(Update)
The diary in question, by Democrats Ramshield has been deleted. This is a common tactic by diarists who are unwilling to take responsibility for what they have written, or how they have behaved. Given the context of this deletion, that's almost definitely the case here, imho. I feel that this kind of behavior is disrespectful to the DK community, and in particular to those who commented in good faith in this diary. These commenters provide useful, relevant and accurate information, and stayed civil and respectful even when Democrats Ramshield was insulting and disrespectful in response.
All that Democrats Ramshield had to do was participate in a respectful, good-faith discussion with those who questioned the video that he included in his diary. It would have been easy to acknowledge the concerns raised, apologize for his inappropriate behavior, and remove the video from the diary. Instead, Democrats Ramshield is trying to hide the evidence of his problematic behavior. The most egregious behavior was in the comments, a example slice of which can be found here: http://www.dailykos.com/...and the rest of which can be found here http://www.dailykos.com/..., in his comments on 12/2/2014, in his diary, "My diary needs your help to go viral it provides info on what gov't agency is spying on your phone!".
Here's a cached diary copy that shows DR's behavior in the comments: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/02/1348753/-My-diary-needs-your-help-to-go-viral-it-provides-info-on-what-gov-t-agency-is-spying-on-your-phone
and direct links to the comments that drew HR's:
cybersaur - you are just an outright liar aren't u (2+ / 18-)
cybersaur... (10+ / 6-)
Continued half-troll alert on Fall line (10+ / 5-)
(End Update)
A few points before we get started:
-I believe that government monitoring and collection of our online data is a serious issue and fully support open, informed discussion of this topic.
-The diary in question contains useful and relevant information and videos, and is only marred by the video in question, and the diarist's defense of that video.
-I do not believe that the worth of a DK contributor is determined by how many diaries they have written, nor how many have been recommended.
I feel that diaries and comments on Daily Kos that contain obviously false and/or deliberately misleading information devalue and disrespect the contributions of those here who are committed to accurate and informed discussions. The diary in question, My diary needs your help to go viral it provides info on what gov't agency is spying on your phone! includes a video made by We Are Change, that includes a completely wrong interpretation of an IP address found on a phone, deciding that this proves that their phone data is being routed through a government network. The technical "expert" interviewed in the video is apparently so committed to this interpretation that he smashed his phone when he first discovered this nefarious infiltration.
There are plenty of stupid videos on the internet, and plenty of videos promoting conspiracy theories. So the existence of at least a few stupid conspiracy theory videos would be no surprise to Venn. But that doesn't mean they have any place on DK. I read the diary in question with interest, because this is an issue that I follow. When a commenter questioned the video, pointing out that it was made by a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) categorized it as part of the conspiracy-obsessed, antigovernment “Patriot” movement, and then pointed out that the claims made in the video were incorrect, I did a bit of research, and then got involved in the discussion.
The topic is a bit technical, but not particularly complicated. As an analogy, imagine that you lived in a gated community, where all your mail went through a private post office, that was the single point where your incoming and outgoing mail would be processed. For some reason, when the community was built, they chose to use addresses that corresponded to addresses from the outside world. So for example, you could live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC, and so on. Your private post office has a way of distinguishing between internal and external mail (maybe red envelopes and blue envelopes), so they can distinguish between mail destined for addresses within the community, vs mail destined for the outside world. Now imagine that one day, you look at your address, and decide that this must mean that you're living in the White House, and make a video about it. That's how wrong and stupid this video is.
FWIW, I believe that the diarist is a significant contributor to the DK community, and I hadn't had any previous negative interactions with him or her. So I was surprised to see that the diarist's response to criticism of the problematic video wasn't to remove the video in question, or discuss the questions raised, but to accuse the commenters (including myself) of trolling, question the legitimacy of their opinions based on how many diaries they'd written, and how many were recommended, and persistently misinterpret and misrepresent their position.
I could write more, but it's all in the comments. A number of commenters have supported the points raised questioning the video, and the diarist continues to respond with insults and misinterpretations. All they had to do was remove the video, and acknowledge the error. Instead, the diarist has chosen to malign and disrespect other members of the DK community. In their words,
As you have such an impressive record of publishing at the daily kos with your 16 recommended diaries since 2005 and you disagree so vehemently with the diary that I've written, why don't you just go and write a better one instead of trolling this one. Wouldn't that be a better use of your time and an actual service to the community to provide some diversity of opinion and thought.
If you do that, give a link to it and I'll be the first to read it but I won't be responding to you further here. It's not a good use of time as the points you've raised are ridiculous and are riddled with arguments that cannot be supported.
So I did. I feel that this is an unfortunate distraction from the legitimate information posted in the diary (including the other 2 videos), as well as other reality-based diaries and discussions.