Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt
Found on Slashdot on Tuesday, 01 May 2007
An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along with the account of the diggers who submitted them. Diggers are in open revolt against the moderators and are retaliating in clever and inventive ways. At one point, the entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the hex number. Digg users quickly pointed to the HD DVD sponsorship of Diggnation, the Digg podcast show.
Search Google for a broader picture; at this writing, about 283,000 pages contain the number with hyphens, and just under 10,000 without hyphens. There's a song. Several domain names including variations of the number have been reserved.
The funny thing, as many Slashdotters pointed out, is that at first Digg deleted all posts containing the Processing Key, as well as the accounts of the users who posted. They also issued IP bans. Now, after they figured out that this censorship won't keep the key secret (it pretty much caused the well known Streisand effect), Digg tries to play the hero-game: "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying" - well, you only become a hero if you don't turn around and face the consequences from the start. But if you happily bend over at first, and only try to stand up when it becomes clear that you cannot control the users anymore, then you are a loser.