The CEO of search engine DuckDuckGo Gabriel Weinberg has said that they want to penalize sites which are associated with Russian disinformation.
Weinberg took to social media and said “Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create.”
“At DuckDuckGo, we’ve been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation,” he added.
“To highlight quality information for rapidly unfolding topics,” Weinberg noted, DuckDuckGo is also inserting information bubbles at the top of the search results page.
In addition to down-ranking sites associated with disinformation, we also often place news modules and information boxes at the top of DuckDuckGo search results (where they are seen and clicked the most) to highlight quality information for rapidly unfolding topics.
— Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) March 10, 2022
DuckDuckGo is a Google alternative that has grown in popularity in recent years, in part due to the fact that it does not track users. In the past, Weinberg has enticed consumers to switch from Google by promising “unbiased results.”
DuckDuckGo's mission is to make simple privacy protection accessible to all. Privacy is a human right and transcends politics, which is why about 100 million people around the world use DuckDuckGo. (We don't have an exact count since we don't track people.)
— Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) March 10, 2022
Some users, including Tom Fitton, president of the Judicial Watch nonprofit, questioned the CEO’s response right away.
“Contrary to its implicit promises to the contrary,” he said on Twitter, DuckDuckGo “is now in the censorship business.” “Are there any search engines that respect users?”
“Today, you are removing Russian disinformation Tomorrow you will be removing genuine protests,” another user wrote.
A request for comment from DuckDuckGo was not answered.
Some of the critics were eventually addressed by Weinberg.
“Search engines by definition try to put more relevant content higher and less relevant content lower—that’s not censorship, it’s search ranking relevancy,” he added.
Since 2017, Google has ranked Russian official media posts lower in its search results.
At the time, Google parent company Alphabet’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, remarked “We don’t want to ban the sites. That’s not how we operate. I am strongly not in favor of censorship. I am very strongly in favor of ranking. It’s what we do.”
One of the outlets, Russia Today, pushed back at the time, claiming, “His colleagues admitted three weeks ago that RT did not violate any rules of the platform.”
In early March, Google also stopped selling web advertising in Russia.
Around the same time, DuckDuckGo’s senior public policy manager, Katie McInnis, informed a congressional subcommittee that the company had terminated its partnership with Yandex, a Russian search engine.
“In light of Russia’s assault on democracy and Ukraine, we have paused our relationship with Yandex,” McInnis told the House Committee on Energy & Commerce. “The index was used to provide traditional links, meaning non-news links, in Russia and Turkey.”
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DUCK DUCK has been degenerating for some time, but, the real alternative to search engines has not changed since 1995: a network of friends, real human beings, sending notices by email every day of what they have found of interest and importance to them, and me, is what keeps my learning and growing process moving along. In addition, a personal, physical, library of 1,500 non fiction books on all topics important or relevant to me, and to life and those living, is what allows me to feel that I am learning and not being stuffed into a box of some autocrats or bureaucrats design. I mean simple subjects like: the English language NOT ‘wokism’; the Bible before 1600AD, or even 325, perversions of it; astronomy; biology; botany; natural medicines; nutrition; etc. Nonetheless, I find my daily tools no longer sufficient to counter the suppression of evidence of truths which are now being denied us by the ‘gods’ of the internet. Great Games expositions, on this subject and others, is what keeps me paying attention to what they publish even where I disagree with their conclusions. In the end it is discourse with family, friends and even strangers on important subjects that is neutralizing the utter madness emanating from those ‘hollowed’ halls of ‘polite tics’ who are sucking the life blood out of humanity and laying a trap described in the Book of Revelations quite clearly. Lay the ultimate blame where it belongs: at your own feet. Hold government, banks, corporations, and, most of all, religions responsible for all of the wickedness on earth. Then humanity may rise. Otherwise??? We die as a species!
I am sorely disapponted with this news.
As a Duck Duck Go customer myself I believe it is imperative that Duck Duck Go should not be getting involved with taking sides. Ever.
