Fight Digg, fight!

News from Digg.com:

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So 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.

This note is an outcome from user’s submissions consisting AACS code to crack HD DVD movies. At the beginning digg admins were trying to remove all codes from submitted links to avoid legal threats from music and movies companies. After huge negative response from users which eventually made digg.com website unavailable they decided to stop being censors and allow all codes to be published. The above quotation comes from digg.com blog.

The risk is huge. If any of big companies would like to remove this key from digg.com website probably whole site would have to closed down. The key is now in almost every new digg and every comment.

David vs Goliath?

Read more:

• Digg stands up to AACS bigwigs, only after virtual riot
• Web 2.0 Civil Disobedience on Digg
• Digg collapses under HD-DVD code revolt
• The Day Digg Ate Itself
• Digg Gives In To User Revolt; Are Those DMCA Takedown Notices Even Valid?
• Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0