This is interesting because I tried Yandex for the first time after this DDG debacle, and I found it solved a major problem I have with every other popular search engine - Yandex respected my actual query and gave me the correct results every time, instead of trying to mind read me and mangle the results like the other ones. Google always does it, DDG started doing it some time ago, and unfortunately Brave search also seems to do it.
I understand there's probably a reason others do it - maybe that that's what's needed to serve a general audience, they're optimising the results for my 70 yr old dad and 10 yr old niece. But that does mean that using them is a frustrating experience for me half of the time, of quoting everything and micromanaging the query terms so that they understand that I do mean this specific thing rather than this overgeneralised idea they seem to parse from it. Yandex was a breath of fresh air in that respect.
In search engines and in so many other applications, we desperately need a checkbox that says "I know what I'm doing, don't assume anything, give it to me straight". Expert modes, literal modes, they need to be everywhere.
Using quotes in DDG used to work for me. Unfortunately, for a couple months now it doesn't. The results are garbage. Often they don't even include most of the words I typed, only the first one.
Personally, I don't think this was a complete/valid test - Yandex could be censoring other things. The input test data primarily covered things that would fit a specific narrative, not one for the 'other side'. Has anyone done a more complete test?
I think the validity is mostly scoped the current major world-wide events. It would be interesting to have some sort of topic censorship ranking website; give it a topic, and it ranks various search engines.
"Censored" is definitely the wrong word here; it implies that there is some objective pool of information that we could all be getting to if it weren't for the search engines getting it wrong, and that's just not it.
It's definitely much closer to -- imagine 5 hypothetical bookstores owned by different people. Each has to make decisions on what to choose to carry based on their business interests, and so they do. But there's nothing I would call "censorship" about that.
And if we're deciding it is, then we have to be much more serious and intelligent in what to do about it. I'm thinking something like the EPA or FDA for search engines. If they have to tell us whats in the ketchup, then they have to tell us what's in the "search engine algorithms."
I think there are pretty clear examples of censorship that would cross the line.
The most widely recognized example is when major search engines delisted pictures and results for the Tiananmen Square massacre last year.
The bookstore analogy would be if you came in and asked for a book on the massacre, and the owner said "sorry, I don't know what you are talking about" when they have a whole shelf in stock.
When a company gets large enough, whether in the US or Russia, "good relations with the government" becomes one of your aforementioned "business interests". Call it whatever you want.
>"Censored" is definitely the wrong word here; it implies that there is some objective pool of information that we could all be getting to if it weren't for the search engines getting it wrong, and that's just not it.
1. I think that when it comes to "search engine censorship", most people know it's about search engines downranking/hiding certain results, not them literally going around burning books or blocking/taking down websites.
2. The definition for "censorship" is "The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression or press, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated". When it comes to the internet, getting downranked/hidden from search engines does a pretty good job at preventing such information from being "propagated", even though you could still access it via the deep web. As a thought experiment, suppose the government banned 1984 from being sold/read anywhere, save for you going to the library of congress in person. You can theoretically still read it, but at great difficulty. It's certainly more work than reading harry potter or whatever. Would you say such measures are not "censorship"?
> Results for "evidence of election fraud 2020" - at least 5 results showing major election fraud took place.
Shouldn't an "objective" search engine return results that are true (that there was no systemic election fraud) instead of results that fit his personal biases?
If I type "the daily stormer" (a very unique name which corresponds to something very specific, i.e. the website for the far-right online newspaper by that name), I expect to find that thing in the first 5 results. That's not the case with Google; it's just not there at all. You have articles from other papers talking about it, you've got a wikipedia page talking about it, you've got sites like the ADL and the SPLC talking about it, but not the actual thing itself. Bing, Yahoo, Yandex all return it as the first result.
That query is biased to begin with.
Let’s say I want to understand the flat earth arguments. Should the search engine fill my feed with “earth is not flat” when I’m trying to search for “proof that earth is flat”. This is different from searching “is earth flat” which is an attempt to discover the truth.
Your claim that the search engine should show results which indicate that there was no systematic election fraud, is a wishful thinking that you don’t want people to believe in it, not a good decision making regarding what search engines should display.
An objective search engine should return the results that are most relevant to your query without attempting to be the arbiter of "truth". An objective search engine doesn't try to weigh in on disputed events like the existence of systemic election fraud (which has been a regular occurrence in every election since before any one of us was born, despite the exhortations of the DC blob and legacy media outlets). For example, a Special Counsel in Wisconsin recently did a report on 2020 election fraud. If you Google "Wisconsin report on election fraud" the front page is comprised entirely of DC blob legacy media outlet editorials about why the Wisconsin report is debunked without a single link to the report itself. You are within your rights to think that the Wisconsin report is total garbage, but if you go to a search engine and search for "Wisconsin report on election fraud" an objective search engine will have a link to the actual report on the front page, if not as the first result.
I suggest anyone who read this post to scroll down the webpage, and once past the comment section - see the first article that was previously posted by the author, titled "Why did Russia attack Ukraine...".
Reading that post should tell you how smoothly you're being manipulated.
I figure to be a more complete test you'd have to include Baidu the Chinese search engine, which is in no doubt censored. Or old school engines like ask.com, and Yahoo even though they serve Bing results to my understanding it would be nice to include them. Either way, good showcase, great example queries. Although I do think some should be catering the MSM narrative to see if the results give contrary results included.
I think in the future people will just resort to checking yandex/baidu/duckduckgo every time they think the results might be censored. The opposing regimes are likely to censor complimentary parts of the web.
I’ve found in the past that Yandex’s reverse image search is vastly better than Google’s. I am almost always able to find things with Yandex that I cannot with Google.
