Digg Bury Brigade: 28 negative McCain stories buried in 30 days

A close look at campaign-oriented stories on Digg shows that, in the last 30 days, at least 28 stories critical of GOP Sen. John McCain have been mysteriously "buried" — meaning enough Digg users have voted against a story that the submission may no longer appear on the site's high-traffic front page. 

[In our follow up to this post, Digg CEO Jay Adelson responds to the issue.]

Only about five Barack Obama-related stories (positive and negative) were buried in the same period.

According to Digg's search results, 10 of the 28 McCain stories were zapped after they had already graduated to the front page, including several that had received more than 700 diggs. 

The other 18 (all of which had a minimum of 180 diggs by the time I counted them) stalled out in the site's "Upcoming" section, where stories gain momentum, with the most popular entries eventually graduating to the front. 

Bloggers who have complained that their submissions were being systematically buried have postulated the existence of a pro-McCain 'Bury Brigade' — though direct evidence of such a group is elusive. The political blogger Jed Lewison of the Jed Report has recently had four of his submissions neutralized.  Those entries — none of which portrays McCain in a flattering light, are here, here, here and here. 

"My gut is that it's organized," Lewison wrote of the burying patterns. "Though whether directly with the campaign or not, I've got no idea." 

Lewison pointed to the McCain campaign's recent call to action, in which it encouraged supporters to post the candidate's talking points around the political blogosphere. 

"In my view that's not free speech," Lewison continued. "They are asking their supporters to go and disrupt the flow of the opposition."

But though the pattern is clear — anti-McCain stories are much more likely to be buried — identifying who's responsible is more difficult.  The majority of a Digg's user's actions on the site — including which stories they submitted, voted for, and commented on — are archived and publicly viewable. But information about who buries stories is invisible. Any 'Bury Brigade,' whether it's a formally organized cabal or a group of like-minded, independent activists, cannot be detected by publicly available means. 

This spreadsheet contains a list of the buried stories I found. In the case of a story that mentioned both candidates, I categorized it according to which candidate it seemed to be singling out. Also, I only counted upcoming stories that had received more than 180 votes since submission. Below that range, the number of submitted stories begins to balloon — and lower rung stories did not seem to have been buried with as much frequency. In order to tell if a story has been buried, you click the check box in Digg's search results that displays buried stories.

From this sampling at least, the Digg community's predilection for Obama was clear. Not only were very few Obama stories buried (in the upcoming sample I looked at, I found zero), but several of those that were didn't appear to be particularly critical. ("10 Best Rap Songs About Obama," for example, was not exactly mudslinging.) 

Coordinated bury may or may not be a violation of Digg's Terms of Use*, which states that artificially "altering" a story's Digg count is prohibited.  However, defining 'artificial' is tricky on a site where users are constantly lobbying other users to vote for particular stories.  Either way, bury brigading certainly runs counter to the spirit of the site, where the community at large decides which stories succeed and which don't, and a story's fate is not determined by a shady, unseen strike force.

*Clarification:  Initially I wrote that coordinated burying was "not technically a violation" of Digg's terms.  The terms don't use the word 'bury,' but Digg user MarkusGarvey suggests that "artificially altering" means the same thing, and that accounts have been banned if users request friends to bury stories.

UPDATE (5:07 pm): Digg CEO Jay Adelson said his team had checked the stories in question, and did not detect any "non-diverse" burying patterns -- meaning as far as Digg is concerned, it's not a cabal of paid operatives.  What he did say is that as a general rule, stories that are initially dugg up by a non-diverse group (i.e. a cabal) -- are then easier to bury later.  So this might be a case of mistaken identity, and what's really happening is that all the buried McCain stories were knocked off more easily because they were intitially submitted by a narrower anti-McCain group.

Comments

[Paul]

I agree with the author, McCains Campaign has been one gaff after another, so i guess obama is right McCain is kinda a celebrity, McCain is a viral Celebrity. Theres more McCain Gaffs on the Webb then Obama Gaffs. LOL Has anyone seen this video of McCain flipping someone the bird., LOL. Really funny. Wonder if he would flip off Putin if mccain was pres? If you want to see the video of McCain flipping the bird you can go to http://www.mccanes.com. In some ways I trust Obama more then mccain when it comes to avoiding WWIII.
The only thing that bothers me about Obama is his lack of original ideas, even though he is the "candidate of change" he really seems more of the same to me. I do respect him for a someone clean campaign. I cant stand watching him Rap.,
If you dont know what Im talking about you can go to http://www.hotpres.com there is a video of it there. It would also help
If he would adopt the pickens wind plan, which I think might be a possiblility for either candidate. http://tboonpickens.com
Obama is going to get his daughters a dog., what kind?? http://dontshootdog.blogspot.com/ I would like a new candidate.
Im still trying to figure out which one of these guys is going to do the least damage.

