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Digg is Censoring Content by Burying Stories Internally

pronetadvertising.com — We all know that the main reason why stories don't hit the Digg homepage is because they get buried. Some say the buries are caused by specific Digg users who have it out for us while others just blame it on the content saying it wasn't Digg worthy. Well last week we did a test on Pronet Advertising that shows Digg might be burying stories...

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  • Burento, on 10/11/2007, -7/+27I know right off that people on Digg, especially loyal users and admin, do not like these stories and i expect they will bury this instantly. BUT i guess that is the point.

    I have had numerous articles that were not spam or crap get to 59 diggs and at the very top of the upcoming list and then go poof and completely disappear.

    Why?

    Like it or not... Love Digg or not... You know for a fact that there are bury groups and that admin bury articles they personally do not want to see make the front page.
  • keng, on 10/11/2007, -15/+12FYI: buried as spam.

    Note: Current user is not affiliated with Digg.com or Revision3.
  • ChuckNorrisMan, on 10/11/2007, -17/+5Digg would NEVER do such a thing -- sounds like sour grapes to me. If you add some anti-Bush stuff, it will make the homepage in no time.
  • Zagger, on 10/11/2007, -6/+13Look at who is digging the story and you will find out it's Netscape AOL employees. Also why should I not bury an SEO blog?

    FYI buried as lame.
    • Burento, on 10/11/2007, -10/+7It should not matter who is digging the story. I have never worked for Netscape.

      And the reason you should not just bury an article because it is from an SEO blog is because it further shows how the community spends less time worrying about the real content and more time trying to censor or stop the progression of news they dont want to be seen.

      If you cannot determine that this type of censorship is not spam or lame then you should not be allowed to have a say in burying.
  • LakeshoreBaby, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10This story is buried already.
    http://www.digg.com/spy_update?&showburies=1&maxitems=10000
  • Burento, on 10/11/2007, -11/+5You know if there is going to be a group of people that sit back and have the freedom to slam any article that is related to SEO or Marketing than why cannot a group of say 200 SEO and Marketers not be able to sit back and bury every article not about SEO?

    We should not be judged by our profession because we want to use this site. It does not prompt you to ask if you are only interested in Tech stories and Mac when you sign up. So we should be allowed to have differant interests and have a fair shake at the news shown on this site.

    It is accomplished through naturally algorithms what is news and what is not. To have admins and bury bregades is just as bad as having digg groups and gaming.

    So as much as you all hate SEOs because you feel they game systems.. you should be ashamed of yourselves for gaming a system. You know the power of a bury and yet you willingly use it to blog content when you know it is not the way it is intended to be used.

    THAT is the same complaint you have for SEOs.
  • jtmax24, on 10/11/2007, -9/+4This is just so lame..... Buried by a nobody who does care if you bury this or digg it!!!!
  • Burento, on 10/11/2007, -13/+1.........
  • largeora, on 10/11/2007, -8/+14A bunch a of spammers. That's what you're. Your submitted story profile are testament to it!

    How can you hide that now? Digg users please take a few minutes and look at what these users have being submitting. SPAM SPAM SPAM. Oh and keep on digging me down AOL/SEO trolls!
    • Burento, on 10/11/2007, -11/+4WTF.. i had to read that twice to understand your an idiot..
    • dannysullivan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4@largeora, you listed my profile among many and suggest that I'm a spammer and characterize me as a "SEO submitter." You further write:

      "I dugg only genuine news sites. Sites that don't infest their pages with ads, sites that don't use every dirty trick in the book to game the system, and sites that don't care about google rank. SEO's are gaming digg and you know that more then I do! and this is clear proof of it!"

      For the record, I run a genuine news site. It's one actually carried by places such as Google News, which are selective in what they accept. I'm regularly briefed on news from the major search engines because I run both a genuine news site and, indeed, am a journalist far more than I am an SEO (I don't actively do SEO -- I write about it as one of many aspects of search).

      I've been covering search for 11 years. That's before things like Google existed. It's before Digg existed. I've been successful in what I do because over these long years, I've communicated information about search in a way that thousands of readers have found useful.

      I watched my site get buried automatically for a short period of time, in the way many sites still see this happening. There was no reason for it other than some vindictiveness. From what I can tell, a small number of people decided content from my site should never see the light of day on Digg. After I wrote about what was happening (http://daggle.com/070308-210650.html) and also explained how Diggers were missing out on the solid content I offer (and arguably with fewer, less intrusive ads than you find here on Digg), the burying stopped. I've had a few stories buried since then, and I entirely agree with why those got knocked out (usually, it was because another story on the same topic was already popular).

      It is easy for you to characterize everyone as a bunch of Digg-hating, Digg-spamming scum-sucking SEOers. The reality is that hidden buries are a problem that many people even within the Digg community consider an issue.

      I'll leave you with this. I've often written that when it comes to search engines, you've got two canaries in the coal mine that tell you if something is wrong: librarians and SEOs. Both know the search tools very well and can tell if something's up. SEOs know if stuff that's not up to snuff is ranking in the search engines because aside from being SEOs, they're often experts in the topics they cover.

      If you have people raising alarms about buries here, I'd suggest rather than trying to bury those concerns in a knee-jerk reaction you instead consider a bit more about what's being raised and encourage Digg's management to talk more about it. At the very least, if they provided a public accounting of buries as they do with Diggs, this second round of bury debate wouldn't be happening now.


