Sunday, January 4, 2009

IsraeliGirl violates Digg TOS


I was recently banned from Digg. Again. This time according to the email it is permanent. Here is their email informing me of their decision.

Your account was removed for violating the Digg Terms of Service (digg.com/tos) that you agreed to.

"By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree not to use the Services:

with the intention of artificially inflating or altering the 'digg count', blog count, comments, or any other Digg service, including by way of creating separate user accounts for the purpose of artificially altering Digg's services; giving or receiving money or other remuneration in exchange for votes; or participating in any other organized effort that in any way artificially alters the results of Digg's services;"

Due to the nature and severity of abuse, your account will not be re-instated. This decision is final and irreversible.

- Digg Support Team
And here is my reply which I never received a response to.
Hi,

It seems to me that there must be a mistake. Can you be more specific including describing the specific act that caused my account to be closed? I am not aware that I ever did any of the things that you mention below. And I would very much like to have my account re-instated.

According to your email I violated the TOS through one of the following:

with the intention of artificially inflating or altering the 'digg count', blog count, comments, or any other Digg service, including by way of creating separate user accounts for the purpose of artificially altering Digg's services; giving or receiving money or other remuneration in exchange for votes; or participating in any other organized effort that in any way artificially alters the results of Digg's services;"

1. I have never created a separate user count.
2. I have never received any remuneration in exchange for votes.
3. The only "organized effort" that I have engaged in to "alter the results" is to send shouts. Is this not allowed?


I will gladly admit that I sent a shout asking that my friends bury an article. If this is the action that was in violation of the TOS then I apologize and will not do it again. I would have logically thought that shouting to bury an article would be no different than shouting in favor of an article. But again if this is the case, then I will gladly promise to not do this again.

Is it because I placed links in comments to other Digg articles and asked people to digg them? Again, I would have thought that this would be allowed, but if it isn't then I won't do it again.

Certainly sending shouts is not "participating in any other organized effort". So I'm very confused as to what is the nature of my offense, and inclined to believe that a mistake has been made in my case.

It seems highly unusual and unfair to me to close my account without pointing out the specific act that prompted this severe action. I have been an active member of Digg for quite some time. I have always tried to act responsibly on Digg. Again I ask that my account be re-instated, or at the very least to have a clear explanation of the specific act or acts that caused my account to be closed.

Thanks,
Frank
So in my humble opinion Digg sucks big time. I'm convinced that the only reason that I was banned was for my political point of view. It seems that anti-Zionists are not welcome on Digg. I'm not the only one. I can name at least 10 others that have recently been banned that were also anti-Zionist. Meanwhile there are numerous Zionist trolls that place highly objectionable comments on Digg which have never been banned.

But, one particular Zionist user stands out recently because of the number of articles this user has placed on the front page recently. And that user is IsraeliGirl. Here's her user profile page.
http://digg.com/users/israeligirl

On that page, in the about section, it says:
I've been a marketing consultant to high tech companies for the last 10 years. I am also one of the founders of giyus.org, a pro-Israeli public diplomacy group.
So I went to GIYUS.org to see what kind of a group it is. There homepage is as you might expect.
http://giyus.org/

GIYUS it turns out is an acronym for Give Israel Your United Support. And here is what is displayed on the front page of GIYUS.org.
Today's conflicts are won by public opinion.
Now is the time to be active and voice Israel's side to the world.


Join the effort in 3 easy steps:
  1. Download and install Megaphone desktop tool
  2. Receive desktop alerts on key articles and surveys
  3. Click alerts to easily voice your opinion
Help us by reporting relevant articles and surveys.

Together we can make a difference!
In case you don't now about Megaphone, it is described in Wikipedia as "the pro-Israel lobbying software tool". Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Megaphone.
The Megaphone desktop tool is a Microsoft Windows application distributed by the World Union of Jewish Students and other pro-Israel organizations, through the Giyus.org website. Released on July 19, 2006, it delivers real-time alerts about key articles, videos, blogs, and surveys to subscribers so that they can voice their opinions and work together to support Israel on the public opinion front.
So now you can see the relationship:
IsraeliGirl->founder of GIYUS.org->distributor of Megaphone->pro-Israel lobbying software->work together to support Israel

Now that reminds me of something in the Digg TOS that was supposedly the reason for banning me from Digg. What could it be? Oh right! I remember.
or participating in any other organized effort that in any way artificially alters the results of Digg's services
Is it just a coincidence that the day before I was banned I sent out a shout asking my friends to bury a particular article submitted by IsraeliGirl, and also suggested that they bury any other articles posted by IsraeliGirl? Why am I the one that got banned, when clearly IsraeliGirl and the Megaphonies are the ones gaming the system on Digg?

