Suicide results should probably have a "don't do that" widget like google

Carnival0852

Sub-toggle 2: Omit harmful content that could lead to loss of life or injury.

Just out of curiosity, would you include, say, joe rogan discussing ivermectin as a covid treatment in that category? What about joe biden saying the "if you get the vaccine you can't get covid"? Who decides what is "harmful" or what the threshold for "potentially lead to loss of life" is?

I don't have the family plan, so I don't know exactly how it works, but wouldn't a much better feature be the option to toggle customizable 'lenses' for your kids that could exclude a user-definable list of keywords and sites? Then parents could each decide for themselves what they consider to be harmful for each of their own kids.

WoundedMoose

Carnival0852 "Death with dignity" is very different from straight-up suicide.

Carnival0852

WoundedMoose

"Death with dignity" is very different from straight-up suicide.

How so? Especially under regimes that ban medical professionals from providing assistance or even information to patients about end-of-life planning. Responsible people making their own well considered end-of-life decisions may need to resort to more home-brewed approaches.

acuteaura

Vlad,

At the same time I do not want to allow the business that is meant to serve users globally be led by mine or any employee's personal emotions and biases and this is why for Kagi we have principles of operation.

You are already interfering with the small web initiative (as you've said prior). I personally love this for my own search results, but it does skew towards content where the authors have the technical means and conviction to sideline the typical writing tools people use for either ease of accessibility or reach (e.g. Medium, Substack). To be blunt, you built a technocracy web initiative.

Evidence or research that suicide hotline widgets actually help in meaningful way.

That's a very utilitarian view. Morally, you may just not want to be involved in facilitating suicide. It was irritating when we exchanged emails and it is irritating to me now that you do not seem to grasp the difference between suicide and assisted dying. They have vastly different motivations and suicide, being the much more common, is usually linked to an acute state of crisis. Even though I'd generally be in favor of assisted suicide being available, there's still an ongoing discussion about the possibility of induced demand for such in Canada. Neutrality is not a neutral moral stance.

How do you deem one set of those morally acceptable to be left out unattended and intervene with others? This is the slippery slope question.

I think this is the hardest question in the room, but the absence of absolute answers does not mean you can avoid the question. Saying the line is fuzzy and concluding the line ends right below the wall of one side of the room because you are uncomfortable by the existence of the problem are entirely different things. I don't think you can claim to "humanize the web" and not answer this question for yourself and for your users when you act like every other large corporation and do the legal minimum.

Frankly, I personally don't consider interference with any of these queries a problem as long as it's reasonably established that's actually what someone is searching for (including intent, which is hard, and why most of these wouldn't work) and you are transparent about the request having restricted or specially curated results, because lack of disclosure (as common pretty much everywhere else; even up to using such info for marketing) is much more dangerous. I also think places like that suicide cult forum (from the article I sent you) or Josh's doxing and bullying forum should indeed be removed from the index, with a note that unsuitable results have been removed (similar to Google's DMCA removal notice).

Vlad

acuteaura

To be blunt, you built a technocracy web initiative.

That would be unfair and wrong characterization of what Kagi Small Web is. There are many technical sites submitted, but I'd say on average most are not. Here is what the first few links I just got in Kagi Small Web (your mileage may vary, links are random).

https://thebluemoment.com/2024/01/16/written-in-air/
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress.com/2024/01/18/mr-monk-and-the-two-assistants-2008-by-lee-goldberg/
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2024/01/18/polar-vortex/
https://antonyloewenstein.com/trt-world-interview-on-netanyahus-refusal-to-accept-palestinian-self-determination/
https://ultimatemaitai.com/2024/01/19/the-last-bottles-of-denizen-3/
https://jonworth.eu/the-future-of-long-distance-train-services-through-the-channel-tunnel/
https://bookmaniac.org/2024/01/18/weird-sf-and-a-kids-book-binge/

Does it lean geeky/nerdy? Perhaps. But that is the nature of the content independently written and maintained on the web these days. Most non-geeky people do not have a website and post on Facebook/Instagram instead.

That is exactly what Small Web is set to change by giving everyone a platform to surface their content and everyone can submit their blog or friend's blog. The only bias we are demonstrating here is willingness to give these humans a voice, regardless where they are coming from, something no other search engine does and this aligns with our mission to humanize the web.

