The first of three parts. Part two here. Part three here.

In the latest scandal which is getting millions of upvotes and front-page views today and will be forgotten tomorrow, Digg.com is shocked - shocked - to discover that political astroturf is going on on their very website!

Maybe it's a generational thing. You can say "email has a lot of spam" and not even raise granny's eyebrow any more. Knowledge of 419 scams is becoming so common, they even tape signs on the monitors at Internet cafes forbidding them. Malware certainly gets a lot of ink... heck, it's half the reason some people come to Linux.

But buying votes and opinions on social linking websites is exposed again, and again, and again, and again. And people go right on just believing that Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon front page like it was gospel.

The latest story at Alternet is considered news because this time it's political astroturfing. Big whoop. Conservatives, tea partiers, and religious organizations have been found in the past to use "think tanks" and special interest groups. It's all funded. It's all money that originally came from a corporation somewhere.

But anyway, Alternet is scandalized because Digg is being rigged by conservatives. And I always thought this was a clue.

That's from what, two and a half years ago?

This goes into some of my reasoning as to Why Social Bookmarking Will Always Suck.

This needs spotlighting. I know that I'm preaching to my own small choir here, but this needs to be trumpeted way out to the world. I think that 95% of web users just don't realize what a big business this is. I've been Googling phrases like "buzz marketing," "word of mouth marketing," "social media marketing," "influencer marketing," and "front page service," and there's just... no end to this. It involves the top, richest, biggest corporations in the world, and they really care about where your mouse is going to click next enough to fabricate a whole world of lies for it.

UPDATE ESPECIALLY FOR THE RON-PAULTARDS: I thought this went without saying on this website, but on my site I delete all comments supporting Ron Paul immediately. Why? Because I am a good person, that's why. I'd throw my own mother out in the snow for spamming Paultard propaganda on my site. And then delete it and disown her. So no, don't think you can talk me out of it.

You don't like it, you need to take it up with the University of Alabama-Birmingham's computer forensics research department. They proved - PROOOOOOVED - that the Ron Paul campaign for the 2008 election was spamming the Internet in 2007.

That's three years old, it's thoroughly documented, it's thoroughly established, it is incontrovertible, set in concrete, established fact, accepted dogma, gospel, carved into the face of the moon - a cliche.