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We need to talk about @DuckDuckGo. Many security & privacy people (including me) have recommended it in the past because we like the idea of a search engine that doesn't set tracking cookies. However, the site has developed some strange connections with right wing media. 1/9
DDG is recommended at the end of this propaganda film that Trump posted to his Twitter feed, which makes wild accusations about mainstream American institutions being controlled by the Chinese government. 2/9 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1341948764068704256
The video says that mainstream search engines are subject to manipulation by the Chinese, but DDG provides real, objective results, and suggests that viewers compare them and see. 3/9
A quick look at some DDG searches seems to confirm that something is going on here. Search for "election fraud" and most of the results come from right wing sources: 4/9 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=election+fraud
The first page of DDG results for "election" includes one Twitter feed - for Wizard_Predicts, a right wing election news feed that wants you to follow it on Parler. 5/9 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=election
There is no objective way of looking at the web that would sort these results to the top. The "Election Wizard" is not more widely followed or linked than, say, Nate Silver. Why is DDG's software doing this? 6/9
Perhaps right wing pundits have come up with a set of SEO techniques that allow them to game DDG's algorithms or one of their partners. If so, this is something DDG should take steps to address. 7/9
Or, maybe DDG has tweaked their algorithms intentionally to surface right wing results. If so, that is absolutely within their First Amendment rights. However, I personally think its unethical for a search engine to do this without being completely above board about it. 8/9
Regardless of the explanation, I feel that people in the Security & Privacy community should be aware of these facts. 9/9
I need to add another datapoint here. After writing this I took a look at some of the results from Microsoft's @bing. Many of the results I found surprising seem to map to Bing. For example, the election wizard appears in the second page of Bing search results for "election."
Many of the results for "election fraud" on @bing are similar to the results I noticed on DDG. Because DDG relies on data from Bing, it may be that this is where the problem lies.
This seems to strengthen the hypothesis that SEO gaming is being used to produce these outcomes, and that DDG is an innocent bystander.
