On the job, I spend time listening and trying to understand how social media works. This means that i look closely at what is being said about my employer, the World Bank, on the Buzzmonitor.

There was a story on digg yesterday that has gained a fair amount of attention because it has a misleading headline. It claims that 90% of the World Bank aid money is consumed by corruption while pointing to an article about a case of corruption on a project in India. Nowhere does the article say that 90% of the money we lend is for corruption, the guy who submitted the story totally made that up, as digg bait.

And it worked:

• Top story for the past 24 hours in the business section
• over 900 diggs
• 83 comments and 5 posts.

The interesting thing is that the exact same story was submitted two days before with less catchy headline and it collected a royal 2 diggs. Reading the comments, i'd venture that maybe 5% actually understand what the issues are while others use the same old clichés and cristicism of the Bank.

What does that tell us? that the wikipedia page that says that digg allows "sensationalism and misinformation to thrive" is probably right.  And that, as a commenter on the story says:

"I figure occasionally, Diggers might want to get outraged by facts, not exaggerations."

Yes, that'd be nice cause you know, social media is about the conversation right? ;)

In any case, for those of you who actually might be interested in the real issue, how the Bank fights corruption in its operations, a friend of mine here once told me that fighting poverty in corrupt environments is akin to emptying a pool with a colander. The Bank is fully aware that corruption exists and is taking more steps than many others in investigating, stopping and preventing corruption in its projects. It has actually debarred dozens of firms (see who and why), and is investing in training and preventive programs to make sure our collander is bigger and with fewer holes. Finally, if you ever are involved in a bank project and witness or even suspect corruption, you should report it using  our fraud and corruption hotline.

[update: i submitted the story on digg]