Yes to this! This will nuke growth of this search, as many are coming to this now from duckduckgo after they officially announced they’d be censoring somethings many thing is not high enough over the bar to be censored… I’m all team brave, long as it stays rational and pro freedom!
All i know is using the search terms in all four search engines gave us two nearly identical results. DDG and Brave returned ‘conspiracy theory’ results, RH and Qwant returned actual current results. A little further down was the conspiracy theory links. The current news regarding 2,000 Mules has also been censored, a Brave search shows all the Google/Youtube and other free sites, and not the original site where the tickets could be bought for viewing. I get that everyone loves free, but that is misleading at best and meant to deprive the creator of the funds earned.
I think the problem rests more with the choice of having Wikipedia be the information source. Wiki are out-and-out leftwing, no pretence about it. Brave should strive to use wholly neutral sources rather than big names which had the fortune of being in early and generating a regular audience before getting politically involved in the public discourse. For a new site with equal status to Wiki, and to be neutral, is a tall order at this juncture, but nevertheless, I think it will bode well for Brave if they pursue this line of thought. Britannica used to be THE encyclopaedia, nothing to say Wiki won’t decline once people find an alternative—Brave can help bring that about.
@Simxn Loved your post! Expresses my thoughts exactly.
I do think Wiki can be neutral but not on hot topic issues. Having to slog through and determining which are or are not presented neutrally is just not worth it. That’s why I rarely use that site - I really try to avoid using it at all.
I like Britannica for the most part. I have run across a couple of questionable entries (can’t think of any off the top of my head atm), but overall appears to present information neutrally as far as I can tell. Do hope it stays that way. As you say… finding sites that are neutral is a tall order at this point.
Brave should not be promoting a fake news widget
Brave should’ve labeled those as promoters of white supremacy as well because that’s what they do.
I don’t think Brave labels anything. It just presents search results. I think the topic is mostly discussing how these search results appear to be skewed to left-leaning or left-wing political views. Displaying Wikipedia articles, which in many instances presents information with a left-leaning or left-wing political slant, prominently in search results gives an impression that Brave searches are biased towards left-wing political views.
Take the fundamentalist discussion. The meaning of the word has been lost over time and instead of giving definitive information, it is now used in many instances as a slur with negative connotations that have absolutely no relation to the historical definition or usage of the term. The word fundamentalist has lost its meaning. Mostly, imo, through left-wing political propaganda.
Below is a quote from the last paragraph of the wikipedia article on fundamentalism:
The Associated Press’ AP Stylebook recommends that the term fundamentalist not be used for any group that does not apply the term to itself. Many scholars have adopted a similar position.[58] Other scholars, however, use the term in the broader descriptive sense to refer to various groups in various religious traditions including those groups that would object to being classified as fundamentalists, such as in the Fundamentalism Project.[[59]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism#cite_note
And also according to wikipedia, the AP Stylebook (bold highlight mine)
…has become the leading reference for most forms of public-facing corporate communication over the last half-century. The Stylebook offers a basic reference to American English grammar, punctuation and principles of reporting, including many definitions and rules for usage as well as styles for capitalization, abbreviation, spelling and numerals.
So, why would wikipedia put “Focus on the Family (FOTF or FotF ) is an American fundamentalist Christian[3] organization…” in the very first line of the article since it does not “apply the term to itself”? At the very least, if it were a neutral source of information, it should follow the AP Stylebook recommendation.
For example, Media Bias/Fact Check calls FotF “…an American Christian conservative organization…” which at least gives the appearance of following AP Stylebook recommendations and presenting information neutrally.
This thread is hereby locked, do not create more replies to it.
A lot of stuff is going off-topic.
lol too funny. I think the majority of the posts to the topic are on topic. Most longer topics do have a couple of off-topic posts here and there with a few side-discussions thrown in! So, not sure what you are referring to… unless it was meant as humor… which totally went over my head… maybe something to do with a post that is off-topic itself… Ooops and Sorry if that is the case.
Do you consider my above post off-topic (or any of my posts)? I thought it was relevant but may be just my point of view. Specifically in reference to the below posted in the topic by the OP:
I was trying to explain why that may be a perception, especially with wikipedia results being displayed prominently and why wikipedia may be considered a left-biased site. Did I miss the target?
It does not quite work that way, especially since you are not the OP. But as @Chocoholic stated, most replies have been on topic. I’ve kept my thoughts to myself thus far on this topic as I try not to get involved in public discussion of politics. With that said, I tend to agree with most posts here. Whether or not Brave posts search results with a particular political slant, it certainly seems that way. And any results that show Wikipedia topics is definitely left wing as they are 100% biased towards the left. If unbiased search results are the intention, Wikipedia should NEVER be included.
