Fed Up With Google, Conspiracy Theorists Turn to DuckDuckGo

NYT ^ | 02 23 2022 | Stuart A. Thompson

[yesthatjallen]

On an episode of Joe Rogan’s popular podcast last year, he turned to a topic that has gripped right-wing communities and other Americans who feel skeptical about the pandemic: search engines.

“If I wanted to find specific cases about people who died from vaccine-related injuries, I had to go to DuckDuckGo,” Mr. Rogan said, referring to the small privacy-focused search engine. “I wasn’t finding them on Google.”

Praise for DuckDuckGo has become a popular refrain during the pandemic among right-wing social media influencers and conspiracy theorists who question Covid-19 vaccines and push discredited coronavirus treatments. Some have posted screenshots showing that DuckDuckGo appears to surface more links favorable to their views than Google does.

In addition to Mr. Rogan, who has recently been at the center of an outcry about misinformation on his podcast, the search engine has received ringing endorsements from some of the world’s most-downloaded conservative podcasters, including Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino.

“Google is actively suppressing search results that don’t acquiesce to traditional viewpoints of the left,” Mr. Shapiro claimed last March. “I recommend you install DuckDuckGo on your computer, rather than Google, to combat all this.”

The endorsements underscore how right-wing Americans and conspiracy theorists are shifting their online activity in response to greater moderation from tech giants like Google. They have increasingly embraced fledgling and sometimes fringe platforms like the chat app Telegram, the video streamer Rumble and even search engines like DuckDuckGo, seeking conditions that seem more favorable to their conspiracy theories and falsehoods.

SNIP

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

Conspiracy theorists = people who want FREEDOM!!! GEEZE!!

[FMBass]

I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for probably at least a decade.
I’ve never had any issues with it.

[rlmorel]

I used to think Google was great. You could find the answer to nearly anything. Or so you thought.

I used to use Google all the time, and at some point, the results I began to get back were...well...not what I wanted. I found what I was looking for several pages back, and I believe it is standard behavior for a lot of people not to go that far. So they end up clicking on what Google provides to them.

I began paying attention, and realized that even though I KNEW that Google "shaped" its returns...I came to realize it wasn't doing it strictly from a commerce perspective which is what I expected...it was doing it from a political perspective, and an extreme Leftist anti-American perspective.

I had never paid much attention to the stupid "Google Doodles". When I began paying attention to them at the same time I began viewing their political shaping of returns, it confirmed my conclusions.

What really shook me as it took several years for this to fully sink in, is that there are probably 4 billion computer users on Earth today who view Google as the font of information about...history, politics, science, you name it. And Google has decided it wants to manipulate the thoughts and conclusions of people using its product using the subtle forces of AI, to mold and shape "correct thought" in people.

Bill Whittle did a masterful video recently called:

The Stolen Election Part II: Stoners and Reptiles

The whole video is worth watching, but his interpretation and presentation of the Big Tech interference in the election is critical. Near the end, if you go to the 14 minute mark of the video, he discusses a video, created for top level Google executives (and meant only for their eyes) that was leaked to the public called "The Selfish Ledger (Link to their video)".

Bill Whittle calls it the most frightening thing he has yet seen from the Left, and I agree with him.

It describes how Google views our "ledger" to be compiled by the compilation of our online activities into a "fingerprint" of who and what we are, and likens it to our DNA that identifies us, and how they wish to alter that DNA-like "Ledger" to manipulate people to "think the right way".

Chilling. DuckDuckGo may be less capable, but I don't think they are as evil as the scumbags at Google.

[Beagle8U]

Good luck using Bing to check the spelling of a word, whoever designed that POS search engine obviously didn’t speak English.

DuckDuckGo is the best search hands down.

[Antoninus]

DDG in tandem with Brave is the way to go. Next up, something to replace Google Docs.

[cp124]

Owned by Microsoft.

[NohSpinZone]

Count me in. I just swapped to DDG on my PC and installed the DDG apps for my smartphone. No loss of functionality whatsoever.

[Tell It Right]

I like Bing when I'm looking up Microsoft-specific IT stuff like C# or TSQL specs or examples.

I use Duck for just about anything else.

[yesthatjallen]

This is a unique and fascinating video exposing how Google lies about the number of searches they actually perform. A billion searches in 1.53 seconds?

The Dead Internet Theory 2 (18 mins)

[ifinnegan]

Google was great.

It gave 100’s of pages of returns and gold could be mined.

It controls presented results now.

Lots of completely non-political stuff is missing because of this.

They’ve gone from providing information to controlling information.

[G Larry]

Just because your theory is that there is a conspiracy, doesn't mean you're wrong.

But, if you believe the NYT, you can be sure that you're wrong.

[Veto!]

DuckDuckGo is cool. I signed up thru Twitter and somehow I only get weather forecasts there. I have two new computers, a MacMini and a Dell Inspiron laptop.

[yesthatjallen]

"I used to think Google was great. You could find the answer to nearly anything."

Google started out good. Searches returned awesome results. The results were based on actual queries. They sold their soul to the devil and now deliberately manipulate searches based on liberal ideology algorithms. Their bias is driving people away but they earn billions so they don't care.

[Persevero]

Same here with Amazon.

I was just wondering about goodsearch. Like if it is a decent search engine or just hops on google’s back or what.

[wally_bert]

A mix of Windows and Linux myself.

[blackdog]

Compare and contrast. No one source has a franchise on being what you want at all times. I mean don’t we pick up more than one book or newspaper when we want to understand something?

[SunkenCiv]

• A Google-Funded 'Fact Check' Team is a Handful of Indians With No Experience in Journalism in a Small Town Near Bangladesh. [02/22/2022]

[Soul of the South]

The self proclaimed “newspaper of record” said the following about conservatives seeking out alternatives to Google and the big tech run online platforms:

” They have increasingly embraced fledgling and sometimes fringe platforms like the chat app Telegram, the video streamer Rumble and even search engines like DuckDuckGo, seeking conditions that seem more favorable to their conspiracy theories and falsehoods.”

A true newspaper of record would have stated: “ They have increasingly embraced new and rapidly growing platforms like the chat app Telegram, the video streamer Rumble and even search engines like DuckDuckGo, seeking information censored by heavily censored online platforms.”

[tomkat]

[Soul of the South]

“I’ve been using DDG for about a year now. I haven’t had any issues with it.”

I do a tremendous amount of online historical research. DDG is my primary search engine but I often end up using Google on searches. It seems its engine finds resources Duck Duck Go’s search engine does not uncover.