independent media while threatening anyone reporting anything else with jail time, I don't want to get political at all here but some people aren't seeing the difference.

I recognize the difference, but it's a level of censorship that I am not really happy with.  Once you start making "exceptions" for cases like this, then it can easily start on equally slippery slopes.  Again, the WMD issue (should that be censored).  Or again, with the restriction of data on the current pandemic (and the heavy censorship that has surrounded it, examples being until a few months ago the government wasn't disclosing that the counted all deaths related to covid to be ones where someone tested positive within something like 72 hours...even if they were in a fatal car accident...if they had covid it counted as a death towards covid).  We in the West actually live in quite the censored or biased media.  Sure what is happening in Russia is a terrible example of manipulated media via the Russians, but I don't think it constitutes nerfing them effectively out of existence.

 

After all, under the logic of trying to prevent disinformation there are multiple news agencies in the West that I would argue should also have their rankings nerfed then (because they have consistently sided with a certain wrong rhetoric)

[starsmine]

 

19 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I recognize the difference, but it's a level of censorship that I am not really happy with.  Once you start making "exceptions" for cases like this, then it can easily start on equally slippery slopes.  Again, the WMD issue (should that be censored).  Or again, with the restriction of data on the current pandemic (and the heavy censorship that has surrounded it, examples being until a few months ago the government wasn't disclosing that the counted all deaths related to covid to be ones where someone tested positive within something like 72 hours...even if they were in a fatal car accident...if they had covid it counted as a death towards covid).  We in the West actually live in quite the censored or biased media.  Sure what is happening in Russia is a terrible example of manipulated media via the Russians, but I don't think it constitutes nerfing them effectively out of existence.

 

After all, under the logic of trying to prevent disinformation there are multiple news agencies in the West that I would argue should also have their rankings nerfed then (because they have consistently sided with a certain wrong rhetoric)

Clearly censoring covid disinformation wasnt enough because you just spouted covid misinformation there >.> 

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/covid-deaths-car-crash-comorbidities-coronavirus-death-total-counts-john-hopkins-study/65-e3842ed2-f753-4a15-8b97-c2ae75c2b2ce
That was not how they counted death towards covid. Also, look up what Comorbidities are.

[Arika]

58 minutes ago, Kazooduck said:

I was intentionally vague, the whole point is ddg is a corporation with their own views.

So you willing to let corporations be the arbiters of truth?

 

That's real scary.

[Vishera]

Censorship is a huge issue with DuckDuckGo,

They censor every little thing they don't like.

I encountered it countless of times.

[Commodus]

5 minutes ago, Arika S said:

So you willing to let corporations be the arbiters of truth?

 

That's real scary.

I don't think companies should be the sole arbiters of truth. But when there are concrete, verifiable facts, and contradicting them with misinformation could lead to significant harm... yeah, those online platforms arguably have a moral obligation to step in.

 

To borrow the expression: you're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. And society is such a mess these days in part because people feel they can choose or even invent the facts they accept. I do think internet companies have to walk a very fine line, but DDG isn't exactly being controversial by downranking Russian sites parroting known false propaganda that could get people killed.

[wanderingfool2]

27 minutes ago, starsmine said:

 

Clearly censoring covid disinformation wasnt enough because you just spouted covid misinformation there >.> 

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/covid-deaths-car-crash-comorbidities-coronavirus-death-total-counts-john-hopkins-study/65-e3842ed2-f753-4a15-8b97-c2ae75c2b2ce
That was not how they counted death towards covid. Also, look up what Comorbidities are.

I'm speaking on this because I already had a family member whose coroners cause of death was covid.  She died of a heart attack (family history, and all the risk factors), and didn't show any signs of having covid...because she had covid antibodies they classified it as a covid death.

 

Okay sure, the car crash example isn't exactly a good one (still pointing out it was originally attributed to covid still)...but still effectively if you had covid and died (even without it being the cause) you still get classified as a death by covid.  I'm not saying that it's not a deadly virus, just that there are still a bunch of information reported by the government that is also disinformation. 

[Kazooduck]

57 minutes ago, Arika S said:

So you willing to let corporations be the arbiters of truth?

 

That's real scary.

let me state this again, i think they have a duty as an information source to have their bias. if it was solely based on an ai, people would abuse that for propaganda, which has happened time and time again.

