1) There is a difference between 'rah rah nationalism' and 'disinformation'. The Western media is not putting out disinformation so much as focusing on the things that benefit them. This is perennial.

2) It's myth that there is some kind of 'neutrality' in term of search - you have to pick an algorithm. It's rational to want to chose sources that have integrity as opposed to those that do not. 'Information Populism' i.e. just picking the 'most popular link' leads to the 'National Equiror' type information.

3) "how does DDG decide what is misinformation and what is not" and "politically motivated"

This moral relativism is the problem with the 'free speech' advocates. There is something as the 'truth' and, some parties are better at communicating it. Some parties actually just make up whatever they want and say it. There are ways to make that determination. Everyone is based, some more than others.

4) " I think some "internet savvyness" has to be expected from search engine users. "

"The assumption that just because some statements by Putin show up in search results, people would just flat out believe them, is rather insulting and belittling."

Both of these statements are essentially wrong.

Almost nobody has the 'internet savviness, time and wherewithal' to actually fact check. Less than 0.1% of people. Most people are not paying close attention to any issues, let alone a specific one, and don't have the wherewithal to do anything about Tweets they say. Moreover, 'most people' are populist, they like to twee jokes, get angry, like things that make fun of the group they don't like.

As for b) 30% of Americans believe that the 'election was stolen' by Joe Biden, when there isn't a shred of evidence to support that lie. And that's a pretty big lie. So imagine that - at least 30% of people will believe you if they just want to believe you. 30% of people believe that Police are evil and just want to arbitrarily arrest and beat black people, and that merely the act of getting pulled over is dangerous, which is also ridiculous. Racism exists, but anti-racism hysteria has given people a context that simply is not true. The evidence actually supports that.

This is why 'Putins words alone' can be dangerous. His current 'propagnda' about 'Denazification' and that the UKR government is a bunch of 'Nazis and Drug Addicts' is perverse, and that the government is fully of Nazis.

But 75% of Russians believe it fully.

How do you think he managed to convince 75% of the Russian population of things that are ridiculously untrue?

Russians are getting calls from relatives in Ukraine, and literally not believing them when they hear of bombings in Kiev, they'd rather believe the propaganda that 1st hand evidence.

That's the power of misinformation and it speaks to the fact that people aren't often even interested in the truth at all, but rather that which makes them feel better.

Finally - if you want access to Putins' words, it's all there. There's nothing hidden. If that's what you are really searching for you will get it. You can easily find on DDG and Google his 'Mein Kampf' style works where he's justifying the grand narratives of the invasion. In that context, anyone searching specifically for that is going to find it in the 'quality' context we'd expect from DDG or Google.

Nothing is being hidden or censored, it's all there if you actively search for it.

What we don't want is Putins' propaganda seeping through the cracks into every day populist rhetoric. We don't want his army of social influences able to make their lies and propaganda party of the daily vocabulary of common information ingestion.