people like me don't want him to work with a guy with a history of oppressing our rights
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but what search do you use that relies on a more ethical index? I don't use SearXNG, but as far as I can tell, even something like that relies on other indices, like Google, Bing, and Brave (which seems to be configurable). Are you suggesting you use a different index that comes from a more ethical company, or do you just not like Vlad's response?