Is Digg another "Israeli-Occupied Territory" on the internet? Why does Digg allow someone who blatantly advertises their connection to a coordinated effort to manipulate internet public opinion to continue to be a member? IsraeliGirl is clearly in gross violation of the Digg Terms of Service, yet she has been allowed to become one of the most powerful Digg members recently. And this is at a time when Israel is engaging in the massacre of innocent Palestinians.

If Digg didn't claim to be a democratic and politically neutral site, then this would be no problem. But if Digg is pursuing a pro-Zionist agenda while pretending to be neutral, then Digg is a fraud and needs to be exposed.

See also this article from the Times Online:
"Israel backed by army of cyber-soldiers"
[This article is from 2006 when Israel invaded Lebanon in a brutal attack against civilians similar to the attack against Gaza.]
WHILE Israel fights Hezbollah with tanks and aircraft, its supporters are campaigning on the internet.

Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.

In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.
It is clear from this article that the Israeli government itself is behind GIYUS and Megaphone, so again - Why isn't IsraeliGirl banned from Digg?

Here is one last article that shows the link between Megaphone and the Israeli government. This one is from Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian website.

"Israel's Foreign Ministry provides Free Internet Tool to online activists"
[The article quotes a letter from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is from 2006.]
Dear friends,

Many of us recognize the importance of the Internet as the new battleground for Israel's image. It's time to do it better, and coordinate our on-line efforts on behalf of Israel. An Israeli software company have developed a free, safe and useful tool for us - the Internet Megaphone.

Please go to www.giyus.org, download the Megaphone, and you will receive daily updates with instant links to important internet polls, problematic articles that require a talk back, etc.

We need 100,000 Megaphone users to make a difference. So, please distribute this mail to all Israel's supporters.

Do it now. For Israel.

Amir Gissin

Director Public Affairs (Hasbara) Department
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
This article suggests that pro-Palestinian users should download Megaphone and use it to track what the Zionist forces are doing and use it as a tool against them. It also mentions that GIYUS translates into "mobilization". It also points to webpage where you can see the online alerts issued by GIYUS without having to sign up for the sign up for Megaphone.

GIYUS.ORG Online Alerts
http://ws.giyus.org/points/list

I am posting this link so that anti-Zionist forces can track the Zionists attempts to sway public opinion via the internet, and so that we can counter the Israeli attempts to manipulate the internet as they have manipulated the main-stream media (MSM).

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of my question about Megaphone on Yahoo Answers had been deleted.
It was simple :"Do you know Megaphone ?" with links from same sites you mention.

AmericanGoy said...

We all know what MEGAPHONE stands for.

Sorry for your ban, AG.

It looks like my articles are getting less and less DIGGs also, because my friends list was literally cleared out by DIGG.

Most of my contacts on DIGG are gone/banned/deleted.

Frank Hope said...

I just want to let all my old Digg friends know that you can now find me at Reddit.

http://www.reddit.com/user/FrankHope/

I invite all of you to join me at Reddit. The main group for World News is located at.

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/

You'll notice that the majority of the top stories right now address the invasion of Gaza by Israel - unlike the Digg World News front page.


You can find this article which I submitted to Reddit and is currently in the top ten at. There have been many excellent comments.

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7ncbr/israeligirl_is_an_agent_of_israel_government_and/

I hope you will also stay active on Digg and continue to fight for Peace and Justice. But as AmericanGoy mentions, many of our friends have been banned recently.

Happy New Year to everyone. Thanks for digging my article and more importantly thanks for supporting the Palestinian People in their struggle for Justice.

MarkusGarvey said...

Go check out mixx Frank, were building a pretty good community over there...

Frank Hope said...

Anyone who doesn't think that IsraeliGirl is an agent of the Israel Government should take a look at this entry on IsraeliGirl's blog. If she isn't working for the Israeli government then why is she accepting questions for the Israeli Foreign Media Advisor at her email address?:

-----

http://israeligirl.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/07/submit-your-que.html

Submit YOUR questions to Mark Regev, Foreign Media Adviser to Israel's Prime Minister

I am happy to announce that Mark Regev, Israel's foreign media adviser to the prime minister, has agreed to answer readers' questions regarding Israel and the conflict.

Please send me your questions for consideration. Please include your name and location for reference. The interview will be on video so if you'd like to submit your questions on video as well please send us a YouTube link.

Questions can be submitted by Tuesday July 15th. Keep in mind, we won't be able to pass all questions so try to make your question specific and related to current events.

