Deep Jive Interests

Update: Now includes the Digg Revolt. 

Update: If you feel you have something to add about Digg’s history let me know at anthony{dot}hung{at}gmail{dot}com.

After blogging about the “Aliwood” incident, which was received with deafening silence, I looked into whether or not this was the first time anyone had been interested in controversy over at Digg.com.

Sure enough, it wasn’t.
What follows is a short and incomplete, I’m sure, collection of information that constitutes a brief history of Digg controversy.

ForeverGeek-Gate
This past April those guys over at ForeverGeek noticed a pattern of digging going on at Digg.com and called Digg out on it . They noticed that a group of dedicated Diggers (nee the Digg Army) were digging each others posts, foisting their submissions to the front page. What added a bit of special sauce was that apparently Kevin Rose was part of this circle as well.

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.

ForeverGeek was quickly found “banned” from Digg. That is, it was impossible to submit stories from ForeverGeek.com. Things spiraled out of control: as more and more Diggers picked up on the story and began submitting less-than-complimentary stories, they found their stories obliterated or buried, and in some case, the posters themselves banned.

Kevin Rose eventually weighed in on the issue himself explaining that ForeverGeek was thought to have been using fake accounts to digg up certain stories; therefore, it was banned. This appeared to be difficult to prove in and of itself, and in time, ForeverGeek was un-banned. Some people believe one explanation is that Digg is very heavy on spammers , ergo, it was easy for the domain (ForeverGeek) to get banned. After the fact, it appeared that many users part of the “Digg Army” disappeared as well.

More Group Digging Controversies
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that group digging was thought to occur.

AOL “Spamming” : Apparently Diggers with links to AOL have been group digging their own submissions, although similar submissions never make it to the front page. One of the Navigators on Netscape replied back , suggesting that it was coincidence alone, and that “natural groupings” had explained their group vote.

Liberterians get in on the act: BigDaveDiode catalogues his adventures with a Liberterian group pushing stories with a certain (liberterian) agenda. If his account is to believed, it sounds like that a small group of Liberterians organized themselves on a Yahoo! group and deliberately digged certain stories to the front page. Apparently 9 of 12 stories on their website had, at one point, hit the front page. Seems like once BigDaveDiode started asking a few questions (that were apparently pointedly ignored), their group disappeared from Yahoo!

Michelle Malkin Encourages Group Digging As Well : In a recent post, Michelle Malkin encouraged her own fans to sign up at Digg and Digg her own articles. Taylor Hayword does a nice breakdown of the new signups, how they’ve been digging, and just how many posts from Michelle Malkin’s own blog have been dugg. Ms. Malkin fired back in her own chipper way .

Recursive Humour
July 2006, John Graham-Cumming decides to post dual-post Digg and Reddit in a joke playing on the idea of “recursion” . One submission referred to a reddit submission, and, vice versa. By submitting both to each site pointing at each other, each separate submission got bongo results. It was meant to be a bit of a joke, but Mr. Graham-Cumming found out that Digg takes a dim view of anything that smacks of manipulating the system.

Sure enough, his post got deleted, and his profile banned.

Apparently, the explanation was that his efforst had violated their terms of service … although the part they quote didn’t seem to make a lot of sense, because he had, apparently, mistakenly submitted his story twice. And, apparently it had nothing to do with their “lack of humour”. Perhaps due to the spirited discussion both on Digg and on his website, or even a contribution by the Register, his account was re-instated some time later, although. It required Leo Laporte to intervene on his behalf (his initial emails weren’t answered) before his profile and posts were unbanned.

AOL Poaching Posters
July 2006 (again), Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc, and now AOL, and also Netscape makes an offer to all prodigious Diggers that some of them can’t refuse — cash for participating in the New Netscape . Netscape has transformed itself into a new social news website a la Digg, and Mr. Calacanis offers to compensate them for their hardwork. Many gurus / pundits weigh in on the situation, as does Kevin Rose. As it stands, Netsacpe is making some headway, but according to some analysts, has a long long way to go.

Digg of Oz?
Very recently, there has been posts floating around suggesting that not only do moderators exist on Digg, but they are actively changing and deleting posts without any apparent explanation. Netscape does it with aplomb and is quite transparent about it. One example at Digg involved a cadet “Aliwood” at the the United States Air Force Academy who, as part of her assignment had to participate in Digg. It began innocently enough until she contacted a top100 Digger, who had elected to mention it on his blog , then Digg the article himself. 60% of her posts were then promoted to the front page, with one of them getting over 1000 digs, however, most of the diggs appeared to be based on the story around her assignment, rather than the newsworthiness (or lack thereof) of her stories. In a few days her account and her posts were all deleted . Although “Aliwood” was not deliberately trying to ‘game’ the system, the popularity of her story skyrocketed the number of diggs her submissions would have normally gotten. And it appeared that she payed the price.

