Conservative Digg Cabal Uncovered

slfisher 1 Tallied Votes 443 Views Share

A blogger for liberal sites such as AlterNet and News Junkie Post has discovering a conservative group of online users who systematically work together to bury, or vote down, stories on liberal subjects and by posters they believe to be liberal, in order to keep those stories from becoming more widely known.

"A group of nearly one hundred conservatives have banded together on a Yahoo Group called Digg Patriots (DP), and a companion site at coRanks to issue bury orders and discuss strategies to censor Digg and other social media websites," reported the blogger, known as , who is the Senior News Editor and Chief New Media Strategist for . "DP was founded on 21 May 2009. Since then, over 40,000 posts have been logged at a steady rate of around 3000-4000 per month. The “Patriots” Network on coRank is a tool to submit Diggs to a group list as opposed to sending an e-mail every time. It also has some tools that make submitting to the list as easy as clicking on a bookmark."

The group -- which has since been deleted from Yahoo! -- also discussed strategy on how to either come back after being banned for life from Digg for violating the rules, set up sleeper profiles, and how to use multiple accounts at once without getting caught, which is against the Digg rules of one account per user, oleoleolson reported. Many of the primary posters in the group posted about how they had been banned multiple times. In addition, they attempt to have other users banned, according to the article.

Digg terms of service forbidding the use of the service "with the intention of artificially inflating or altering the 'digg count', comments, or any other Digg service, including by way of creating separate user accounts for the purpose of artificially altering Digg's services; giving or receiving money or other remuneration in exchange for votes; or participating in any other organized effort that in any way artificially alters the results of Digg's services."

Dani AI

Generated

Good summary from and sensible reactions from and . Coordinated voting campaigns on social-news sites are a recurring problem; what follows is practical, evidence-first guidance for readers who land on this thread later and want to evaluate or respond to similar claims.

Signs that merit further scrutiny: an unusually dense burst of votes or “buries” in a tight time window; many voters with little prior activity; repeated voting by the same small set of accounts across unrelated stories; templated or near-identical comments; and rapid account creation dates clustered around the same period. These are heuristics — a single sign isn’t proof, but multiple signals together form a stronger pattern worth documenting.

How to document and report effectively: capture dated screenshots and save the full page HTML or an archive copy; export or note suspect usernames and profile creation dates; build a short timeline (timestamps, vote counts, noticeable comment patterns); and submit a focused report to the site’s abuse channel that highlights patterns rather than speculation. Preserve evidence offline since items can be removed during investigations. If escalating beyond the platform, provide a concise packet of evidence rather than broad accusations.

Platform and community mitigations: platforms should combine rate limits for new accounts, vote-weighting by reputation/age, and graph-based detection of tightly connected voter clusters. From a user standpoint, treat unusually viral or oddly suppressed items with skepticism, cross-check with independent sources, and avoid amplifying unverified claims. False positives damage trust — stick to documented patterns and clear evidence when calling out manipulation.

CatRambo 1 Junior Poster in Training

Wow. Unsurprising and a little saddening. Thanks for posting this.

klemmerj 0 Newbie Poster

Wow. Unsurprising and a little saddening. Thanks for posting this.

I'm not surprised, either. Wonder how long it will be before the "Liberal Digg Cabal" is discovered. You know they're doing it, too. Lord how I hate both political parties.

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