[NoMoreBlatherDotCom]

On 7/23, my completely unscientific survey showed *zero* pro-McCain posts in the top or upcoming lists in one section of Digg. Except for one bi-partisan joke post, all of those posts were pro-Obama, anti-McCain, or anti-GOP:

http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007854.html

[DCD]

Remember ladies and gentlemen. As McCain's people show their true colors by censoring anything that makes their candidate look bad during the campaign, you can be sure censorship will be part of any McCainb regime.

The most important censorship is that which keeps the candidate himself from having to deal with difficult issues, which is one of the key pre-requisites of leading this country and the free world. If it's true McCain's people are burying the bad news, then MCain is an utter failure even before November.

[Vincent]

While some of the stories do indeed have some news value, I notice from the spreadsheet a large number of them are from The Huffington Post. Now after careful studying of the issues and voting records of both candidates, as well as how their public platform has changed as they entered the national stage, I have recently decided to vote for Obama. McCain still has a chance; however, it is unlikely. Yet, knowing my stance I defend these burials. The Huffington post in particular is full of painfully spun opinion pieces no better than Fox News and containing little news content.

I see no problem with burying these stories. Furthermore, upon a tertiary investigation into the other stories, many of them are also spin factories lacking any real content. Perhaps you are seeing an organized group of people who are tired of mindless political fanboyism rather than an organized strike against negative McCain ads. I myself am very likely to help bury many of these stories, and I am an Obama supporter. It is at the point that I must take my news with a shaker of salt, rather than a grain, that I lose interest in the story.

[Tom]

How many pro-John McCain stories do you ever see appearing on Digg? Zero.

How many pro-Barack Obama, or anti-John McCain stories appear on Digg? Many.

If you Digg a story from a conservative blog, it is buried instantly. Liberal articles do much better, appearing on the front page of Digg, at least for a while.

It doesn't surprise me that political articles would be buried by the side who doesn't agree with the premise of the article. But I don't think this story has been portrayed accurately... you need to look at both the "pro" and "anti" articles for both sides. You also need to understand the political leanings of the Digg user population. I would bet that this is a younger demographic who may lean left... like the LA Times! :)

[Frank]

This wouldn't surprise me at all. Politics have all the money in the world to draw positive awareness from all aspects of the globe, whether it be on the radio, newspaper or online. What makes me wonder is that McCain's camp doesn't seem that tech savvy just by looking at the website. How did they even find out about Digg?

[Kinglink]

Huffington post blog spam and duplicate stories as well as uncorroborated accounts people are running around with on Digg don't deserve to be buried?

Digg is a second home for mybarackobama, just because a few stories get buried, doesn't mean Digg will stop bending over for Barack Obama.

Or maybe it's just people on Digg are sick of the general politics spam of "John Mccain is old" and people are realizing there's better things to do then bitch about who's going to get elected next? Digg at one time didn't care about politics, maybe the era of the political Digg is over... And that should be ok.

[Jon]

Yawn...more massive pro-Obama bias in the media. How many links submitted on Digg that are not pro-Obama buried all day long, every single day??

[Jay]

Maybe Digg needs to include a buried page so we can still easily get to them even if they are targeted by politicians, or anyone else for that matter.

[rlclemm]

Thanx HP, keep it up. But it is still a wonder to me why so many idiots show up to make an adverse remark that is clearly written in front of them. I wonder if they slapped their computer several times in effort to see if the words would change to meet their favor. I also wonder if they utilize a search engine to find a discrediting story that favors their candidate (McCain). I wonder about the hate mongers, who say that Mr. Obama is constanly lying. I wonder about desenters who are resistant to :"change". It appears they say: I only want to know one thing, I don't want to know anything else, I don't care if the candidate of my thinking is worthy of my thinking, I just don't want the other guy, and I have my reasons. Call me a desenter, rasictst, desenter, whatever you will, just don't, please don't make me look at the truth. I don't care if I'm an idiot, I like being an idiot. I'm safe in doing so. I don't like history,did not like it in school, serves no purpose to me whatsoever. I don't know current events, I nevered liked government in school, I never intended to be a politician. Maybe lobbyists, yes. So, the desenter continues to pay "lip" service to Mr. McCain, not wanting to really know what he's about. How much money he's has or is associated with (elitist), that his military record does not make him a shoe for Commander In Chief. Research that you idiots. And discredit Mr. Obama for a miraid of things, they know nothing about. Makes no sense to me why these people know nothing else to do with their computers. Fox News loves these people. They love to scare them into a false sense of security, and they seem very insecure to me. I recommend they stay in that little box where they feel safe and secure, and not come out and infest the rest of the human race. Again thanx Huffinton Post, continue to exercise your 1st Ammendment Right just as some of these idiots do. But I must ask, "Why isn't Carl Rove in prison?" And , "Why hasn't the entire Bush administration been impeached for crimes against humanity, both abroad and right here in "America?" Throw in the idiots in the boxes!

