April 20th, 2006
Digg.com Is Silently Moderating Legitimate Submissions
Alice’s Note: We broke this story in December 2005 but it seems there is a growing backlash and questioning at what is going on over at Digg.com. Our own David Johnston looked into it, and here is what he found in case you missed it:
By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Digg.com, a revolutionary news website where the content of the front page is controlled by how many people “digg” a story, is under growing suspicion of some of its users for silently moderating the site in a way they feel is inappropriate. I myself noticed this a while back when stories that had reached the front page earlier in the day had suddenly dissappeared later on. Today, however, I noticed that not one, but two stories that I “dugg” have been silently moderated by the maintainers [correction: a small group of people I call “lamers”] of digg.com. The first story to fall victim to this moderation can be found here. While you can still see it if you know the web address (or dugg it already), you cannot find it on any of Digg’s main pages or through a search. As you can see, the story has 331 (or more) diggs, and thus is relatively popular. It doesn’t appear to contain any offensive or abusive content either, yet for some reason it has magically disappeared from main pages and search results.
The second instance of this happening that I have found today seems to be even more brash. Here is a story with almost 1,500 diggs yet it has also fallen victim to the same silent death as the previous story. This story was also submitted less than 12 hours ago as of the time of writing this story. By my estimation it should still be on the front page. In the comments of this story which asks digg users to text message a person’s cell phone to see if his plan really is “unlimited” a few users have questioned the legitimacy of the post. However, there are also multiple people who claim to have personally called this person and confirmed that he did, in fact, ask to get text messages.
These kinds of incidences have made me think twice about the reliability of Digg.com as a site of unbiased news. As far as I can tell, there is nothing illegal or in violation of the site’s policy in any of these stories yet they have been moderated. What makes this even stranger is that I have seen many stories promoting or regarding illegal activity go unmoderated on Digg’s front page. For a site that prides itself on user-controlled content, this seems to be a major blow to its credibility. Ironically, I’m going to submit this story to Digg.com in hopes that we can get some answers.
Update! Digg the story here. (Unfortunately, this submission has also been buried so you can only find it through direct links)
Update 2: It appears that some angry diggers have lamed the story off the front page, but not before it got over 200 diggs in less than an hour. Now this story, too, has been silently removed from the site because only a small portion of the userbase found it “lame”. The only explanation I have for this is that Digg’s website is fatally flawed in that it uses a set number of “lames” to bury a story instead of a ratio. However, with a website as popular as digg, with thousands of users, you’re bound to have a good number who don’t like any given story. I don’t think that this current system is good at all. It cannot scale, which has become more and more noticeable as Digg’s popularity has grown.
It appears the “magic number” is somewhere around 10.
Alice Adds: Here is another from FoereverGeek site that got banned for bringing this up. And there’s another look at the issue here from Splasho - another blog that got banned. Spoke too soon…here is yet another case of it from a guy who actually wrote the “Digg This” plugin for WordPress, Aviran’s place. He calls his posting Digg.com is a bully.
David Also Adds: I believe that Digg.com has now corrected the problem for which I originally wrote this article. That was an issue of a flaw in the algorithm that allowed a very small group of individuals to control the content of the website, though not necessarily through some kind of conspiracy. However, after having read through the rest of these stories, I’m beginning to think that a new issue has developed here. I have to admit that I was unaware of this apparent latest form of abuse, but it seems real enough. This new form of abuse seems to be much more sinister in its nature. Please read through the stories for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I’d be interested in hearing them.
NoOneButMe says:
I’ll say the same thing here i said on Digg for this article:
One word. “Karma”
If enough people don’t like it and rate it so, then it gets automatically removed.
December 3rd, 2005 at 2:59 pm
David aka CaptnGimpy says:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mydecree/ the guys live journal he now has it updated with a voice messages. of how many text message he has got.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:08 pm
David Johnston says:
However, one of these posts had about 1,500 diggs. I can’t imagine that that many users marked it as lame. If anything, they need to change their system to a ratio of diggs to lames instead of an absolute number of lames=buried.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:08 pm
David Johnston says:
We’re on the front page!
