Banned from Digg.com

Posted on 19. Jan, 2009 by Jess in death and taxes

There has been an update to this situation. Click here or skip down to the end.

For the past several months this site, WallStats.com has been banned from Digg.com. I will get to the absurd reason in a moment. If you are not familliar with Digg, it is a social media site where uses submit interesting links and other users vote on them; the best links rise to the top and become popular. Digg is a great way to discover new content and a important tool for bloggers and other content providers who can’t take out full page ads in the Times. If your lucky, and have written a good post, it may get submitted to Digg, voted up and made popular, and you will have gained many new readers.

That was how it used to work for me. My content, blog posts, and the Death and Taxes poster have racked up almost 10,000 diggs in the past several years (edit: Content created by me has over 20K diggs since being banned). But all that came to a halt several months ago when a reader told me that they could no longer submit my content, and in fact much of it had been deleted from Digg.

bannedfromdigg

So perplexed, I emailed them.

Dear Digg,

I keep getting this error,

“”This URL has been reported by users to be in violation of Digg’s Terms of Service and cannot be submitted at this time. Please refer to our Terms of Service (digg.com/tos) for more information.”"

When I try to submit anything from wallstats.com, which is my domain. I cannot see how this violates any part of the TOS.

WallStats.com has the exact smae content as my previous site, TheBudgetGraph.com which has racked up 8,218 collective diggs so I do not know why my new site, WallStats.com is being penalized. Can you Clarify for me?

Thank you very much,
Jess Bachman

And they responded,

Thanks for taking the time to contact us at Digg.com regarding your website.

As you know, Digg is a community-driven website – our community has consistently reported the domain to which you refer as spam. And it is also in violation of our TOS http://digg.com/tos :

to advertise to, or solicit, any user to buy or sell any products or services.

Because unblocking your domain would not be in line with the best interests of the larger Digg community, we will not reverse this decision.

For more information, please see http://digg.com/faq and http://digg.com/tos

Thank you,

-The Digg Support Team.

So I was a bit baffled. Selling a product and advertising is how most bloggers make enough money to pay for the hosting bills and other expenses. I inquired further. Their TOS couldn’t possible be this narrow as it would mean most of the submissions would be in violation.

Thank you for the response,

Unfortunately I am quite baffled. I reread your TOS again including the part you mentioned.

to advertise to, or solicit, any user to buy or sell any products or services. It is also a violation of these rules to use any information obtained from the Services in order to contact, advertise to, solicit, or sell to any user without their prior explicit consent;

I am quite curious as to what your definition of “to advertising to any user” as about 95% of the blogs that make the front page do just this, advertising to the visitor. It’s how the bloggers support themselves and allows them to do insightful reporting and commentary.

I am an artist that takes three months of out of the year to research and craft the graph depicted on my website. Nobody pays me for my time, which is several hundred hours. I do it because I believe we should have an open democracy and our taxes and what the government does with them should not be locked up in thousands of pages of budget documentation. I try to bring this to light in an easy to understand infographic.

Yes, I sell posters of that infographic. It supports the endeavor as any artist hopes to sell copies of their work. Is that a violation of your TOS? An artist selling copies of their work? If so, then there are quite a few other front pages stories you should take a look at.

It’s quite disparaging to me that there are companies that create viral advertisements designed to spread through social media and Digg is a huge facilitator of the spreading of these ads, which no recourse to the advertiser. Yet here I am, an artist who advocates an open democracy and somehow, my art and website are a violation of your TOS. You would think our shared goals of citizen empowerment would not be so opposed.

I do not hawk loan offers, ring tones, or t-shirts. I sell a poster which depicts the discretionary budget of the United States. I am a one man operation and sales of the poster supports my family. My mother does all the rolling and shipping of posters.

We all know that digg users don’t buy anything as is evidenced by their extremely low conversion rate, but I rely on digg, and the democratization of the news selection process to get the word out about my work and poster, (or the democratization of the federal budget and government oversight.) My customers and supporters include CEO’s and visionaries of major technology companies that the digg community idolizes. They also include senior government officials and hundreds of university professors and school teachers. Hardly the type of crowd that would associate themselves with spam.

So you can see why I am baffled by the banning of my domain. Is there a particular aspect of my website, (http://www.wallstats.com) and the links that have been submitted and rejected, (http://www.wallstats.com/poster/) that rub your TOS the wrong way? If so please let me know so I can get a better understanding of how you apply your TOS, as it seems pretty loose and fast. I have been on Digg for almost two years and my content has garnered over 8,000 diggs without issue.