Questions can be submitted in the following manner:
- As a comment to this blog item
- Via email to israeligirl67@gmail.com

nolocontendere said...

AOL has been occupied territory since it's inception, yet one more reason it sucks.

Unknown said...

Wow, Future news ahead of time sounds pretty cool! I like it!

jess
www.privacy.de.tc

Anonymous said...

tldr;

Way to go digg!

FYI: Megaphone does not 'shout' digg articles.
You would know that if you were intelligent.
But your not.

You should check this out:

I think you'd really find this interesting

Don't censor me!

Anonymous said...

digg sucks so bad.I left it long time ago for reddit

Unknown said...

By your own admission you did break the TOS, you asked other people to bury her submissions.

Apart from that, yeah she should be banned.

Anonymous said...

Perfectly said.
I must appreciate you for taking the time to research onto several topics before posting.Great effort.

I feel sorry for you, BTW, Welcome to Reddit!

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

If it's any consolation, I don't read Digg anymore, and only read reddit.com and popurls.com.

Frank Hope said...

My apologies to Bombastica. I just realized that his comments were directed at someone that had posted some previous comments. I was thrown off by the Hebrew(?) characters. I tried to undelete his comments, but apparently that is not possible. Here are his comments for the record.

----

From Bombastica:

@ אני אוהב את ישראל
you're a moron.
: )

@ אני אוהב את ישראל
seriously? you're user name links me to an IDF website?

@ אני אוהב את ישראל
seriously? you're user name links me to an IDF website?

---

My comment:
Bombastica is correct. The user he mentions does have a user name that redirects to a IDF website.

Mr. Raven said...

I too was banned from digg a couple weeks ago for daring to express my heated disgust with vile Rachel Corrie pancake jokes. I suggest coming over to commondreams.org the nice hard leftists there are very intelligent and we outnumber the Zionist shills as well so it is quite refreshing. Good luck!

Former digg login mrraven200

hootowl over commondreams

Keep fighting the good fight against Zionist opression!

Unknown said...

Well you are always welcome at islamify.com where anti-zionism is always in style.

Anonymous said...

"Is it just a coincidence that the day before I was banned I sent out a shout asking my friends to bury a particular article submitted by IsraeliGirl, and also suggested that they bury any other articles posted by IsraeliGirl?"

um....that would be in contravention of the TOS then? Not that i agree with it, but you are clearly attempting to subvert the normal procedure

Frank Hope said...

Can anyone actually point to where the Digg TOS says in writing anything about not shouting to bury someone? It's been mentioned twice in the comments as if it is Gospel truth, but never has anyone bothered to quote the Digg TOS. Also this was not mentioned as a reason in the email I received from Digg.

The closest I can see in the TOS is this:

"By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree not to use the Services:
to abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Digg users;"

But I can tell you that I was constantly abused and harassed on Digg and I reported it, but rarely was anything done about it. Much of the language used in typical Digg comments is abusive and threatening so this is just a legal catch-all that Digg administrators can use to justify any action they want.

There is nothing that says specifically anything about burying or shouting to have someone buried. There is a bury button on digg and there is a shout button. It seems absurd to me that you couldn't link the two together (metaphorically speaking) by sending a shout to bury an article or a series of articles.

How about this shout from IsraeliGirl regarding this article:

"Hi,

The following story is an attempt by some pro-Hamas supporters to get me banned from Digg and tarnish all my friends' reputation. Can you please take a look at http://digg.com/tech_news/IsraeliGirl_violates_Dig ... -- your feedback there would be appreciated.

Thanks,
IsraeliGirl"

What kind of "feedback" do you suppose she is referring to. Is she suggesting that the story be buried? Is that the way the system works?

I do know that there have been some high profile cases where Digg users were banned for using outside channels to promote stories. Megaphone is the ultimate outside channel and she is the founder of it. What more reason does Digg need to ban her? It seems to me that you can either be a Digg user or a Megaphone user, but it is against the TOS to be both.

We all know that there are Zionist bury brigades. And surprise, surprise. This story was buried on Digg.

Unknown said...

Thank you for your info about megaphone! I will act like 100000 cyber soldiers announcing israels censorship and manipulation of media outlets. They believe they are pros at this but there force alone can't outnumber the citizens of the world! Let's band against Israels slaughter of children!

Anonymous said...

Keep resisting the Zionist...Keep up with he Good work...

Anonymous said...

Wow. So I went to Digg just to see for myself after reading this. Two pro-Israel links and a third to Yahoo that was neutral save for the leading Hamas statements suggesting that Gaza is a home for "terrists".

Unbelievable. Thanks for this post, I would never have noticed this trend.

