A whirlwind controversy is raging over a recent incident involving conservatives and libertarians who utilize the social networking site DIGG.
The manner in which the story is being reported vilifies the conservatives and libertarians for engaging in a covert scheme to 'censor' liberal stories posted to the site, complete with charges of 'dirty tricks' and the like--all intended to paint conservatives and libertarians in a terribly bad light.
A closer look will reveal a very different picture, however.
First, a quick primer as to how DIGG works.
As a social networking media site, members can post stories on various items, sometimes their own work and sometimes mainstream media sources. According to DIGG's own rules of engagement, members at that point can decide how popular to make a particular story that has been submitted by either 'digging up' or 'digging down' the submission.
Those stories that receive a large amount of positive Diggs can get to what is known as 'the front page,' or 'go popular.' But on the other hand, stories that receive a large amount of 'thumbs down' will be buried under an avalanche and never see the light of day except by a very few.
I joined DIGG over a year ago and quickly discovered that this is how the game is played on the site. And, not surprisingly, since the site is associated with liberal causes my submissions were targeted immediately by the minions of the Left who would 'digg them down' and bury them.
Other conservatives and libertarians experienced the very same thing.
It is not difficult to see how this sets up an adversarial mindset on the site, leading to the desire for retaliation.
At some point within the past year many conservatives and libertarians on DIGG joined a Yahoo group called 'DIGG Patriots.' It was a private, 'by-invitation-only' group designed to alert fellow Patriots to our DIGG submissions so they could be supported using the 'thumbs up' procedure, making it more likely that our stories would gain more readers before the vast army of liberal members could descend on them and bury them.
And, admittedly, many in the group participated in the process of 'digging down' liberal submissions.
Censorship? Dirty tricks? Hardly. As anyone who has been part of the site can tell you if they are honest, that is way the game is played, and DIGG's own rules encourage it. Liberals buried conservative stories with a vengeance, and the conservatives retaliated in kind.
The present controversy began when a couple of liberal DIGG members hacked into the Yahoo DIGG Patriot group. They illegally and unethically invaded a private area, got the names of the members, published them all over the Internet, and then began a smear campaign. The result was that the owners of the group shut it down.
Yet the very ones who are currently making the charge of 'dirty tricks and censorship' against conservatives and libertarians are themselves some of the worst offenders when it comes to burying stories submitted by the Patriots.
To be fair, the DIGG Patriot group on Yahoo was not started in order to conduct any campaign against anyone. The original goal as I understood it was to provide a means for conservatives and libertarians to try to thwart the efforts of liberals to bury their submissions and to get a decent readership on the site. Some members of the group, including myself, never participated in any 'digging down' of stories or any such tactics. I simply do not have time for such things.
Thus, there is clearly a lot of misinformation being propagated by those with an agenda concerning this issue. The ones making the wild charges are hardly in a position to claim the moral high ground, given their own participation in the very tactics for which they vilify the DIGG Patriots.
In short, the controversy is not really a controversy at all. Until DIGG changes its rules of engagement, this is how things are done. And the whiners have nothing to complain about.
Be sure to visit my blog at The Liberty Sphere.
Comments
I hope it won't become a wait and see scenario for us as the fed gets their claws deeper into the web. As I'm typing this my t.v. is on and their showing the swearing in of Kagan....this is a sad day for America !
Phil--yes sir, a very sad day for liberty.
Isn't that just the way with hypocritical lefties to claim moral superiority when they they are the ones who play dirty?
Karla--Yes, so very typical.
Hey, cool, you admit you were breaking the rules. At least you did that, even if you said BUT WE WERE THE VICTIMS! after.
Joe--No, there were no rules broken. Anybody can digg down a submission. There is no rule prohibiting it.
Oh, and by the way, I just read a report on a site that posts proof that DIGG regularly diggs down stories internally--often by its own employees and 'algorithm programs.' So, if that is 'illegal' or 'unethical' or 'rules violations,' then the site engages in it themselves.
"They illegally and unethically invaded a private area, got the names of the members, published them all over the Internet, and then began a smear campaign. "
You mean, just as was done with the Journolist group?