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:21 pm
TheBarge says:
I noticed this same thing about the Alek’s Christmas Lights story. It was front page, it disappeared, I tried searching for it but couldn’t find it anymore.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:28 pm
renfield33 says:
i don’t think the front page is necessarily the most dugg stories. if you want the most dubb stories, you need to subscribe to the toplinksdigg rss feed, which contains the most dug stories of the day.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:35 pm
Dave M. says:
One of the stories you claim was silently moderated should have been moderated way before it made the front page. Someone posting a wireless cell phone number on a website like digg could only be doing this for nefarious reasons.
I did look up the link of the post and it looked like the guy who posted the number owned the phone number in question, but there are many things that can be done with that number that the poster didn’t think about when he posted it. Personally I hope the guy winds up with a $1,000+ bill myself. Posting a cell phone number is just dumb.
However, this could have just as easily been someone elses cell phone number, and that poor person could be getting 1,000’s of txt message, hunderds of ring tone subscriptions and god knows what else right now. All because someone doesn’t like him and posted it in digg.com.
I don’t know about the other story, but I have been following the “unlimited” story.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:49 pm
Eric N. says:
Alice, like you I am beginning to doubt the authenticity of Digg articles. Some things make it the front page that “feel” (anecdotally) more commercial than I am comfortable with. Also, some articles sneak by with less than 300 diggs.
Also, I was under the impression that once these guys got funding they would move to commercializing their system, and censoring or promoting articles that aren’t dugg in the original algorithm would make the site less valuable.
IMHO
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:51 pm
rhine says:
Why don’t we all get 10 or so people to “lame” all the stories off the digg site until nothing remains? Beat them at their own game.
December 3rd, 2005 at 4:22 pm
typicalpcuser says:
I had this happen to a post one of my listeners put up. http://digg.com/apple/Apple_iPod_Soup_Nazi she was told the story had been makred as “lame” and taken off.
When the story got put up it was getting about a digg per minute, but after a short time it was gone. Who knows??
December 3rd, 2005 at 6:41 pm
typicalpcuser says:
Your story prompted me to blog about this in my web site Was my Soup Nazi Story Lame ?or was it editorial issues with Digg
December 3rd, 2005 at 7:32 pm
David Johnston says:
There is definitely a large number of digg members who are dissatisfied with the current system. I have emailed them, but haven’t received any response yet.
December 3rd, 2005 at 9:07 pm
juan says:
have you ever thought that it might have to do with a bad link after the website has experienced bandwith overload?
December 4th, 2005 at 12:26 am
HumbleOpinion says:
The “Announcements” page at http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/december-updates.html includes the following:
Missing stories: A common question we receive is the confusion surrounding missing stories. Once a story has received enough user reports it is automatically removed from the digg queue or homepage (depending on where the story is living at that time). The number of reports required varies depending on how many diggs the story has. This system is going to change in the near future. Soon, reported stories will fall into a ‘buried stories’ bin. Users will have the ability to pick through this story bin and vote to have a story reinstated should they believe it was falsely reported.
Maybe this will clear things up a bit.
December 4th, 2005 at 6:25 am
vak66 says:
David,
Check out the situation that is occuring with this story
http://digg.com/links/Digg_Clone_
Digg users are getting out of hand.
December 4th, 2005 at 8:06 am
Chris says:
You are pulling this magic number of 10 out of thin air. No-one knows what the reporting number is. I’m almost certain that is it not a static figure, but rather one that is weighted against the promotion number (which is calculated by number of diggs, time of day, “digg acceleration” as Rose calls it) I report a lot of stories I think suck, including ones that hit the front page. Especially those ones actually, because they are the ones that I don’t feel should be there, the ones in the non-promoted pool I don’t much care for.
You don’t know how diggers do or do not report stories. It might be that *lots* of people thought your story was lame. That’s their call. Just because a lot of people liked it, it doesn’t mean a lot didn’t. Stories stay promoted because the ratio of liked:lame is high enough.
10 is a fictional number.