[OrangeSunshine]

I understand the argument that all search engines must be somewhat biased. However, as others have mentioned, I feel this sets a bad precedent for DDG(Duck Duck Go). Fighting people trying to game your system is one thing, but this can easily be seen as choosing sides on a political issue. It seems that simply adding a little info icon by search results indicating that a result may be potential propaganda would have been less damaging to brand faith. 

 

The founder's statements have shattered DDG's image of impartiality that they have cultivated for many people. I can understand the desire to help Ukraine, but the dude has to realize that a large portion of DDG's users is made up of freedom minded individuals seeking an escape from Google's nonsense. Unlike normies, who accept all kinds of changes, these users are more likely to vote with their feet and move on down the road. I see this as a rash, emotionally driven decision that will force people back to the mainstream search engines (Google) or towards other search engines that claim to be privacy centric, such as qwant.

[poochyena]

6 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Who exactly gets to decide what is and isn't misinformation?

No one. It either is or isn't misinformation. No one "decides" it.

[Middcore]

 

 

[BuckGup]

yandex.com is one of the few good search engines but its going down hill too

[Fasterthannothing]

How about just give me a dang list of sites based on whatever the heck I search for without modification. It really is that simple. Does the site contain the keyword I searched for if yes return results. Maybe it comes back cluttered or with nothing but at least I'm not getting a bunch of modified data.

 

Also imb4 tHiS iS PoLiTicAl LoCkINg THrEaD!

[Fasterthannothing]

5 hours ago, Kazooduck said:

let me state this again, i think they have a duty as an information source to have their bias. if it was solely based on an ai, people would abuse that for propaganda, which has happened time and time again.

How about zero bias the facts and data only even if that means my search results look like a lot of garbage. 

[aom]

48 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

How about zero bias the facts and data only even if that means my search results look like a lot of garbage. 

You are literally asking for a shitty search engine. What business would make a product purposefully bad for 99.9% of its potential customer base. And no, companies should not be making options for users to select which "algorithm" they want.

[Kazooduck]

11 hours ago, starsmine said:

What boggles my mind the most about this, is complaints I am reading from DDG users saying they use DDG for unbiased searches.... like that means something`

frustrating

 

8 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

No there wasn't, the amount of evidence is likely the same amount of inteligence that Russia is current using.  The fact is, I think it's a very dangerous move to say they are doing it for "disinformation" again, all of the examples I wrote were disinformation.  Sure I used the word misinformation, but there isn't much difference between misinformation and disinformation when the media parrots the governments stance.  Otherwise, I could claim some of the Russian sites that are going to be downgraded for disinformation are merely just presenting the information that is being said by the government.

 

I get that there is a difference between what is going on, but things should be held equally.  It's why I am saying it's semantics, because the cases I said can very well be construde as disinformation.   Again, start of the pandemic (even when it was clear it was being spread by air-bourne) the government response was still that masks weren't necessary [with a general though being they said so to try protecting the supply chain for N95]...but it was still information that was put out to the media by the government.

 

You think whataboutism doesn't apply, but the fact is when beginning to talk about censorship yea it very much applies.

now thats because the media ranks high by principle.

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, SlidewaysZ said:

How about just give me a dang list of sites based on whatever the heck I search for without modification. It really is that simple. Does the site contain the keyword I searched for if yes return results. Maybe it comes back cluttered or with nothing but at least I'm not getting a bunch of modified data.

 

Also imb4 tHiS iS PoLiTicAl LoCkINg THrEaD!

you strongly, strongly do not actually want that. But I guess, you can always go back to pre altavista if you want to see how awful it is. It barely worked back then when people mostly used the internet in good faith, but in todays web it would be even worse.

[Brooksie359]

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm speaking on this because I already had a family member whose coroners cause of death was covid.  She died of a heart attack (family history, and all the risk factors), and didn't show any signs of having covid...because she had covid antibodies they classified it as a covid death.

 

Okay sure, the car crash example isn't exactly a good one (still pointing out it was originally attributed to covid still)...but still effectively if you had covid and died (even without it being the cause) you still get classified as a death by covid.  I'm not saying that it's not a deadly virus, just that there are still a bunch of information reported by the government that is also disinformation. 

