DuckDuck..Gone: "Why not signal" (archive.ph)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by rcbrk@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So, this is interesting. I wanted to find that essay by @dessalines@lemmy.ml outlining the many issues of Signal and suggested alternatives, but DuckDuckGo had nothing for me. Not on the first page, not on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th page.

I thought maybe I just imagined the title, but sure enough, on searching lemmy posts, it was right there. Then I thought "hang on, there's hardly a mention let alone criticism of signal on any page of those search results!".

Hmm.. the wording might be a bit ambiguous, but let's compare:

DuckDuckGo "why not signal" - NOTHING
Google "why not signal"
- Plenty of results! Dessaline's essay is first up, followed by a plethora of discussions about the essay on HN, Reddit, lemmys, mastodons, and more. Not evil! ..this time.
DuckDuckGo "why not signal" dessalines
- Okay, so DDG has indexed it just fine. Maybe dessalines is "downranked" à la RT.com?
DuckDuckGo "why not market socialism"
- Nope, finds one of dessalines' socialism essays just fine, half way down the page.

All of the following except Gigablast returned a healthy list of results including the original essay:

top 4 comments

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[-] BlackXanthus@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I thought I'd test this. I got the essay as the 4th result, the top 3 are about mobile phone signal, with the essay coming in as 4th.

I use Vivaldi on Android. DDG has my location set to the UK.

[-] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 5 points 1 year ago

Same here. 4th result on DDG browser and 3rd result on Chromium DDG.com

DDG browser:

Chromium DDG.com:

[-] janonymous@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Same, using Firefox with DGG as default search engine

[-] vacuumoftalent@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I don't see it when I search for Why not signal but I see it if I search Why not signal lemmy

this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2022

42 points (79.2% liked)

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