Tell us you want your business to go under without actually telling us you want your business to go under. That’s the current plight of CEO and Founder of internet search engine DuckDuckGo Gabriel Weinberg.
On Wednesday evening, Weinberg tweeted out his disgust over “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create.” In light of his feelings on the conflict, Weinberg announced that DuckDuckGo — a search engine competitor to Google that people flocked to because it used to give you results based on what you specifically searched for instead of the Google model that ranks and de-ranks results based on political ideology, among other things — has been “rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.”
Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. #StandWithUkraine️
— Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) March 10, 2022
At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.
Weinberg also tweeted that DuckDuckGo isn’t only “down-ranking sites associated with disinformation,” but also that they place “news modules and information boxes at the top of search results” to “highlight quality information,” much like Google does.
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
But who determines what is quality information? Weinberg didn’t expand on how his company makes those decisions.
Related: YouTube Flags Oliver Stone's 2016 Documentary 'Ukraine on Fire'
Weinberg completed his tweet thread by saying that the mission of the company is to provide “privacy” to the users of the site, even going so far to say that “privacy” is the reason “100 million people around the world use DuckDuckGo.”
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
No, sir. The main reason that people use — or maybe it should be “used” now — DuckDuckGo was for the unbiased search results. Sure, the privacy measures are nice, but that’s not the main reason why many used that search engine.
Talk about tone deaf. Each tweet was "ratio'd" pretty emphatically, which means that the vast majority of interaction with the tweets were comments instead of likes or regular retweets. People were NOT happy.
Disinformation like the Russian bounty story? Or that drone strike that killed kids? Or Jussie Smollette? Or the Covington kids hoax?
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 10, 2022
Now you're just Google with less brand recognition.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 10, 2022
WokeWokeNO
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) March 10, 2022
— The Right To Bear Memes (@grandoldmemes) March 10, 2022
Since DuckDuckGo looks to be going the way of Google, a good alternative — that yours truly has been using for over a year now — is the internet browser Brave. They also currently have a “BETA” version of a search engine, so that’s a decent enough tool to use for getting unbiased search results.
Related MRCTV Twitter Video:
There are only two gender size options for shirts saying there are more genders. And some on the radical Left are up in arms.
— MRCTV (@mrctv) March 10, 2022
Nick Kangadis has a message for the alphabet mafia on the latest Things That Need To Be Said: Be prepared to be offended. pic.twitter.com/1iCfLEkhYw