Covid is a cardiovascular virus and has been found to cause blood clots and other heart issue so it's hard to really determine if covid hadn't played a part in it. I personally know someone who was hospitalized because they had a heart attack due to blood clots as a result of covid. And they were in their early thirties and in shape so to say covid couldn't cause a heart attack in someone who is predisposed would be sorta crazy. Was covid the cause of th heart attack? Maybe? Who really knows and at that point but them tallying it for covid probably isn't that much of a stretch. Also I would like to point out that the person I know who had the blood clots didn't have your typical cold like symptoms as well. Anyways I think there is quite a bit of misinformation out there but when it is easy to combat then yeah we should probably censor them like duck duck go is. Also they are only putting them down the list and not delisting them so it really isn't censorship as much as them trying to get the best info to the top of the list and the worse info further down like I hope any search engine would. 

[Master Disaster]

10 hours ago, poochyena said:

No one. It either is or isn't misinformation. No one "decides" it.

What you believe to be true entirely depends on your point of view, never heard the phrase "history is written by the winners"?

 

As pointed out earlier in the thread, someone might genuinely believe that what they know to be true is actually true and might act upon something that actually isn't true in good faith out of ignorance rather than malice.

 

In conflicts past (both WWs, Vietnam and middle eastern wars) the news on all sides have painted a certain narrative about how things are in the warzone, when the soldiers return home and start telling tales its more often than not somewhere in the middle of what the various sides are telling the people.

 

Things in life are very rarely black or white.

[Master Disaster]

12 hours ago, Arika S said:

So you willing to let corporations be the arbiters of truth?

 

That's real scary.

Not very often I totally agree with your PoV however ^^^^100000000% THIS^^^^^

[WolframaticAlpha]

16 hours ago, williamcll said:

So instead you get Ukrainian misinformation.

 

No side is innocent in this conflict.

Well, my media feeds me misonfo from either side, so I don't really care lol.

[TheReal1980]

All people I know uninstalled the app and stopped using their search, including me.

Hopefully they will not be long lived.

[poochyena]

5 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

What you believe to be true entirely depends on your point of view

No it doesn't. What I "believe" has absolutely no bearing in what is or isn't true.

 

5 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

someone might genuinely believe that what they know to be true is actually true and might act upon something that actually isn't true in good faith out of ignorance rather than malice.

Yes, and that person would be wrong. Believing something is true is not the same thing as something actually being true.

 

5 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

In conflicts past (both WWs, Vietnam and middle eastern wars) the news on all sides have painted a certain narrative about how things are in the warzone, when the soldiers return home and start telling tales its more often than not somewhere in the middle of what the various sides are telling the people.

Lies, the word you are looking for is lies. They told lies.

[Master Disaster]

27 minutes ago, poochyena said:

No it doesn't. What I "believe" has absolutely no bearing in what is or isn't true.

I never said it did, I think you're missing the point which is that Humans are biased and make mistakes. They might believe something to be true when it isn't.

27 minutes ago, poochyena said:

 

Yes, and that person would be wrong. Believing something is true is not the same thing as something actually being true.

See previous response^

27 minutes ago, poochyena said:

 

Lies, the word you are looking for is lies. They told lies.

Did they? OK, here's a scenario. Pretend you just met an expert in a totally random field you know absolutely nothing about, this expert has PhDs and all that Jazz so is the real deal but is also a bit of a joker. So he tells you that 7 ate 9 because of X, which is not true, however you don't know its not true and nobody tells you its not true.

 

When you go home you say to your Wife, "Hey honey, did you know that 7 ate 9 because of X?". Did you just lie to your wife?

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, TheReal1980 said:

All people I know uninstalled the app and stopped using their search, including me.

Hopefully they will not be long lived.

This is so ridiculous tbh. You really think Google and other search engines don't put into the search algorithm things like prioritizing more creditable sources? That's is the entire point of a search engine. Also its not like you won't find the Russian source of news in the search it will just not be at the top for obvious reasons as its government run news at this point with the express purpose of only letting the Russian citizens hears their version of the news. Compare that to western news organizations and you can see one is more creditable than the other. That being said the western media definitely does some spinning as well but it is usually less blatant and more so they might take something out of context or withold some info or choose not to cover certain news but again that is still more creditable than the government run news from Russia.