

Extremist group tries to game Digg - elbrodeur
http://blogs.alternet.org/oleoleolson/2010/08/05/massive-censorship-of-digg-uncovered/

======
chaosmachine
That's nothing, you should see what rabid Erlang fans can do when they're
bored.

~~~
kingkilr
I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing it's MASSIVELY PARALLEL AND
MUNCITONAL.

~~~
baxter
I hadn't come across 'munctional' before.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yH_j8-VVLo>

I don't know whether to thank you or not. :)

------
byrneseyeview
_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. Obviously it's hard to trust the views of a site
that says:

 _There are a few differences of opinion within DP, although for the most
part, they are extremely similar in perspective. They hate Obama. They hate
progressives. They hate the UN, diplomacy, and peace/disarmament efforts. They
hate reforms of health care, Wall St., and immigration. They hate science, in
fact many are creationists, and some even blog about it. They hate the secular
nature of our nation. They hate environmental protection, requiring polluters
to be responsible for their own cleanup, and especially hate climate efforts.
They hate unions and any attempt to level the playing field to give all
Americans economic opportunities. They hate the government, except the
military-industrial complex. They hate abortion rights. They hate public
schools and really hate higher education. They hate anyone in the media except
far right personalities like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin.
They hate anyone who doesn’t think Obama is a secret islamist and/or marxist
who was born in Kenya._

And follows that up with the unironic:

 _They just love to hate._

Fortunately, this article makes it easier for voting sites to detect cabals
and manipulators by seeing which accounts vote in tandem. That might lead to
false positives, but that may not be so bad--if only a tiny minority cares
very strongly about a single story, I don't have to care whether or not
they're coordinating their votes. Either way, it's likely to be of less
interest to the average reader.

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

~~~
LaPingvino
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.

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

~~~
eru
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.)

~~~
dsmithn
It's to 4chan now. With pride, usually.

------
noahth
pretty sure the headline here should say "Extremist group succeeds in gaming
Digg"

~~~
gscott
I am certain a left leaning group is doing the same thing. Think moveon.org
(in a different medium). They just negate each others extreme views.

~~~
Alex3917
I don't think they cancel each other out. Digg has an extremely conservative
bias. Half the stories on the front page are basically "Global Warming Is A
Hoax Because Jesus Wouldn't Let That Happen"

~~~
htsh
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't been able
to do the same with reddit. I'm not sure, but I believe a story is gone once
it gets a certain number of "buries" whereas on reddit a story with a lot of
downvotes can be easily resurrected by upvotes. (though I could be wrong about
this?)

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

~~~
htsh
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-
created subreddits where like-minded folks can form such hives.

~~~
protomyth
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.

------
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?

~~~
flatulent1
Fighting for parking spaces... you might be surprised how underhanded even
that can get. The state of California has a rule in the vehicle code about
abandoned cars. It's clearly intended to deal with cars people just walk away
from (without intent of coming back), and perhaps some that are left in unsafe
places (on the freeway etc.) The code mentions the court system addressing
some aspects of it.

The city of San Luis Obispo (known as being the first for banning smoking in
public places and one of the first to have curbside recycling) came up with 72
hour abandonment. There are no 72 hour parking signs. But go on vacation, away
to visit family, carpool or use your bike instead of driving, bed in bed with
the flu for days... and a car left is in violation. They mark a tire and the
street with chalk and leave a little "courtesy notice" under a windshield
wiper and then at three days tow. Beside the high towing fees, and a
substantial impound release fee, there is also a citation for abandonment
($280). Of course the towing contractors charge a hefty per day storage fee.
They (the city police and parking agency) may reduce/rename the abandonment
citation considering picking up the car from the towing yard to be "no intent
to abandon". Of course some strapped for cash may not be able to get a car
right away, and end up losing a vehicle due to the high ransom at the towing
yard. The pirates may extract a lot of money for cargo ships, but on a
personal level what the City of San Luis Obispo does to people hits harder as
a percentage.

Note that this practice happens even in from of ones own home, even if there
is no parking shortage. Neighbors that don't get along use it as a way to
harass each other, and in some places people call in complaints to tr and get
parking spaces. As a college town, there are many places were units have no
off-road parking, or insufficient off road parking. The city makes money on
this, as do the towing contractors. They see to meet the public notice
requirements without people noticing... I know of an employee who has bought
dozens of vehicles at auction for the minimum bid (towing/storage fees).

There's dirty business at every level it seems.

~~~
sahaj
while there is some validity to your argument, there is a reason for this
strict code.

i went to school in San Luis. i know two people who left their cars parked on
the street after finding out that fixing the car would cost more than the car
itself.

