Online news and opinion sites are developing strategies to deal with mass sabotage, after claims that popular link-sharing website Digg saw deliberate moves by some of its "influential conservative" members to downgrade stories they deemed to be "liberal".
The group – going by the name of DiggPatriots – was uncovered by online magazine, AlterNet, which claims they have "censored hundreds of users, dozens of websites, and thousands of stories" from the Digg. AlterNet has said that the group is targeting articles deemed to be critical of right-wing mainstays including the Republic party, Fox News and big corporations.
It is believed that the group's estimated 100 members are capable of burying online new articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours, through a process of negative voting and recommendation.
AlterNet said the group had been discussing their strategies on a semi-secret Yahoo group, which has been shut down since they started making headlines.
A posting, said by AlterNet to be by the alleged founder of the Digg Patriots, "phoenixtx", was explicit in stating what the groups intentions were.
"The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page," he wrote. "I'll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives."
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, said via Twitter: "We're looking into this."
