Ian McCreadie Essay 1

Ian McCreadie

Professor Perez Tejada

English 1101-J1

09/07/2008

Ya Digg It?

Everyday, I wake up, turn on my computer, and open up my internet browser to my homepage, Digg.com. I visit the site hoping to find out about the latest current events, and other interesting things, posted on the internet. The site gives each user the ability to link articles, pictures, or videos to be evaluated by every other user on the site. Users can either “Digg” (approve) or “Bury” (dislike) something linked by another user. After numerous people have approved an article, the administrators upload it to the front page so more people can view it. This process continues as more and more people view the article, until the front page consists of intriguing articles, videos, or pictures. By reading the articles posted every day, along with the comments of what different users feel, I gain a greater understanding of my world.

Digg.com gives me the ability to view major events happening all across the globe without moving more than a few fingers. I received almost all of my news updates from Digg.com during high school because new articles appear on a constant basis. The most popular articles listed on the front page normally consist of major events of the day. Reading these articles and comments, left by the hundreds of users, improves my understanding more than the reading of a related newspaper article. By reading the comments left by the users, I can understand how a certain piece affects everyone else. After hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, articles were posted about people calling for help in the devastated city. Hundreds of people made comments describing the tragedies and horrors the people of New Orleans were going through. The website brought me closer to the people affected by the hurricane, allowing me to feel their pain. Although the website has the miraculous ability to make people hundreds of miles away seem next door, sometimes false articles appear.

Some users upload fake articles that distort the facts, or report events which never occurred. These articles can essentially become fact by having groups support false or biased articles. Digg’s system of the people supporting which articles make it to the front page makes it open to attack from a large group of people who want to promote lies. It takes hundreds of truthful Digg.com users to combat these fake articles in order to prove their falsehood. Despite some groups having the manpower to promote false articles, the majority of information displayed on the Digg.com homepage has been proven reliable by hundreds of users. This website has brought together thousands of people using the massive amount of information available on the internet and the willingness of humans to inform others.

This website has brought me together with people from all over the planet with the same urge to find the most recent news. Through its simple system of digging and burying articles, Digg.com has built itself from a small unknown website to a popular and reliable source for news and entertainment. Digg.com has connected me with people from all over the world making every event seem closer and more important to my life. By finding news articles on the site from many sources, I can attempt to get an unbiased view of events in our world. Despite the differences of the interests of everyone who visits Digg.com everyone can find something they digg.