Will a Number Bring Down Digg?

I don’t read Digg very often, but today was an interesting day to check out Digg. Will the mob rule of Digg bring down Digg itself? The controversy centers around a number and Digg’s decision to remove the story twice. The original story is over at Rudd-o.com with a post called ”Spread this Number”. I won’t get into the legal debate about the number, what is most interesting to me is the Digg user revolt that seems to be occurring.

It is interesting to watch the front page of Digg as nearly all the stories revolve around the number.

A quote from fieryprophet.com:

This has very little to do with a silly hack, it’s the fact that digg has placed the nonexistent rights of a shill organization over the hard-earned respect of their members. That’s what all the outrage is about!

The greatest asset of community generated websites, like YouTube, Digg and so many of the social media websites is also their Achilles heel. YouTube is facing a huge lawsuit, that according to TechCrunch, Google has decided to let the jury decide. Digg appears to have just rolled over at the first sign of trouble and sided against the people that actually made the site great, the passionate Digg users.

It will be interesting to see how this will eventually play out. Will the Digg users return in a little while forgetting what has happened or will they actually move on to other news sites?

Some other reading on this topic for you: How I got banned from Digg The Reason Why Digg Removed That Story Censoring a Number Digg Users Are Showing the True Power of Users on User Run Sites Mob Takes Over at Digg, Widespread User Revolt