[Chase Johnson]

You're an idiot. There is no McCain bury brigade there are just a whole lot of us that bury articles that are misleading, misrepresented or just plain false. We also bury articles that are poor in quality (almost all) or ones that offer points of view that just simply aren't valid. If you ask me, this is what Digg is about but what really irks me about your posting is how arrogant you are.

You're clearly so Obamabiased that you couldn't see valid criticism if it left a dent in your forehead. Get this ... why are so many anti-McCain pro-Obama articles buried? Because there are 5,000% more of those articles that reach the front page!!! Why? Because there really is an "Obama Spam Brigade" that artificially pushes these articles to the top so often that most Digg users (not McCain supporters) are so sick of them that they've started to bury them just as quick as real McCain supporters. Most of the articles are such crap anyway, posted by Fluffington Post or ThinkRegression ... I mean just forgiving them for the articles that are glaringly inaccurate or their absolute bias is one thing. But sometimes their articles are just plain stupid from any perspective. One article I saw yesterday linked a WSJ.com article claiming that it was the first "Pro-Obama" article and that this proves Obama is good on economics. The linked article had one sentence of support for Obama -- he supports a stronger dollar. No way!!!!! A presidential candidate supports a stronger dollar? You've got to be kidding me ... that's a "pro" Obama article? What's even funnier is that as a frequent follower of WSJ, I know that they have had quite a few Pro-Obama articles that are far more convincing then that fluff editorial opinion piece. These sources that are dugg up dozens of times every day to the front page are terrible ... absolutely terrible.

It isn't a McCain bury brigade so much as it is the majority of diggers getting sick of ThinkRegression and Fluffington Post exploiting the Digg system. In fact, we are doing exactly what Digg was designed to do ... filter out the crap. Oh by the way ... Buried.

[jmel]

you are completely insane to even imagine that there is a McCain brigade of whatever youre saying. Do you even look at Digg? Everyday there is nothing but pro obama Spam.

[R. Ford Mashburn]

Posting as ImperialRome, I notice a lot of Huffpo spam on the Digg lists. Much of this "news" isnt news, its spin, obama propaganda, and fanciful speculation dressed up as serious commentary.
Reading through the comments of many of those "stories" on digg, you can easily see diggers who were lured in by the misleading headline, who posted a "buried as misleading" comment.

Is there a McCain Bury Brigade? probably not. If there was , I would certainly join it and recruit more because Digg isn't about thoughtful commentary, its an echo chamber for the obamabots and the DU tinfoil hatters.

[Gary]

Maybe its because that people like me have gotten so sick of digg being a haven for o/ Obama and anti-McCain stuff that I just bury every political article I see.

[Tim]

Nice piece, thanks for pulling together all of that data.

[Digg can suck a fat one]

Digg is so full of crap that they can't even distinguish between the truth and the crap they feed themselves. The bury-brigade has been around a while now and the digg admins are too busy wiping their asses from all that crap they spew to even notice.

BB forums have popped up encouraging behavior that is strictly prohibited by the Digg TOS. These blogs and usernames have been brought to the attention of Digg multiple times.

http://antipaulblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/open-letter-to-digg-community.html
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/internet_digg_bury_the_bury_brigade.htm

Are just a few of the thousands of posts that confirm the actions of the BB.

Hey Kevin... Pull your head out of your ass and quit spewing the subsequent BS about no evidence of the BB. If you can't find evidence of the BB actions on your own site then you are a complete f'in moron who obviously has no business running a web server.

[james savik]

There is no McCain bury brigade. There are quite a lot of digg users like myself who are tired of non-news hit pieces, blog spam and wretched drivel from huffingtonpost.

Digging that crap down isn't so much a conspiracy as a public service.

[JohnnyQuest]

Perhaps people are just sick of all the anti-McCain stories published on Digg, I know I am, and I'm not even Republican. Hell, I don't even live in the US.

