Digg drops the ball
Those of you who are huge nerds, or just use Digg, have probably noticed that there is a “revolution” of sorts going on right now.
The hex passcode for decoding HD-DVDs leaked and posted on Digg and other sites. Similar to DeCSS used to decode DVDs long ago, the MPAA is on a witchhunt to stamp out all possible thoughts of this number. They are idiots.
So anyway, someone posts this news to digg and they censor it, fearing the DMCA being used against them. Then the nerdbase of digg basically takes over digg by “digging” or voting up a steady stream of stories that are then deleted. Basically, they have hijacked the content on digg, producing more “hex number spam” faster than digg can delete it.
Anyway, this is hilarious to me because I have forever been saying digg is a cesspool of a community. I work for a business strategy company and startups and business people looooooove touting Digg as “democratizing the internet!” and “user generated content”. Well look what happened. It turns everything into a tabloid for 15 year olds.
I am disappointed in Digg though. Kevin Rose and his crew have always said they are against DRM etc. But now that they face the MPAA they backed down. I would expect that from some no-name blog or startup, but not from Digg. They are in a position to really influence the industry. They can afford to push their ideals but they dropped the ball and it’s truly sad.
Luckily, in this rough and tumble info economy, there are about 10 other sites who will gladly take their users. I’m sure Kevin won’t mind.