December 4th, 2005 at 9:19 am
David Johnston says:
So you’re saying that you think over 1,500 people lamed the story about the phone? I saw only a handful of negative comments out of over a hundred (if I remember correctly). It doesn’t make sense. Also, if you read the Inquirer article, the author suggests that he got a lot of email feedback from the article. Almost all of it was positive.
December 4th, 2005 at 9:40 am
Dave M. says:
I have given up on Digg myself. I did check out the story Digg Clone and found that the 14 year olds that haunt digg.com were spamming posts on shoutwire.com like crazy attacking the site. Sure shoutwire.com looks like digg.com, digg.com looks a lot like slashdot.org too, yet you didn’t see slashdot’er attacking digg.com when they came out.
If there is a problem with shoutwire.com, let Keven and his gang at digg.com deal with them, don’t flood the site with spam posts all using profanity.
I can just see the investors now… “Did we make a bad decision here? Are we libel for what the users of digg.com do? …”
Personally, I’ve moved back to slashdot for now. I’m not going to visit a site that openly promotes this kind of behavior.
December 4th, 2005 at 9:43 am
David Johnston says:
Oops, make that 300 comments on the phone story. I don’t see a large percentage of negative ones at all.
December 4th, 2005 at 9:47 am
Jonathon Flores says:
Yea..i had posted about a webshow im making..it magically disappeared and they deactivated my account…dunno what happened…
December 4th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Leon says:
I have to agree in this slight flaw in their system. I have another example.
http://digg.com/technology/Self-Healing_Scratch-Proof_Car_Paint
is what I posted. But not too long later, it got “magically” voted off although it got quite a few diggs in a short span of time.
Then I noticed just a few hours later, someone posted this:
http://digg.com/technology/Scratches_no_match_for_Nissan_s_new_car_paint
and it made front page.
Seems to me some dark forces is behind this, voting off existing competing stories. How shameless…
December 4th, 2005 at 7:16 pm
David Johnston says:
That is exactly the kind of abuse that I’ve noticed yet the majority of Digg doesn’t see it because you don’t notice these stories disappearing if you aren’t paying close attention.
December 5th, 2005 at 5:38 am
Thought Asylum » Blog Archive » Digg.com Is Silently Moderating Legitimate Submissions says:
[…] Legitimate Submissions Why are some of the most popular Digg stories disappearing? read more | digg story Posted by Brian in Thoughts, Pet Peeves, digg […]
December 9th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
John says:
I agree that there should be a ratio between good and bad diggs. But I also noticed that sometimes digg moderators will edit and change the link submitted. I saw in several cases that I dugg a story about some company and before the story got to the front page the moderators changed the link to the company’s web site instead of the original article about the company, thus killing the story, which in many cases the article contained details that do not appear on the company’s home page
December 21st, 2005 at 12:25 pm
Phil says:
No they’re not. Use some common sense. But users can report stories for removal.
December 21st, 2005 at 1:47 pm
jeff says:
Try CommonTimes.org - a social network for news… more open than Digg
December 27th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
Abe says:
This one had over 2000 diggs, but was pulled. I don’t get it.
http://digg.com/links/10_websites_you_should_know_about
January 13th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Boing Boing says:
Debating Digg’s methodology: editor- or user-driven?
On ForeverGeek, a critical post that questions the ranking methodology behind Digg, a website that clusters news and links of interest from around the web. Link to “Digg Corrupted: Editor’s Playground, not User-Driven Website.” Fark.com founder Drew…
April 20th, 2006 at 7:46 am
matt says:
I did some analysis on all of the stories submitted by the people that dugg this story that made the front page. Results here - http://www.zippitydoodahonline.com/?p=10
On average each submission recieved 8 diggs from others in this group, within the first 24 diggs a story recieved. Extremely suspicious, and looks like proof to me
April 20th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Yan says:
Shoutwire does exactly the same thing… the only “digg like” website that I’ve seen relying entirely on its users is Reddit.
