Paul Cantrell
For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi. Its search results are…fine, no worse than others, and it’s ad-free, stated privacy as a primary goal, and seemed to have a better ethical sense than its competitors.
Or so I hoped.
1/
Paul Cantrell
Kagi recently started using some services provided by Brave, a company run by immensely objectionable people. Kagi community members rightly raised concerns about this.
I was curious to see Kagi’s response. This is a tricky question that requires a thoughtful, careful response. Their response would be telling: not just about the question of Brave, but about their general ethical outlook.
2/
Paul Cantrell
I’m sympathetic to Kagi’s dilemma. This company may well provide useful services. And it is impossible to completely avoid engaging with people and companies who do harm in the world; that is our reality.
We can’t always disengage. What we •can• do, at a bare minimum, is think carefully about how we engage, and make wise decisions (as businesses and as individuals) that take into account our indirect impact on the world.
Again, these community concerns merit a thoughtful response.
3/
Paul Cantrell
What I found was _not_ a thoughtful, careful response. What I found was the founder of Kagi saying:
“Politics finding its way into tech is one of the reason we do not have innovation any more.”
https://kagifeedback.org/d/2808-reconsider-your-partnership-with-brave/5
Well shit. That is the reddest of red flags.
4/
Paul Cantrell
My dude, politics were deeply intertwined with tech long before I wrote my first line of code back in 1982. You don’t get to opt out. That choice isn’t even on the table. You interact with humans, you interact with politics.
Vlad’s post is an historically ignorant, pants-on-head-stupid answer to a serious question. When I read it, I hear, “We’re not ethically mature enough to think about our social responsibility, so we’ve given ourselves permission to take no responsibility at all.”
5/
Paul Cantrell
I mean, at •best• that’s what I hear. At worst, I suspect that Kagi’s leadership is sympathetic to (or fully in bed with) the right-wing politics of Brave, and is using a claim of being apolitical as cover for their own politics. That would be par for the course when somebody gives this sort of “I’m staying out of politics” excuse for their politically charged actions.
6/
Paul Cantrell
Which is it? Doesn’t matter.
When I give a company access to all of my searches, I’m giving them an •extraordinary• degree of trust. Earning that trust from me requires a keen ethical awareness, and a sense of responsibility that never shrinks into the shadows and says “Not our problem! Not our responsibility!” when market forces raise ethical questions.
I want a company with a moral compass and a spine.
7/
Paul Cantrell
I want to know that the people at a search company believe that my ethical concerns are their concerns, that they view social responsibility as their responsibility, and that they won’t duck under a rock and make expedient excuses for themselves.
Who is that company? Not Google. Not Microsoft.
I’d hoped it might be Kagi.
Nope.
8/
Paul Cantrell
Search is a wasteland right now. Alas. And there are no good choices.
But look, if I’m going to •pay• a company money for search, it needs to be a company run by ethically mature people. If and when Kagi is run by such people, maybe I’ll give that paid plan another go. For now, well, maybe these childish people will blunder their way to maturity and maybe they’ll just blunder, but either way, they won’t be doing it on my dime.
/end
Paul Cantrell
@mastodonmigration For me, the Brave question was only a question — but the ineptitude of this response suggests to me that either (1) the founder is not ready to play with the grown-ups or (2) the founder is secretly terrible. At this point, even if they pulled the Brave relationship, I’d still be out. This is not somebody ready for prime time.
Mastodon Migration
Thanks for this thoughtful post. Not familiar with Kagi, but the ethical dilemma is old as the ages. Something is developed with the best of intentions, or at least marketed as such. It gains traction, and the idealism of the founders is tested over and over again with progressively greater incentive to join the dark side. Eventually the magnitude of the payday is just too great, the deal is struck, and "don't be evil" goes out the window.
Paul Cantrell
@doritc Yeah. I mean, even more than search quality, what I was paying for was trust. With that damaged, it’s not worth paying for.
Dorit
@inthehands Thanks for the explanation. I was trialing Kagi, but not convinced of the balance between gains and extra effort. If now the gains vanish …
Jess👾
Politics has been inexorably intertwined with tech ever since ancient hominids used a tool to accomplish a task for the first time hundreds of thousands of years ago.
But ALSO, people's objections to the Brave leadership aren't "political" disagreements unless you want to consider people's human rights "political".
phiofx
@inthehands i suspect that just like mozilla and any other niche operator facing the concentration of power and money in bigtech they dont have many options. Money is scarce for wannabee disruptors of the worst cartel in history, existentially scarce.
Not excusing any choices, just pondering the conditions under which they are made.
Imho we are now in a phase where only search-as-public-good can change the status quo. Essentially only governments/states can kill the monster they created.