It would seem that the owner of Duck Duck Go himself is now a hapless victim of the DIABOLICAL controlling New World Order and their “Build Back Better” deceitful World Economic Forum Globalist propaganda.
for instance i like science (77) , when searching physics, cosmology, acoustics, or their everyday applications – – well it’s like search engines throw all the ‘lightweights’ up front for their 15 minutes of fame. Now, even Duck Duck Go has to placate their wives, or children, or club, or business friends and put the Public as 2nd class citizens. alright, Gabriel Weinberg, thanks for honestly telling us u run a ‘crooked gambling house’ ! …. …. shalom, al jenkins
EXCELLENT ! …… thank you, Moriyah shalom
Well said ! thank you Jackie. …… shalom
If you are sick and tired of “WOKE” websites and search engines – USE http://www.yandex.com which will never delete your comments because it is not biased nor is it woke.
Peace to you too Al. We fight with words but our oppressors fight with guns and explosives and, now, outright theft of our hard earned capital vested in the physical support of life. Only our courage suppresses their cowardice and coveting while wise and true words decimate them. Prophecy says 6 billion may die but 2 billion may live. May you live to teach the ignorant who survive so earth may resurrect as the paradise intended. People should know that ‘internet’ means many things: ‘freedom from being taken away’ is just one. YHWH allows purification by fire as only that will do. I have already begun searching the searchers to see who next to engage with as my Search ‘buddy’. We should not neglect those ‘searchers’ like ‘archive.org’ while they yet still exist (how the copyright laws are twisted and distorted to do the opposite intended). Unlimited downloads to offline SSD’s is a start. Actually printing, not just ‘saving’, definitive documents like foundational tools for civilized lives should be a mainstay BEFORE the grid AND Net go down. ‘F’ Duck Duck! I think they just suicided.
Yandex are now on my list to review. Thank you for your vote, and not ‘woke’, Barney. You sound pretty sane. Have you looked at the amazing correlation in the literal meaning of the names of Victoria Nuland (US Under Secretary of State for [WAR!]) and Christia Freeland (CDN Deputy Prime Minister of Canada since 2019 and the Minister of Finance since 2020). Both of whom are Nazi Ukraine proponents/promoters and Russian agitants/detractors? Their names are almost exactly the same meaning in the false sense of ‘saviors’ who uplift a nation promoting Satan while denigrating another promoting YHWH though yet not quite! Indeed, heaven help us.
Addendum: Duck Duck’s ‘F’s are exactly what Orwellian Newspeak meant when stating that ‘The Ministry of Truth’ was against lies while actually propagating lies themselves. I can’t not relate that Orwell (1984) was a student of Huxley (Brave New World). Together they promoted, still do, the blueprint model introduced in 1984 in Canada. fI digress, the book 1984 introduced the concept of the WWW, the Internet, the Web, even now, as we know it. That, 1984, was the year we, yes I is one, went full Fascist in Canada. No, it was not with the Freedom (Trucker) Convoy of this year but, yes, it was 1984 wherein the Municipality of Ottawa, Provincial Legislature of Ontario, and, Federal (supposedly Constitutional) Government of Canada conspired to enact legislation destroying small business, through de-licensing ( a fraud enabled by greedy liars, I mean lawyers), while enabling through legislation foreign interests (Corporations) to buy/license the entire economy of Canada through their hijacking of ALL Commercial, particularly Retail, Real Estate. It is now a fait accompli, long past, wherein we import migrants to work as slaves for Canadian Corps. who are fronts for US Corps. who are fronts for TransNationalist Corps in bed with Global Corps and Banks who are all in bed with the Vatican. Chamber of Commerce does, in fact, in Latin to English, translate as the ‘room of procreation’ as well as ‘room of fornication’.
I’d say stay out of it. You know nothing about what is really going on between Russia and Ukraine. You should remain unbiased and independent or you will wind up META!
Not a hapless victim at all. Rather a willing link in the cabal.
My comment was for Jackie.
You may be right. 🙁
Yandex is Russian!
Mike H.
Maybe we will get some truth from them.
We certainly are not getting any from Biden & Boris.
That the CEO’s last name is Weinberg is all you have to know about the company.
Gabriel Weinberg (-berg) is a cursed Jew.
Look at the entire web, if you see “privacy, security, quality etc…” be sure that you are defrauded by a f*ckin Jew.
I’ve heard good about the search engine Qwant
https://www.qwant.com/
It’s not that I’m dying to ready Russian disinformation, but I don’t appreciate ANYONE taking it upon themselves to protect me from whatever they perceive to be incorrect/dangerous/etc. info. I’m capable of making my own determinations of what to read. I was using DDG until I read this news the other day and have since moved on to another search engine.
Uninstalling Ducky now 🙁