Credibility in Social Media?
March 27th, 2008
Social Media is all the rage right now. Everyone is talking about it and using it for that matter. I am more or less new to all of it and I am still finding my way around different sites like Digg and Stumble. The list of Social Media sites could go on for quite some time. Well even after spending a few weeks browsing and discovering articles in Digg a thought occurred to me, “Who manages and controls the quality of stories, articles and or events that end up on the front page?” I mean do we want quality and credibility in the things that are on the top Digg list every day? Or do we merely want to enjoy and share things with others regardless of what it is. Maybe thats the point of Social Media. Maybe Digg or Stumble or Del.icio.us would not be the same if someone was controlling or in a sense censoring the type of things people share. Digg is even getting to the point where there are items on the front page that only have 26-30 Diggs and really have no reason to be up there. Tell me if I am wrong, but I believe people would rather be reading something that got over 100 Diggs than something that only got 20-30. Who controls what goes up there? Who says this is worthy of being notices. We do, us Social Mediaites. So the final questions arises. Being that we are the ones doing the Digging and controlling what is good should we take more of an active role in censoring what is Digged or not? What do you think? Would censorship completely go against everything that Social Media stands for?
What do you think?
2 Responses to “Credibility in Social Media?”
By Jim Halligan on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply
just to put it in perspective, Digg has over 1 million users. i am not for ANY form of censorship, but from my understanding- the top users on Digg have the power and networking ability to take you down or put you up on the front page at a moment’s notice. but you bring up a good point- if the top users had an ‘agenda’, and your article clashed with it- how quick would you get buried?
not to say that that exists. just hypothetically speaking…
By Ryan Hadley on Mar 27, 2008 | Reply
You mean like the supposed digg “bury brigade”?
I get frustrated that there is no true social media news site. I’d love it if there was a site that had a giant user base that truly was what the masses felt was newsworthy.
Digg is not. Digg is what the people with giant followings submit. With an occasional breakthrough from an unknown user.
I tried out mixx.com, thinking it was fresh and new and maybe not infected with such issues. And found it to be worse. As soon as you submit a story/vote on a story/comment on a story you get hit up with friend requests. If you agree to those friend requests and submit a new site all of your friends will vote it up with NONE of them actually clicking the link to see the content.
Lately I’ve gotten my social fix and the most interesting links through stumbleupon. It also has options of shouting links to different users and following specific users submissions… but it is very easy to ignore all those “top users” as their called and just surf what the masses submitted.