Paul Cantrell
@JessTheUnstill Yup. And…I guess I do consider people’s human rights “political” inasmuch as there are always ways human rights are under threat in any society — and since “politics” is the word for “the set of activities associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals,” well, then, politics is the word for how we fight to protect (or destroy) those rights. (Similar thoughts to yours from different angle, I think.)
Paul Cantrell
@phiofx Yeah. As per upthread, I’m actually quite sympathetic to whatever forces might be pushing them to collaborate with a highly objectionable company. It’s the response that’s the deal-killer. Even more than search quality, what I’m was paying Kagi for was •trust•. That’s damaged now; these people are at best too immature to be trustworthy. At that point, what am I paying for?!
Paul Cantrell
@ChildlessBambino Hadn’t heard of it before. Thanks!
Childless Bambino
@inthehands if no one has suggested it yet you could give mojeek a try. I alternative between them and ddg
phiofx
@inthehands i think the abstract, macro, idea is that companies must treat their clients well (trust as a condition for staying in business). But we know that at the micro level this is breached all the time. Surveillance capitalism did not invent greed, just the next level of it.
For-profit search business models where clients pay directly should minimally be heavily regulated and monitored, like any entity that has access to such vast amounts of user data.
Chris Kolbu
@inthehands @nicklockwood Well shit.
Stu
@inthehands I made the mistake of reading some of the replies in that thread. Good grief.
Jeff ♨️ Darcy
@inthehands "We don't want politics in XYZ" is just another way of saying "we like the political situation as it is". Always. There is no "politically neutral" model of interaction. What we should promote is a *cosmopolitan* model, where people can express a variety of political views safely. Some views (e.g. those that deny others' rights including the right to their own opinion) should still have consequences, but most should be able to *coexist*.
Paul Cantrell
@zdl
I’ve found that by sheer numbers, there are plenty of morally concerned techies — they just don’t rush to start companies.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@inthehands Truth be told, I find that most strongly technical people are moral toddlers. Very little I've seen while working in tech companies (in marketing) convinces me otherwise.
Are there moral techies? Of course. It's just they're the unicorns. Most are amoral. Some are flat-out vile.
Paul Cantrell
@petermilley Yes, with my cancellation.
Peter Milley
@inthehands that response has a lot of likes on the kagifeedback thread. Has Kagi received your feedback?
Paul Cantrell
@Obdurodon I mostly agree.
On top of that, I want a model where people actually think about their actions, and listen to others about those consequences.
Sven A. Schmidt
@inthehands Renewal coming up on Jan 22, so that was impeccable timing. Cancelled 🛑
Paul Cantrell
@finestructure I’d renewed on Dec 28. Sigh.
Sven A. Schmidt
@inthehands I’ve been on a paid plan with Kagi for a year now but I’m not going to renew. Back to DuckDuckGo, I suppose… There’s a distinct lack of search engines that are just… decent.
Paul Cantrell
@codedude I mean, you might not be wrong — and Google in particular has gone downhill fast in recent years. But at least with them there’s a sense that they think they need to have reasons for things, not this “I”m a safe driver because I don’t look at the road” businesses.
And yes, some companies really are better than others. Google & MS are still ethically miles better than Facebook, for example.
codedude
@inthehands the cynical part of me wants to think that Microsoft and Google are just as bad - it’s just as not as obvious. :/
A Part of Bee
@inthehands I just got inspired to meme by this awful statement.
MJ
@inthehands Yeah, the search results seem to net just about as bad as Google’s except for one test. https://danluu.com/seo-spam/
Paul Cantrell
@jotaemei
A fascinating post, thanks
Matthew Miller
They also seem to be losing the war vs content farms, and that is only going to get worse in the next few years.
StarkRG
@morix @inthehands Politics is stifling innovation in cotton farm personnel management. --Confederate leaders, probably
Paul Cantrell
@thunderfist No idea. I’m looking around too, same as you.
ThunderFist!!!
@inthehands any thoughts on searx or searxng? I'm looking at those as potential replacements.
Paul Cantrell
@ddlyh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm more or less at square one investigating search engines.
DHeadshot's Alt
@inthehands
Search is pretty limited and the few independent players aren't as useful for a lot of things, but AI could level the playing field... ...By making the content of the big players so bad it doesn't matter what search engine you use, you'll still get rot! I guess we'll be going back to curated site directories for most things but that won't help for error messages...
In the meantime, what do you think of Mojeek? I've found them useful on occasion.
Claudius Link
@JessTheUnstill @inthehands
Additionally most of the tech exists because of "politics"
Thinking e.g. of the military finding of the ARPNET
One could say, without politics there is no innovation
noodlejetski :verified_gay:
@wonkothesane @mattly @inthehands yeah, kinda sad how that "shoving" comment is still there, but Vlad has been removing any new comments and just directs people to DM him instead. saw a thread where two people were criticizing the company's response disappear before my eyes last night.
