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Extremist group tries to game Digg

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Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#71

Post by eru »

davidw wrote: post #65
LaPingvino wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe... At least I've got the impression that on HN reactions are way more professional, I see people here actually listening to the arguments of others and that's the least you need to keep things quiet. Most people here keep extremism out here anyway. Emotional arguments don't succeed to gain traction, you have to be factual and nuanced to gain respect here, and as far as I see blind extremism doesn't get that far…

Yeah, reddit started that way too. It doesn't last long.

On HN the fear is "Are we turning into Reddit?".

On Reddit the comparison used to be Digg. (I left three years ago, so I don't know what happened in the mean time.)

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#72

Post by chopsueyar »

nnash wrote: post #27
elbrodeur wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, could you cite where Google has been caught "spiking stories in their news site that are critical of the left"? I'm deeply interested in censorship and feel that this would be a pretty big story.

How would it be a big story? Fox "spikes" stories that aren't even true, and are critical to the right every day. A lot of it ends up as fodder for the Daily Show.

Are you specifically referring to the Taliban-trained monkey soldiers, motivated by bananas and peanuts?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buoVwM1pQEs&feature=relat...

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#73

Post by replicatorblog »

spamizbad wrote: post #34
ellyagg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people in the US talk about liberal media bias, the frame of reference is the average US voter's leanings. By that standard, dominant news sources (the incumbents, the ones considered most credible) are inarguably left biased. Some ridiculously high percentage of newspaper reporters, like 90%, vote for the Democrat (or other third party left leaning candidate) in every election. While this particular point isn't…

How are dominant news sources liberal when they were notoriously non-critical of the Bush administration's war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan up until Iraq was in the midst of a civil war (Which the "liberal" media was so kind as to refer to it as "sectarian violence"). The New York Times and NPR even refused to use the word torture to describe water boarding - despite the fact that if you dug into their archives th…

Unfortunately, our perception of bias is heavily influenced by our personal biases. My recollection of the Bush years was very different, the anti-Bush sentiment are much more prominent in my mind.

It would be an interesting technology project or site. Do a sentiment analysis of major media sources. Search for how often a particular phrase is used. e.g.

Immigration: "Illegal Alien" or "Undocumented Worker"

Abortion: "Pro-Life" or "Anti-Abortion"

Something that could update in real time. It is unavoidable that every news site will have some slant, but an objective number based on rational criteria would be a good tool ala the nutrition facts labels on food packages.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#74

Post by htsh »

loewenskind wrote: post #66
htsh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah as a user since 2007, it went noticeably conservative in the last year or so (which is when many of us moved to Reddit). And it's not just conservative leaning but really pointed partisan stuff. I hope they can figure out a way to solve this sort of thing going forward. And I'm curious if their choice of either digg/bury instead of upvote/downvote makes it easier to game. I believe it does, as these folks haven'…

Well the main reddits have a sharp liberal bias. When people from other subreddits who don't conform to this view speak up they tend to get smacked down pretty hard and quick.

I think it's both Liberal and Libertarian. And Ron Paul is quite popular there.

Also, there's still a difference between something that happens there and what the Digg Patriots are doing in that they are conspiring to game the system. There's no such equivalent thing going on at Reddit.

Edit: I think we see the natural split of progressive v. libertarian on reddit, and both parties are represented very well. Perhaps there's not a neo-conservative/fox news voice, but I would not be quick to blame that on some sort of conspiracy as much as I would on the difficulty one has reasoning with these sorts of extremists. They are not there to engage in dialog as much as they are there to poison it.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#75

Post by eru »

sliverstorm wrote: post #55
potatolicious wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian living in the US I'm constantly amused at the left/right divide here. Left wing politics in this country would, in any other western nation, be considered centrist (if not a little to the right), and right-wing politics here would be fairly extreme right in most other places.

The right-wing is well-entrenched, so 'progressive' is not always that progressive. You have to give up a little ground to avoid looking psycho.

On the other hand, America is much more statist/socialistic in some regards than they like to admit.

E.g. the state gives lots of support for home ownership, including government sponsored mortgage guarantees. Or the power of all those crazy unions. Nominally more social-democratic Germany or Scandinavia look tame by comparison on those aspects.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#76

Post by camiller »

ellyagg wrote: post #31
stuaxo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bit about American media shilling for the left is quite a funny troll. Admittedly I might be wrong as I don't live in that country, but American media and politics seems to consist of the right and the further right.

When people in the US talk about liberal media bias, the frame of reference is the average US voter's leanings. By that standard, dominant news sources (the incumbents, the ones considered most credible) are inarguably left biased. Some ridiculously high percentage of newspaper reporters, like 90%, vote for the Democrat (or other third party left leaning candidate) in every election. While this particular point isn't…

Well said. Seems like I remember a while back (several election cycles) they did a poll not on how reporters voted but on who they donated money to. Where something like 90% of most media organizations reporters/staff/etc donated to liberal candidates, at Fox News only 75% donated to liberal candidates.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#77

Post by jcromartie »

gwern wrote: post #59
byrneseyeview wrote: post #43

What they fail to understand is that there was never a conspiracy to censor their content, it was the greater Digg community that did that because their articles are usually unprofessional, fact-challenged fantasies that nobody wants to read. They should probably have asked a conservative. It's hard to tell whether these folks were submitting quality stories with a different slant, or were actively submitting crap. O…

> It's hard to tell whether these folks were submitting quality stories with a different slant, or were actively submitting crap. If I may quote from the article quoting the conspiracy's users about the submissions of 'these folks' > "If any of the usual suspects subbed a story claiming “sky blue/water wet,” I’d BURY IT without question. I’ve been on digg for almost 4 years… > -JeremiahLaments (account says Joined Di…

Well, what do you know. They just hate everything. Nice.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#78

Post by todayiamme »

This is slightly off topic, but why do people do things like this? I don't understand why anyone would go to such lengths to do something like this. I just don't get it.

I see people around me fighting over parking spaces. I see people holding conferences on how to fight over parking spaces (that guy is muscling in!). I see people do the same for roughly every damn topic in this world, and sometimes it gets really messy. Why?

What's in it for them?

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#79

Post by jodrellblank »

olefoo wrote: post #61
SkyMarshal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Others game social media sites to drive traffic to sites that profit them. This is the first I've heard of people doing it for political reasons though.

Happens here too. If you've ever wondered how a certain austrian entrepreneur always manages to garner enough votes to put him on the front page even when the material doesn't support it...

No, but I often wonder how a thinly veiled personal attack gets multiple upvotes.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#80

Post by DennisP »

JeffL wrote: post #52
htsh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah as a user since 2007, it went noticeably conservative in the last year or so (which is when many of us moved to Reddit). And it's not just conservative leaning but really pointed partisan stuff. I hope they can figure out a way to solve this sort of thing going forward. And I'm curious if their choice of either digg/bury instead of upvote/downvote makes it easier to game. I believe it does, as these folks haven'…

People tend to self-segregate in real life. It makes sense that it should happen on the Internet, too.

A long time ago I read an interview with Charlton Heston. He said during the filming of Planet of the Apes, the costumes took so long to put on and take off that they left them on during lunch. One day he looked around and realized: all the humans were sitting together, all the gorillas were sitting together, all the orangutans...
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