Digg Relaunch Fails (digg.com) 39
sdinfoserv writes: After running a Reddit clone for a couple of months, the Digg beta shut down again. The website is a splash memo from CEO Justin Mezzell, blaming the latest "Hard Reset" on bots. "Building on the internet in 2026 is different," writes Mezzell. "We learned that the hard way. Today we're sharing difficult news: we've made the decision to significantly downsize the Digg team..."
The decision was made after struggling to gain traction and an overwhelming influx of AI-driven bots and spam. "When the Digg beta launched, we immediately noticed posts from SEO spammers noting that Digg still carried meaningful Google link authority," says Mezzell. "Within hours, we got a taste of what we'd only heard rumors about. The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts. We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn't appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they'd find us."
"We banned tens of thousands of accounts. We deployed internal tooling and industry-standard external vendors. None of it was enough. When you can't trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you're seeing are real, you've lost the foundation a community platform is built on."
Despite the setback, Digg plans to rebuild with a smaller team, with founder Kevin Rose returning to work full-time on a new direction for the platform. "Starting the first week of April, Kevin will be putting his focus back on the company he built twenty+ years ago," writes Mezzell. "He'll continue as an advisor to True Ventures, but Digg will be his primary focus."
Slashback: The Rise of Digg.com
The decision was made after struggling to gain traction and an overwhelming influx of AI-driven bots and spam. "When the Digg beta launched, we immediately noticed posts from SEO spammers noting that Digg still carried meaningful Google link authority," says Mezzell. "Within hours, we got a taste of what we'd only heard rumors about. The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts. We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn't appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they'd find us."
"We banned tens of thousands of accounts. We deployed internal tooling and industry-standard external vendors. None of it was enough. When you can't trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you're seeing are real, you've lost the foundation a community platform is built on."
Despite the setback, Digg plans to rebuild with a smaller team, with founder Kevin Rose returning to work full-time on a new direction for the platform. "Starting the first week of April, Kevin will be putting his focus back on the company he built twenty+ years ago," writes Mezzell. "He'll continue as an advisor to True Ventures, but Digg will be his primary focus."
Slashback: The Rise of Digg.com
Slashdot should rejoice! (Score:5, Funny)
It's actually more relevant than Digg!
Re:Slashdot should rejoice! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's actually more relevant than Digg!
I originally thought that this website's decision to not allow new users to sign up was incredibly stupid and would result in a death spiral. Lately, though, I've started to think that there may be no other viable choice.
Re: Slashdot should rejoice! (Score:2)
Re: Slashdot should rejoice! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes! it does mean that! All 6-digit and lower, anyway.
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Digg's failed return has really proven the point that the internet has become more automated noise and less human. Any valuable original human content is quickly copied, multiplied, and drowned out by an army of bots.
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They really are not. I mean, there's some post here or there that is probably botted or like AI assisted or something, but it's absolutely nothing like bluesky, reddit, and worst of all, twitter. Those places are robot playgrounds.
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I originally thought that this website's decision to not allow new users to sign up was incredibly stupid and would result in a death spiral. Lately, though, I've started to think that there may be no other viable choice.
Given the political posts here giving MAGA a rimjob it's clear that the block of new accounts came long after Slashdot stopped being a site for technically minded nerds to discuss rational technical sciency topics.
Re: (Score:2)
There's also the lobsters model where you need an invite, and invites are tracked.
I don't have an account there (I'll take one if someone sends one) but it's apparently a very bad look if you invite someone that turns out to be disruptive.
Slashdot method (Score:3)
To get around the spam, Slashdot appears to require new account requests to explain why they feel they'll contribute to the platform.
The early ground breakers sent $5 to use the platform, I don't think this shutdown has taken their contribution into account very well.
Re: Slashdot method (Score:2)
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If you charge a small fee for account creation, you can get almost all the benefits of having someone's social security number and picture ID, for almost none of the cost of having to deal with such a toxic "asset". You can even offer degrees of anonymity when taking payment.
Now obviously, someone will decide to spend 5000 dollars on bots to advertise or delegitimize voting, but that would happen even if you had the picture ID thing going on. None of this gets around having to police your platform to remo
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I am very interested in new platforms like this (promising an improved world-changing forum-like experience), but they managed to turn me off very very quickly with their approach and communication.
These are not the people who are going to do the thing.
