FYI, I highly recommend this review of the current state of the search engine market https://seirdy.one/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexes.html Reading it will nurture your inner search nerd.
2 Likes
I wouldn’t trust any A.I. to decide what is misinformation. Too, I can decide for myself what misinformation is. I do not a Artificial Idiot telling me I can’t read something because a binary bit byter decided its’ misinformation.
Google, politicians, news mediums, advertisers, and educators are constantly using misinformation.
People need to be able to read what they want and even if it is flagged as misinformation, let people make the decision. Those fighting to block their version of what misinformation is, are only afraid of the competition.
When I’m told I can’t read something, it means (they) don’t want us to see the other side of the coin.
I wondered how long it would take for DDG to start off on their own power trip.
~s
3 Likes
Another bit of info concerning DuckDuckGo. I come from a country which only has a semblance of democracy (it used to be better for a while, but now it’s bad again – media blackout, election scams, organised voting for the ruling party, conditional employment in the government’s administration depending on who you vote for, friends telling you they’ll get a job if they collect a certain number of “safe votes”, I could go on …).
If you search for opposition election candidates in DuckDuckGo (probably google is no better, but can’t verify since I’m not using that engine), the results that come on top — sometimes spanning dozens of hits — are the news articles from the worst government backed media, news that consist mostly of lies and spin.
This just goes on to underline how senseless web content flagging is. Ukraine is now in focus, so there’s a major effort to manipulate information related to the war in a way that’ll paint the Russians in the worst possible light, but 99% of everything else is business as usual.
3 Likes
There is another option : Searx
They take your search terms and fan it out to multiple search engines. Some block, some dont, but you get the benefit of : 1. aggregating the results 2. proxying your search so that no one search engine obtains cookies from your browser or can push javascript at you to track you. 3. The searchX code is open source. 4. There are many instances stood up across the world so you can pick one to use
5. The instances are rated for speed and how up2date the code base is at that instance.
about : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searx
open source : https://github.com/searx/searx
documentation : https://searx.github.io/searx/
instances : https://searx.space/
3 Likes
I beg to differ 
. (if it has to do anything with agency Sputnik)
Thanks, it’s always good to get the views and news from other sources. Our mainstream news is often too one sided. For instance, non of the main news outlets in Holland mentioned the foreign illegal combatants in Mariupol.
My point exactly!
Are you referring to the Russian army? 
But sure no controversial subject ever benefited from censorship.
No, I was referring to the mystery combatants who are fighting with the ASOV extremists. They desperately try to escape the Russian trap in Mariupol. I used the USA qualification (as for Gitmo prisoners). 
Sounds like the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Spain, Peru, Mexico, Ukraine, Russia, … any of the 195 countries in the world today including the only two that are not in the U.N.
I hope Media “lies” are a matter of a individuals opinion.
I keep in mind that ‘Media’ is plural for medium, as in conduit between a current event, and the reader. And I remember they are called news mediums because it is very rare that it is ever well-done. Too, the media has it’s own guidelines that 'If it bleeds - it leads, and follow it up with ducks and kids.
Search engines and Google (I don’t consider it a SE) have a goal - - to make tonnes of money and make it bye shoving us into what it has learned from stalking us in to a cubby-hole and tell us what it is we really meant to search for, where it is for sale nearest to us, and we have to bash down some borders to search outside our local area, country and continent. A pox on them all.
In the end, it’s the consumer that pays the billions to the advertisers via social media, - anywhere there is a Internet ad. I best stop before I say what I really think about SEs and advertising.
Thankfully, there is the onion.
~s
1 Like
I somehow have a feeling you have never lived under a truly authoritarian/stabilocratic system. I would love to have the same non-democracy the US has. Strong, stubborn institutions which reject huge changes to the system, but in the same time protect themselves from wannabe dictators. And sure, if you’re wealthy you have the power.
But, did you ever have friends begging you to vote for X, because if they don’t secure enough votes they’ll lose their job? Note that the state administration is the biggest employer in my home country, so the capacity for blackmail and the results of it are huge.
I don’t know what you mean by this. Like, what an individual will consider to be a lie may be a fact actually? How about if someone makes a headline that your sister married a universally reviled criminal and you don’t even have a sister? Also what if these few selected and tightly controlled media are the only channels of information available in a wider area of the country? So, this is not like Daily Mail, or Sun who everyone reads in the UK just for kicks. They’re also good to wrap fish n chips in.
IMHO: It’s the same for all countries.
Let me put it this way. Every day I receive several mails from friends, relatives and even clients encouraging me to watch the attached video, sound bytes, or links to the “real truth” or text to learn the “real truth” and anything else are all lies. There should be no need to put “real” in front of “truth”. So, what you might say is the real truth based on your observations, where as anyone else might see it from a different angle and call it the ‘real truth’.
So, what you call a lie, others may call it the truth. And vice versa. I doubt anyone would say click here to get the real lie.’
I live mostly in Canada. It’s the only country in the whole world where people are free to elect their own dictator.
~s
Or they can cheat like we do in the US to elect a senile dictator puppet.
1 Like
I’m not getting into your conspiracy theory plug for Trump or with anyone. It’s old -stuff-.
Today, doomsday is baking at “100 seconds to midnight” (doomsday clock).
One thing I keep in mind in order to keep my mind, is to remember that nuclear weapons being added to the 12 other on-going wars in other countries, not counting the 6 “ongoing armed conflicts” is considered by many world leaders’ past and present as mutually assured destruction with the appropriate acronym of MAD. And so it is. Too, the highest ranking politicians, military, health and science people will be OK. They’ve already dug their hole.
I like many others, are scared to death of those who even consider nukes an option, regardless of what dampening adjectives like “tactical” and “limited…” precede doomsday.
Men have been the leaders throughout history that took their people to wars, for thousands of years. I think it’s time women take over and starting with the same male/female ratio of long ago - - now!
Just say’n s’all
~s
Please stay respectful. To each other, but to liberals too.
2 Likes
Well, if you can’t stop yourself from being disrespectful, there are other forums for you. Not this one.
1 Like
I can be be respectful if I have to
Not the only one. Add Greece to the list. So we are at least 2. 
A country does not have to be militaristic/oppressive to have friends to beg you to vote in a certain way or else they loose their jobs. Corrupted politicians (like many in Greece) have this effect on society all the time. Greece has a "Western type ‘democracy’ ". About the quality of the “non-democracy the US has” wrote I have to say this: I have lived in the US before I moved to Greece. I know so many people that find it cheaper to travel to Greece for medical services than to use the US medical services. What is the percentage of people in the US that have no access to doctors because of low salaries? And if it is about you, you may say “I do not care”. What if it is about your child?
So, do not bet you like things that you imagine how they are. All societies have problems and you do not know about them. You only know yours.
Minimal salaries in Greece right now are not enough to pay for the electricity bills 
This is not democracy. It is oppressive in its essence.
People should try to correct their countries and fight for this.
1 Like