April 20th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Alex says:
Petition to Kevin to stop banning sites
http://www.petitiononline.com/diggban/petition.html
April 20th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
David Johnston says:
Here’s a good summary of the more recent events (in somewhat chronological order: http://duncanriley.com/2006/04/21/digging-a-bloody-great-big-hole/
April 20th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
SEO Consultant Esoos Bobnar says:
Digg Gets the Three Minute Hate
I won’t deny it’s been hard to resist the temptation to IM all my friends with Digg accounts and have them Digg posts from my blog. Twenty Diggs or so right out of the starting blocks would give a post a nice start towards that front page. However, F…
April 20th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Paul Stamatiou says:
This is the end of digg as we know it. Who’s with me. =D
April 20th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Stephen says:
Must be me but I have not yet found anything really newsworthy at Digg. How can anyone in their right mind think it could ever be a source of unbiased news? The mechanism that can put stories on the fornt page is ripe for manipulation. The one story about a Mac newbie never deserved to hit the front page. Do you really need to see another Mac/Windows flame war from the comments section of an obscure forum? Hell, I can’t believe I’m actually wasting time commenting about something at Digg or that anyone else commenting on this posting actually cares enough to waste all this time. .
April 21st, 2006 at 5:54 am
Derek Powazek says:
The Wisdom of Browse
There’s some drama afoot lately as bloggers pick apart Digg’s user-controlled editorial system, looking for evidence of editors lurking in the darkness. But much of the conversation is overlooking a crucial nuance when it comes to authentic media and…
April 21st, 2006 at 7:43 am
godBlog says:
[…] nd recommend you take the time to savor the fallout. Perhaps the post to start with is at Real Tech News as they seem to have pointed out Digg’s problems long ago. Anyway, here’s God& […]
April 21st, 2006 at 8:44 am
The New Market Machines » Blog Archive » Soylent Greed is People says:
[…] g on here? Give me a bit to digest the furious threading on the topic. [brunch break] Real Tech News seems to explain the flap more calmly, from what I’ve read so far. Boing Boing doe […]
April 21st, 2006 at 10:02 am
notes ~ by craig zheng » Blog Archive » The Question of Social News says:
[…] most well-known in the arena, has itself given rise to a whole host of questions (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4) about how such sites manage stories. Blogger Jason Calacanis, in a post provocatively titled R […]
April 21st, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Yet Another Linux Blog says:
The Dirt on Suspicious Digging at Digg.com…
It seems that being one of the top 500 visited websites in the world has gone to Digg.com’s head. Users are reporting that some articles that are submitted are being dugg by the same users in the same exact order to up their digg rating to get them…
April 25th, 2006 at 8:02 am
dianne says:
http://efawef2c.info
November 5th, 2006 at 5:17 am
brad_is_a_douche_bag says:
ziosys.com sue me brad
April 24th, 2007 at 9:31 am
brad_is_a_douche_bag says:
http://digg.com/tech_news/brad_burns_CEO_of_ziosys_systems_threatens_to_take_digg_com_to_court
April 24th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Gid says:
Bradley Tyler Burns, pseudo-CEO of Zio Systems, has redirected his entire fraudulent site to this blog. This after his site was easily dugg into oblivion by those who annoy him most: diggers. A genius and a douche-bag, Brad will continue to scam customers until he finds help from his meds or, eventually, a loving cell-mate at his local penitentiary.
April 24th, 2007 at 11:09 am
brad_is_a_douche_bag says:
now brad moved www.ziosys.com to http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/10/google-takes-partial-ownership-of-maxthon-browser/#comment-1350113
April 24th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Deep Jive Interests » A Brief History of Digg Controversy says:
[…] Although this probably wasn’t the first time it happened, it was the first time it received the level of attention that it did, which was significant. Boing Boing weighed in. As did Slashdot . There was also a story on RealTechNews as well. Thomas Hawk seemed to be in Digg’s corner. The Inquirer had some coverage. As did Wired. So had a few other not inconsequential blogs which verified ForeverGeek’s findings. What happened next, however, was particularly troubling. […]
May 1st, 2007 at 9:46 pm
aman901 says:
Extremely suspicious to this, is it posible? Use your common sense..
June 5th, 2007 at 4:52 am
Vasyu says:
yNNJ5I Vasyu testit vasyu.net
August 8th, 2008 at 9:53 am