James Mitchell

Social news aggregator Digg, which allows users to act as editors by voting for stories, is being criticised by users angry that it has bowed to the anti-piracy lobby.

Yesterday, the site terminated the accounts of users who posted a 16-digit hexadecimal number instrumental in the encryption of the new HD-DVD format. The cracking of the DRM scheme used to encrypt data on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs means that anybody using the code can copy or back-up the discs, something they wouldn’t previously have been able to do.

Digg users then overloaded the site’s homepage with stories on the subject, forcing owner Kevin Rose to post a climbdown.

Michael Arrington of techcrunch writes that “[to call...] what happened today on Digg a ‘user revolt’ is an understatement“. Reportr calls it ‘a triumph for the audience‘.

As usual, right-wing bloggers such as Michelle Malkin are bashing Digg today.

Should Digg be responsible for what users post on its site? As a private-owned company, doesn’t Digg have the right to publish and delete or un-publish what it wants on its own site? As Andrew Lih writes, allowing its users to post the code on its site is a violation of Digg’s own terms of service - leaving it open to legal action.

Besides, the code was made available online nearly six months ago.

Then again, Valleywag makes the excellent point that “there’s nothing that the media loves as much as the contemplation of its own navel“. Which is probably how the whole thing ended up with its own report on the BBC News homepage.

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