Carnival0852

I personally don't consider interference with any of these queries a problem... I also think places like that suicide cult forum (from the article I sent you) or Josh's doxing and bullying forum should indeed be removed from the index, with a note that unsuitable results have been removed (similar to Google's DMCA removal notice).
acuteaura

I don't care what queries you personally don't think are a problem to interfere with, and I find it irritating that you think your personal feelings should dictate what search results I have access to. Please be respectful of other users who personally feel differently than you do.

acuteaura

The only bias we are demonstrating here is willingness to give these humans a voice,

The bias is that it is definitely no longer normal to understand the web this way. We live in a world where students no longer know what a folder in a filesystem is, and where explaining the Fediverse with "it's like email" yields confusion because email and gmail have been the same thing to these people and the notion that the internet is not a series of large monolithic services owned by megacorporations you sign up for is foreign. That's on one hand depressing, and on the other unfortunate reality.

I appreciate the wordpress.org link in there though.

Vlad

acuteaura

That's on one hand depressing, and on the other unfortunate reality.

I agree, and I hope you can agree that it is not Kagi to blame for this situation and that it is Kagi that is trying to do something about it, against all odds.

acuteaura

Vlad

I hope you can agree that it is not Kagi to blame for this situation and that it is Kagi that is trying to do something positive about it.

Oh, I have no doubt. That wasn't the point. As I said, I like this for my own feed.

But I also hope you can agree that it is still a bias, and maybe not the exact bias intended for. And that is already is a shallow bit of the slippery slope you are afraid of.

Vlad

acuteaura Perhaps but not by design or intention but by current circumstances of what web is, that we hope to change.

WoundedMoose

Carnival0852 That you don't understand the difference is astounding. That you're trying to use edge cases to wedge your personal take is typical and tiresome. Also telling you've chosen to not reply to acuteaura, or apparently read her post. Since she talks about the differnce.

Kantu

Carnival0852 your personal feelings should dictate what search results I have access to.

The results to Suicide would not be tampered with. What's being argued for is if there ought be a warmly written phrase indicating that "Suicide is generally not a good idea" at the top of the results

The fact that you are mixing both cases is highly indicative to me that you are not arguing from a point of honesty on the topic

Carnival0852

The Canadian government providing Assisted Suicide is not the same as Kagi as a private company needing to either condone suicide and its outcomes or tacitly assist/not dissuade its users from committing it

WoundedMoose

Kantu tacitly assist/not dissuade

False equivalency

Carnival0852

Kantu

The fact that I start that very comment literally quoting someone saying they want to "interfere with" and "remove from the index" results they don't like, would seem to be pretty strong evidence that I am not erroneously conflating anything. And the fact that you fail to address or even acknowledge the actual arguments I'm responding to is highly indicative that you are the one not arguing in good faith.

MichaSobczyk

Kantu In my opinion Kagi as a company should NOT have an opinion on suicide. There are some people who think it's a good idea and some people are against it. It's a philosophical question. I would encourage Kagi to not fall into pressure here. The kind of pressure we're seeing is just a tip of an iceberg. Imagine what's going to happen when Kagi reaches 100m paid subscribers, there will be journalists and politicians shouting everywhere how Kagi is not taking a decisive action in the X topic whatever that will be in the future. Imagine pressure from countries like China, Qatar or Iran, threats to ban Kagi in the appstore. If Kagi is supposed to be one of those companies who bend the knee in front of the regime, better make that decision in advance. According to public opinion in many countries there are much worse things than suicide for example blashepmy or insulting the head of the state. Search engine should be like a knife - it's just a tool, a user decides what to do with it. A knife shouldn't have a moral opinion on any topic, it shouldn't proselytize, it shouldn't teach people how to live, what to do, what not to do. Also as a user I think it is horrible that we as users give power to corporations to teach us moral values. Google or Microsoft are in no position to teach me right or wrong. They have zero moral superiority over me. We should not allow corporations to brainwash us with their ideology. If some Kagi users want to kill themselves for philosophical reasons (for example they are dying of cancer or they're in a cult and they believe they're sacrificing themselves to gods) then that's their choice. Kagi is not in the business of searching for truth, it's in the business of providing accurate results in line with intention of the user. Pursuit of truth is a responsiility of the user.

