If we can’t trust anonymous Internet voting, is democracy doomed altogether?
Several prominent turntablists have been disqualified from DJ Magazine’s online Top 100 of 2007 poll—the winners were announced on October 24 at www.DJMag.com—including Vegas regulars DJ Dan and Christopher Lawrence. In what is essentially a readers’ poll, the magazine’s website has been accepting votes since 1997 and using software to rank fan favorites and scan for potential misconduct. Since the magazine has gone independent, publisher James Robertson went over the more than 345,000 votes by hand; in doing so he discovered instances in which multiple votes were coming from the same computer.
“This year, I made a decision to investigate votes where the same IP address appeared over 50 times for the same person,” Robertson declared. In the cases of DJ Dan and Christopher Lawrence, “a script was used to bypass our security system,” says Robertson on the DJ Mag website. “Not only did we get multiple votes from the same IP address, but we got multiple votes from multiple IP addresses—in other words, we received in excess of 50 votes from the same IP address on over 20 occasions.”
Both DJs shared the same marketing manager, whom they allege is responsible for the scandal, and both have been somewhat vindicated—though not exonerated for 2007—with this week’s issue of the magazine accepting their explanations of innocence. Interesting indeed that the “villain” in all this is the group put in charge of making sure their clients rank highly in the world of electronic music. Unethical for sure, but how much weight can an online poll really hold? There were more votes for American Idol than our last presidential election, but when you’re allowed to vote multiple times a day, who’s to say if the higher ranks reflect popularity, talent, fan obsession or superior marketing ability? Should there be an investigation into Tila Tequila’s 2,130,579 MySpace friends?
Where DJ Mag’s Top 100 list really counts, however, is here in Las Vegas, where a club’s ability to feature “the No. 9 DJs in the world,” even if the casual club-goer has never heard of Infected Mushroom, is good marketing to get people in the door or, more likely, lined up for miles outside the door. For the DJ, the ranking is instrumental in getting better gigs and more pay.
In a statement, DJ Dan said: “I am happy that DJ Mag has cleared me, personally, of any wrongdoing relating to voting irregularities in the Top 100 poll. I fully cooperated with DJ Mag’s investigation. I did not cheat or encourage anyone else to cheat. After confronting my marketing manager, who denied the allegations, I arranged for DJ Mag to interview him. Ultimately, I fired him and will not use him again.”
Christopher Lawrence stated: “To be clear from the outset, I did not cheat in the Top 100 poll, nor did I ask anyone to do so on my behalf. I have spent 15 years building my career on a reputation of honesty, integrity and hard work and had no intention of allowing my name to be tarnished when I was innocent. In the interests of clearing my name, I instructed my team to cooperate with DJ Mag’s investigation in full. The focus of DJ Mag’s investigation was a marketing manager who was hired by my team, and whom I had never even met or spoken to. I have now terminated this person’s services and will not work with him or his company again.”
So what will be the lasting effect of this scandal for the DJ and club businesses? And why isn’t anyone considering the fans in all this, who, judging by the comments and blog postings surrounding the issue, have never really considered DJ Mag’s Top 100 a credible assessment of electronic music? Most likely, the press generated by the whole ordeal will be beneficial for both DJ Dan and Christopher Lawrence, and DJ Mag’s website will have to be stricter about registering and regulating online voting in the future.
Robertson summed it up: “DJ Mag has always believed, regardless of 2007’s anomalies, that Christopher and Dan are excellent DJs who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the world’s best. We look forward to them resuming their rightful places amongst the leading performers in the Top 100 DJs 2008 poll.”