I like Digg like Travis loved Old Yeller.

Digg and I are at the stage now where it’s foaming at the mouth. I can remember the good times we had together, Digg and I, but Digg needs to be put down. This is for its own good as well as the good of anybody it might hurt along the way.

After reading some Digg-related articles I was reminded of why Digg makes me nervous. Before some clever chap coined the phrase “wisdom of crowds” there was the phrase “tyranny of the masses.” Digg seems to do a tremendous job of enabling the tyrants while suppressing wisdom. The sociological mess that is “Digg” affects everything, from the quality and diversity of the news to the tone and repression of debate in the comments. Getting it right in terms of what Digg is trying to do is a tough proposition but the Digg folks aren’t coming out balance positive, if you get my meaning.

Which gets to the point that I alluded to in the title of this post. Does this mean that Digg is ruined, spiraling to an ignoble death in the dusty back corners of the Internet? Not at all. Turns out, strangely enough, that people don’t care about low quality news and abusive netizens. Who knew?

Digg is a living breathing example of what people will deal with in service of a poorly understood principle. News on Digg is supposed to be “democratic”, the result of the considered discernment of many individuals - this single buzzword/concept has apparently been enough to make people overlook tremendous failings with the site. My question is, when was democratic news ever something to be sought after?

A simple majority is all it takes to advance ideas, causes or agendas and suppress the minority in a democracy. News needs to transcend this sad fact. News shouldn’t be about causes or agendas.

The concept of democratic news, however, has taken hold and people seemingly don’t see the peril. Am I the only one?