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Digg the rigged? A closer look at Digg's democratic model

Earlier this evening (Sept. 5) I decied to take a glance at Digg's frontpage. I do this fairly regularly, as do many other thousands of people.

Upon checking the frontpage, I immediately noticed a common element in several stories - the yellow nuclear symbol which served as the icon for the #2 ranked Digg user, who goes by the name digitalgopher. This user had 3 of the top 15 stories at the time. Another user had 2 frontpage stories. This isn't something I've ever really noticed before, but it did make me immediately suspicious - getting to the frontpage of Digg isn't the easiest thing in the world. So I decided to look a little closer and see who exactly were digging these frontpage stories submitted by digitalgopher. Turns out that every single one of his stories had a common group of people being the first ones to Digg his story - what made me even more suspicious was the fact that several of the users who were digging all of his stories also had stories of their own on the frontpage. This was very odd. I have heard before that a small group of users tend to get many of the top stories, but I never had considered that they may all be working together to achieve this. But before we make any accusations or come to any conclusions, let's get down to some statistics.

As I write this post, it is about 12 AM central time, and our friend digitalgopher has another 3 stories on the frontpage. Infact, digitalgopher has had 6 of the last 30 stories on the Digg frontpage (it is worth considering that most Digg users don't have a single frontpage submission). This isn't too alarming of a number, but let's 'digg' deeper, and see if there is a common theme between all of these submissions.

digitalgopher's most recent frontpage story is a happy piece about engineers breeding mice that are always cheerful. By taking a look at who else has dugg this story, we immediately can get a bigger picture. There are several names that stand out due to my research from earlier. These names are:

hemphill81
supernova17
Aidenag
johndi
parislemon
capn_caveman
wayjer
3monkeys
msaleem

What is significant about these names? They are all within Digg's top 30 list, that is, they are the within the 30 digg users that have the most frontpage stories. Okay, that isn't a huge deal in itself, but what makes it even more intriguing? They all, interestingly enough, have been among the first 30 users to digg digitalgopher's next most recent frontpage story. Keep in mind, these are only top 30 users I am mentioning here. There are quite a few other lower ranked users, such as laidback4evr and noname99 who similarly are among the first users to digg digitalgopher's submissions.

Infact, if you look at who exactly has dugg any of digitalgopher's links, you'll quickly see a group of regulars. See for yourself:

A few regulars who stand out in these submissions are gwjc, aaaz, and tlmac59, again, all top 30 digg users (technically aaaz is 31, but close enough).

Okay, 'so what?', you say. 'Maybe he just has a lot of people who like what he submits.' And that would be a fair assessment, unless we take a look even closer. hemphill81 also has a frontpage story right below digitalgopher's. Who has dugg his story?

We again very quickly can pick out some common names:

parislemon
wayjer
3monkeys
digitalgopher
supernova17
Aidenag
laidback4evr
tlmac59
aaaz

That is interesting, we have several of the same people digging both digitalgopher's stories and hemphill81's stories. Also, digitalgopher and hemphill81 both regularly digg each other's stories. Let's again take a closer look at hemphill's submissions and see if he has a group of regular diggers:

Do you see the pattern? Again here we have many of the same people digging hemphill81's stories as they were digging digitalgopher's (many of them are among the top posters in the digg community), and we have digitalgopher and hemphill81 digging each other's stories. You could literally go through every submission of their's and you'd find the same patterns. Let's check 1 more person just to make sure we aren't going crazy.

Someone who I regularly noticed digging both users (and indeed many connected users) was someone by the name of tlmac59. He too is within the top 30 digg users. Let's check out one of his stories on the frontpage and see who has dugg it. Apparently it is more of the usual:

johndi
digitalgopher
supernova17
Aidenag
hemphill81
laidback4evr
3monkeys
wayjer

Again, let's see if there is a pattern:

And again, we have a large selection of these exact same people having dugg all of tlmac59's stories, hemphill81's stories, and digitalgopher's stories.

Infact, if you were to look further at many of the people who are digging the stories, you'll find the same connections. But don't just take my word for it. Take a look at the history of some of these users. It is bizarre how intertwined a lot of them are (particularly the top users).

UPDATE: I wrote this entry last night but was going to delay posting it until today (Sept. 6). I checked the frontpage again, and I noticed that hemphill81, Aidenag, and supernova17 all have frontpage stories yet again (hemphill and Aidenag both with 2). Let's do a quick look at who is digging their stories.

Hemphill81's most recent frontpage story. Who has dugg it?

3monkeys
wayjer
tlmac59
digitalgopher
johndi
gwjc
Aidenag
supernova17
p9 (Digg's top user) - I have refrained from mentioning him as of yet, but he is found often digging these exact same stories as well
and more of the 'lesser' regulars

This isn't odd? What about supernova17's latest frontpage story. Who has dugg it?

johndi
p9
aaaz
digitalgopher
3monkeys
wayjer
gwjc
tlmac59
Aidenag

Why are the same exact users among the first 30 to Digg every single story? Why are they all digging each other's stories? How exactly have all of these users ended up in the Digg top 30? It wouldn't be because of the setup we've been looking at, would it?

Let's check one more current frontpage story. This one is by 3monkeys (a user we've noticed throughout). Who has dugg her story?

Are you suprised to find the same exact group of people (you shouldn't be at this point)?

johndi
hemphill81
ps9
Aidenag
digitalgopher
noname99
gwjc
tlmac59
supernova17

What it comes down to is there very literally is a group that controls Digg. If you are within this group and you submit a story, you are more or less guaranteed 10-15 (or more) automatic diggs from this group. What happens to the people who don't have such a luxury and only get the default single vote like everyone else? This only encourages a cycle where those who are getting votes will continue to get more and more, as they feed each off each other and pat each other on the back. These users will remain the top users, and even when people like digitalgopher find a story later than someone else, digital gopher's story is the one that will end up on the frontpage due to the influx of votes. Not only this, but every single digg from someone of this group causes the story to show up on 'DiggSpy' and cause an unproportional amount of exposure that other stories don't get.

Now something should be said here: this could all be totally innocent and there is no actual intention of gaming the Digg system. It is a bit odd that virtually all of the top users and another small group vote on each other's stories, however, that doesn't mean they are doing it wrongly. I think the real fault here is Digg's 'Friends' system. You can also check and notice that virtually every one of these users has each other added as a friend (you can look at this via their profile). What this means is when a story gets submitted, it automatically shows up in the friends' list of each of these users. They then will probably digg the story, and as they do, every friend connected to them will see the story in their friends' list as well. And thus it is a never-ending cycle. People with smaller friends' lists (or no 'friends' at all) simply can't compete.

What does this say about Digg? It means a small 'aristocracy' controls the vast majority of the content that gets on Digg, and it means that every day it gets harder and harder for new users to have any kind of an impact. I think Digg made a fatal flaw by adding their friend system because it turned Digg into more of a popularity contest than it did into who has the most quality content. But, it also shows Digg is a true democracy. And like a true democracy, the crowds making the decisions tend to not make the best choices en-masse, and it follows the saying, 'the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer'.

Happy digging.

Note: There are alternatives to Digg, notably Reddit, but it too faces many of the same problems Digg does, maybe not to the same extent because it has a smaller community. It is worth checking out, though it definitely has a different flavor than Digg does. There is also del.icio.us, but it serves a slightly different purpose.

There is no telling what it is going to take, but the way these link-share systems are currently setup isn't going to cut it as time goes on. Undoubtedly they can, and must evolve just like every other system.

last updated 1 year ago #