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User-Generated News Gives Power to Masses, Even in Madness

"User-generated content," as it's called by tech-elite, is more than just video sharing Web sites: it has also played a role in exposing World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, popularizing presidential hopeful Mike Gravel, and giving a Virginian gun enthusiast a great deal of unwanted attention. While blogs and Youtube are garnering the attention of the mainstream media, companies like Santa Monica, CA-based digg are changing the way that internet news works, allowing the news-reader to become the news-maker.

Founded by ex-dot-com entrepreneur and former TV personality Kevin Rose in late 2004, digg has rocketed to the top of the internet news world, overtaking the New York Times' Web site and quickly gaining on CNN's, according to the latest Alexa rankings. Powered by user submissions and a community voting system meant to reward interesting reads and "bury" fakes, duplicates, and spam, digg represents an ideal of democratic newsmaking.

"Typically with technology news sites a handful of editors choose which stories are relevant . . . [Digg] was the first time that anyone experimented with allowing the general mass audience to decide what they believed to be the most important topic of the day," Rose said in an interview with ZDNet's Richard MacManus.

Unfortunately, digg's much-touted lack of centralized editorial control has also given it many critics. Some, like O'Reilly Rader blogger Nat Torkington, feel that an inaccurate news story can quickly climb to the top of digg's front-page "Popular" stories before sufficient fact-checking is done. Though an incorrect story can be flagged by readers, then removed, there is no guarantee that a follow-up correction will be seen by those who read the initial story.

Others, like Boston University Journalism professor Chris Daly note that social media's lack of editors can be irresponsible. "In the traditional media, we make mistakes, even though we are working hard not to and have put elaborate safeguards into place." Digg's bury system isn't always up to the task.

"Coming Out. I am not the shooter."
Wayne Chiang, a young Asian student in Virginia can speak to digg's power to quickly misinform. When a few observant internet surfers noticed that his online journal contained images of him carrying a dizzying arsenal of weapons and spoke of recent romantic hardships, they became worried. When it was discovered that he was a Virginia Tech student mere hours after the

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