[ha]

* Chase Johnson writes: "the majority of diggers getting sick of ThinkRegression and Fluffington Post exploiting the Digg system"

Please don't pretend you're part of the majority. You are part of a right-wing fringe. Do you live in Tenessee, by the way? Are you a member of the GOP?

* R. Ford Mashburn says he would join a bury brigade because Digg "isn't about thoughtful commentary"...

Unlike the thoughtful commentary you write on the Washington Times website under your alias ImperialRome? You also post extremely biased comments on a variety of other blogs.

And here is what FreeRepublic users have been saying about digg:

- "we can also use Digg.com as forum to promote conservative ideas and FR itself."
- "How many FReepers out there are on Digg.com? I am interested in helping the right get a better presence there to help promote conservatism and libertarianism."
- "Maybe the RNC should send Digg a Cease and Desist letter."
- "What's the freeper strategy to counter the left wing bias of digg? Must be enough freepers out there to handle this. I suggest we do a little of our own digging of the news."
- "umm, digg has some controls that you can use to your advantage."
- "hey if there isn't any interest to organize and attack, I will keep sniping them when I have the time."
- "digg has this click rating system which downs most of the good posts. More people could up the posts and keep them in the +-4 window where a lot more would see them. If we defined the posts to attack in some off-line way, we could focus and concentrate the results. It becomes too hard with just multiple logins. Why digg, it has many more readers than FR, and is acting as a conduit for think progress and media matters lies to get the lies into the publics bloodstream. "

and then you've got this article: http://conservablogs.com/EricOdom/2007/03/29/republican-candidate-supporters-cheat-pollsdiggcom/

But really, both democrats and republicans do this... Cheats exist on both sides.

[Tyler]

Of course we'll never know for sure. But there's always that possibility. Let's just put it, that I wouldn't doubt it, but I'm certainly not actively looking for it. I would think that a lot of people are tired of the same stories making the front page. Who wouldn't be? I'm just as tired of these stories as I am of the Brett Farve stories.

[spankaccount]

I know that the LA Times (a paper not fit to be fish wrap) is schilling for Obama, but this is ridiculous.

[C.P.T.L.]

Clearly there is a Right-wing effort among 'Diggers' working to smear stories they do not approve of.

It's been going on for far longer than this article contends.

I first noticed it well over a year ago; long before McCain or the election.

Stories critical of Bush, Global Warming stories and Iraq War Debacle stories were tagged "[Reported by Diggers as Possibly Inaccurate]" whereas few stories of any other type were ever "reported" as such.

Stories that had been reported by large mainstream news organizations which, of course, because of the very nature of journalism might be "innaccurate", but more likely than not were completely accurate because journalists work so hard to verify sources.

I always wondered, 'how is it that some 'Diggers' presume to know more than a national reporter who will lose his or her job if he or she reports something "innaccurate"? Or is it that those 'Diggers' are taking advantage of the Digg feature to smear the story before a reader reads it his- or herself?

[Levi Cro]

while they are at it maybe they can bury the fact that McCain is totally unfit to lead.... this man has run his course and its time to enjoy whats left of his life in his nice little snow bird state... the last thing we need is some meglomaniac who thinks he is churchill and teddy roosevelt reborn (well.. ok.. not reborn since he actually probably predates them.. wasnt genghis kahn his childhood friend?)....

[Levi Cro]

bury THIS...
pro McCain comments make me sick.. I cant imagine the foolishness of people who actually think he is ANY kind of viable candidate..... if he looks like a fool... he IS a fool.. and he looks like a fool dang near every time he opens his mouth... I thought Bush was bad.... heck.. I had NO idea that there was worse to be had.... but here he is!... Ive had to live for 8 years with the shame of having bush for president.. I cant wait to see Obama win and put all that crap behind us....
if the people who loudly proclaim themselves patriots (neander/neocons) would look around and actually SEE what has been done to out country the last 8 years... I think they would abandon the GOP in droves....
if you want the US destroyed... John McCain is the correct choice.... a vote for McCain is a vote against America..... Im pretty sure Osama bin Laden would heartly endorse McCain... seeing just how effective Bush was against him.... it was on the GOP watch that the twin towers went down... that is sooooo weird... just how can the GOP be thought to be tough on terror? oh because they havent blown up anything else here since? huh... they dont have to... their entire idea was to provoke us into doing something that would destroy us... wow... they did it.. how fun....

[Aaron]

I've been part of this. I have been sick of both candidates along with the naive people that support tham, and am trying to bury any coverage either gets. Hillary would be getting the same treatment. As from what I've noticed the messages don't matter as long as they keep getting their names engraved in peoples mind.