The unadressed problem with digg.

Yesterday was a historical day, But I fear the imporatance of this event will be quickly forgotten, and while I am impressed at the ammount of attention this is receiving, everyone is talking about the number, and not the real issue.

The real issue is simply this.

We now know digg...
A Deletes users who they disagree with

B Deletes stories they don't want people to see.

C Hides stories by artificially burying them

These are very important things. We have placed a lot of trust in digg (until last night) that it was our news pulpit to control and edit, sure digg removed porn, but we can live with that. Last night digg started removing ideas. (Early morning stories like this http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_I_got_banned_from_Digg and others were buried, despite the fact that they were more popular, (by hundreds of votes) than many of the other front page stories)

The main criticisms of this movement I hear are this.

"You are just whiny babies, digg owes you nothing"
This is true, we are whiny babies, digg owes us no freedom of speech, they are a private company, But that doesn't mean we aren't free to protest, or to leave. If you dont see the problem with that, I'm sort of saddened.

"Are the same diggers last night who protested, going to fight for digg with the same fervor now that they are taking on the MPAA"
Then I question, were diggers really fighting the MPAA last night? or were they fighting the still unaddressed censorship of dissent, Kevin still hasn't mentioned that. I tend to think The Number was just a battlecry, a challenge "ban me too" Very few people will ever use the number for piracy, it just came to represent the censorship on digg. Particularly the censorship of non-"the number" topics.

So my proposal.

We need change. Digg now knows what we are capable of, and if you don't think they are making a contingency plan for the next time it happens, I'm sure you are mistaken, Perhaps next time things get hairy, they will put a delay on submitted stories, deleting everything questionable before it becomes viewable, and blocking new users in the meantime. Perhaps autoblocking comments and users who post certain banned keywords. Regardless of the means, Im sure this isnt the last time this will happen. Though it may be the last time a protest like this succeeds.

We need a new site, a site with a social contract with it's users (preferably a site hosted in sweeden :D) A site with The Pirate Bay's fuck all attitude and a vision of free discourse.

We need a site which clearly publishes it's algorithms and changes in its algorithms, which discloses users who buried a story, and lets users enter a "Full speech" mode, which disables all effects of burying, and replaces it with a note saying why this is buried for other people. We need a site which isn't afraid to ruffle feathers, we need to know our pulpit is a safe haven for us. Protecting our identities and our posts. Because online it isn't merely being able to post something that matters, its being able to be seen.

Principals the new site needs to be founded on.
Transparency, Honesty, Openness, Freedom of Speech.

This means we need to allow ALL speech, hell we need a porn section so even that is allowed, no questions, no censorship under any items, if something is spam or whatever let it be clearly marked "75 users feel this post to be spam" then a bury brigade merely helps filter, but cannot silence.


A call for help.

I dont think I am alone with this belief. But currently we have no place to organize a movement, digg is all we have and thats not the place to do this.

A. We need support, if you think this is a good idea let me know, show your support and spread the word.

B. We need hosting, something temporary at the moment, but in the long run we need someone where free speech can be guaranteed. We also need a forum to talk openly about a digg alternative.

C. We need technical people, people who can administer pligg software and hack it to meet our needs of transparency.

The other half of the proposal.

We need to do one of two things. Create a digg/social website watchdog group, give a voice to people claiming censorship and expose any rigging we see when these stories happen again. Or we need to create a new home for digg refugees. Hopefully gaining traction on the promise of free speech alone.

Are you interested? Please post your thoughts, I want something to come from this movement, and not more complacency.