Michael Santaly
@mattly @inthehands I’ve been trying to reason with people in their discord server…it’s kinda wild how much it embodies toxic tech culture. “These people are woke” and “stop shoving LGBTQ issues down our throats” are actual responses I’m encountering.
To be clear these people are not the dev team (so far), but I would nuke the entire server if I was hosting a community like that
Paul Cantrell
@valentyn
Valentijn, you’ve really missed the central line of thought of the thread. Slow down. Read better. What specifically do I identify as the reason for canceling service? It’s not “rejecting people.” What is it?
Valentijn Sessink
@inthehands I'm not sure I understand the part where you start rejecting people because they reject people. For me, the more general view is to hope to include everyone. That's not possible, I know. But in order to be inclusive, I feel an obligation to try to be inclusive. Yeah, that includes idiots, bigots, users of Kagi and haters of it too and also people who just don't care. I hope you feel welcome, too.
Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷
@inthehands What's most disappointing here is the lack of seeing how this clashes with #Kagi 's supposed mission of "humanizing the web".
You can't do that while pretending ethics aren't part of it. Or by defending your business relationship with someone who denies basic human rights to some.
I think it'd be recoverable for Kagi if they end up revisiting the issue, but right now, I'm disappointed a.f.
Paul Cantrell
@kzhe @larsmb
Given that my deal-killing objection was not actually them using Brave’s services but rather their unwillingness to think about the underlying issues, I can’t say that this “we’ll let you cover your eyes too” response addresses my concerns at all.
Georges Danton
@larsmb @inthehands They've announced changes on their Discord, which are limited to: allow users to filter their result sources, potentially not pay Brave and instead ask for free API access.
Blake E. Reid 🍍🍕🥫🏁
@inthehands d'oh. I had no idea about Brave. Any other suggestions for a privacy-protective Chromium browser?
Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷
@inthehands Kind of in agreement. However, I hope they are going to think about the issues now. It'd have been best if they had done so before, obviously ...
Paul Cantrell
@larsmb @kzhe
What’s turned me off is the incapacity for thought. Whatever they decide about Brave now that they’re under pressure, I just don’t see a company that’s ready to play with the grown-ups.
Here’s the thing: the Brave issue is relatively minor compared to the ethical questions a search company is going to face. And they’ll often face those questions out of public sight, and free from public pressure.
Paul Cantrell
ADDENDUM 1/2: Kagi is apparently now flailing around trying to find a quick and dirty fix for the uproar: “maybe you can disable Brave in your search results or we’ll try to make their services free other something” etc etc.
My deal-killing objection was not actually them using Brave’s services, but rather their •unwillingness to think• about the underlying issues in doing so. I can’t say that this “we’ll let you cover your eyes too” sort of response addresses my concerns at all.
Paul Cantrell
ADDENDUM 2/2: A search engine is going to face some of the toughest ethical problems a tech company can face. And they’ll face most of those problems ••out of public sight••.
I’m interested in the people, their thought process, their temperament. How do they engage with ethical questions? Perfection is impossible, but will they at least •try•? Do they have the capacity to try? Do they even give a shit?
Or do they actively refuse to give a shit and call that a virtue? Apparently so for Kagi.
Paul Cantrell
@SkipHuffman @realn2s @JessTheUnstill Nothing endures but change and typos.
Galbinus Caeli 🌯
@realn2s @JessTheUnstill @inthehands "ARPANET" for anyone trying to look that up.
Donald Ball
@inthehands Aside from everything else, it seems a total misread of or disregard for the choices their own customers are making in subscribing. Efficacy is part of it, sure, but ethics is as well!
Paul Cantrell
@donaldball
Exactly. I don’t think they understand what they’re selling, what their customers had been paying for.
Paul Cantrell
@trigonella
Indeed.
I’d say that being apolitical or apathetic in the face of oppression •is• being political.
मेंथी
@inthehands For those who are #Kagi subscribers, you can make your feelings known by emailing support@kagi.com
Being apolitical or apathetic in the face of oppression is not a virtue.
Paul Cantrell
@louis @donaldball What •this• previously paying Kagi thought he was paying for was:
- decent search results
- without ads
- without privacy abuses
- without appeasing authoritarians
- without ignoring human impact
- and, in general, with greater concern for ethics than Google has shown of late
When they marketed themselves as “humanizing the web” — their term — that’s certainly the picture I got.
Not “search quality at any cost, nothing else matters.”
Louis
@inthehands @donaldball Any what is it they are selling? Please enlighten me as a paying Kagi customer.
Paul Cantrell
@louis @donaldball There is an entire thread above, which I encourage you to scroll up and read
Louis
@inthehands @donaldball Where did they change to “search quality at any cost, nothing else matters.” ?
freeformz 🏳️🌈
@inthehands well shit.
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