Is deranking considered censorship? On what basis does RT need to be the top result?
Now of course I know its been purposely deranked. But couldn’t google claim its not censored if it exists but buried in results?
I want to know what legal basis we have for asserting certain sites must have the highest rank on google for certain searches. I’m assuming there isn’t one.
> No search engine, not even the Russian based Yandex, returned an objective article that included the reasons laid out in Putin's invasion speech. [...] The level of disinformation I observed for this test was terrifying. Based on what I saw, I don't believe it is possible for an uninformed person to learn the actual reasons Russia invaded from a web search on any search engine.
Really, you consider Putin's stated reasons to be the actual reasons for the invasion? And the linked article in that paragraph is just a pile of misinformation (even calling it subjective would be a complement).
a search engine is meant for searching text about whatever I ask it. I don’t need it to vet the result based on geopolitics. If I search for “Putin invasion speech” I want articles that show me what Putin said about the invasion ranked by various technical metrics but not by whether the world thinks Putin is a liar and then giving me articles with what others said about Putin’s speech
Actually, if you open the post and scroll down enough to see one of the other posts published by the author (look for the post titled "Why did Russia attack Ukraine..."), then you would realize that the entire website has piles of misinformation.
Search engines turn searches into money. Some do this by selling ads, some by selling your data. Unless you’re paying for it you’re bound with their database as the product and are mostly irrelevant to them besides spending more time there. They have an incentive to delay you finding what you want.
I found lots of articles from top media outlets about "Obama Ukraine biolab". I just put "fact check" in front of it. as I do with most random blog and/or facebook posts.
[+] [-] sundarurfriend|4 years ago|reply
I understand there's probably a reason others do it - maybe that that's what's needed to serve a general audience, they're optimising the results for my 70 yr old dad and 10 yr old niece. But that does mean that using them is a frustrating experience for me half of the time, of quoting everything and micromanaging the query terms so that they understand that I do mean this specific thing rather than this overgeneralised idea they seem to parse from it. Yandex was a breath of fresh air in that respect.
[+] [-] Biganon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yakubin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nuzzerino|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrozbarry|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sacrosancty|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjourne|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anothernewdude|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrm4|4 years ago|reply
"Censored" is definitely the wrong word here; it implies that there is some objective pool of information that we could all be getting to if it weren't for the search engines getting it wrong, and that's just not it.
It's definitely much closer to -- imagine 5 hypothetical bookstores owned by different people. Each has to make decisions on what to choose to carry based on their business interests, and so they do. But there's nothing I would call "censorship" about that.
And if we're deciding it is, then we have to be much more serious and intelligent in what to do about it. I'm thinking something like the EPA or FDA for search engines. If they have to tell us whats in the ketchup, then they have to tell us what's in the "search engine algorithms."
[+] [-] s1artibartfast|4 years ago|reply
The most widely recognized example is when major search engines delisted pictures and results for the Tiananmen Square massacre last year.
The bookstore analogy would be if you came in and asked for a book on the massacre, and the owner said "sorry, I don't know what you are talking about" when they have a whole shelf in stock.
[+] [-] Nuzzerino|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruez|4 years ago|reply
1. I think that when it comes to "search engine censorship", most people know it's about search engines downranking/hiding certain results, not them literally going around burning books or blocking/taking down websites.
2. The definition for "censorship" is "The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression or press, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated". When it comes to the internet, getting downranked/hidden from search engines does a pretty good job at preventing such information from being "propagated", even though you could still access it via the deep web. As a thought experiment, suppose the government banned 1984 from being sold/read anywhere, save for you going to the library of congress in person. You can theoretically still read it, but at great difficulty. It's certainly more work than reading harry potter or whatever. Would you say such measures are not "censorship"?
[+] [-] hunglee2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] personasdfghjkl|4 years ago|reply
Shouldn't an "objective" search engine return results that are true (that there was no systemic election fraud) instead of results that fit his personal biases?
[+] [-] senssore|4 years ago|reply
If I type "the daily stormer" (a very unique name which corresponds to something very specific, i.e. the website for the far-right online newspaper by that name), I expect to find that thing in the first 5 results. That's not the case with Google; it's just not there at all. You have articles from other papers talking about it, you've got a wikipedia page talking about it, you've got sites like the ADL and the SPLC talking about it, but not the actual thing itself. Bing, Yahoo, Yandex all return it as the first result.
[+] [-] splintercell|4 years ago|reply
Your claim that the search engine should show results which indicate that there was no systematic election fraud, is a wishful thinking that you don’t want people to believe in it, not a good decision making regarding what search engines should display.
[+] [-] voldacar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StanislavPetrov|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wallrussianera|4 years ago|reply
Reading that post should tell you how smoothly you're being manipulated.
[+] [-] tehaugmenter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moltke|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elephanlemon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamjamjamjamjam|4 years ago|reply
Now of course I know its been purposely deranked. But couldn’t google claim its not censored if it exists but buried in results?
I want to know what legal basis we have for asserting certain sites must have the highest rank on google for certain searches. I’m assuming there isn’t one.
[+] [-] tomerv|4 years ago|reply
Really, you consider Putin's stated reasons to be the actual reasons for the invasion? And the linked article in that paragraph is just a pile of misinformation (even calling it subjective would be a complement).
[+] [-] supergirl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wallrussianera|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TehCorwiz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamjamjamjamjam|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sharemywin|4 years ago|reply
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/social-media-posts-misrepr...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/02/25/fac...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-08/china-pus...
[+] [-] egberts1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] i67vw3|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shoulderfake|4 years ago|reply
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