DIGGing Your Own Grave
So, yesterday’s top story was the bad judgement call over at Digg - which I managed to miss entirely, as I was handing out flyers to promote Britster at Internet World 2007 in London!
The story was summed up nicely in a few posts on Mashable. How Digg went out of control, the disaster in detail, and the aftermath - along with an amusing follow-up or two. Thanks Pete! 
Basically, more than a million users turned on Digg’s management for removing stories relating to the release of an encryption key for HD-DVD. As a result of what the users saw as a betrayal, Digg ended up experiencing it’s own ‘Digg Effect’ first-hand!
The key (for the benefit of those who don’t know) is a series of numbers which will unlock copy-protected HD-DVD movies. The MPAA is obviously against this, and Diggers absolutely hate the MPAA and RIAA.
Kevin Rose (with his tail firmly between his legs) ended up by posting an apology on the Digg blog:
In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation […] power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use […]. So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Aside from being a little melodramatic, I’m not totally convinced that this will do him much good. Diggers have got really pissed about the situation, with many of them apparently not realising that the site was modertated at all.
I think only time will tell if the golden-boy of blogg favourites - and the site that the blogger built - is done for.
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The problem is that Kevin mixes things up. Digg not only removed diggs with the code inside them, but every user posting the code. And every user criticizing the removal.
It’s a completely different thing. Even if ONE article is censored, there’s no need to ban the complete user account.
Definitely! I think he maybe got a little flustered, and panicked! Unfortunately, it resulted in him and his people behaving too strong-handed, and it could potentially cost him everything he’s worked hard for…
I guess only time will tell!
Yes, i reported on this aswell.
Digg must have been a bit worried though about members revolting.
But i suppose the customer is allways right, in this case digg users.
Thanks for your comment Andy!
It would certainly seem to be a clear-cut case of the “consumer pressure wins every time” idea. Of course, other blogs have mentioned that Kevin probably would have advocated the publication of the key - if it had just been his decision.
I’m not the biggest fan of Digg, mainly because of all the comments you get for Digging stuff that doesn’t fit the unofficial Digg agenda. That said, I love the concept, people power working to help me find interesting / useful stuff.
If Web2.0 means anything it means user empowerment - this little episode actually reinforces the user empowerment, which is a good thing.
(MAN my punctuation in this comment is wierd!)
Hey Steve! Thanks for dropping by the new blog!
The concept of user-driven content has been around for many years, but it was only with the rise in popularity of blogging that it took on a life of it’s own - and projects like Digg were destined to be popular right from the start. I’m just not sure Kevin knew (or knows for that matter) where to draw the line between empowering the people, and allowing a total coup to take place!
Forget your punctuation - your spelling of ‘wierd’ is weird.