Social Media Now: When Users Attack!

Digg-hating has become a favorite pastime of the digerati. The sport hasn’t reached the proportions of Microsoft-hating yet, but it’s getting there.

Yesterday’s flap began when Neil Patel at Pronet Advertising wrote a post claiming to prove that Digg editors or algorithms are intentionally burying certain stories posted to the service in a kind of double-secret censorship.

Several bloggers followed up with posts taking issue with Patel’s data–which came from Digg internal data posted through several Digg public applications. Other bloggers followed up supporting Patel with anecdotal “evidence” of stories being censored. Executives at Digg have yet to respond to the story. The latest to-do comes two weeks after the Digg user revolt over Digg’s removal of stories liking to code for cracking HD-DVDs.

I don’t know if it’s true that Digg is burying stories, though I’ve asked the company if it is, and if so what criteria are being used.

But I am fascinated by the anger and resentment that seems to be continuously bubbling up from the Digg user community. Why does Digg suffer the slings and arrows of user anger while other user-informed news sites, like Wikipeida, don’t? And what can companies do to avoid facing the kind of user revolt that Digg has faced this spring?

At the heart of the current brouhaha are questions–perhaps unfair ones–about Digg’s honesty. Just as the Sanjaya flack threatened to undermine the perceived credibility of American Idol, the Patel charge threatens Digg’s credibility–are the top stories really the stories users like the best, or are ulterior motives at work?

That question goes to the core of what Digg has promised users: “everything on Digg is submitted by our community,” the company claims, and “Digg is a digital media democracy.”  But Digg also retains rights to remove content for any reason at any time. It’s a reasonable policy given the potential for corporate liability, but it can leave the company in conflict with users–as in the case of the DVD code, the posting of which threatens Digg with legal liability.

MG Siegler–whose story was the buried one at the hear of Patel’s post–suggests that the solution is total transparency:

It is time for Digg Founder Kevin Rose to man-up once again. It is time to make Digg fully transparent. It is time to remove the barrier that hides the bury data from the users. Mr. Rose, tear down this wall.

Siegler is right, the greatest possible transparency is always the best policy for Internet businesses. But users don’t revolt at eBay because tools to track prices and volume of certain kinds of goods aren’t made freely available to sellers AND buyers. eBay users have a different expectation in part because they carry into their eBay experience certain preconceptions of a retail marketplace, but also because eBay doesn’t promise to be a digital democracy.

In some ways Digg’s troubles have resulted from the company being a bad parent–not providing users explicit, firm rules; and capriciously and mercurially changing the enforcement of whatever obscure rules exist (like pulling down the code cracking stories then putting them back up in response to a user tantrum).

But there’s a third reason for Digg’s recent problems, one that’s not often discussed among the cognoscenti–users don’t share Digg’s liability.  Would a user revolt over the DVD cracking code have snowballed if every Digg poster shared legal liability? Just as flame wars erupt more easily online than fights do offline because of the abstraction of cyberspace, social media users are more likely to engage in certain behavior online than off because they don’t face any consequences.

Of course, shared liability is a two way street–users also don’t share in the rewards of social media companies–not just ad revenue but also capital appreciation in community equity. But what if they did? A social media property in which not just revenue but also equity is shared with users would be a fascinating thing to watch develop. Would a community of users behave differently if users were equity-holders?
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