The Digg community is notorious for instantly burying stories by conservatives or about conservative-themed issues. Digg seems to be doing something that might help a little; they are banning users who bury stories (as well as those who Digg) without taking the time to read them.  (hat tip Hot Air)

An Australian tech blogger named Dan posted a letter on his blog TheWrongAdvices.com from Digg notifying him that his account had been banned for Digging or burying too quickly. Strangely, Dan’s blog account has been suspended and his site is inaccessible, and so, the Righty blogger Weasel Zippers now seems to be the only source to read the email.  

Here is the email as posted on Weasel Zippers:

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"Your account was banned for the rate of Digging activity you’ve engaged in. We’ve determined that the time in which your Diggs happen, it isn’t possible to actually read the stories. Please read each and every story before you Digg or bury a story. Once you agree that you will Digg/bury more responsibly and read the stories, we will unban your account".

Digg is a social networking site that allows users to vote up (Digg) a news article or vote it down (bury it). Dan seems to be guilty of “blind digging/burying,” which means that he was voting faster than the time it takes for an average person to read an article. This is possibly an attempt to stop “the bury brigade,” a range of people from individual users to organized users who aggressively bury stories, often for ideological or financial reasons.

As W Zip wrote, it does appear that Digg is using an algorithm to measure the amount of time between a Digger clicking over to a page and either Digging or burying it. If the algorithm determines that the Digger hasn’t spent enough time on the page, then the user could be banned.

Conservative tech blogger Eric Odum documented and explained how this Digging and especially burying behavior is often directed to kill any stories that are from conservative sites or favorable to conservative issues. The anti-terrorism blog Little Green Footballs has experienced this problem before.  Odum recommended Digg get rid of the “bury” feature altogether.

Now that Digg is worrying about copyright violations and potential lawsuits resulting from illegal postings of a “crack” for the encryption code for HD-DVD,  maybe they are paying attention to unhappy users whose stories are constantly buried by others who simply disagree with the content.

Contact Lynn at tvisgoodforyou2  AT  yahoo DOT com