All of this already looks so strange that I am formally asking you to explain what is happening.
Still, despite everything, it seems that Yandex remains a company willing to answer users’ questions rather than switching into “Dmitry Peskov mode” (a reference to the Kremlin spokesperson known for evasive answers).
Let me honestly explain right away why I am writing publicly. I am counting on the pressure from good people inside Yandex being stronger than the pressure bad people are putting on Yandex. I know very well how unbearable the very thought is for many “Yandex employees” that they may have to work for a company that is making life worse.
I still consider Yandex a source of national pride. A breakthrough built on people, not oil or geography.
Maybe this is a naive and romantic thought, but it genuinely comforts me. What if, at a meeting—in one of those colorful conference rooms where bearded people sit on soft beanbags holding cups of coffee—someone says:
- Guys, why the hell should we be doing this harmful bullshit? We’re smart and well-paid, our salaries are huge, and the job market would love to have us. Why the fuck are we serving those who are, step by step, destroying both our company and the country as a whole? No one is holding a gun to our heads. We can just refuse, and that’s it.
So here is my question. I have already given up on Yandex News. Unfortunately—and this is impossible to argue with—that service has turned into the biggest source of fake news in the country.
You can call it whatever you like:
Yandex lies more than television does.
or
Russia’s absurd laws have created rules under which Yandex is forced to lie.
or
Yandex and the state came up with a scheme that allows them to lie and blame it on algorithms.
or
The state agreed not to take Yandex away from its shareholders in exchange for a promise to lie.
Either way, Yandex News is dominated by things like “Sobol and her necrophiliac husband abuse their own child” and “Brilliant green, a belly, and ‘poisoning in pretrial detention’: Navalny’s career path from beauty bloggers to ‘virologists.’”
Maybe it is the algorithm. Maybe it is not. It is hard for me, of course, to imagine Volozh ordering someone to sit down and manually edit the news feed. But all of this looks rather strange, especially on days when we hold mass protests. It is clearly the biggest story of the day, social media is buzzing, plenty of legitimate media outlets are covering it, and yet at the top of Yandex News there is Senator Pushkov once again mocking someone with one of his “sharp” tweets.
However, I am still not prepared to accept that you have now started manipulating the search results for “Navalny” as well. As I understand it from media reports and experts, that is exactly what is happening.
The outlet TJournal published an article based on the observations of one of its readers.
The article suggests that your services are deliberately telling people searching for “Navalny” what a terrible person I am. And this narrative is based on the very same lies compiled by your Yandex News service.
Seriously? A temporary experiment?
And what exactly were you testing, may I ask? Whether people will love Putin more if you tell everyone that I am an American spy spreading fake stories about coronavirus and leading Russia toward economic collapse?
I can answer that for you right now: they will. And they will repeat “if not Putin, then who?” more often. And one consequence of that will be that Russia will continue to grow poorer and more degraded. Yandex’s profits will fall, and as for you specifically—the bearded people in colorful conference rooms—some FSB general with the intelligence of a stool will regard you even more as his slaves. And he will laugh out loud every time you say, “I like my job because I am changing the world and making it better.”
Maybe it was some other kind of experiment. In that case, please explain it in detail.
A good explanation, both substantive and technical. One that works for both engineers and humanists.
It seems to me that by law, by common sense, and by any standard of fairness, I have the right to know the nature and purpose of this experiment.
I have no doubt that all Yandex users are interested as well. So I ask you to answer not only me, but everyone at once.
And one more thing, if you have time left. Could you also answer this question: does Yandex have any strategy for making sure that on the homepage of the national search engine, we can read real news rather than a censored compilation of lies?
Thank you.