the first two years i was in San Luis, i lived at a place that charged for
parking. i would park my car on the street and leave it there for weeks until
i needed to go visit my folks in the central valley. i did not have the
problem you are describing even when i left the car unmoved for 3 weeks at a
time.

~~~
flatulent1
The enforcement is primarily complaint driven. It does catch some legit cases
of abandonment, but also sees abuse.

Although the state vehicle code section cited in their paperwork mentions the
court, the actual process of dealing with SLOPD or the parking people DENIES
access to the court. Appeals go to the same people that issued the towing
order.

Except for a home, a car is the largest investment that great many Americans
make. There's notice to ones' mailbox before towing. A person that's ill or
otherwise not using a car for legitimate reasons may very well not see a
notice on the car. The fine is more than that for parking in a handicapped
zone or for any other parking violation. They're unwilling to work with the
community to solve problems. For instance I once had someone park across my
driveway which is less obvious than most (especially at night) and I called
the PD asking if they could help me by contacting the neighbor (I didn't know
which apartment he was in) so he could move his car. It wasn't an immediate
problem. They said sure. But when an officer showed up, he refused to go to
the neighbor and instead had the car towed. They didn't make me happy, and I'm
sure they didn't make the owner of the car happy. The solution was worse than
the problem.

If they had 72 hour parking signs up and simply issued tickets with the right
to go to court, it'd all be fair. But to put someone through some very
expensive grief without due process is just wrong. Also, as you noted, the
enforcement is spotty. It's often selective enforcement. It may not be bias on
the part of an officer, but the complaint process is open to bias too. Someone
of lower income with an older car is more likely to be targeted simply because
a neighbor doesn't like seeing an older car, or some assume an older car isn't
operational.

San Luis has many people that are very environmentally conscious. Many ride
bikes, walk, take a bus or car pool. Some students rarely drive except to see
family or buy food. Being parked for a period is not abandonment, and the
state code used here has no time limit. The city is misapplying the law
selectively. It is being applied to some people that have no intention of
abandoning their vehicles. There is no opportunity to appeal towing/impound
fees at all and only improper means are available (not to a court) to appeal
the citation that follows.

Additionally, towing is overkill when in a residential zone. Extended parking
downtown (in an area typically metered) reduces availability of parking in a
saturated area. But in a residential area, a car that's parked continuously
for a couple of weeks versus one that's used a few times during the day has no
difference in impact because it's overnight (when essentially everyone is
sleeping) that parking is closest to saturation. Someone towed and subjected
to that cost and the impound release fee when it is not an abandoned car will
most likely bring it right back to the same area it was towed from. So what's
the point of towing?

Beyond simply being parked, there should be some pretty good additional reason
to believe a car is intentionally abandoned. Not currently registered, owner
failed to give valid address, flat tires... Issue a ticket with right to
appeal, send certified mail to registered address... if the car is by the
registered address maybe even knock on a door. The city employees and PD get
huge salaries. Perhaps in the things they do they need policies modified to
solve problems with the least possible harm. The refusal to knock on a
neighbors door when he parked across my driveway by accident makes it clear
just how unwilling to help they can be.

You never got cited. If you'd done something (could be trivial - rude when a
party gets a noise complaint) they could throw the book at you for other
things. Just laws don't make ordinary citizens into criminals that can be
harassed and emotionally / financially damaged with no appeal. (and I said, a
neighbor upset with you could easily have caused the same grief, it is often
arbitrary enforcement where there is no actual problem)

------
SHOwnsYou
It doesn't take an extremist group to game digg.

Before Digg went to their new format, I made a bot that upvoted or downvoted
stories in C# in just a couple hours. I haven't dug around their new format
yet, but I imagine it is equally easy to game too...

------
Raphael_Amiard
Wait, you mean they didn't do a perl script to automate the downvoting ? With
such a simple and regular downvoting scheme it shouldn't be very difficult.

They must hate computers too

------
arch_hunter
I may be completely off-base, but after reading the article and poking around
a bit I got the impression that most in the DP group are youngish (under 21)
and just wanting to be part of a secret society that does something 'useful.'

Most of the conspiracy theory nuts I know (I know a couple) are just kids who
something big to happen, and so they make up a conspiracy so that they can be
part of it.

------
angrycoder
The fact that they named themselves the Digg Patriots should be funny to
anyone who's played Metal Gear Solid 2.

------
jcw
And the world becomes even more like some 80's cyberpunk novel.

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lutorm
Is this an argument to not allow downvotes but only upvotes?

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s1rech
what's the point of trying to "control" digg? Does it really make a difference
for anybody? Did they call themselves the Digglluminati?

------
known
Are they different from Slashdot moderators?

~~~
flatulent1
Well Slashdot posts never get removed, just modded down (below the thresholds
some users may read at, but they have a choice). The meta-moderation process
should help catch abusive moderation and reduce the frequency of bad
moderators getting mod points.

Since the moderation system isn't for down-rating posts that one disagrees
with, the system get still get flooded with well-tempered deliberate
misinformation.

Would MS pay people to post "I tried for days to get my Linux install to work
right, but the buggy drivers made my screen flicker so much my dog had a
seizure and died. I'm sticking with Windows forever!"? Fun for moderators...

------
sliverstorm
How much you want to bet this isn't just another part of the 'game', an
example of the left-wing extremists attempting to combat the right-wing
extremists?

------
potatofish
That's nothing, you should see what Google does to conservative news. Google
is a pretty big shill for the Democratic party, has a former exec in the West
Wing, and has been caught repeatedly spiking stories in their news site that
are critical of the left.

Also not sure I'd call this an extremist group. Ideological group perhaps, but
extremist? Sure some of the members cited were bad apples (stalking, etc.),
but yeah this is pure ideological polemics. When you have the the majority of
mainstream media shilling for the left, one can't really blame the right for
trying to regain some ground.

~~~
elbrodeur
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.

~~~
nnash
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.

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

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buoVwM1pQEs&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buoVwM1pQEs&feature=related)