RonanCJ

MichaSobczyk I would encourage Kagi to not fall into pressure here. The kind of pressure we're seeing is just a tip of an iceberg. Imagine what's going to happen when Kagi reaches 100m paid subscribers, there will be journalists and politicians shouting everywhere how Kagi is not taking a decisive action in the X topic whatever that will be in the future. Imagine pressure from countries like China, Qatar or Iran, threats to ban Kagi in the appstore.

Kagi will be banned by autocracies (if it isn't already banned in some countries) regardless of any decision it takes on suicide prevention, so I don't think this point of objection is particularly relevant here.

Having read through the entire thread, I think people's feelings on this matter comes down to their own philosophical and political biases. Vlad and some others in this thread fall under the category of libertarians, who as a broad group "seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing equality before the law and civil rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice," and so want (adult) Kagi users to be able to access information freely. I doubt they would disagree with this characterization, even if some substrains of libertarianism place less emphasis on individual equality and freedoms.

My own biases are more towards interventionism to effect positive change, along the lines of "if you have the means to act effectively, then you have the responsibility to do so." As it as pertains to putting a notice on searches for suicide methods, my stance is that it should be done if doing so would reduce the likelihood of suicide compared to the status quo. However, Kagi’s Quick Answer widget already gives an excellent response that would dissuade a user from following through on an impulse (as explained by subject-matter experts up-thread). In other words, messages of dissuasion are already generated if a user asks a question, and trying to rephrase or remove these messages would itself be a demonstration of a particular bias. Kagi’s organic search results are also mostly satisfactory, although at 3% uniqueness they’re probably similar to those of major search providers.

Ultimately, this is a highly emotive topic, and I expect that no decision that Kagi makes now will be immune from being re-evaluated in the future. Along with the rest of us, Kagi exists in a society that has evolving views on information and responsible dissemination of information, and this will impact Kagi in the form of future regulatory scrutiny and consumer advocacy. That being the case and given that Kagi already tries to dissuade users from suicide with Quick Answers, I don’t think a change is warranted at the moment.

Marcus

Made an account to comment on this utterly depressing thread.

First of all, I would not say these organic results are good enough to not add a simple widget.

People in this thread who actually work with suicidal people have made good points why it makes sense to be included. For me that would be the one line, the one widget I would add. I don't see the slippery slope argument. Just throwing your hands up and saying "we're only in the business of search" seems naive to me. I've seen the same answer in the discussion about brave and I was irritated then as well.
Personally I wasn't particularly happy about the inclusion of their index, but I think I understood the necessity. But this notion of a search engine as a totally neutral arbiter, again, it just seems naive to me.

One example: how does that square with the default sources in the news360 lens for example? You have Global Times there as a counterweight to NPR? How are those even comparable? How is that not biased? Sure I can change that lens, but it's still the default you provide. That you have decided on.

Also, seeing the amount of culture war rhetoric in this thread here was definitely interesting.

Vlad

RonanCJ

Thanks for keeping discusion civil and on the basis of merit, acknowledging the nuances we are dealing with.

I will not comment on political characterizations you made (apart that those kind of discussions are probably best left for the dinner table), and I want to emphasize that our views as a search engine company are grounded in the belief that the main job of a search engine is to surface search results per its search quality policies, without any judgment imposed on the user, and without reflecting any moral, political, religious or other biases of its leadership.

Any other approach absolutely leads to a slippery slope as many examples show, and it is something we would be hopeless to defend against with minimal resources available to us. Thus the only reasonable approach is one grounded in principles of staying strictly in the business of search and avoid imposing views on users that they did not ask for.

Here is the latest example of the slippery slope.

I personally find this 'intervention' of the behalf of the user not only unecessary and uncalled for, but also as borderline intelligence insulting. Even if the original intention of these interventions were to promote positive change which I am sure they were - it is a slippery slope because if you are a Google user today you do not know where this ends and what other interventions and decisions are being made on your behalf and 'in your best interest' for every single search you do, all stemming from that very first precedent of allowing non search quality related editorial intervention in the search product. This also means that even if you are OK with some interventions, there can or could be many more such decisions made on your behalf that you would not like at all.

