DuckDuckGo will modify its search engine to downgrade Russian propaganda to search results.
It seems that the West has already started the cold war and that entrepreneurship has no hope on the battlefield. One - one the western ones businesses move away or stop their activity from Russia, not caring about the profit and turnover they lose. In this sense, the DuckDuckGo search engine announced that low-ranking websites that spread Russian propaganda and misinformation they will be ranked in the search results charts.
The announcement has come from a tweet of DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg. Earlier this month, DuckDuckGo had announced that will terminate its relationship with the Russian state search engine Yandex.
Even if it's for its own idealistic reasons, getting to the bottom of the search results scale is an uncharacteristic move for a Pennsylvania-based search company. And from a company that, unlike Google and the big social media platforms, DuckDuckGo has neglected to filter misleading content on vaccines or on American elections.
After all, in a war there will always be propaganda from both sides. And the war Ukraine- of Russia is no exception. Fake news, ψέματα, στημένες φωτογραφίες κλπ μπαίνουν όλα στην φαρέτρα των δύο αντιμαχόμενων πλευρών. Το μόνο σίγουρο που δεν χωρά αμφισβήτηση, είναι οι νεκροί στον άμαχο πληθυσμό και ο αριθμός των προσφύγων.
A search engine driven by privacy, like DuckDuckGo should make it clear that it does not track its users, nor does it sell data to third parties. The company makes money mainly from affiliate and non-targeted links advertisements. In fact, DuckDuckGo regularly donates money to digital rights groups such as Electronic Frontier Foundation and in the non-profit newsroom "The Markup".
Mr. Weinberg did not elaborate on the tweet of which Russian propaganda sites DuckDuckGo is targeting, or whether the search engine will move on to other types of disinformation, such as climate change or Covid-19.
A range of platforms including Facebook and Instagram belonging to Meta, have begun demoting posts from Russian state media. Google has dropped search results from Russian state news agencies since 2017.
