goldengod

Kevin Rose signs some breasts
Photo by Thomas Hawk.

A seemingly large number of Digg users are currently very interested in the possibility that the site is actually being controlled by a small number of elite users, rather than by the ‘democratic majority’ of all Digg users that the site promotes.

I’ve been tripping over stories about this all morning, and each one carries anywhere from four hundred to two thousand Diggs. There is some very significant user interest in this once again. Previously, back in April there was another increase of interest in Digg stories that insinuated or outright said that Digg was fixed. There was so much interest that Digg founder Kevin Rose addressed the concerns directly in an entry on the digg blog.

Initial Accusations

Jesusphreak kicked things off again yesterday with his article entitled “Digg the rigged? A closer look at Digg’s democratic model“. In it, he explores how the majority of articles that make the front page are submitted and initially dugg by a core group of about 30 users, who seem to be using their influence to ensure only their friend’s stories get bumped to the front page.

The first thing that I’d like to mention is that I find it interesting that the sites being promoted don’t seem to be commercially affiliated with these users in any way. So despite the fact that Digg is among the top 1,000 sites on the web and has an enormous reach, the system does not appear to be taking advantage for financial means, just geek street cred.

Digg founder Kevin Rose
Photo by Stewart Butterfield.

Later the same day, Jesusphreak returned with a follow up post. It explains how his previous story was actually removed from the Digg upcoming queue. It also was restricted from hitting the front page, despite garnering far more attention and diggs in a shorter time period than most of the entries that do make it there. He states that it appears that a Digg moderator removed the story from the front page.

User Responses & Additional Information

One of the Digg users mentioned as part of the Elite 30, hemphill81, who supposedly control most of the front page discovered this story and wrote a response to it in his personal blog. He explains that the probably reason for this is the top users tend to pay more attention to each others stories because they are top users as well, and thus digg each other far more often. Seems reasonable, if a little unfair to the wailing technological masses.

At the same that this is taking place, another user has made the same discovery separately and written his point of view on it. Again, a large number of the same Digg users are fingered in this group, but not a whole lot of additional evidence is uncovered. The same information from a different point of view is what this article offers.

A Numbers Game

Digg v3 Lauch Party
Photo by Laughing Squid.

Taylor Howard, on the other hand, cuts right to the core of the issue. He presents us with some data on recent top stories showing a very clear pattern of articles being submitted en masse and all being dugg by the same core of a dozen or so users. Links are included so you can verify the veracity of all of it yourself.

A selection of ForeverGeek (a site now banned from Digg) articles on the subject from April 2006 make for interesting additional reading on what happened back then. One of them shows side-by-side comparisons of the same sixteen elite Digg users digging two separate stories, but exactly in the same order and within bare minutes of it being posted.

In Closing

Whether there is any truth to all this is still the subject of much speculation, but there is a lot of information that seems to be pointing at a rather unsavory conclusion. There has not yet been any response to any of these new allegations on the official Digg Blog or DiggNation. However, for the moment at least one of the stories regarding this has made it to the front page without being removed.

Update #1: Kevin Rose has finally addressed the situation directly, on the Digg Blog. He asserts that at the end of the day, Digg is in control of the users and mentions multiple software updates over the next little while that help combat this by concentrating more on the diversity of users who digg the story, rather than just their overall rank. Whether already planned or a very hastily drawn up PR Plan B, this definitely seems to be a step in the right direction towards controlling this kind of manipulation.

Update #2: Alex Peake of TheEmpowerment.com has found a video of the young lady having her bosoms signed by Kevin, pictured at the top of this article. Also, here’s some pictures of her mostly naked in the mountains from her own Flickr account. Enjoy this relevant information!