I am sure there is a way that we can resolve this misunderstanding and I look forward to your response,

Cheers,
Jess

Now if Digg’s TOS states that submitted websites can’t sell a product, thats fine. Except that rule should apply to everyone. You can’t go to Digg.com and find a link to my poster, but you certainly can purchase this T-shirt (247 Diggs), or this poster (1824 Diggs), or this neck tie (4416 Diggs) or anything off Amazon.com (20,000+ Diggs) or this video game from Wallmart.com (1039 Diggs) etc.

The fact is, there are thousands of links on Digg that violate the same TOS that I do. Yet for some reason my product, which is not as important as a t-shirt or neck tie, for it is only the most open and accesable record of government spending ever, is in violation, and therefore this whole site including blog is banned.

It really makes you wonder why. Is it the controversial nature of my poster? Perhaps if I put the poster on a neck tie it would be acceptable. Maybe a Digg moderator was just having a bad day. Unfortunately, I cannot get any answers to these questions as my emails go unanswered. So if you support the work I do here, take 5 minutes and send an email to support@digg.com and let them know that WallStats.com is a valuable resource and deserves the same opportunities that Amazon and Walmart receive. Yes I sell a product, but it is an important one. I can’t tell you how many teachers have told me their should be a Death and Taxes poster in every classroom. When’s the last time you heard that about a neck tie?

In the meantime, I have found a home with the Reddit community. They appreciate the work that I do and I enjoying finding great material there.

I will cross my fingers that Digg will find cause to unban me, but I fear I am just a pebble along their road to global domination.

Update 1: Thank you for your emails to digg! Please keep it up; it takes many voices to make a faceless bureaucracy listen!

Update 2: So I decided to email digg again and ‘appeal my case’ since it’s been over a year.

Nov 23, 2009

Hey Digg Support,

So It’s been over a year since my site was unfairly banned.

If you google ‘banned from digg’ you will see my blog post about it on page 1.

http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=banned+from+digg

or just go here, http://www.wallstats.com/blog/banned-from-diggcom/

I am sure if you review my site you will find it has tremendous value to the people of digg and internet community at large. Can you take another look to see if WallStats.com really deserves a permaban?

Many thanks,

Cheers,
Jess

And I received a response the same day,

Hello Jess,

As we previously stated, this domain block will not be reversed.

–Digg Support

So seriously, what is so bad about WallStats.com?

There are folks with over 3K diggs who are actively panhandling at the bottom of their post (no disrespect to Oatmeal, he does great work), and there are tons of links to actual products. Hell there are about 100+ submissions to Amazon products a day! Yet somehow, an artists selling his work is still not kosher with Kevin Rose or digg.com. Pretty shameful and against what they are ’supposed to be’ about.

Tags: banned, digg

2Trackbacks/Pingbacks

Pingback: Many Niches » Blog Archive » The Great Digg Hypocrisy on June 10, 2009
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40 Comments

Ian, January 20, 2009:

Who cares? Digg sucks anyway. I quit using it years ago.
wca, January 20, 2009:

Thats really disappointing, this is an awesome website.

I hope it gets unblocked. You had lots of great stuff up on Digg.
Justin Laing, January 22, 2009:

Someone probably reported a Digg by one of your fans as spam. It’s pretty lame but people report content as spam just because they don’t agree with it. Is it possible your poster pissed some people off? Or maybe a blog entry you wrote?
Totally lame of Digg. They obviously didn’t even look at your site before they replied back to you.
Twitter and other social sites are way more important than Digg these days if that makes you feel better. I just found your site through twitter via mint.com.
Good luck getting re-included!
M, January 27, 2009:

I agree. Just drop Digg. Nothing like nobody turning up at the stall to wake up ‘faceless’ stallholders. Use another. Use Twitter, Facebook, mySpace, SKYPE, use them all!
Jim, January 28, 2009:

How sad. I actually thought I saw one of your posters on digg and recently tried to find it in my history and realized I couldn’t. When I found your site and read your post I decided to voice my compliant to digg. I hope they unblock your site as I think your work is great!
John, February 5, 2009:

I too just fired off an email to Digg.
infomate, February 6, 2009:

I totally understand you guys. I’ve seen a lot of unfairness in different web sites, not only on digg, so me and my friends thought that it would be very interesting to create a content sharing web site as a social experiment where all content is managed by users. No more heavy-handed administrators and over-zealous moderators. Will users be able to control content in a sensible way by themselves? Please check it out and see what you think. We appreciate any comment.
Stinky, February 6, 2009:

you should mirror this story on another domain, and submit it to Digg… Not kidding. Do it.
pile, February 7, 2009:

Why should you care about Digg? Their web site is full of the most brain-dead, idiot children online. If you’re doing stories on “Top 10 best ways to smell your own farts” it’ll be a hit, otherwise, anything even remotely intelligent is best left away from that collection of mindless drivel.
Tomkzinti, February 7, 2009:

I tried subbing your site and it won’t even go past the first entry line. Seems you’ve been blackballed straight out.
Humblerants, February 7, 2009:

Even though I found Digg way before I found Reddit, it didn’t take me long after I decided to start submitting stories to see that Digg is crap. The only way to get anything noticed on Digg is to be or suck up to a power user. The system over there is a horrible load of crap.

