DuckDuckGo, the free speech search engine that never was

"The free speech search engine that never was" is apt. If it was about free speech then it was about a Microsoft version of free speech. And it never was a search engine, being primarily a search service (proxy) for Bing.

If people are looking for truth, they need a variety of information and freedom to seek. That comes from using multiple sources. One search ring to rule them all is not progressing us anymore. It might have done so in the late 90s and early 00s thanks to Google. But browsers, with Chrome leading the charge, conditioned us to choose one search engine or proxy.

It's time we embraced and demanded multiple sources of information in search. Whilst I'm biased in self-promoting Mojeek (an independent search engine index that crawls), you may note that we practice what we preach and offer search also with 8 other search engines and proxies including DuckDuckGo. Take your pick each time you search:

https://blog.mojeek.com/2022/02/search-choices-enable-freedo...

Nobody wants a real "free speech" search engine, where crappy "ads and SEO" sites, malware-infected download sites, in-passing mentions of your search terms, and the long rantings of people you don't like often push the first link you'd actually want down to the 3rd or 4th page.

But as a proof of concept...perhaps Google should offer real free speech web searches, with disclaimers, at (say) freespeech.google.com. Just make sure the results are so full of SEO crap, computer-generated crap, etc. that "people for whom the internet is not a mentally healthy place" do not actually find it very attractive.

DDG, unlike google, has a working link to the film banned by YouTube when searching for Ukraine on fire and in third place. Faith restored.

https://rumble.com/vwxxi8-ukraine-on-fire.html

I don't understand. Duck's results are Bing's results, and Bing results are down-ranking "misinformation", so what could DDG possibly do?

I didn't realize DuckDuckGo had such a reputation.

You heard it here first from me [0] and even earlier on DuckDuckGo's lies on manipulated search results [1] since as I already said they use Bing's search results, so it was only a matter of time for this search manipulation to be exposed at some point.

Aside from the excellent framing from the Vox spin doctors of this article, the whole real point of DuckDuckGo is to be an uncompromising, privacy-friendly search engine that doesn't manipulate search results like how Google clearly does.

Now they just admitted directly that they are no different to what Google has done to the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) [2]; therefore they are compromised.

But of course, Vox doesn't want to talk about DDG's manipulation for years, but instead writes a piece on framing 'right-wingers' again. Typical narrative spinning mainstream media eh?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27399055

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/duckduckgo/comments/hx5dn5/proof_du...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/jpa24l/google_...