  • largeora, on 10/11/2007, -13/+16Here is the proof, you low life spammer!

    http://digg.com/users/msaleem/news/submitted = Netscape/AOL employee.

    http://digg.com/users/JeremyL/news/submitted (Submitting SEO SPAM ONLY!)

    http://digg.com/users/seevo/news/submitted (Blog Spam!)

    http://digg.com/users/supernova17/news/submitted (Banned once for getting paid to submit an SEO story!)

    http://digg.com/users/lollie/news/dugg/page35 (Dugg more then 550 stories TODAY ALONE. Hey guys, you started using bots? Gotcha!)

    http://digg.com/users/dennisk85/news/submitted (Submits his poor written blog over and over again)

    http://digg.com/users/matterhorn/news/dugg (Diggs, and submits his site only)


    http://digg.com/users/dannysullivan/news/submitted (Another SEO submitter)

    http://digg.com/users/cshel/news/dugg (Diggs everything the submitter of this story submits and submits SEO sites only)

    http://digg.com/users/Gaarra/news/submitted (95% of his submissions are from his SEO blog. He is part of this group too)

    http://digg.com/users/dd31/news/dugg (Diggs all stories submitted by the submitter of this story. Another bot/fraud/spam account)

    http://digg.com/users/avivi/news/dugg (Diggs all stories submitted by the submitter of this story. Another bot/fraud/spam account)

    http://digg.com/users/skored/news/dugg (This guy probably diggs like 300 stories a day. Go figure)

    http://digg.com/users/Shadee/news/submitted (Submits his SEO blog only, digging all the user who are digging this story and every submission the submitter of this story submits. Speaking about diverse digg users..sigh)

    http://digg.com/users/tamar/news/dugg (This one probably submits the worse kind of SEO spam or genuine spam and is also part of this group digging each other)

    http://digg.com/users/webtickle/news/submitted (This guy gets paid to submit sites so that they get a higher ranking on google using his SEO brigade i.e the users who are digging this story)

    http://digg.com/users/seguru/news/dugg (Diggs only SEO spam stories)

    http://digg.com/users/rustybrick/news/submitted (And another SEO spam submitter only)

    http://digg.com/users/mistercharlie/news/dugg (Diggs SEO spam stories and submission of this story submitter and all those of this same group)

    And more will appear as they spread their spam URL over to one another. Your comments will be dugg down since they have more of them watching and asking to digg down that comment and digg up the comments they like.

    The above is crystal clear proof of their abuse! Its their accounts not mine or someones else.
    • parislemon, on 10/11/2007, -4/+8Your point (and list) might be taken more seriously if your account didn't consistently show you digging stories from the users listed above...
    • webtickle, on 10/11/2007, -6/+17How dare you claim that I am getting paid for submissions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • Universal, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Just to be clear, just because someone diggs over a hundred stories a day doesn't mean they are paid or are a bot. Fore example, I usually digg more than a hundred stories daily, and am not paid, nor am a bot. I digg what I am interested in. Go figure.
  • largeora, on 10/11/2007, -5/+5Do you care to point out which SEO story submitted by one of the above users I have dugg? I dugg only genuine news sites. Sites that don't infest their pages with ads, sites that don't use every dirty trick in the book to game the system, and sites that don't care about google rank. SEO's are gaming digg and you know that more then I do! and this is clear proof of it!
    • Skitzzo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Um ads like digg has at the top of this page? Ads like ESPN has at the bottom of every page? Ads like the popups CNN has on it's site?

      And to be quite honest, if you have a website and you don't care about your rankings in Google and the other search engines, you're a fool (although, that appears to be the case from your previous comments on this story).
    • Burento, on 10/11/2007, -8/+5Gaming Digg.

      I am sorry but why does submitting good content have to be gaming. Why is it always a negative thing to understand something.

      If i know that checking the scratch off lottery winnings lists will show me which scratch offs have no additional large prizes to win and then use that info to buy scratch offs that have large prizes left, why is that gaming?

      If i take the time to understand my taxes enough to properly apply my deductions, why does that get called gaming.

      If i take the time to write a good title and present an article in a way that is proven to be more appealing to digg, why is that gaming?

      Why can we not call smart just smart.

  • juice33, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2Largeora, slashdot misses you
  • Burento, on 10/11/2007, -8/+2http://digg.com/tech_news/The_Digg_Staff_Big_Fat_Hairy_Liars
  • mmalone, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Regardless of whether this dude is submitting tons of spam, or SEO garbage, or whatever, I think he has a point. The same thing happens to my site, which is not an SEO site, and has no ads, etc. It's not a huge deal to me - I mean, I'd prefer to have a fair shot at the front page, but Digg _is_ a private company. What kind of annoys me is that they are so shady about it. If they are automatically burying stories why don't they say so? If they're not then why don't they try explaining this weird behavior.

    http://digg.com/users/kevinrose/news/dugg/page3 - this guy dugg one of the stories from my site, could that be the problem?
  • pullit, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6Dugg, but old news. The BBC WTC 7 fiasco proved to everyone this site was censored, meet Big Brother.
    • ViperDaimao, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4oh great, now you've got the 911 conspiracy theorists on your side.
  • forpeterssake, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Dugg because I think it's interesting. I don't particularly have a problem with bury teams or internal censorship, but I do think people should know about it.
  • rootneg2, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I thought that I had been noticing something funny going on. Within the past week I've seen at least 3 (worthy and interesting) videos (which I dugg) hit the frontpage only to get buried within minutes. Spam-control is one thing; but I would think that legitimate users outnumber the spammers. We can deal with the occasional bit of spam, so long as *most* of the content is good, and over-zealous spam control cuts down on good-content.

    And even though this story is buried; it's still getting diggs; maybe Digg should be able to "unbury" stories that re-prove their popularity?
  • websuspect, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0WHo cares its ***** Digg!
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