DuckDuckGo Wants to Censor Your Search Results

I fail to see how a search engine monitoring and checking if posted links and information are legitimate or not legitimate be a bad thing.

This will be hard to not be political, but I'll do my best.

We have a bunch of mentally ill/mentally handicapped people who believe anything but the truth. Literally, they'll believe a 'conspiracy' instead of the truth - up to and including thinking the moon landing was faked and the earth isn't round - some even quite confident in their beliefs that gravity isn't real.

They have strange political beliefs, typically very far right (and more than a little racist), and they'd say that it's not misinformation or things like 'facts don't matter' or 'I have other facts' or 'I don't believe your facts' - in order to justify their belief system. They believe things like our ex-president is still in power, that Biden is a body double, that there are secret underground bases where 'patriots are in control'.

Stuff like that...

This is what misinformation has caused.

Now here's where it gets tough. They legit want the misinformation out there for consumption by the gullible, stupid, and mentally ill.

There are certain people who gain and profit off this group of people, any political destabilization may also be seen as a benefit to some of them. They want misinformation and hide behind the 1st as an excuse to justify their lies - or at least to prevent anyone from stopping them.

To avoid getting political, I'll leave it here with the idea of 'cui bono'. Man, this is a hard subject to discuss here. LOL
 


"Censorship" is my choice, whether it is to filter my email, block certain phone callers, turn off the game, or not purchase Nike or game tickets. What is arrogant, to me, is you railing against these freedoms, including your rant against DDG's choice to improve its search results. Nike and DDG have freedoms too.

I have absolutely no problem with individuals filtering out information the way you're describing, as everyone does it that way for legitimate reasons. When DDG or some other company decides to filter out information for individuals, then its a problem because its taking away freedom of choice, and it's treating the user like a little kid or like they're incapable of critical thinking. This reminds me of when YouTube was trying to screw with the channels of citizen journalists so they can promote mainstream media channels instead, which then led to the platform becoming the echo chamber it is now. As far as @Bartman's claims about search engines sifting through non-sense for the user, it wouldn't hurt to see if changing keywords actually makes a difference (as that has been known to help).
 
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According to this recent article I found, https://www.eutimes.net/2022/03/duckduckgo-announces-mass-censorship-of-russian-disinformation/, Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DDG, made an announcement that he wants to decide (for you) what's factual information and what isn't. The ironic thing is Weinberg posted a tweet a few years ago criticizing Google for doing the same exact thing. My guess is he's developed a massive ego after being CEO for so many years, and this is an example of him going on a power trip. Thankfully, the silver lining in all of this is the web never forgets, and people like us will never let him live it down or get away with it.

What you can you do in response to this? There's actually a few things

Obviously the first thing is switch to a different search engine. I personally recommend ones that are FOSS because then you can review the source code and know they're doing with your data.

Speaking of FOSS search engines, DDG itself is one of them, so go ahead and fork it if you wish. The more forks there are, and the more people who use them, the more we're giving Weinberg a run for his money.

If you have the money and background needed to do so, create your own competing search engine that doesn't use any DDG source code

Flood their "send feedback" link with complaints about this. Hopefully it will lead to public pressure and PR disaster, and in-turn cause Weinberg to step down as CEO.

Go to DDG headquarters and picket

Create a petition demanding Weinberg resign, share it all over the web, and use public pressure as leverage

Roast Weinberg and DDG by turning them into memes. If you're a comedian, include them in one of your upcoming routines. Because DDG's mascot is a duck, I recommend calling him Quackberg from now on. If you're good at using GIMP, make him look like a duck.

Despite the recent claims about the hacker group Anonymous devolving into big brother shills, keep in mind that anyone can use the name for any purpose. Because of that, you can also make an Anonymous video calling out Weinberg and DDG, and then share it all over the web as well. Doing that and including a link to your petition will be a one-two punch.
You can always use Yandex.
 
When DDG or some other company decides to filter out information for individuals, then its a problem because its taking away freedom of choice
DDG is simply NOT doing this. Your call to the rest of us to wage a campaign against them is misguided. I'm quite content with DDG and their decision to tweak their algorithm as it has been described. Have a nice day. :)
 
DDG is simply NOT doing this. Your call to the rest of us to wage a campaign against them is misguided. I'm quite content with DDG and their decision to tweak their algorithm as it has been described. Have a nice day. :)

To each their own then
 

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