And DIGG's algorithims have to do with relevancy to topic, not politics.
I know, I know; it's impossible for you to buy a gallon of milk without making a political calculation, Tony - but most of us aren't quite like that.
"The present controversy began when a couple of liberal DIGG members hacked into the Yahoo DIGG Patriot group. They illegally and unethically invaded a private area, got the names of the members, published them all over the Internet, and then began a smear campaign. The result was that the owners of the group shut it down." Wrong!!!!!!
One of the invited members of the group got tired or the illegal and immoral activity of the group and reported it.
There is no smear campaign, all of the comments posted are real and accurate. The owners shut it down out of embarrassment and to hide their violations of Diggs TOS.
Members of the censure group also published the name and address of a liberal blogger and that of her mother.
Shame on you for defending these online stalkers.
Now take you medicine like a man and quit whining.
These are not Patriots, these people are the exact opposite of that.
I see the DIGG apologist have arrived to unleashed their 'fair, balanced, untarnished, and unbiased' version of the 'truth.' You guys beat everything. You have little to whine about concerning the conservatives on DIGG when they did nothing that you liberals have not been doing ever since I've been there. So, YOU take YOUR medicine, and get over it.
Phil- A sad day, but maybe a few more eyes & minds will open
Big Picture....now that Kagan is in we better keep an evermore watchful eye on Pelosi, Reed and the entire house and senate up and through November and on into 2012. His soon to be lame duckness, Barry O.,will pull any and all levers, legal or not to get more of his agendas passed before he's ran out of office. Kagan is a portion of the catalyst that is necessary for Barry O. to pull it off prior to 2012.
For those interested in truth rather than Anthony's neocon spin, the original article is here:-
hXXp://blogs.alternet.org/oleoleolson/2010/08/05/massive-censorship-of-digg-uncovered/
"The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives."
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)
"The ring leader of the group is Bettverboten, who issues multiple digg and bury orders everyday. She is a Digg power user who has dugg 70,000 articles and has 1500 submits of her own (18% have gone popular) in one short year on the site. She was previously known as Lizbett before her lifetime ban for offensive and inappropriate comments, and has two sleeper accounts waiting if she gets banned again at loquaciouslola and MsBoop"
Well and truly outed. "Get over it" Anthony.
"And, not surprisingly, since the site is associated with liberal causes"
Digg is primarily a tech indexing site. Most articles there have nothing to do with "liberal politics". Today's front page popular stories are on Honda, Toyota, smokers, bank fees, 3x iPhone, robots but mostly on computer games.
I agree with "Hypocrisy in action's" post - one wonders how you can barely function in the real world Anthony and buy a gallon of milk without trying to politicize everything.
"That dog bit me - it must be a liberal dog!"
"The traffic lights don't work - it must a liberal that sabotaged them!"
"I've got a blister - liberal made shoes did it!"
When you start writing "associated with liberal causes" for technology sites, you basically mean "any site which angry mob neocons have failed to hijack & control for their own causes and spin as being as "the enemy" as part of a "paranoia persecution complex".
Miller-You are a barefaced liar. That site ceased being a technology site once it added politics to its menu. It is now primarily a news site, along with technology and other things, and if you persist in this lie about it not being for leftwing causes, perhaps I should do a separate article on the political activities of the site gurus, including the fact that they all support Barack Obama in 2008.
The Real Truth--You, too, are a barefaced liar, conveniently ignoring the very same activity on the part of the Leftwing digg down brigade that descends on conservative stories with a vengeance, burying them before they can see the light of day. This went on long before there wwas a 'Digg Patriot' group. I know. I was there and saw it myself and was one of the victims of the liberal hypocrites on Digg. The fact that you won't even recognize that it happens only shows you are a liar.
Anthony, why don't you just set up a website that responds to all comments you don't like with "Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!". You have the debating skills of a 6 year old. All I did was post the original source of the blog that detailed what the "DIGG patriots" were doing.
