Search engine

Search engine link (computation technology)
File:Search engine.jpg
Search engines are websites that record and index webpages in order to handle user searches, presenting a list of them to users who input a search term.

Search engines for the World Wide Web have increasingly attracted the interest of those interested in manipulating public opinion, particularly since about 2000. Censorship of search engines is harder to detect than social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter.

History

Google, funded by the American intelligence community (NSA/CIA/DARPA) was an early and high popular search engine.

Two decades ago, the US intelligence community worked closely with Silicon Valley in an effort to track citizens in cyberspace. And Google is at the heart of that origin story. Some of the research that led to Google’s ambitious creation was funded and coordinated by a research group established by the intelligence community to find ways to track individuals and groups online.

It originally avoided "sponsored results" (advertisers who bought their way to the top of the rankings) and did little advertising, but focused on providing good search results. As of 2021, it remains the most popular search engine.

"Bias"

Search engines inevitably prioritise certain pages over others - i.e. put them nearer the top. Some search engines may publish a few details of their ranking algorithms, but for almost all the exact details are a closely guarded commercial secret. One exception is Gigablast, a small search engine which publishes its source code on Github.

Subject-specific Blocking

Some search engines carry out subject-specific blocking of certain domains - not returning results from a particular domain in response to particular search terms. This is a form of internet censorship which might be motivated by a variety of situations (e.g. copyright infringement or other such legal issues) but could also be used to try to prevent public access to specific information.

As of January 2018, neither Google, Ask.com nor StartPage returned any hits in the top 100 from the ISGP site for the search term "Dutroux Affair" (without quotes).StartPage only had 81 hits and Ask.com had only 40. only the top #100 were searched on Google. This is interesting since Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Ecosia, and Gigablast all returned the ISGP page of this name amongst their top 10 hits.

Finding information in the 2020s

Strict adherence to a single search engine (e.g. routine use of Google) encourages subject specific blocking of important content. Noting the track record of organised money editing the output of search engines, particularly on matters of deep political relevance, site editors are reminded of Robert Malone's 2023 statement of the obvious that {{#subobject: |Has superobject=Search engine |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Robert Malone|+sep=, |Has text=“When trying to triangulate truth these days, it is often useful to employ multiple different search engines.” |Is about=Search engine,Internet/Censorship, Google, COVID-19/Censorship, Memory hole|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=28 January 2023 |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/pfizer-responses-to-veritas-expose }}“When trying to triangulate truth these days, it is often useful to employ multiple different search engines.”

Censorship

In 2022 Melissa Dykes of Truthstream Media produced Where Where Did the Rest of the Internet Go? about Google's construction of a hall of mirrors reflecting only establishment opinions. Noting the claim that millions of results exist, and the fact that they only share a tiny fraction of this number with their users she likens this to a digital Potemkin village.

Refinement of searches

Google and others allow to make searches more specific with certain inputs.

References