Quick Hit: Is Digg Sexist?
Jen Nedeau at Change.org's Women's Rights blog breaks it down.
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Digg isn't sexist. There are users who apparently have too much time on their hands who are sexist. The system is not set up to discourage popularity among feminist articles. It's just set up in a way that allows for certain topics to remain less popular. And, really, how popular is feminism in mainstream society? Digg's a reflection of that.
Or perhaps the online misogyny is a reflection of how popular anti-feminism is.
This sounds like a distinction w/out difference to me.
Perhaps I didn't word it well. Let's take a non-political topic. I write an article about (American) football, and you write an article about lacrosse. Which is going to get more Diggs? Most likely it will be the football article because football's far more popular among the users of Digg and in our society in general. And trust me. I'm a football nut, and there are people who comment on sports articles who would comment on lacrosse being "pansy," "not a real sport," etc. The sentiment's out there.
Is Digg (or are its designers to avoid personifying the program) anti-lacrosse? Or are they decidedly pro-football? No. They have a system set up that allows for the reflection of the culture's preference.
I think the complaint about Digg being sexist recognizes this same pattern, albeit in a way that upsets feminists because it looks on the surface to promote the opposing agenda.
In thinking through Digg and a possible solution, I don't understand exactly how they would change to make articles like Jen's get on the popular list without being unfair. Should feminist articles get double points for voters? Should points be taken away for non-constructive comments like the ones she copied into her article (if those people are voting against the article)? And then who decides whether something's constructive? I don't see a rational way to program a change, and Digg doesn't have the personnel to have someone go through and read every.single.comment made on articles.
Does that make more sense? I think the trend Jen's seeing suggests something about Digg users perhaps, but I don't see how it can be a reflection on Digg as a whole.
Is Digg (or are its designers to avoid personifying the program) anti-lacrosse? Or are they decidedly pro-football? No. They have a system set up that allows for the reflection of the culture's preference.
I agree, but -- borrowing from the rationale behind YouTube's defense of the copyright suits against it -- I think it depends on the volume of objectionable activity happening and on how reasonably we can assume that Digg's officers know what its site is being used for. (E.g., the culture's preference might be for violating tons of copyrights, but that doesn't make it legal -- and that doesn't mean the Web site isn't complicit. Not that legality is really an issue with Digg, but you get what I mean.)
I don't think lacrosse players specifically target football articles and bury them, let alone bury them in the consistent degrading comments.
Nor is football and lacrosse quite comparable.
This is more like say, a black person posting on the acheivements of black people and random commentors buring it with degrading commenst about slavery and violence.
Lacrosse or football has never oppressed the other into sexual assault, unequal wages or domestic violence.
This is true for Digg as a website, the webiste isn't sexist, the users have found a way to exploit it based on thier own group sexism.
Digg allows it to happen when TOS violating commetors are allowed to keep thier accounts and keep posting, or when accounts that vote to bury a story and are TOS violators do not have thier bury capacity removed.
I'm running into the same problems with Reddit. Seems like every week there's a story on the homepage about how we ladies are scientifically proven to not be able to grasp the Math or the Science. Crap like that gets prime real estate, even though hundreds of community members downvote it. Makes you wonder.
The site in and of itself is not sexist. And I have no reason to believe that the people who run it are either. It is set up democratically and unfortunately we are still not the majority. If you have a problem with the articles that get voted up or down in Digg, you should sign up, get your feminist friends to sign up and try to get feminism recognized. Also unfortunate is the fact that what is going to get voted up most often in is the hands of people that are willing to spend many hours every week rating things on websites. If you think that's worth the time, then more power to you.
If feminism were popular, do you think there'd be so much left to complain about?
I think the real question is how those in positions of power should respond when the majority of people support an unequal distribution of power, wealth, etc.
Any reflection of a big population (Digg, Wikipedia, You Tube, Daily Kos, the U.S. Government, etc.) will be sexist, racist, heterosexist, etc., because the majority of the culture is sexist, racist, heterosexist, etc...
There is really no debating the fact that absolute democracy and freedom in a sexist culture will disadvantage women. So the question is, when is it more important to ensure that women get a fair shake, and when is it more important to allow absolute democracy? And what is the best way to create an open and democratic system without making that system unsafe, unwelcoming, and unfair to women and minorities? If, given total freedom, one group wants to degrade and control another group, someone is going to lose freedom one way or the other. It's either the people who want to oppress or the people who would rather not be oppressed, basically.
