UPDATE: No access to custom areas of the site…
Digg will be down for a brief period, while we make some changes.
While not digging, the digg crew recommends…
Has anyone been watching the situation at Digg?
For those not in the know, the HD-DVD crack recently became public. A significant number of Digg users are aghast that Digg, for reasons of which I will not speculate, has elected to ban users who circulate the crack on the site - a mere 16 seemlingly random digits that help unlock the copyright-protection features of the format. Digg users claim that it is a free speech right to publish the code on the site, and are committed to grinding the website to a halt through any means. Others seem to be of the herd mentality.
At this writing, every link on the site is related in some shape or form to the crack. No other content is available (or at least ranks high enough) to be accessible from most areas of the site.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, on several fronts.
The crack is public. If you want it for some sort of actual use, write it down. If you’ll need it in the future, it’ll be easy to find. Is this revolt really on principle? It’s like a hunger strike in that your odds don’t improve the longer you stick to your strategy. What good is a hijacked site? And low worthless is your time to be spending it circulating a hack that everyone in the world already has access to?
Some are saying Digg is dead. No more news, it’s a stand on a principle. Until Digg acquiesces to its users (regardless of the legal exposure to the site and its management), the site is worthless. Other users who care not to use their “news” sources as their protest grounds may have to abandon the site during the fracas. Will they return?
Might this be the first failure in Web 2.0, or will Digg survive?