Digg Protects TM, Sics Lawyers on Gaming Site
August 2006 — Digg decides to enforce its TM “Digg” and “Digg it”, and sends its lawyers to send a cease and desist letter to DiggGames.com, for a variety of reasons, one of which is to prevent confusion with the parent site. DiggGames.com is a website which hosts games (flash and otherwise) which have been featured on Digg. A lively discussion ensues on Digg, where many opinions, some from lawyers suggest that without defending one’s TM, you could lose it. TechCrunch covers it briefly as well. Others go on to opine that it is not the fact they are defending their TM that is the issue, but the way they are resolving the issue. Some point to how Engadget is dealing with a Malaysian store who is doing a good job ripping off their name as an example; others yet point to Kevin Rose’s own “on-air/net” personality as a geek-cum-dark tipper as entirely disingenuous with the spirit of the cease and desist letter against a small time operator. Although Kevin Rose issued a statement through the Digg blog, claiming the intent was not to shut down any websites … but merely to get a name change. The story does not yet have an ending so far.

Circle-Digging: Elite Diggers Controlling Frontpage
September 2006. Jesusphreak posts an article questioning how democratic the digging processes is when he notices that a significant proportion of the frontpage articles are submitted, then dugg by elite, top20 (or 50) bloggers. It seems like these diggers digg each others submissions, thus propelling those submissions right to the frontpage — primarily because the Digg algorithm places weight on reputation. Something that elite Diggers have in spades. A firestorm of commentary erupts, causing it to hit all kinds of major news blogs, and even eliciting a reponse from Kevin Rose himself, wherein he goes on to state that Digg has plans to change the way top “Diggers” are recognized (Submitters vs. Diggers) in addition to subtle changes to the Digg algorithm so it will, apparently, offer a more equitable way for stories to be promoted to the Frontpage. Hemphill81 weighed on the issue himself, stating that he was just using the tools available; the commentary which followed was energetic to say the least.

Also of interest, p9s50W5k4GUD2c6, the Number One Digger decided to quit Digg after the whole debacle, and how Kevin Rose chose to handle things. [tip: Chrisek at DiggAddicts on this one!]. GregD similarly weighed in with his thoughts.

Interestingly enough, it pierces the consciousness of the blosphere, and quite a few other blogs begin to pick up on the story.

• DiggAddict — Controversy
• GoldenGod.net — “Digg Rigg Drama Bigg”
• ProfitPapers.com — “Is Digg Rigged?”

HD-DVD Encryption Key — The Numbers That Shall Not Be Named, and the Revolt.
Although it was by no means a new piece of information, the hexadecimal key that allowed HD-DVDs to be encrypted with Linux had been vociferously tracked down by copyright lawyers.  The result has been that many blogs have had to take down the key.  Digg users got a hold of it and started submitting blogs with this information. The result? These submissions were taken down, some with as many as 15 000 diggs.  The rationale?  Digg was worried that they would be the receiving end of a DCMA lawsuit, and wanted to protect themselves as much as possible.  The problem?  The geek community that Digg was built upon took exception to the way Digg was handling this, as it was taking the side of the DMCA (albeit for self-preservation), rather than engaging it in some kind of meaningful conversation. The bigger problem?  The Digg community revolted by submitting, then promoting, stories related to this key faster than what Digg could pull down.  The richy irony?  That Digg was built up on the backs of geeks, and now, in this time and on this issue that geeks are passionate about the best Digg can do is censor itself.

The undocumented history of Digg
With the rise of Digg as the posterchild of the Web2.0, its pretty fascinating to hear and read about the controversies around this emerging giant of the medium. While group digging is something that will always be an issue with these socially driven news sites, I think the most troubling thing is the rise of moderators on Digg. Evidence is clearly mounting that it is the case, but its difficult to built a case on — since Digg has had no qualms in obliterating posts and profiles, leaving no trace or evidence of any wrongdoing.

Since that’s the case it makes one wonder if there have been any other undocumented ‘controversies’ in Digg’s recent past. A secret history, perhaps? While it acts as grist for the conspiracy mill, one thing’s for certain.

As Digg gets more and more popular, it will (as it already has) start to attract more attention. More attention will mean more people trying to take advantage of the system, and more attempts at Digg trying to give the appearance of keeping things fair. It remains to be seen if Digg will ever publicly announce a more openhanded attempt at editorial control — but in the end, I think more transparency can’t be but a good thing.