Reddit on the other hand, I can submit something and get a couple hundred views to my blog possibly. This is because there’s no power user clique and no friends list on Reddit. I submitted an article yesterday to both Digg and Reddit and got zero clicks coming from Digg.

I read Digg’s front page still but I’m done submitting there. Not until the circle jerk is ended will that place be worthwhile to the “little” folk.
pile, February 7, 2009:

Digg is slow, buggy, populated by children, full of stupid and overhyped stories about nothing, and employs a heavy-handed moderation system that defies logic and fairness. There’s absolutely nothing on that site of any redeeming value that you cannot find more quickly and with less noise than on sites like Reddit or Slashdot.
Andy, February 8, 2009:

Never been here before, and I don’t use Digg, but I sent an email for you.

Good luck with that.
Celes | EmbraceLiving.Net, February 12, 2009:

Hey Jess! I’m in the same situation as you - my site is banned at Digg too. I believe it’s an automatic ban based on the buries our articles get - and it appears quite easy to rack up that number, based on what I’ve been hearing from my blogger friends and the net. I sent an email to Digg about my situation, got a cut and paste reply, sent another one which never got replied. It’s quite disappointing since I felt that my articles will benefit Digg users - nonetheless, I’ve since moved on from Digg since it’s apparent they won’t budge on the situation. I wish you best of luck!
biren shah, March 16, 2009:

hopefully… there will be people like me… who have never used Digg before, read this post of yours and get to decide for themselves who(/what) seems to be a ’social danger’.
i really thank Digg for doing what it has done to you. now i know i will never ever go there.
i feel, it is only a matter of time before digg changes… for the better, or… the worlds (from earth to the nether-worlds).

i will first spread this post, THEN shoot a mail to digg.
i think i have my priorities straight…

i hope you can see that this ‘digg issue’ is helping people dig their heels for you. you are growing friends.
thanks and love.
ACH, March 17, 2009:

This is absolutely ridiculous. Spam is one thing, but if the Digg community really likes a commercial product they should be allowed Digg it.
Lars, April 7, 2009:

I find this a good example of why I don’t like globalized neoliberal capitalism. We have become and are becoming more and more dependent on big corporations of whom we are customers. Unlike with governmental institutions in a democracy (which I do not want to idealize here at all) which you can complain about and hold accountable, private corporations can just terminate the customer relationship. Today, esp. in the internet, corporations provide (virtual) places, which are perceived by us as public spaces, but which are not - e.g. by facebook, google - and digg.

Thanks for your great graphs btw. - keep up the good work.
sam, April 9, 2009:

Digg will get you a bajillion hits in one day, but stumbelupon has legs for quality sustained traffic.

Still sucks though.
Mitoman, April 15, 2009:

I fully support your poster, and I’ll do the best I can to get digg unban you
erin, April 15, 2009:

I vote for a Facebook page.
ryan, April 16, 2009:

Jess your work is inspiring - I’m going to order a poster now.

Oh and I sent an email to DIGG as well - they should be downright ashamed of their actions. LAME.

anyway thanks for your huge effort in putting together these wonderful visuals.
Jeff, April 16, 2009:

Forget Digg. Viral things happen due to communications between people, not because someone didn’t get voted off the island. I will continue to push traffic your way and to spread the word. Your work is appreciated in a big way.
Dave, April 16, 2009:

I was an early adopter of Digg but have grown disenchanted with it. It seems clear to me that the community bullies each other with the kinds of vitriol thrown about in the comments section (even on the most tame of Digg listings). That your site would get banned comes as no surprise to me; a number of way-too-serious-about-Digg users likely stormed your link submission with “bury” requests. I agree with comments above: you don’t need Digg, your posters will gain traction through word of mouth (I posted it on my Facebook profile and have gotten a lot of response from it). That’s better PR anyway.
Alan, April 16, 2009:

I stopped using Digg a while ago. They’ve become too full of themselves.

I now use Stumble and Diigo, because _I_ control what I like, and their server correlates.

BTW, that is a GREAT poster depicting our national budget!! Awesome!!
dromo, April 19, 2009:

great work.

