NewsVine hits Pinnacle of Righteous Indignation

Popular social bookmarking citizen journalism website Newsvine was thrashing around in convulsions of righteous indignation yesterday, and the peristaltic shockwaves continue to ebb and flow.

A joke played on Newsvine readers at large, conceived in secret and executed by 12 of the website's best-known contributors, has not in general been taken in the best of humour and a massive backlash has ensued, amid claims that Newsvine's very bedrock of credibility has suffered irreversible damage. Complaints are rife that Newsvine is falling prey to the same kind of cliqueism that is seen as having been harmful to competing websites such as Digg.

The Terrible Twelve (also known as the Drollhouse Group) had the idea of swapping identities pairwise and writing outrageous articles on behalf of their adopted personae, prodding firmly at the boundaries of believability. The motivation is believed to go beyond mere casual amusement. There was, purportedly, a serious point to be made, namely the dangers of being too trusting of our regular sources of information to the extent of letting our guard down. The Great Newsvine Joke (as history will no doubt record it) was intended as a wake-up call to those who are avid consumers of information but may have fallen into the trap of taking the reliability of their sources for granted.

To that extent, the GNJ may well have reached its mark. But it may also have continued well past it judging by the collective response of the Vine when the perpetrators owned up to their prank.

There are though voices in support of the Twelve. Veteran Viner Adam Pocket told us: "There's loads miffed because they were too gullible to spot summat was up and ended up making right fools of theirsels'. Punctured their egos when they realised they'd been 'ad. Claimed they'd been humiliated. Seems to me it's their own fault for thinkin' they're so clever 'n all that. Not gonna calm down in a hurry, thems won't. Silly sods. Up their own backsides if you ask me."

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