Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered

Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered

blogs.alternet.org

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.

(visit the link for the full news article)

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”.

More to note here:

This group is the heart of a complicated web on various networks, including Twitter, Propeller, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and Facebook, all dedicated to ramming an extreme right wing viewpoint down the throats of those communities and censoring opposing viewpoints. This includes such means as cyber stalking, bullying, and terror, as exposed on YouTube yesterday (something not one of the DP group condemned).

The article link provides the list of users who were involved in the censorhips and in couple of cases also screencaps of their email discussing how they are creating multiple id's to censor other's news. Such as



and sending mass emails to bury specific news



See more screenshots and evidence in the article.

Now Digg.com is a major media outlet ranked 50th by Alexia in US. Are conservatives that afraid they are using deceitful tactics to bury news which they don't like or is it just desperation? What's more is how many other websites they have been doing this kind of trick?

blogs.alternet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

Here's another screenie of them celebrating burying few articles


with message

I personally vote for a complete blackout on lib subs: Bury every comment (including the conservatives “helping” to pop the story). No up-votes (no matter how much you agree).
-asami21

The article puts it

This censorship is not restricted to political articles either. Articles about education, homophobia, racism, science, the environment, economics, wealth disparity, world events, the media, green energy, and anything even slightly critical of the GOP/Tea Party/FoxNews/corporations are targets.

and what's more

The Digg Patriots have censored hundreds of users, dozens of websites, and thousands of stories from the largest social media website in the world, but as of publishing time, no action has been taken by the Digg.com administrators. Regardless of what action is taken, there is a clear and systematic pattern of censorship, duplicate accounts, dodging lifetime bans, and trying to ban other users by the Digg Patriots Group.

The article is explosive and well investigated. Mind blowing stuff.

Can some conservatives explain what's going on or is it just too embarrassing?

Originally posted by I AM LEGION
Can some conservatives explain what's going on or is it just too embarrassing?

I do not think it is fair to ask "conservatives" as group about what some idiots decide to do. Why is everyone always trys to paint and enitre group with the same brush based on what a few do?

Originally posted by I AM LEGION
Can some conservatives explain what's going on or is it just too embarrassing?

Don't want to be off-topic but to respond

Democrats to GOP: You're Either With Tea Party or Against It
The Democratic National Committee is today launching an effort to force Republicans "to stand with the Tea Party or disavow their beliefs," as DNC Spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine put it in a release.

The group is urging local reporters in 30 districts to press House Republican candidates and officeholders to specify whether they will join Rep. Michele Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus.

www.cbsnews.com...

Can you explain your party forcing the entire GOP to either be with the Tea Party or not? As if the GOP are interdependant like the Borg and nobody is allowed individualism?

My point is your question is futile because it's the wrong question.

Repubs or Dems, they are the one party system, the should we screw the country this way or that way party.

And yes, the DIGG conspiracy is pathetic!
Almost as pathetic as MSNBC becoming Fox News once the Dems came into power.

reply to post by MrSpad


Agree, with you but I would like to hear the conservatives views on this since ATS majority is conservatives I imagine. So far the deafening silence says a lott.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


I respectfully disagree the article proves underhanded methods being employed by conservative group to censor and hide news critical of them. If you have proof of democrats group of doing the same please do present it.

digg.com...

I just dugg it...why not do the same and see what happens...

I'm a conservative and I go to Digg alot and I see lots of liberal stuff being posted more than conservative. I think it could be a big hoax.

[edit on 8/5/2010 by texastig]

For a bunch of supposedly moral people the conservatives are using underhanded tactics to push their agenda.



Makes you wonder if they've infiltrated this website also.

Read the source article and watched the embedded youtube video on it. Seems more like a group of anon/4chan up to their normal crap more than any concerted online conservative action group.

[Edit to add]

Just noticed the OPs name is "I am legion" there may be more to the 4chan/anon angle than I even thought.


[edit on 5-8-2010 by jefwane]

removed putting new post

[edit on 5-8-2010 by I AM LEGION]

Thank you for pointing out that I've left some PI on the internet. You of course will not mind if I report your post until I can change some privacy setting on a digg acount I used for a couple of months.

And I reiterate my thoughts on the video from the source article. It sounds more like a group of anon/4chan/b doing what they do more than a concerted conservative effort to bury dugg articles.

As for your response to my mentioning your name I'll let your response speak for itself.

[edit on 5-8-2010 by jefwane]

I mistakenly thought that this article with video were embedded in the source article rather than linked.

[edit on 5-8-2010 by jefwane]

Originally posted by I AM LEGION
Can some conservatives explain what's going on or is it just too embarrassing?

Embarrassing? How is it embarrassing? Should I find a liberal criminal and then as "Can any of you liberals explain why you are committing crimes?"

Ridiculous.

reply to post by grey580


Judging by the responses on this topic I'd say your question is more than answered.

"HEY! Let's blame it on 4chan and then call HOAX!" Yeah, blame everything on 4chan... Good scapegoat. Like they're the only group of people that can pulls strings around the net. Anon wouldn't do all that stuff that is being done on Digg. They don't have a political agenda.

Excellent find OP.

It's a tactic not too dissimilar to black hat SEO, to bury and/or suppress search engine results, as opposed to increasing hits.

That's the problem with social media acting as news outlets, they're subject to manipulation.

Now quick, post the user names/IPs to Wikileaks!

This story is a complete lie.

Digg is the most liberal left site on the entire internet, and going to it makes me want to vomit.

Their hate for conservatives, freedom, and liberty is unreal; and I believe this is liberals just trying to make conservatives look even worse.

Digg users would support absolutely anything that Obama and the left supports, no matter how dangerous and stupid it might be.


If there was a group of conservatives trying to suppress liberals on digg, they have been doing a terrible job, but I don't believe it for a minute!

reply to post by I AM LEGION


It's hackers on steroids. Their political alignment barely matters. Any group of some ten individuals with some common sense could do it.

reply to post by jefwane


Are you claiming the news article/ emails, yahoo group, screenshots of emails, groups etc is fake? And the year long investigation is wrong? By the way it has also now viral at redditt.

I wouldn't take your try at personal attack and deflecting blame some random group as Alternet or the investigators has no known links to the group you claim to be and if we start going by username I can link your name to millions unpleasent things and trust me you won't like it and it would only deflect from the topic at hand.....which is why are the conservative group trying to censor news in underhanded ways, scheming, plotting and are eventually caught red handed in the process.

(Removed digg.com link on request by Jefwane)