Digg.com Users Revolt: Total Chaos Ensues
- Posted by Badi Jones on May 2nd, 2007 - Comment on this Post »
Wow. The scene at Digg.com is really insane right now. It’s pretty much chaos. I know it’s just a website, but if the users were all in one building right now, I would imagine the scene to be similar to that of a prison break.
This all started because someone posted a key code that allows people to decrypt and play most HD-DVD movies in Linux. As you could imagine, the HD-DVD people weren’t at all happy about this, so they demanded that Digg remove the story.
As soon as Digg removed the story, users started submitting the story again. Digg responded by burying the stories and banning anyone who submitted it. What followed, and what is taking place right now can only be described as chaos. Digg has totally lost control of their website. Take a look at this screen capture I took just a few minutes ago.
It will be interesting to see what the result of this event will be. I’m sure a lot of these Diggers are thinking that Digg won’t be able to survive without them. Well guys, don’t worry. There will be plenty more to Diggers to step in and take your place.
Update
The last few times I went to check Digg, there were no stories showing. I guess it’s the only way they can really deal with the situation right now. See screen cap below.
Update 2
I just saw this blog post from Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com.
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 hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin
Wow. This is either really a really bold move, or a really stupid one. I tend to want to go with the latter.
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May 2nd, 2007 at 3:07 pm
It was funny to take a part in action.
But if I was in Kevin’s shooes, I asked programmers to write filter to automaticaly remove stories which contain this KEY.
May 16th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Could they be held liable for it being on DIGG?
May 28th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
i don’t think that anyone can code a program to filter a specific code on a site like digg.com
people will definitely use hidden links, redirected sites, 3-5 level deep sites with the code hidden at the last level etc.
BTW Digg without users will be a worthless website
May 28th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I think that the corporations would/will have a very difficult time legally holding Digg responsible for the content in question. This would be similar to suing Google for having its search results turn up copyrighted material. As I understand (I may be wrong and I expect to be corrected if this is the case) Digg simply places a link on their site to the location of the article/website that was “Dugg”. Thus they are hosting no actual content that infringes on the copyrights in question. We have seen similar scenarios with various bittorent sites, where cooperations attack them for hosting content that infringes on copyright laws; however no actual content is hosted on the sites servers, only descriptions of the content and a tracker cookie to locate the content on another computer system not owned by the website in question. If suit was filed against Digg.com the company filing could potentially open themselves to a counter suit assuming that Digg.com has the resources to hire a competent legal team (I assume that they would since they are number 91 on Alexa) Now I feel that it is necessary that I state that I in no way endorse copyright infringement or any illegal activities. Furthermore, while ultimately Digg.com might be found not responsible there is a large possibility that they might get stuck with a very large legal bill. Well thats my thoughts on the matter, I am not a lawyer so I cannot speak with any great authority on the matter.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I am a little confused why they didn’t just filter the key tbh.. yeah, they could link to another site, but then its not digg’s problem. Anyway, i bet is must of been mad when the key started to get reposted.
June 9th, 2007 at 9:43 am
“Wow. This is either really a really bold move, or a really stupid one. I tend to want to go with the latter.”
I think it’s bold. Free speech isn’t always convenient and it isn’t always free. But if you think it’s worthwhile, you accept the consequences.
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Its gonna be all over the net. In google and yahoo. But defying a cease and desist is bad business….but the press that digg will get in the mainstream media is good business so the lawyers will work it out. But its funny hoe the mass will turn on you in a mob mentality.
July 27th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Yes Digg started ban the websites and user id’s if any one is posting some Spam information. so be very careful about the digg.com.
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:01 pm
They also changed their site structure so that pages do not pass PR the way they used to, as to deter spam