DuckDuckGo CEO says Russian disinformation websites are being down-ranked

The CEO of the privacy-oriented search engine, DuckDuckGo, has announced that websites associated with Russian disinformation are being down-ranked. Gabriel Weinberg made the statement on Twitter as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Weinberg also stated that information boxes will be placed around search results to highlight quality information about the events going on in the eastern European country.

Given that Russia’s invasion began two weeks ago now, DuckDuckGo has been a little slow in announcing its measures against Russian disinformation. Google and Microsoft both banned RT and Sputnik from their respective platforms while YouTube and Facebook also announced demonetisation efforts against some Russian content creators spreading false information.

Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. #StandWithUkraine️

At DuckDuckGo, we"ve been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.

— Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) March 10, 2022

The move by DuckDuckGo has received mixed responses from people, some say that it should be normal for disinformation to be down-ranked because they do searches expecting to find accurate information while others are criticising the company for manipulating the results after it has so long spoken out against filter bubbles that other search providers use to alter the results different people see.

If you’re a DuckDuckGo user, you should already start to see these changes rolling out though it could take several more days to roll out the updates fully.

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