HD-DVD Fiasco: Let the Truth Come Out
Several very popular websites are now linking here, including TechCrunch and Wired, so if my site is intermittently unavailable, I apologize.To recap: an HD-DVD processing key was submitted to Digg. That post was removed and that user's Digg account was deleted. I re-submitted the story. My post was removed and my Digg account was deleted. Hundreds of stories were submitted since then, some being removed, some slipping through the cracks.
Now, Kevin Rose (Digg's founder) announces on the Digg blog that our voices have been heard and that Digg's editorial crew will no longer be removing stories about this processing key.
This series of events brings up lots of questions. Ryan Block of Engadget asked what I think is the central issue here. "How did such a loyal userbase as Digg’s so quickly divert its all-consuming energy to defying — even damaging — the company to which it was so loyal?"
In other words, why are we doing this?
The answer to that question is simple. People want the truth.
If a single entity is responsible for giving the news to the masses, that entity has the ability to control it. Before the Internet, people heard the news from the television, radio, and newspaper. It was one-way communication. People heard what was broadcast, and accepted it as truth. There was no such thing as "user-generated content", or even feedback on a story or article.
Enter the digital era.
With the possibilities created by the Internet, every person has a voice. The truth can no longer be controlled by a single entity. The truth is the truth, and I say let the truth be told.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is a hexadecimal number. You can't copyright a number. It's not illegal for people to disseminate this number. It's not intellectual property. Therefore, Digg was wrong in their attempts to destroy all articles relating to this number.
Digg was one of the websites that most closely fits the ideal: Allowing people to receive un-filtered content. If Digg begins censoring, another site will pop up and users will flock to it en mass.
We're not addicted to Digg. We're addicted to the truth.
Labels: digg
Leave a comment
5 Comments:
Thanks for this article, wholeheartedly agreed. Kevin Rose rang up his lawyer before calling that xD
Congrats on your 15 mins of fame.
I, personally, feel the issue resonated deeper than it normally would because it was the perfect storm of the much hated DRM, DIGG's disrespect of it's user base (how easily they delete those accounts, has yours been restored yet? didn't think so), and the hypocrisies of the kid who taught us to wardrive deleting posts and banning accounts left and right, and then there's the fact that reddit and slashdot didn't cave.
What got me more than anything was how cavalierly digg banned accounts without warning. This is a non-trivial issue, there are a lot of good bookmarks in your dig account and good comment history that shouldn't be discarded by someone else on a whim.
Good job bro,
I love you for who you are and for what you can do. I am sure companies are eating away at you now! If not they are pretty stupid to let an asset like you lay around. Check out this nice article about you on business week
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2007/tc20070503_266204.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
Keep up the good work,
Jamaal
Digg still isn't telling the truth about this, or not all of it
http://reddit.com/info/1n4wm/comments
dude are they going to give you your account back or what? are you still banned?
Post a Comment