You wrote : "Yet the very ones who are currently making the charge of 'dirty tricks and censorship' against conservatives and libertarians are themselves some of the worst offenders when it comes to burying stories submitted by the Patriots."
My challenge : Do you actually have proof that Michael Stone (the guy whose Examiner article you were responding to) is agressively voting down others? Or are you just making simple-minded gross generalizations that anyone who criticizes the "DIGG patriots" must automatically "vote conservative articles down".
Come on, let's see some proof to back up your accusations for a change rather than wild generalizations & childish insults.
And just how would I 'prove' it? By illegally hacking into people's private accounts, like your hero who 'exposed' the Digg Patriots did? No, thank-you. YOU KNOW that what I am saying is the truth. The Leftwing digg-down brigade descends on conservative submissions with a vengeance, setting up the present adversarial atmosphere--all at Digg's own doing. When you start to vilify the Leftists for THEIR dirty tricks against conservatives, then and only then will have one ounce of personal integrity to vilify the conservatives.
"And just how would I 'prove' it? YOU KNOW that what I am saying is the truth"
No Anthony, I DON'T *KNOW* because all you've done is make an outrageous generalization and failed to back it up with evidence. You said : "The ones making the wild charges are hardly in a position to claim the moral high ground, given their own participation in the very tactics for which they vilify the DIGG Patriots."
So prove it. Name names of "the ones making the wild charges who are also participating". You jumped on Michael Stone's article so either clarify or retract whether you think Mr. Stone is doing it because that accusation is exactly how your article is written. And if you can't then you don't KNOW either.
"then and only then will have one ounce of personal integrity to vilify the conservatives"
That door swings both ways Anthony...
"The result was that the owners of the group shut it down"
No, it was shut down because they were embarrassed about being well and truly outed.
"And just how would I 'prove' it? By illegally hacking into people's private accounts, like your hero who 'exposed' the Digg Patriots did?"
This is also perfect proof that you didn't even bother reading the original source article that you're ranting about:-
"An undercover investigation has exposed this effort"
There was no "illegal hacking".
Another lie. The Digg Patriot group was HACKED..illegally, and I don't care what your article says. So shut up. You are outed as a liar. Post anything else, and it WILL be deleted.
Can't handle the truth? That your precious Digg Patriots group was INFILTRATED, not hacked?
That you folks were so easily conned by someone who suspected you had something going on?
Anthony, what part of "it was an undercover investigation" do you not understand? This is from the article that you linked to in your blog (which you took pride in admitting "you didn't read it" despite the fact you replied to it!
Why are you incapable of admitting you are wrong? When everyone else must be silenced for the sake of your ego & pride, because you can never, ever be wrong, then you're no better than the lying politicians you've spent years claiming to oppose for the same reason.
The censorship here is taking the p*ss
Show ANY evidence it was hacked, Martin.
If someone had hacked a Yahoo Group, Yahoo would be all over it. And they're not - because it wasn't hacked, Ole Ole O got himself an invite through simple social engineering.
He was inside because the group moderators LET HIM INSIDE.
They don't want to admit they screwed the pooch - and you don't know enough about computers to understand the difference, it appears.
No Anthony, it wasn't "hacked". Stop lying through your teeth. What happened was someone from Alternet signed up as a member of the group and posted a member list and archives. That's not "hacking". Also Digg were looking into it themselves. “Undercover investigation” is stated quite clearly in the link in your own blog above.
You can b*tch & whine all you like about "bullying" (ie, posting the truth that discredit your outright lies), but you are guilty of outright libel above by accusing oleoleolson & Alternet website of "hacking" when he did no such thing. If you want to escalate and "make phone calls" - two can play at that game and I will make a formal complaint to the Examiner about your blog for defamation of character - and when the libel lawyers come knocking you won't just be able to delete their "bullying".
Hacked or not, the real problem is that the Digg Patriots have stepped on the Dark Tipper.
I wouldn't want to be anyone on that list when Kevin Rose unleashes online warfare.
It looks like 3 Digg power users are soo mad that they are working on their own digg version
DiigMe.com
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