Digg.com Reels From User Revolt
Popular news site Digg.com is currently being swamped by a massive user revolt after users complained that Digg was censoring stories and banning users who reported on the disclosure of the hex key for unencrypting HD-DVDs.
At 9am Bangkok time Digg was flooded with posts from it’s own users, many of them directing their anger at Digg founder Kevin Rose, whom many say has sold out to corporate interests in hopes of making a windfall off Digg.
One user responded with a rather creative reply, reciting the code in Haiku;
oh nine eff nine one
one oh two nine dee seven
four ee three five bee
dee eight four one five
six see five six three five six
eight eight see zero
-Digg user “Virak”
However this turns out, it will be very interesting to see how this plays out at Digg over the next few days. Further banning or censorship may strengthen the revolt, or Digg could cave in again, but this time to the users, the ones who really made the site what it is.
Response posted by Kevin Rose, Digg’s founder:
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…
In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). 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 hel_l, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin