Running The ThinkProgress Staff's Numbers On Digg

2006-10-06T04:48:00.000-07:00

Jason Calacanis was kind enough to read my Netscape submission and comment on it in his blog. Please drop in and give Jason's blog entry for October 5, 2006 a read.

Digg.com on the other hand, where ThinkProgress.org is enjoying most of their success, rewarded my whistleblowing efforts by disabling my Digg ID citing misuse. They've not contacted me personally to explain how I violated their TOS, and this seems out of character for who I believe them to be and what I believe they want Digg to be. As a rule, I try to maintain a presumption of goodness in people. Perhaps my Digg ID being disabled is merely the result of some automated safeguards they have in place and not the decision of rational beings. I'll ask, and hope they show me the courtesy of a personal response.

Meanwhile, I'd like to thank those on Digg who championed the issue I've raised. I'd cite you by name, but I don't want to bring the ire of anyone on you. I hope you'll continue to fight the good fight to protect the Digg community and the Digg vision of being a forum for the vox populi and not professional political advocacy groups.

Below are the numbers behind the ThinkProgress.org staff's activities on Digg up to October 5, 2006. I think they're pretty telling:

Congratulations to jlegum for putting up some impressive numbers. That's what I call leadership!

Lastly, I want to give a shout out to Research Associate at the Center for American Progress, Payson Schwin, a.k.a Digg.com ID: Payson who had been the one ThinkProgress.org staff member missing in action. Honestly, Payson, I wasn't ignoring you. You just didn't pop up on my radar until today because your numbers were so much lower than those of your peers. Are you more scrupulous than the rest of the staff, or are you just loafing?

ThinkProgress.org is pwning Digg.com, Netscape.com, & Reddit.com

2006-10-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Jason Calacanis was kind enough to read my Netscape submission and comment on it in his blog. Please drop in and give Jason's blog entry for October 5, 2006 a read.

Digg.com on the other hand, where ThinkProgress.org is enjoying most of their success, rewarded my whistleblowing efforts by disabling my Digg ID citing misuse. They've not contacted me personally to explain how I violated their TOS, and this seems out of character for who I believe them to be and what I believe they want Digg to be. As a rule, I try to maintain a presumption of goodness in people. Perhaps my Digg ID being disabled is merely the result of some automated safeguards they have in place and not the decision of rational beings. I'll ask, and hope they show me the courtesy of a personal response.

Meanwhile, I'd like to thank those on Digg who championed the issue I've raised. I'd cite you by name, but I don't want to bring the ire of anyone on you. I hope you'll continue to fight the good fight to protect the Digg community and the Digg vision of being a forum for the vox populi and not professional political advocacy groups.

Below are the numbers behind the ThinkProgress.org staff's activities on Digg up to October 5, 2006. I think they're pretty telling:

Congratulations to jlegum for putting up some impressive numbers. That's what I call leadership!

Lastly, I want to give a shout out to Research Associate at the Center for American Progress, Payson Schwin, a.k.a Digg.com ID: Payson who had been the one ThinkProgress.org staff member missing in action. Honestly, Payson, I wasn't ignoring you. You just didn't pop up on my radar until today because your numbers were so much lower than those of your peers. Are you more scrupulous than the rest of the staff, or are you just loafing?

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The staff of ThinkProgress.org (a left-wing, liberal political blog published by the American Progress Action Fund — "the sister advocacy organization of the Center for American Progress") is quietly manipulating your Digg.com, Netscape.com, and Reddit.com experience as part of their efforts to transform "progressive ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, grassroots organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other progressive leaders throughout the country and the world."

HOW DO THEY DO IT?
On Digg.com, Netscape.com, and Reddit.com, at least four politically minded posters routinely submit stories almost exclusively from ThinkProgress.org. Where's the harm if Joe Six Pack wants to post stories from his or her favorite liberal political blog on a social bookmarking site? There's no harm at all, if we're talking about private citizens. However, all four of the users I'm talking about are paid political operatives for the Center for American Progress and staff members of ThinkProgress.org. Moreover, they are responsible for posting the vast majority of ThinkProgress.org stories that appear on Digg.com, Netscape.com, and Reddit.com. All four are shilling for ThinkProgress.org and basically spamming the Digg.com, Netscape.com, and Reddit.com communities.

WHO ARE THESE POLITICAL OPERATIVES TARGETING DIGG.COM, NETSCAPE.COM, AND REDDIT.COM?
(see http://thinkprogress.org/about)

• Digg.com ID: jlegum, a.k.a. Netscape.com ID: buco, a.k.a. Reddit.com ID: jlegum, a.k.a Judd Legum, Research Director at the Center for American Progress and the editor of ThinkProgress.org. The American Progress Action Fund describes itself as "a nonpartisan organization." As a former research assistant for Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta, I'm sure Judd believes in the importance of remaining "nonpartisan."

• Digg.com ID: 4Crimson, a.k.a. Netscape.com ID: powerfaiz, a.k.a. Reddit.com ID: 4Crimson, a.k.a. Faiz Shakir, the Deputy Research Director for the Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress. Faiz has previously worked as a Research Associate for the Democratic National Committee, and as a Legislative Aide to Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), so I'm sure he's down with that whole "nonpartisan" thing too. Note, with the screen name of "4Crimson," Faiz apparently doesn't want anyone to forget he went to Harvard.

• Digg.com ID: pitviper, a.k.a. Netscape.com ID: njpitney, a.k.a. Reddit.com ID: pitviper, a.k.a. Nico Pitney, the Assistant Editor of ThinkProgress and the Progress Report at the Center for American Progress. In spite of the fact Nico worked on Gov. Howard Dean's presidential campaign, when The American Progress Action Fund describes itself as "a nonpartisan organization," I'm sure they're talking about Nico too.

• Digg.com ID: aterkel, a.k.a. Netscape.com ID: aterkel, a.k.a Amanda Terkel, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress. Having worked in the past for Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (D), the 2004 presidential campaign of Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), I'm sure Amanda is a paragon on nonpartisanship. It's kind of sad...you finally find an intelligent, attractive woman on Digg.com only to find out later she's paid to be there.

You can read how these politically savvy hipsters are plying their trade and colluding together with their user base to spread their own brand of nonpartisanship in this smug ThinkProgress.org posting. Moreover, the "stories" they're submitting typically only amount to video clips from mainstream media outlets that ThinkProgress.org considers favorable to their radical, left-wing, liberal... sorry, I mean "progressive" political agenda. They’re not adding substantive content to the marketplace of ideas in this country. They are political operatives working for an organization with deep pockets, spinning repurposed content to further their own political aims, and then spoon feeding it to the Digg.com, Netscape.com, and Reddit.com communities.

I'll leave it to each individual social bookmarking site to say whether a professional political avocacy group's premeditated manipulation of Digg's, Netscape's, and Reddit's content is a violation of their Terms of Service (TOS) agreements. Promote these above users' stories, if you like. Heck, add these users to your Friends list if you want to be spoon fed their professionally crafted, carefully calculated, left-wing, liberal, secular worldviews. However, know who your Friends are, as well as what kind of money and political machinery is behind their manipulation of your social computing experience.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's Garden

Running The ThinkProgress Staff's Numbers On Digg

ThinkProgress.org is pwning Digg.com, Netscape.com, & Reddit.com