Digg community revolts after story is taken down
Steve Safran May 2nd, 2007
1. Digg member posts story about HD-DVD decryption key. 2. Digg gets notice to take story down. 3. Digg does so. 4. Digg community goes into absolute revolt and floods site with copies of decryption story. 5. Digg founders relent. Great story, and big lesson: don’t annoy your most passionate community members. They’ll dig your grave before giving in.
Update with a great blog post from Digg founder Kevin Rose:
“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.”
Update: Digg founder Kevin Rose interviewed on camera by Beet.TV.
4 Comments Add your own
1. Jeff V | May 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 am
I’m all about passionate community members, letting the community dictate what’s important and what’s not, etc. But isn’t there a fine line between passionate community and a mob mentality?
And just how many members of the Digg community will know how to hack HD-DVD? I’m not dogging Digg - I love it - but perhaps a stink should be raised over more, shall we say, pertinent issues.
2. Safran | May 2nd, 2007 at 10:14 am
Ah, but that’s the thing… the community gets to decide what’s pertinent. How many know how to hack a HD-DVD? Almost none, I’m guessing. The revolt was against taking down a story because of pressure from a company.
3. Don Taylor | May 2nd, 2007 at 11:12 am
I wonder if Kevin and Alex will be doing the Diggnation podcast from an underground bunker this week.
4. Pete | May 2nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Will definitely make for a good diggnation this week.
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