Analysis | In Ukraine, technology platforms abandon the illusion of neutrality –

Research results should be unbiased. Social media platforms should be neutral. The internet should be for everyone.

While such cyber-utopian ideals have been defeated over the years, they have proved remarkably durable, in part because tech companies claimed they were true. But the war in Ukraine defeats them.

Tech companies, from Facebook to TikTok and DuckDuckGo, are under pressure to take a clear stand against the continued Russian invasion of Ukraine. With a few exceptions, technology has answered the call at the expense of a relationship with Russia.

However, there is another price to pay for what many consider the right thing to do in Ukraine. Requires Tech companies need to recognize It is very obvious that their products and policies are ultimately not neutral and reminds us of their untested power over the world’s information systems.

Just two months ago, DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine, became a trend on Twitter as conservative pundits and activists hailed it as a neutral alternative to Google. In particular, they appreciated DuckDuckGo’s announcement of the results. Conspiracy theory supported Although Google’s results were mostly static, they were pushed by the latest podcast host, Joe Rogan.

They may not realize that DuckDuckGo’s results, largely based on Microsoft Bing, are not “biased.” Deliberately. They have been less effective than Google at finding more reliable sources of information. DuckDuckGo knew this, of course. But over the years it has encouraged such misunderstandings by popularizing the search engine. “Neutral” and “biased”.

Facebook breaks its rules to allow calls for violence against Russian invaders

On Friday, DuckDuckGo still found itself in trend among the conservatives, but this time it was the wrong part of their anger. Reason: Gabriel Weinberg, CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, said the search engine will be launched. Damaged sites linked to Russian disinformation.

“Not so, brother,” said an influential libertarian. Taken on Twitterhas collected more than 22,000 likes. “We no longer trust anyone to decide what ‘false information’ is,” she said. Let’s make our calls on this. Otherwise, you will become only tentacles of the service of truth.

This time hashtag: #DuckDuckGone.

The truth is, as all major search engine providers have personally noted for a long time, there is no unbiased search algorithm. The main purpose of search engines is to rank results based on a specific set of subjective criteria, which typically includes issues such as page relevance, source reputation, and feedback from users and testers on the quality of results. The goal has always been to obtain reliable information on disinformation.

The difference is that this is usually done covertly through code fixes which may be more effective for some search queries than others. The quiet side of DuckDuckGo has been clearly revealed, especially by openly acknowledging that he has cracked down on Russian misinformation. And the backlash from the right reminded us why many tech companies choose to avoid doing so whenever possible.

New documents show Facebook’s racist blind hate speech at the expense of black users

At the same time, Facebook has been trying for years to strike the needle between a responsible actor who controls the hatred, disinformation and threat between the two sides by providing a neutral platform for all opinion. The integrity of democratic elections. All along, he relied heavily on the long line of Byzantine “community standards” that he intended to use objectively, without political favor, to decide which posts and accounts to allow and which to delete.

Of course, there is no universal regulation that applies to all acceptable speech limits. And neutrality, if possible, is a dubious North Star, leading to a false equivalence between truth tellers and liars or oppressors and oppressors. Therefore, in practice, Facebook constantly folds, changes, and adds new ones to these rules when circumstances and public pressure dictate.

But it is rare for the company to publicly adopt the double standard, as it did on Thursday when it said it would allow exceptions to the rules against violence and hate speech against Ukraine and some neighboring countries. For example, he will no longer take on the role of a Ukrainian who says “death to the Russian invaders”. It came a week after the company said it would change the rules so that people could praise the neo-Nazis in Ukraine in the context of their resistance to the Russian occupation.

This is an understandable step: ban or suppress the speech of Ukrainian consumers who support or oppose them at a time when their country is under attack and their lives are orderly, cruel and perhaps even abusive. However, it raises fair questions about why it refuses to take such a principled stance in other contexts, such as Facebook’s long-standing “race-blind” policy that equates criticism of whites with anti-black racism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/04/tiktok-ukraine-russia-politics/

TikTok presented itself in an even more apolitical way than Facebook: a place of fun and entertainment. But no platform of this magnitude can be truly apolitical, and the war in Ukraine has shown more clearly than ever that TikTok is a battleground for information and ideas.

The Washington Post on Friday reported that the White House is holding a Ukraine briefing for 30 TikTok stars. Meanwhile, Vice News reports that other TikTok stars have been paid in the Kremlin party line.

Early in the conflict, TikTok followed Facebook and YouTube to ban Russian state media in Europe, partly in response to pressure from Ukrainian leaders. Last weekend, he stopped posting new videos from Russia in response to the Russian “fake news” law.

Scientists studying the impact of technology on society will tell you that technology is practically never neutral and hardly any algorithm is neutral. What we should be asking of tech companies, rather than impartiality, is transparency about the biases embedded in their products and accountability for their impact. Unfortunately, the shocking world war pushed them to move in this direction.