Image Submitted by nitmeh3 to Digg

Digg have admitted with an email with a user that the autobury function exists. The said user is named nitmeh3 and he has been recently banned for digging an image that degrades the Digg staff. Digg, in trying to protect their name, have somehow admitted they autobury particular posts which they deem as inappropriate to the community.

This admission, however, is not blatantly stated. It is merely used by Digg as a reason for taking action on the user’s post. As the user saw his post is being automatically buried, he sent the following email to the Digg staff:

Hello Digg ,
I am Mick (http://digg.com/users/nitmeh3) at Digg. I have recently noticed that all my stories are getting buried automatically . I havent submitted spam right ? I have been submitting quality stuff since beginning and most of them have been featured on the digg homepage has well. But since yesterday my stories have started getting buried automatically ? Even though i didnt shout them and didnt ask for votes on IM ( which i usually do ) because I sure that those would reach the FP without giving them a push.
Kindly give me clarifications for this.
Thanks.
Mick (nitmeh3).
Source: http://fuck-you-digg.blogspot.com/2009/02/screw-you-digg.html

In Digg’s reply, they stated that the autobury exist and is shown in the following statement:

We appreciate that you have submitted quality stuff on Digg.com but because we must be vigilant in protecting against activities that compromise the Digg community we were forced to bury your submissions.

This particular email have caused a lot of noise in the Digg community. This somehow denotes that Digg actually buries particular posts. Of course, Digg is entitled to its right to protect their name and their staff but can it really suppress the freedom of expression in their website? Is it good to be part of a social bookmarking website that has staff members that control the content being displayed?

The answer to this question is yes and no. Yes because this website can protect users from inappropriate content such as adult content. However, the answer is no if it suppresses the freedom of expression and limits the information its users will know. This is like modern day censorship. But it all boils down to the effects of this process.

In the end, Digg being a commercial private institution have the right to set up its own rules on how to implement its policies. It has as much power to protect their integrity as they have to protect their users. After all, the argument of the user here is somehow childish. He sent an image on the Digg website that degrades Digg itself and was surprised that it got autoburied. He then went to this anti-Digg campaign on his blog post which may also be biased. Tell me. Can we blame Digg for taking such actions?

What’s your take on this issue? Is the action that Digg took appropriate to the situation or is it a mere suppression of the freedom of expression? What will you do if you own Digg?

But I guess Digg should not have used the word “bury” in their email. This is where all the commotion have stemmed from.

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Tags: Autobury Digg, digg

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Digg, Socal Media Optimisation, Social News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.