A lot of Digg users are idiots. That doesn't make Digg sexist.
That's like saying YouTube is sexist because a lot of YouTube commenters are idiots. Or like saying Microsoft Word is sexist because a lot of people use it to write offensive things. Or that the article linked here is sexist because people are posting idiotic, sexist comments. It works the other way too. It's like saying Movable Type is feminist because this site uses it. Or, more generally, that X is Y because Y people use it.
In other words, it's conflating the system with its users. A good test to apply here would be: if you plugged in a totally different set of people, would the results be the same?
The real problem here is people's attitudes. And people have been like this for a long time. The Internet just makes it easier for them to show what they're really like.
Digg, the company: Their engineering department is currently all men (except for four women in QA, but that's not /exactly/ engineering). I don't know if that's inherently sexist, but it is suspicious.
Digg, the founders: If you ever watch an episode of "Diggnation", which is hosted by the site founders and does a weekly review of top articles, you won't have a moment's doubt about the answer to this question. Sexism, misogyny, homophobia... Total frat-boy mentality...
This is kind of depressing.
How can so very many people be against feminism? It's just a subsection of basic human rights. I don't get it.
Unlike a lot of other people, I don't really think that most people believe the things they say on sites like Digg when they have complete anonymity. I think a lot of it is just a big in-joke to people. They say these things because they can, because there's no other place they could say them, and because they want reactions from everyone, and people here notice the misogynistic comments more than any other offensive comments.
I don't use Digg and don't know about it's founders. But it did say in the article that they removed comments that were in TOS violation. If Digg is simply a site for posting articles, that in itself is not inherently sexist or feminist. It's a vehicle. But it does sound like there are clearly a lot of people who are sexist using it.
I look at sites that reflect a variety of interests and have encountered sexists on all of them. These aren't sexist sites in and of themselves(I tend to look at sites that pertain to anything from comics, nutrition, paganism, mental health, etc...)Unfortunately, I think it's just that sexism is still that prevalent and internet anonymity emboldens them to lash out from the safe cocoon of Mom and Dad's basement.
So a woman responded to the article Jessica posted and it's now on the front page of Digg. This woman is defending Digg, saying that woman who complain about things being sexist are whiners and she doesn't bitch about stuff like that because it would make her 'a typical woman'. So she is defending Digg...and what do the Digg users do? Respond with sexist comments!
First comment:
1. GB2KITCHEN
2. Make sandwich
3. Deliver sandwich
4. Repeat Step 1.
5. ???????????
6. PROFIT!
To which there include the replies:
Your theory would be correct if women actually existed on the internet.
Other comments:
Show your Boobs!
What husband let their wife use the computer?
I think it's awesome that the Digg users are proving the original article's point. Here's the link if you want to check it out:
http://digg.com/people/Is_Digg_Sexist_A_rebuttal_from_someone_with_breasts
Hmmm, I hadn't realized Sarah Palin was included on the "Top Feminist List" article. I may have taken issue with that myself.
But nonetheless, there is a WORLD of difference between "This shouldn't be popular because of Sarah Palin's inclusion on a feminist list" and "This shouldn't be popular because it's about feminism PERIOD. Now make me a sammich, huh huh huh."
And unfortunately, any point the rebuttal author might make questioning the merits of the original article get lost with her sweeping statements about "typical whiny women" and SHE'S not like THEM, Ohhh, noes...
thanks for sharing this with your readers. here is a follow up from the story - including an apology from a Digg user:
http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/digg_community_responds_to_changeorg_cr_efforts
As popular as Digg is for passive surfing, the core community seems to be a cadre of techy folks, libertarian types, and impressionable adolescents ... groups that don't tend to be progressive in ideology or sensitive in communication (remember, this is the site that, as a brand, was nearly ruined after being flooded top to bottom with Ron Paul propaganda during the US primaries).
What I'm saying is, while the core principle of Digg is to build a library of content that's reflective of broad cultural goings-on, the content is HEAVILY skewed toward particular audiences. I don't see Digg as representative of culture at large, or even culture as it plays out on the Web. Nonetheless, it is a huge drag that people think its funny to post things like that.