As mentioned previously and as @chh_68 pointed out in one of his posts, I don’t want any search results “removed”: wikipedia should be listed normally in search results if applicable.
My objection is they are being “promoted” as an information source. If it is because they are considered a dictionary/encyclopedia source, then some other, more neutral and balanced source for the same information needs to be displayed in the prominent positions and NOT wikipedia. I do not know if that is possible. I do think it does give the appearance that Brave is biased towards the left having wikipedia displayed as the dictionary/encyclopedia source.
Normally I agree. I am against censoring in general. Let the results show cnn, msnbc and other left leaning trash rags. Those are geared towards adults and their minds are already set on their political leanings. But a lot of youth do searches and get Wikipedia results, which are ususally deceptively edited or are out and out lies. That disturbs me greatly.
I’m facing a similar situation. I just did a search for “When Trump takes office” and the results came back with practically all links/sites being leftist/left-leaning sites. I mean, not even Fox News was listed. I’m sorry, but it’s been over 2 years and the excuse that it’s hard to program a search engine doesn’t fly anymore. You’ve had more than enough time to figure this out and the fact that you are excluding very popular news sources is only telling of your bias. Please, I do appreciate the security of your browser thus far. But, with your statements in the past and the current state of your search engine, I’m starting to doubt your honesty in this. If your not being honest about your search engine, what else is not accurate? Is our information actually secure, or is it being sold to third parties?
These are screenshots of the first page search returns without “Goggles,” so it should be fairly balanced, right? Wrong. Not even Dailywire or Fox News is listed on this or the next 7 pages of search returns. I’ve gotten news sites going so far as some local ones in varying states, but not major national news organizations from conservative sources. Don’t tell me you’re unbiased or that I need to use your “Goggles” feature. If I’m not using goggles it should be a balanced search return.
Ref.:
Another case of political bias in search results - #3 by Mattches
“We pull results from the web based ranking by site popularity.”
Okay, popularity, according to who? Also, the “Goggles” are a complete joke. Since when is NBC or New York Post considered a conservative (or “right” leaning) news entity? I clicked on that and not a single source was from the “right.”
Unless you have something to show that actually refutes what I saw, tested, tried then you are but words.
Seems to me, that The Site Popularity Drivers of:
- Search Engines
- Websites
are regarded by both of those, as being necessary for drawing in a likely (D Width Shoestore) crowd of ad-viewers.
That requires me to use:
- Goggles, when using BB
- Search Engine Operators
in order to try and disable the “bias” effect(s) of the search engine’s Site Popularity Driver.
Goggles are a concern, because the something.goggle file that “you” create, is required to be stored at GitHub or Git Something(?).
In other words, the Goggles procedure is not some thing that a search engine user normally expects - in contrast to using a few buttons or writing some Search Engine Operators after the key words of search criteria.
I would like a button that disables the search engine’s Site Popularity Driver.
For the first time, I just used the “News from the Right” goggle:
Notice: allsides.com
The first page of the Brave Search results, listed sources:
- New York Post (nypost.com)
- Fox News (foxnews.com)
- Daily Mail UK (dailymail.co.uk)
- Breitbart (breitbart.com)
- Fox Business (foxbusiness.com)
- The Gateway Pundit (thegatewaypundit.com)
- The Epoch Times (theepochtimes.com)
Okay, if that is what you got as a return, yours was better for that search than mine. What was your search criteria? Side note: Since when is the Post or Dailymail right leaning/conservative media entities?
Also, in response to your comment before about site popularity, where are those stats pulled from? As far as media companies in traditional news networks, Fox was the highest rated for the last several years. Now, my search was about the inauguration, which is happening today. So, why would nothing from Fox or any other entity on the “right” be missing from the first 7 pages of general search? I’m sorry if I’m mistaken, that’s evidence of a bias. Now, if what foundation for Brave’s search engine is what is providing the bias then they should address that. You said they used Github, does Github have a something in their coding that blocks that side of the aisle? Bottom line is, the evidence is there that there is bias in Brave’s search engine; whether by their own making, through external input or in the foundation of their engine via sourcing.
Search criteria was “Trump inaugeration”.
Perhaps the question to ask, is about
They are the current claimed-to-be un-biased / impartial reference used by the Brave Search Engine. Examine their list of
- “left” sources
- “right” sources