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Search Content Policy

Table of Contents

Introduction

This policy document covers how we approach the processing of requests for and provision of search content. We explain our commitment to human rights, notably the freedom to seek. We explain how we would handle government requests, our approach to transparency reporting and how you can contact us regarding content removal. This content policy is complementary to our detailed Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Freedom and Limitations

Mojeek believes one of the greatest challenges confronting the global community is how to protect and preserve the rights and freedoms of everyone. This includes the internationally recognised freedoms to seek and receive information and ideas. Providing useful tools which protect these freedoms, and enable people to exercise them, is core to our mission. As an international web search engine we have a responsibility to support and preserve rights and freedoms, for users across the world, subject only to limitations as determined by law. Our starting point is freedom of expression and specifically the freedom to seek information. Consequently we do not restrict access to search results, nor remove indexed search data, except in very specific circumstances, as follows:

Terrorist content

Our Services may not make available some information that associated with known terrorist and violent extremist (TVE) organisations, based on guidance from Tech Against Terrorism.

Child sexual abuse material

Our Services will not make available some information for specific legal reasons, in accordance with applicable law, such as child sexual abuse material (CSAM). We are Associate Members of Internet Watch Foundation who guide us in matters relating to CSAM.

Spam and Malware

For content that is designed to game search engines, we will take action.

For phishing sites and pages that host malware and viruses, aiming to cause some harm to their visitors, we will take action including not indexing.

Information Neutrality

We apply only takedown in the specific circumstances above. We do not use human moderation in our search ranking. Rankings are determined by fully automated algorithms, based on signals which are automatically calculated uniformly for all URLs. Our algorithms are largely deterministic, so are less prone to the biases that are inherent in AI more widely used by other web search engines. By AI, we refer primarily to machine learning methods and the, inevitably biased, training datasets on which they are based. At Mojeek we practice information neutrality

“Information Neutrality is the principle to treat all information provided (by a service) equally. The information provided, after being processed by an information-neutral service, is the same for every user requesting it, independent of the user's attributes, including, e.g., origin, history or personal preferences and independent of the financial or influential interest of the service provider, as well as independent of the timeliness of information.”

We consider "personalisation" to be a process of manipulation, wrapped-up in the coat of convenience.

Human intervention and re-ranking ("curation") of search results would be an introduction of bias by Mojeek, so we do not do so this. To do so may be theoretical right as an independent business but it would be counter to our mission and in opposition to our values.

Human Rights

We are guided by the United Nations and specifically the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). We note in particular ICCPR Article 19:

“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice."

These rights are subject to limitations; notably expressed in UDHR Articles 29(2):

"In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society." and in UDHR Article 30:

"Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."

As a search engine we care deeply about ensuring that everyone has the right of freedom to seek. For more information on how important we regard this right to be, and our human right based approach, please see our article "Freedom to Seek Matters".

Government Requests

Mojeek has not received any requests from any government authorities to remove content on Mojeek. Mojeek has not received any requests from any government authorities to provide data. Since we do not collect personal data for our web search, a request for such data cannot be provided. In the circumstances where we do receive requests we shall deal with them according to the following law and policies:

  • Requests from UK government authorities
    • Laws of England
  • Requests from government authorities other than UK
    • Laws of England
    • Law of requesting country
    • International norms which means we only provide data in response to requests that satisfy the Global Network Initiative's Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy and its associated implementation guidelines
    • Mojeek's policies which include any applicable terms, including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and our Content Policy (this document).

We highlight for Governments that may be considering requesting data from us that Mojeek indexes only HTML webpages. We do not index images or video. The content we show is URLs, the associated URL titles and snippets derived from URL content.

A government request to remove content from Mojeek should include at least the information below. Where there is failure to provide complete information we shall not respond to the request:

  • The URL(s) for which removal is requested
  • The reason for the requested removal
  • The applicable law under which the request is made
  • Details of the requesting institution
  • Evidence that the requested content is available on Mojeek

If we are required or chose to remove content, we shall do by removing the applicable URL(s) from our index, meaning that no user or customer will be served that URL in search results.

Transparency Reporting

Soon after the end of each calendar year, we commit to publishing a transparency report. This will include actions taken in respect of dealing with CSAM and TVE search queries and content.

Content Removal

Please contact us, to:

  • request content removal for a legal reason
  • report content which in your opinion should be removed for legal reasons
  • appeal against what you believe is content that has been erroneously removed for legal reasons

Missing Content

Please note that just because a webpage doesn't appear in Mojeek results, that rarely means that we have removed it. It is far more likely that we have not indexed it for technical reasons of which there are too many to detail. But here are a few: the webpage is very new; the site requests that we do not index it either via their robots.txt, meta tags or by blocking us; the page text content is predominantly Javascript.

If you think a webpage has not been indexed when it should have been please contact us.