DuckDuckGo Examining Google's Search Tailoring

rgMekanic

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DuckDuckGo, most well known for its privacy focused, non-tracking search engine, has announced on their Twitter that they are looking for volunteers on Sunday PM to "examine the extent of Google's filter bubble, i.e. how much results are tailored." It has long been rumored that Google shapes and filters it's search results, so the results of this examination by DuckDuckGo will be very interesting.

Hi all! We're looking for volunteers on Sunday pm to help examine the extent of Google's filter bubble, i.e. how much results are tailored. If you'd like to help and are:
* In the US
* Able to take screenshots
* Happy to answer questions
please email "hi" to [email protected]
 
You can tell by doing an identical search both when logged into your Google account and logged out. The search results are quite different. I noticed long ago that Google was giving results for me in particular, which is not how I like to search.
 
You can tell by doing an identical search both when logged into your Google account and logged out. The search results are quite different. I noticed long ago that Google was giving results for me in particular, which is not how I like to search.
Even logged out, they'll give different results depending on whose PC you are searching from.
 
Even logged out, they'll give different results depending on whose PC you are searching from.

Use a proxy to change the location of your search and you can see how results are tailored to the local climate through user clicks. I get how it can happen, even without intervention, but it's really not good for people to live in a bubble of endless self-reinforcement. People need to be offended more. A lot more.
 
Use a proxy to change the location of your search and you can see how results are tailored to the local climate through user clicks. I get how it can happen, even without intervention, but it's really not good for people to live in a bubble of endless self-reinforcement. People need to be offended more. A lot more.
One must ask who is pulling the strings behind all this, because the traditional media is keeping you in bubble and now even the search engines. There's a conspiracy.
 
Conclusion: it is tailored extensively. So are which add you get, even video suggestions... Logged in or not, once you start getting cookied, you are tracked all the same... Its worrying and sometimes useful... More useful when shopping, less useful for finding just information or just an answer. In my mobile i fire up firefox focus for these reasons on occasion.
 
One must ask who is pulling the strings behind all this, because the traditional media is keeping you in bubble and now even the search engines. There's a conspiracy.

The traditional media can't keep you in a bubble, nor can online media. The process is entirely voluntary.

We live in a world filled to the brim with knowledge and virtually all of it is at our fingertips, information floods us at every turn and companies want to tailor that information to make us feel good. All in the name of customer service, often at the expense of the truth. It's up to us to go and acquire information we may not like to hear, it's even more important that we learn to analyse what's in front of us. We're drowning ourselves in comfortable bull shit. Truth matters more now than it ever has, yet we spend so much time trying to avoid it.
 
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The traditional media can't keep you in a bubble, nor can online media. The process is entirely voluntary.

We live in a world filled to the brim with knowledge and virtually all of it is at our fingertips, information floods us at every turn and companies want to tailor that information to make us feel good. All in the name of customer service, often at the expense of the truth. It's up to us to go and acquire information we may not like to hear, it's even more important that we learn to analyse what's in front of us. We're drowning ourselves in comfortable bull shit. Truth matters more now than it ever has, yet we spend so much time trying to avoid it.

It's not voluntary at all. Unless you spend your time working and finding alternative sources of information (and checking their veriability) you live in a bubble. That counts for 99% of people.
 
I see this as a problem for people who visit news sites.

I don't.
Most things I Google for are Wikipedia articles and YouTube movies because I'm too lazy to go straight to those sites (and Google opens automatically as new window).
So if Google tailors what the best Dell XPS 15 video is for me, so be it.
 
I see this as a problem for people who visit news sites.

I don't.
Most things I Google for are Wikipedia articles and YouTube movies because I'm too lazy to go straight to those sites (and Google opens automatically as new window).
So if Google tailors what the best Dell XPS 15 video is for me, so be it.

Problem is not just for people who visit news sites, 'Google it' is a way that I and a lot of other people search for answers to all kinds of questions: scientific, historical, cultural and everything else.

Except now I am 'Duckduckgoing it.' Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. They really should come up with a better name.
 
Problem is not just for people who visit news sites, 'Google it' is a way that I and a lot of other people search for answers to all kinds of questions: scientific, historical, cultural and everything else.

Except now I am 'Duckduckgoing it.' Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. They really should come up with a better name.
Ducking it? And respond to the inevitable question?
 
Problem is not just for people who visit news sites, 'Google it' is a way that I and a lot of other people search for answers to all kinds of questions: scientific, historical, cultural and everything else.

Except now I am 'Duckduckgoing it.' Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. They really should come up with a better name.
"Search it".

It's 2018, no one is going to go to the library and search through newspaper scans.
 
I love&sickened at google. I used scroogle for the longest time till the owner got hit with ddos and quit the service. Google just brings up shit that thinks u want which is incorrect.
 
I would pretty much guess the filters get shutdown this Sunday Night, except the ones like the child safety, etc.
 
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