Update #2: Wow. Every single story (15 stories) on the front page of Digg is now about the censorship issue. Digg has been OWNED by its users (which it literally is, and should have been). Here’s a short read on how this has completely backfired.
This is rather amusing. Now that Digg tried to commit suicide (click that if you need background information), the staff seems to have relented a little on its censor-spree. However, Digg users seem even more determined than ever to get the word out about the original story — through Digg.
Of the top stories on the site, EIGHT are about the DRM crack (edit, it is now 10, see below):
- DIGG: What’s Happening with HD-DVD Stories?
- HD-DVD key fiasco is an example of 21st century digital revolt
- Was It Worth It, Digg?
- “Digg Banned me for Typing a Number!”
- Digg, this number is MAGIC! 11497989095545517501 (NOT KIDDING. READ DESC.)
- d1af2e56517a7202a1cc087a69c4e296 — md5 of some “random hex values”
- The best mathematical riddle you will see today. Period.
- Favorite new numbers
- Sixteen Hexadecimal Digits Screensaver for Mac OS X
Judging by how things are already moving along, if Digg doesn’t formally apologize soon, we can expect…
- People will start digging anything and everything that has to do with those numbers (already happening)
- People will begin burying stories that have nothing to do with the numbers (already happening)
- People will get bored of the whole thing and move on (to Reddit?) after causing massive damage (see below)
This is the biggest PR nightmare I’ve seen a company have to deal with since the Internet began. Every second this continues, they lose regular users who become disgusted by either the policy or the aftermath (number story spam). They also lose new users who have no idea what’s going on. And finally, this will be a nice big black eye tomorrow morning as a new batch of blogs begin reporting the incident.
Censorship on the Internet is near impossible. It is like trying to plug holes in a damn using a hammer. It’s only a matter of time before you exacerbate things. You’d think Digg would have known that. I mean, even China has a hard time with Internet censorship.
All this to protect a sponsor. I honestly have to wonder what they were thinking when they decided to blanket censor a subject that was legitimate news.
Note: In the time it took me to compose this post, the top 10 gained another story on the topic. Three minutes later, all top 10 stories were now about this topic. Here’s the latest addition. It seems the community has Dugg down all other stories that were there. Supposedly, people are now burying any story that is not about the hex numbers.