I tried to digg this page and it just kept clearing the URL field without reporting any error.

Keep it up.
sKurt, April 22, 2009:

Was/is on digg since 2005, signed up Feb 2006. I watched it grow from mostly tech stuff to the top story being about a picture of a kitty.

The Digg Down feature is the worst feature you can have for a natural discussion, if you say something that pertains to the conversation, you could be dugg down because the kiddie didn’t like the way you said it. Or just because they decided to digg down everyone in the story.

Shouldn’t be able to digg down, the conversation should be able to continue. I think you should only Digg up a person or if you can digg them down you shouldn’t disappear only show the rest of the story reader’s that you’ve been dugg down. - stifles the conversation.

The state of digg has gone from semi literate to the 14 and 15 year old crowd and if they don’t like what you say, the mob mentality takes over and the digg downs start.

I’ve ’shut off’ digg for a while, I’m only reading the stories, maybe I’ll try reddit or just stick to Fark

I got here because I saw your China vs US chart on Mint.com which sent me here to see more.

So your stories/posters are making it to Digg, just in a roundabout way.
Lisa Oink, May 17, 2009:

I think your infographics are awesome. Digg is totally clueless. I too saw your China vs US chart on Mint.com a few days after previous poster, couldn’t understand why you weren’t being Digg’ed.

However, I am passing the word at LinkedIn. I posted your http://www.wallstats.com url along with the following to LinkedIn’s Data and Text Analytics Professionals group:
“Concise high-level data visualization combining quantitative data and qualitative relationships
Great single-image combination of econometric data and non-quantitative information, subject is current US-China Trade Deficit.

Reminds me of pioneer Edward Fiske’s text on methods for visual representation of quantitative data… http://www.wallstats.com does these and other great data visualizations.”

Keep up the good work, it is unique and exceptionally effective!
europe, May 23, 2009:

Perhaps you are banned from Digg because of the tone of your site.. Maybe if you stopped talking about how amazing you are, you wouldn’t seem so commercial? Sorry to put it bluntly, i like your death and taxes piece, but i don’t like the text in your site. It surely turns off the majority of people who know design/visualisation, i don’t know if it impresses those who are new to infographics, perhaps it does.. I suggest toning it down a bit and trying again. Your work deserves to be dugg. For an example of a site selling a beautiful print with what i feel is the right tone check thebigpugh dot com. Thanks and good luck.
Gerard Coursey, June 11, 2009:

Just ordered the D&T poster. You should send one of these to Glenn Beck at Fox News. He would love it!
ata, July 7, 2009:

I got your link from digg via flicker(for Death and taxes). So, there is no problem mirroring it.Go ahead. Excellent work though.
Kempos, July 16, 2009:

I have been banned as well today. There is no advertising on my site whatsoever (except Adsense, but show me the site without adsene!).

Digg sucks big time!
Alvaro, July 22, 2009:

I have never used digg. I’ll never do now.

Your death and taxes poster is one of the most subversive things I have seen lately. It is good that you show people what crap the state buys when they are losing their jobs, medical and house.
I emailed digg to let them know they suck. Good luck to you.
For Shizel My Nizel, July 31, 2009:

What a crock of SH*T! Your info’s are epic, love them. I think you handled the email back and forth with DIG as well as possible. Too bad the people at Dig have to be that way and keep that thumb up their arse. Best of luck to you and spreading the truth about the gov!!!
Adrian Turner, September 17, 2009:

you are better off without digg…
TractorNipples, September 18, 2009:

what… HE says… I hate my own typos
Yoni, December 17, 2009:

emailed Digg as well. This is crap.
Eva, December 18, 2009:

digg obviously doesn’t know what they’re missing out on..
nicholas, December 23, 2009:

You need to get past their low level blockers. Do a little research, get email addys that work for digg execs, and send a short, friendly, non-heavy-handed, non-confrontational email with an image of your “death & taxes” poster. maybe some quick stats about your popularity. Don’t talk about “open democracy” –it will wrongly be interpreted as liberal-partisan. Don’t talk about what others diggers are doing. They know their tos enforcement is inconsistent.
MC, January 7, 2010:

It’s a shame about the TOS mishap, but that won’t stop your site from getting long-term, committed traffic, so don’t be disappointed.

About your tone: I was surprised at the unprofessional tone of voice used to describe your work. The work may be very good, but to adopt that sort of tone suggests the work can’t be improved upon.

Thank you for producing high-quality work on this site, though.
Mark Humblings, January 10, 2010:

It is totally unprofesional for digg staff to refuse to look personally at your case. Even a company as big as Google will do manual checkup whenever their “state of the art” algorithm doesn’t work as intended