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Extremist group tries to game Digg

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Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#91

Post by ojbyrne »

jerf wrote: post #88
ojbyrne wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So given that it was an obvious problem 3-4 years ago, do you think it might be possible that Digg, Inc. might have recognized the problem and done something about it? And that this whole right-wing conspiracy might amount to a bunch of people pumping up their egos while basically spinning their wheels? Just sayin'...

They did "stuff", but ultimately Digg's philosophy limits what they can actually do. They're all about "power to the people", and in an online voting context that leads directly to voting cliques, as inevitably as Duverger's law leads to two major parties. You can't fix the cliques without also destroying power-to-the-people. To Digg's credit, they've tried to be true to their philosophy. Unfortunately, it's not poss…

You're speaking nonsense. "Power to the people" is a completely empty PR phrase at Digg.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#92

Post by byrneseyeview »

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…

Right, that's the content they're getting rid of. But that says nothing about the content they're posting. If it's freep threads, that's unfortunate; if it's links to GNXP.com or Paul Romer, or touting Angelo Codevilla's new essay (http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-cla... -- read it!), that's something completely different.

To someone who disagrees with all of it, Codevilla is just Glenn Beck at greater length. Which is why the author should have asked a conservative if the content that crew posted was high-quality or not.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#93

Post by MichaelSalib »

todayiamme wrote: post #78

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 me…

I once knew a guy who trolled a high quality policy discussion forum. His beef was that his wife made him go to a church that had a bunch of liberals, who would regularly say stuff that would enrage him, but which he couldn't respond to. The only thing that made him feel better was to piss on liberals online.

So one possible explanation is that some of these people feel frustrated and angry because for whatever reason, they're not able to voice their own political opinions in real life, so they get a rush from the power of denying random people on the internet that same freedom.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#94

Post by rick888 »

elbrodeur wrote: post #57
potatofish wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who didn't bother to look: http://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/04/20/goog... And here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/05/is_leftleaning_google...

I'm not going to say anything about how dubious your sources are, but I will address a couple things: 1) Blogs are not inherently "news". Ergo, they should not always be put into a news feed. 2) The blogs in question were removed because of objectionable content. Which, after reading a couple of articles on one of the sites mentioned, seems totally reasonable. The reason it's OK to remove these from the Google News f…

"1) Blogs are not inherently "news". Ergo, they should not always be put into a news feed."

Here is something I just found on the google news feed: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-20012891-10391698.html

This isn't news either, yet it's still there

"The blogs in question were removed because of objectionable content. Which, after reading a couple of articles on one of the sites mentioned, seems totally reasonable. The reason it's OK to remove these from the Google News feed is because it's not news. It's a few paranoid people talking about how dangerous RADICAL ISLAM is."

I find this article filled with just as much propaganda as an article about radical Islam, yet Google news still displays it (it's interesting how left-leaning opinion pieces are fine):

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2010/08/05/opinion/doc4c5...

With everything that has happened in the world, I don't see how you can pass off "the dangers of radical islam" as something small in the minds of paranoid people.

"This is not a "liberal bias". This is an attempt to have a news feed that contains news. Not libel. Not hate speech."

What you call "hate speech" and "libel" are just opinions. I find that word thrown around with ease by the left to vilify and silence opposing opinions.

If the info in the above articles are all lies, why does it matter if people read them? Won't they eventually find out?

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#95

Post by davidw »

jbooth wrote: post #87
davidw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm considering starting my own shadow conspiracy to downmod every comparison to, or mention of, reddit.

Is the point not valid? If you want to avoid mentioning... "it", you could simply say that without imposing some rules/order, random internet discussion of politics degrades fairly rapidly.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#96

Post by protomyth »

htsh wrote: post #53
JeffL wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Agreed, but I think this is a little beyond self-segration. If they just wanted to self-segregate, they'd find stories they agree with and digg them up, but extending that to also ruin other people's discussion is another thing. They are gathering with the explicit goal of drowning out other voices outside of their self-segregated group. Perhaps another reason reddit isn't as susceptible is that it allows for user-cr…

Happens in real-life. Look at how many news stories you see about some speaker coming to a college and being shouted down (or food being thrown at them) so they can't speak.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#97

Post by MichaelSalib »

camiller wrote: post #76
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…

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.

Do you have a cite for that? I couldn't find anything googling quickly and it sounds awfully suspicious.

In any event, I'm not sure it means much: most news organizations operate out of major cities, and major cities tend to have more liberal populations. If it was economically feasible to start a world-class news organization in a rural part of the Bible-belt, things might be different, but apparently it is not.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#98

Post by w00pla »

davidw wrote: post #62
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…

This kind of stuff (both sides) is why politics should be kept as far as possible away from Hacker News.

I agree. Reddit&Digg have their own (what I can only describe as troll sites) such as DailyKos.

IRL, that is generally what I like about Europeans (or at least my impression of them) - they have more mild beliefs. A lot of Americans seem to have very strong predetermined beliefs.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#99

Post by jbooth »

davidw wrote: post #95
jbooth wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm considering starting my own shadow conspiracy to downmod every comparison to, or mention of, reddit.

Is the point not valid? If you want to avoid mentioning... "it", you could simply say that without imposing some rules/order, random internet discussion of politics degrades fairly rapidly.

Yeah, it's not valid, because it's an appeal-to-reverse-authority. And to top it off, that authority is rooted in snootiness, which is my least favorite form of bogus authority.

If you have something to say, say it. Reddit's probably irrelevant, and for the record, for any population, there's a lot of people smarter than you and me. Particularly if you and I are engaging in lazy categorization.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#100

Post by davidw »

jbooth wrote: post #99
davidw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the point not valid? If you want to avoid mentioning... "it", you could simply say that without imposing some rules/order, random internet discussion of politics degrades fairly rapidly.

Yeah, it's not valid, because it's an appeal-to-reverse-authority. And to top it off, that authority is rooted in snootiness, which is my least favorite form of bogus authority. If you have something to say, say it. Reddit's probably irrelevant, and for the record, for any population, there's a lot of people smarter than you and me. Particularly if you and I are engaging in lazy categorization.

It's not an appeal to anything: it's an observation of my years on the internet: politics discussions on the internet go downhill quickly. Where do you think "Godwin's Law" came from?

After all, this whole discussion is attached to a story about how a group of people took the time, because of their political motivations, to attempt to "attack" another group of people on a web site. Seems like pretty lame behavior to me.

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