That is the main problem with interventionisom, inability to stop its flywheel once in motion, and getting the search engine into a situation where it both decides what is right for its users and what is not, and prescribes the right 'dose' for them - all in the name of their 'best interest' and even if they did not ask for it.

The question becomes do we want to allow your search engine to have such authority to influence users in this way or not?

And the answer is that we feel that we neither should have such authority over the user, nor we want to have one, but rather just be in the business of search with clearly defined boundaries and transparency. And the only way to do that is with a principled position from the very beginning, which is what this thread is about.

We choose to promote positive change in the world by taking ad-tech and its invasive, destructive business model out of equation and to create a search product where the user can truly 'own their searches'.

dcow

Thank you Vlad. This position is one of the core fundamental reasons I am a happy paying Kagi user. Google didn't win by editorializing results, they won by being the best. They’re no longer the best because their product has been diluted by perverse incentives (ad-tech and religious editorialization). Thank you for maintaining a strong product north star.

dcow

To add a more direct contribution to the discussion, I’d like to both applaud and critique Kagi’s argument/rationalization here.

On one hand, I 100% agree that Kagi should not be in the business of pushing ideology or agenda on its users. It is in the business of serving relevant search results and that should never change. I’m rather disappointed by the number of people here who think the responsibility to intervene and ostensibly reduce “harm” falls on Kagi as a product and tool. A position of neutrality is not the opposite of taking affirmative action and does not and cannot cause harm.

On the other hand, @Vlad, the strongest argument against your neutral stance is that Kagi currently implements Safe Search and enables it by default for users. While I understand the context here, if you’re going to be principled about widgets, then you need to be consistent in applying your principles, otherwise you leave yourself and your product open to attack as demonstrated in this thread. You’re already “on the slope”. Don’t use a lazy logical fallacy to justify your position.

Safe Search is a moral statement. There is no way around it. The very first thing I did after subscribing to Kagi was go in and disable safe search. I am an adult and I don’t need Kagi messing with my results. I think if you really want to make a statement to the community and set expectations around a principled approach to search neutrality, you’d drop support for safe search (and blog about why) since it’s practically the definition of pushing a moral stance on users and it does not serve to make a user’s search experience more relevant or apropos.

However, one of Kagi’s defining features is the ability to customize the search experience for yourself and for the context in which it’s being used. In this light the option to filter “nsfw” content is incredibly useful for say being more comfortable using Kagi at work or with children. So the outcome I’d rather expect to see here is more investment in the safe search feature with more granular category toggles. There are many domain categorization services out there today with granular content groups beyond “nsfw” and passing the content filtering controls through to the user likely would help round out the narrative surrounding how Kagi supports users who don’t want to see content pertaining to loss of life.

Ultimately you’re arguing for a principled approach, which I support, but pragmatically Kagi is a product with a safe search feature (which I also support, even though I don’t use it). So users of your product rightfully have both an expectation that Kagi doesn't mess with or otherwise bias results algorithmically, and also an expectation that Kagi helps humanize the web by offering robust and powerful content lensing and filtering tools to make results even more relevant and pertinent to their specific use cases and ultimately to them. This is where the remaining disjoint is and I think any further progress on this issue is somewhat blocked until this tension can be relieved at a narrative and values/principles level.

I don’t want to see my money wasted on silly search content moderation, algorithmic PC bias, and the misguided attempt to classify “misinformation”. But I’m okay to have my money support a more robust and more generalized safe search feature, even if it’s imperfect and ideologically annoying at times. The former is an unsolvable problem as you and I and many here know. The latter is a user scoped and configurable feature that increases the value of the product.

Vlad

dcow Safe search is a search quality filter with a reasonable and expected default that vast majority of users are fine with. It is similar in nature to the search region option which is also set by default and similarly causes certain results not to be shown. Vast majority of users are fine with this setting, and they can easily change it. This is different from us providing information widgets to users about things they did not ask for, which is what leads to a slippery slope and what this thread is about.

What I think is also reasonable to do is to surface safe search option during user onboarding so the user can set it before they even made their first search (you can make a feature suggestion for this).

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