Digg Users Trash Site Then Kill Article About Trashing Site
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Primal Gang Warfare at Digg
- An article about a Chinese Digg clone makes it to the homepage of Digg
- Digg users then post racists remarks on the blog reporting the story
- Digg users upload inappropriate content to the Digg clone
- A story is written about Digg users trashing the site
- The story about trashing the blog is submitted to Digg, gets several Diggs and then is flagged as inaccurate and removed from queue.
This raises two important issues.
- Digg users have a social responsibility to refrain from Internet vandalism. This hurts Digg credibility and as a Digg user, I want to distance myself from being associated with a class of people that have little regard for the property of others, and make intolerable racist remarks. Will say, I'm a believer in open media (like this article) and believe there is a wonderful opportunity to use the Digg system for the benefit of others to present unbiased, credible, though provoking news.
- The rise of allegiances, swarms, guerrilla attacks, packs make Digg an unsafe and dangerous place to play alone. Gangs have risen from people where one vote wasn't enough to push a personal agenda. Whether it's gang warfare, or politics, the facts are the facts. People will form coalitions to push personal agendas and defend their turf. When it becomes unsafe to walk alone (you submit a story and it's sent to purgatory by a gang), when you are frustrated and want to retaliate (you found out who killed your story, so you kill theirs), and when others fear you (they know if they touch you, several of your friends will kick their ass ie. none of their stories will see daylight again) you must belong to gang or you cannot survive. Your only choice is to leave.
There has been quite a bit in the news about Digg users acting in groups to promote stories and to kill them. The tale above is a sad tale, but it will help users understand the exact scenario that is causing all of the fuss. I think it it particularly sad that the top user resigned. Much props. Peace. Love.
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Wikipedia has the same problem, now leading to PR firms taking over articles and people selling their services to "protect" articles.
Another example is the "Recommended Diary" box for Daily Kos. That's been almost utterly taken over by large campaigns and interest groups with the power to "get out the vote". You can tell they aren't legit because a bunch of Recommends appear all at once, and they are from user IDs that don't show up anywhere else.
I'm sure any social media site that becomes sufficiently popular to claim to be attracting millions of eyeballs will be subject to this same manipulation - whether for glory or profit.
My confidence in social media would improve a great deal if there were an active effort to identify and discourage gang warfare. For instance, algorithms can identify when people seem to be voting in blocs, and provide some sort of disincentive (perhaps a "reputation point hit") for doing so?
Oey just to be fair though, not all digg users like that, it was just a bunch of them, everyone else is like; hey don't do that!
Good for those Digg fans sticking up for digg: China (gov't) has no respect for international laws, patents, etc. they allow their citizens to clone everything and pay no royalties. Haha, trashing the site was the only recourse, no?
I'm all for protecting IP and this is not an editorial defending China. Two wrongs don't make a right. In all forms racism is wrong, and unacceptable. Punishments should be swift and hard.
www.diggtr.com is the place to share your favorites and to communicate with others that share your interests.You are the editor and if your story is popular it will be published on the front page.
Webber says:
3 years ago
Thanks. It's referenced in bullet point #4 above in the chain of events.