Is Digg.com Really a Democracy?
In theory, having users vote on content should ensure that only stories that users care about get promoted to the top. But the democracy that digg brags about may not be so real: Since digg is also a social networking site, users can add other users as their friends. Friends see the stories that other friends have posted, and more often than not will vote on their friends stories regardless of whether they find them interesting. Hence, the users with the most friends will get their stories seen a lot more than other users. If you haven't heard this already, the Top 100 users on digg submit over 56% of the content that makes the front page. This is because those top 100 users have an endless list of friends to vote on what ever content they submit.
All though it may not sound like much, this is taking away from digg what made it famous to begin with. Many other social media sites have popped up, and are attracting users away from digg by boasting that they do not suffer from this phenomenon (which is only due to the fact that they are new, and still don't have those regular top 100 yet).
The answer to this problem is fairly simple. Digg could hide the name of whoever submitted the stories until they got to the first page, or even completely. This would stop users from using their friends to "boost" their own stories, and encourage a more equal playing field. Unfortunately, this is probably not going to happen any time soon. Most users on Digg.com like "digging" more than they actually like reading the stories, which is also partially why this is happening.
In a real democracy, the story itself should be the deciding factor to whether it makes the front page or not, not who submitted it.
Published by Jim Coin
A university student who publishes websites in his spare time. View profile
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9 Comments
Post a CommentYour suggestion to make the posts on social networking sites anonymous is an intriguing one. It certainly might provide a greater incentive for objectivity to users.
The sad part of the internet is that hardly anything is genuine. You have to manipulate things (like Digg) in order to achieve what should naturally happen. To me it's lame, but that's just how it is.
Nothing I submit to DIGG ever goes to the top. I guess I'm not one of the cool kids.
What can I say, but I DIGG this article. Yes, I'm a punny guy.
Thanks for helping me to avoid wasting my time at digg. I had been playing around with the idea of posting a few things there, but since I'm not the suck-up type I won't bother. Great article!
Yeah, I promote my AC contento on Digg, but i Know that nobody will ever Digg it much...let alone read it. Sucks man.
It's kind of like the cool kids' table in the high school cafeteria. If you shmooze your way to the top, you can sit there, but there are only so many chairs, so it takes a lot of brown-nosing to get there. Good article.
I think you're mistaken. In a real democracy, popularity doesn't play a role? Try running against Hillary Clinton then, even with the exact same issue stances. Digg.com is undoubtedly a democracy. That might be its problem though.
I didn't know all the statistics but I learned real fast that since I had no friends on digg nobody every dugg me. I think it's ridiculous that the top 100 users submit 56% of the content that makes the front page!! Wonder if digg likes this or not. I wish they would stop it and make it so everyone had a chance!