{"id":35268,"date":"2022-03-14T17:10:49","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T21:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=35268"},"modified":"2022-03-14T17:10:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T21:10:49","slug":"duckduckgo-will-down-rank-russian-disinformation-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/14\/duckduckgo-will-down-rank-russian-disinformation-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"DuckDuckGo Will Down-Rank Russian Disinformation Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Parker<\/a> (Reddit<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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The founder of DuckDuckGo, a Google-alternative search engine that has touted its “unbiased” search results for years, has announced that it has started down-ranking sites based on whether they’re deemed to be associated with Russian disinformation.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The practice of suppressing content that is deemed to be disinformation while elevating content that’s deemed to be “high quality information” is something that has been embraced by Google, particularly on YouTube where so-called “high authority channels” are up to 20x more likely to top search results<\/a> and censoring “misinformation” is its number one priority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prior to Weinberg’s announcement, DuckDuckGo had made multiple statements over a period spanning more than five years that positioned DuckDuckGo as a search engine that provides “unbiased results,” criticized other search engines for failing to show “neutral, unbiased results,” and criticized bias in algorithms<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Mike Rockwell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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We want search engines to rank results based on relevancy and that can be determined by numerous factors. That’s literally what search engines do. But they’re making a determination as to whether or not a piece of content is “disinformation” and then down-ranking content based on that. That’s an editorial decision.<\/p>\n

And what if they’re wrong? What if they down-rank content that is later found to be true? What if someone is specifically looking for “disinformation” content for research purposes — to see what the opposing perspective has to say in order to better form their opinions or to point at the absurdity?<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I don’t use DuckDuckGo directly anymore, that changed last year when I started self-hosting SearX<\/a>. But I still use DuckDuckGo as one of the search engines powering SearX’s results.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

A. Khalid<\/a> (via Nick Heer<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, DuckDuckGo announced it would pause<\/a> its relationship with Russian-state owned search engine Yandex.<\/p>

A number of platforms including<\/a> the Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram have also demoted posts from Russian state media. Google has been down-ranking search results<\/a> from Russian state news agencies since 2017.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

DuckDuckGo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The primary utility of a search engine is to provide access to accurate information. Disinformation sites that deliberately put out false information to intentionally mislead people directly cut against that utility. Current examples are Russian state-sponsored media sites like RT and Sputnik. It's also important to note that down-ranking is different from censorship. We are simply using the fact that that these sites are engaging in active disinformation campaigns as a ranking signal that the content they produce is of lower quality, just like there are signals for spammy sites and other lower-quality content.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

So this sounds like a very coarse adjustment. They are not evaluating whether a given piece of content is disinformation, and I guess true content on these sites will be down-ranked as well. The search results will still be “complete,” just perhaps in a different order than before.<\/p>\n\n

The examples given are sites that are well known to be controlled by the Russian government. It would be interesting to know what the other<\/em> sites are, and whether they are only targeting Russian<\/em> sources of disinformation.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n