The CEO of privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo announced that websites related to Russian disinformation are being downgraded. Gabriel Weinberg made the statement on Twitter. In addition, he said information boxes would be placed around search results to highlight high-quality information about events in Eastern European countries.
DuckDuckGo was a bit slow in announcing measures against Russian disinformation, given that Russia launched its military action against Ukraine two weeks ago. Both Google and Microsoft have banned RT and Sputnik on their respective platforms, while YouTube and Facebook have also announced the castration of some Russian content creators who spread disinformation.
Reactions to DuckDuckGo’s move were mixed, with some saying it should be normal for false information to be downranked because they do searches expecting accurate information, while others criticized the company for manipulating results because it has long opposed others. Search providers use filter bubbles to change the results different people see.