Anonymous said...

who is liraz arkin university of arizona hillel

Anonymous said...

http://www.fotolog.com/israeligirl/21398509

Anonymous said...

Screw Digg, you're better off without it. Nothing but "passive" censorship there. It's OK for the pro-US gov/pro-Israeli gov "bury brigade" to gang up on posts, but it's not OK to fight back. Digg's time is finite at this point if they keep going the way they've been going. Great idea, horrible execution. Maybe I'll finally check out reddit now.

Peace to all,
Zzeke

Frank Hope said...

Thanks for the great comments (and a few not so great comments). I never thought this post would cause such a stir. It got to number one in the Digg upcoming (before it got buried) and was in the top 5 (I think) of Reddit overall. I had nearly 10,000 hits on my blog in 2 days.

More importantly this highlights that the struggle for Justice for the Palestinian People is happening as much in cyberspace as in the real world. Israel recognizes this, and we must recognize this as well if we are ever going to be successful in bringing true Peace to the Middle East.

Deformation said...

cant we just another megaphone? i mean not an app, but some kind of service (preferably within digg) that allows us to communicate better and digg more efficiently.

I would suggest a twitter account or an rss for someone of us who has a blog here, but again i am not sure if thats right with digg TOS.

frankhope, add done. (deformation)

Anonymous said...

I reported that lying asshole onetimer for a TOS violation and got banned 1 hour later. Digg is fucking pathetic.

Anonymous said...

how dare these people get together and find articles about something they are knowledgable about and interested in!

Talk about censorship, Frank Hope removes any comment that shows him in an unfavorable light.

COWARD!

Anonymous said...

To the coward "anon" above:

It's Frank's blog. He can do whatever he pleases. I don't think Frank has a TOS for you to cry about here. Besides, you're only here because you got buried on the digg submission I'm sure. Now go back to trolling shithole digg where you belong.

What a tool - calls Frank a coward using the "Anonymous" tag. Oh, the irony.

Peace all
Zeke

Anonymous said...

LOL, ok Zeke... I sure know sooo much more about you using those 4 letters... wow.

Sorry I didn't put 4 letters in front of my comment, I guess I'm a font coward! Scared of letters.

Anonymous said...

There is some seriously relevant and disturbing stuff in this blog and I for one thank Frank for having the guts to post it. I was a Digg devotee until I started to notice a very definate leaning towards the perspective of Israel being shown over any other. Now that I've been able to research the Megaphone for myself (thanks to Frank's and other's links) my suspicions about the nature of Zionism seem to have been confirmed. If they weren't doing something very wrong, why would they need such a powerful tool to manipulate popular opinion?

Keep up the good work, Frank. Your blog URL is going to be posted everywhere I can think to put it.

Kat

falistiniyya said...

I am so sick and friggin tired of these pro-Israelies getting to say whatever the hell we want and us--the truth-tellers--get banned. When is their hate going to be snuffed out? I'm sick of this.

beautifulady said...

Today another one of my friends was pulled off Digg. I assume that like me, he is an anti-Zionist. I'm digging as many articles as I can, commenting on most of them, and waiting to see when my turn comes up. yellowcakewalk, if you're out there, sign up at reddit,ok?

Anonymous said...

digg is a fucking liberal cesspool. I've been banned 5 times already but I have ways to keep fighting the fight against zionists.

PodeCoet said...

Bookmarked. After months of seeing IsraeliGirl post pro-zionist news articles on digg, I was shocked as to how nobody else could see the connection between her handle and the articles posted.

It looks like digg users are finally starting to catch on, however other "power users" are quick to bury them into oblivion.

Goodbye Digg, hello Reddit!

Frank Hope said...

@PodeCoet - Welcome to Reddit. Yes the fact that Digg does not ban IsraeliGirl is shameful. And we have all seen the announcements that the Israeli government has stepped up its effort to spread its lies on the web through social networking sites. Digg is participating in this Israeli government campaign by banning any user that expresses an anti-Zionist point of view.

Just a word that I am no longer using the FrankHope account on Reddit. I have changed my name so that I can operate in anonymity. But rest assured that I am still very active there. Some good groups to join on Reddit are worldnews, politics and worldpolitics.

One suggestion is that you always be respectful in your comments. I think we are much more effective in spreading our message of support for Palestinians when we refrain from profanities and personal attacks.

I am not anti-Semitic and I do not tolerate people that are. I am pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist. Thankfully most people realize the difference these day.

I do encourage you to stay active on Digg - if you can. We need our voices to appear on all sites. Also many people are using Facebook, Twitter and blogs to get the word out.

Peace and a very Merry Christmas,
Frank