Just came across this story.
Maybe this is par for the course for this kind of operation, but it is pretty disgusting.
A massive operation has been in play to game the Digg site.
To think of the stink from the right about the journolist emails. Hypocritical SOBs'.
http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/...
A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.
http://blogs.alternet.org/...
The DP group searches Digg for any articles from websites they want to drown out, sites such as Salon, News Junkie Post, Talking Points Memo, FreakOutNation, Five Thirty Eight, ThePublicRecord, Rawstory, The Nation, Media Matters for America, PoliticusUSA, Alternet, Fire Dog Lake, Political Carnival, TruthOut, DailyKos, The Joshua Blog, The Brad Blog, Huffington Post, Science Blogs, Smirking Chimp, Down With Tyranny, Crooks and Liars, MarioPiperni, Buzzflash, Bob Cesca’s REALLY AWESOME Blog, and The New York Times.
This was down page, but see my bolding, Grrr.
Some more excerpts............
One bury brigade in particular is a conservative group that has become so organized and influential that they are able to bury over 90% of the articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours, regardless of subject material. Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content). This group is known as the Digg "Patriots".
The following a transcript of a DP conversation:
Bettverboten (Lizbett): Check back here you late nighters to see when and who subs this [article just published on targeted website]. I am sure it is coming our way.
Phoenixtx: Good recon Liz! Thanks! Let’s keep our eyes open.
LibertyAlways: It’s up—bury! [link]
JeremiahLaments: Think we can bury it in record time? I think we CAN!
[10 minutes later] We did it! Buried it with only 5 diggs–might be a record!
Sorry, but this will be a sort of post and run diary, have to go to bed in a few. UK here and 1.30am, only posting because this made me so angry.
Ugly, ugly censorship.
Update:
Good Grief, just got up for the loo and couldn't resist looking at my diary. Shocked to find it on the rec list. Thanks everyone for tips and recs.
Apologies to the people who think the title was midsleading.
I very quickly looked at the comments and would like to give a shout out to SarahLee for linking this...........
http://pubrecord.org/...
Lays the whole thing out beautifully and in great detail. Long read, but worth it, Shocking.
Getting Dirty
As the DPs grew more successful, they turned to more unorthodox tactics. They pretended to be African-Americans in order to call their opponents racists:
EdHurl: I reported DDR Skata for using the racist term ‘Beulahs and Uncle Toms’ when referring to a conservative black woman. Additionally, I also told a fib and I stated I was African-American. I said that I was deeply offended by the terms he used.
And backed it up with sanctimonious lies to Digg Abuse:
As a conservative African-American, I get deeply offended when someone (DDRSkata) refers to one of my conservative sisters and other conservative African-Americans as, ‘Beulahs and Uncle Toms’. Had I been white, and had used the terms, ‘Fag or Nigger’, I could expect to be banned from digg in a very swift fashion.
White people who aren’t in the know have no idea how derisive and abusive terms like ‘Beulah and Uncle Tom’ really are. Those using such terms know these terms are capable of inflicting great emotional harm on the same level as do the terms, ‘Fag and Nigger’ when they are hurled against the Gay and Black communities.
I trust you will do right by the people of color who use digg.