A diggocracy or a diggspiracy?

Personally, I doubt [tag]digg[/tag] is so shiny clean. On a recent front-page digg user logicNYC came out with two very [tag]interesting[/tag] and quite clear statements, both of which I agree with, but both of which were dugg down. I think people interested in digg should take a read…

Utter [tag]blog[/tag] [tag]spam[/tag]. I wouldn’t be suprised if [tag]TechCrunch[/tag] had its own “digg army” where the blog owner Michael Arrington pays (or has friends) that digg these links for him.

I don’t think anyone cares if Metafilter gets $15M in [tag]funding[/tag], or if XHTMLized can turn my design into code (so can any other web developer or web development company). Lets say another web 2.0 startup gets funding, only when [tag]Techcrunch[/tag] has to report it, does it “miraculously” get to the front page.

Furthermore, [tag]Digg[/tag] and [tag]TechCrunch[/tag] have [tag]advertising[/tag] [tag]contracts[/tag] with Federated Media. Hmm, [tag]revenue[/tag] sharing, maybe? I think corruption is here, either by both parties, or one party.

Might I also add Digg’s new design effectively focuses your eyes and [tag]attention[/tag] away from the “Who [tag]Dugg[/tag] This” [tag]feature[/tag] by rearranging its positioning. I’m sure there is a correlation between the people who dugg this and who [tag]dugg[/tag] the other [tag]TechCrunch[/tag] article today. And even if there [tag]usernames[/tag] are different, the [tag]IP[/tag] can be. But we’ll never know this, only [tag]the Digg[/tag] Administration will.

As with any [tag]democracy[/tag], [tag]Digg[/tag] is really being controlled by a few.

Don’t say those [tag]articles[/tag] are [tag]popular[/tag] because people think they are [tag]popular[/tag]. No one cares. Check the [tag]Dugg[/tag] number for the [tag]Metafilter[/tag] article on the front page, only 210 diggs. Everything else has 400-1000 diggs. No one really cares after all, [tag]TechCrunch[/tag]’s 20 or 30 diggers only needed to bump it to the front page.

What do you say?