Even Digg isn’t immune to the Digg Effect
by Randall McCarley
May 1st, 2007
What would happen if Digg had a story that was so crazy popular it got over 16,000 votes in less than 20 hours? Now, what if that story leaked proprietary information and the folks at Digg got a cease and desist order? Now what if someone resubmitted the article? And that story got over 15,000 votes in 15 hours?
Digg is in a state of open revolt right now.
The controversy began when someone posted the 32 bit hex code that is used to encrypt HD DVDs. This code can be used to make copies of commercial DVDs. The Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator LLC sent Digg a C&D so Digg removed the story which was quickly reposted.
This is where things went wrong. Instead of explaining the situation, Digg admins deleted the stories relating to the issue and banned the account holders who submitted the stories. The controversy that ensued is still moving with hundreds of blogs and forums now commenting on the disaster. The issue at hand is not whether or not it was ok to post the HD DVD hex code but rather who is in control of user-generated websites: the site owner or the users that make it work.
Jay Adelson posted an explanation of Digg’s stance on the Digg Blog this afternoon — too little, too late. And missing the point - users don’t like heavy-handed tactics and banning accounts should be a last resort, not a preventive measure (as learned a while ago at another user-generated content site).
Ironically, Jay made this point:
“we all need to work together to protect Digg from exposure to lawsuits that could very quickly shut us down”
Digg and the Digg Mirror have both been down several times throughout the night. Currently, every story on the Digg homepage is about the HD DVD code or the controversy around how Digg handled the situation (see screenshot).
Update: Founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, has given in.
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May 18th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Wow, what a crazy thing to happen. I hear that DIGG has dropped traffic since that time though. People in disgust moving on?
May 19th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Yea, SEOmoz reports Digg is sending the lowest traffic in over a year and I agree. “Normal” Digg traffic across all my sites is down. Even submited stories that don’t hit the home page send some traffic and that has dropped a lot too.
This doesn’t mean Digg isn’t worth the effort. Just that you won’t get as much bang as before. I think this was inevitable with the clones and copycats out there cutting into Digg’s marketshare.
I have a hunch the traffic does send now is going to prove more valueable but we’ll just have to wait and see on that.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I’d recon that the lower traffic is due in part by the changes DIGG has made to their site structure in an effort to combat spammers. Also, having stories randomly pulled from DIGG, aka censorship, does not sit well with that audience.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:32 am
thanks for your informations
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:52 am
What should concern everyone is that they’re corporate-owned. Eventually that will lead to major censorship, although some say some minor censorship is already happening.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:48 am
thanks and thanks again.its helpfull for me
June 11th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Didn’t know this actually. Thats some messed up stuff though.