Mob Rule at Digg
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James Joyner | Saturday, February 24, 2007 |
Charles Johnson provides a case study in the “digital Maoism” at Digg, where gangs of likeminded lefties pounce on any post from his site and ban it from the front page even when it gets hundreds of “diggs.” Indeed, the post pointing out the problem has nearly 600 diggs at the moment but has been effectively kept off the front page.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Personally, that kind of thing is one reason I've never really gotten involved with such "services". The way such things are put up, is far too subjective. You have in the past, and with some justification, main complaints about the way sitemeter is working and or not working. I submit the problem there is a matter of programmatic design. (Though frankly, and in fairness, given the numbers of hits sitemeter gets I can't imagine being able to program a way around the problem...)
But, I would also submit that the issue with Digg and the like, is also programmatic; the program is designed with far too many humans involved in the decision-making chain.
That's alright, I think Technorati has come out with something similar to digg. Too bad the initials are "WTF"...
Hey, I guess if you want to get into the front page, you better do a little ass kissing nowadays..
I'm not digging the controlled bias...same crap on youtube. There are a ton of opinion control freaks out here in the internets...or is it the wwwtf?
I guess no one has any faith in markets any more.
I guess no one has any faith in markets any more.
If collusion by a few can derail the preferences of the many, it's not a free market. If Digg or other social networking sites naturally attract a disproportionate share of lefties who don't vote for LGF, that's well and good. If, however, a handful of them are colluding to ensure that the hundreds of votes LGF gets among Digg users are canceled out, it's a broken system.
Hal, ..kinda like having faith in a Venezuelan market?
Digg IS a mob. That's how it works. The 600 people digging up Charles' crap is another mob, the same people who keep trying to make him into a living saint on Wikipedia.
To, maybe, flesh out Hal's point:
If Johnson is correct, then Digg will effectively dig its own grave (sorry for the pun). After all, if it isn't giving its users the most popular posts, then why use it? If this becomes an issue for enough people they'll stop using it, and it will simply fade away or be relegated as something only for a niche market.
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