Re:Slashdot method (Score:5, Informative)
This is actually the answer though. SomethingAwful (for whatever you think of it) charges $10 since forever and its provided money for the site and for the most part kept out spam and bots. Combine that with human moderators who have the authority to ban people (or robots) if they pay that and start acting like a piece of shit anyway, and you walk away with a decent online community.
Re:Slashdot method (Score:4, Insightful)
and you walk away with a decent online community.
The irony of "Somethingaweful" being a decent online community I hope is not lost on anyone. I wonder what we call 4chan then.
Re:Slashdot method (Score:4, Interesting)
SA has its history but the people who are left grew the fuck up and are by and large decent people. Seriously.
When I was in college I really admired Slashdot's anonymous posting / dedication to free speech, but at some point you learn the ironic Nazis are just real Nazis always feeling around to see how far they can push their limits.
With age and wisdom I'm convinced a paywall + relative freedom to ban paying users is the way to go. At least if people want to burn their venture capital money (or their personal money) to run bot or humans with an agenda on your site, they are paying handsomely for the privilege.
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The early ground breakers sent $5 to use the platform, I don't think this shutdown has taken their contribution into account very well.
That's basically a sucker tax. You can shout into the void all day long on the existing social media sites, there's no point in paying for the privilege of doing it on a rebooted "dead" site.
Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
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I've been watching a number of financial videos, and it's amazing the number of times I've seen a variation of:
Poster #1: If you're going to copy content from JOHN SMITH DOE, you should at least give him credit.
Poster #2: Who is JOHN SMITH DOE? I've heard the name, but what's the deal with him?
Poster #2: Never mind, I googled JOHN SMITH DOE and I saw his web site. His stuff looks amazing.
Poster #3: I saw it, too. Does anyone know how to get in touch with JOHN SMITH DOE?
Poster #4: JOHN SMITH DOE is currently
Re: Meh (Score:2)
the relaunched version was a joke anyway (Score:1)
no passwords, just an email login, as is apparently the current year hype... but also no good substitute for a password; you had to enter an e-mail code every time you wanted to log in.
Changed your email account? Their advice was to make a new digg account.
color me unsurprised the team that came up with that embarrassment is getting "smaller".
LOL! Good! (Score:2)
Digg had their moment. Kevin Rose blew his load thinking he knew what people wanted better than they did themselves. He's been trying, and failing, to recapture his glory days ever since.
Forget it, Kevin. You're not even half as smart as you think you are and definitely didn't deserve to have tripped and fallen into the piles of money that you did.
Digg is dedd. It's been dedd since you killed it in 2010. There is no afterlife.
Re:LOL! Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
100%
Kevin Rose killed digg. He took what was good and ruined it.
Reddit embodied what was good about Digg and ran away with the market share.
As long as Reddit doesn't fuck with their algo, and try to pull a "Kevin Rose" (not unlike what Tik Tok just did) it will be ok.
Fuck digg, and fuck Kevin. Go back to making videos where you pretend you're "edgy" because you have a 40oz in a brown paper bag.
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> There are entire subs which by context should be incredibly technical and science oriented which sound like a Pakled echo chamber.
Clod! It’s Science with a capital S! How dare you question Science!
Re:LOL! Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
In my opinion, Reddit very nearly pulled a self destructive Digg. Like Digg, they revamped with an undesirable interface against the wishes and protests of their users. But unlike Digg, who did a hard cut over and told the users to suck it, Reddit continues to run https://old.reddit.com/ [reddit.com] the original Reddit interface. Unappealing to the eye, perhaps. But excellent for reading and navigating.
AI will only make it worse (Score:1)
Used to like it (Score:2)
I used to like Digg and visited the original site pretty often. I've had no interest at all in the new site.
Digg died long ago and will never return (Score:2)
Kevin and his idiot people killed Digg a long time ago when they implemented their own algo to determine what users could see and corrupted it with a bunch of advertising. It should have been left alone. Nobody cares and nobody wants it back.
The Guy is a Moron (Score:2)
For years Digg sat unused, then whoever bought it sat on it for months with a screen promising it was coming ... then switched to a screen saying there was (essentially) a closed beta for many months... and in that entire time there was nothing a Digg fan could do.
If the owner had any sense at all, they would have added the simplest thing possible to that page: a wait list signup. Then, when Digg was ready, they'd have a ton of people (early adopters, who were so into it they visited the site before it was
Fee (Score:2)
Raises hand (Score:4, Funny)
At this point, shouldn't it be renamed "Dugg"?
Lemmy ate their lunch (Score:2)
Digg isn't a Reddit Clone, Reddit is a Digg Clone. (Score:1)
The assertion that the new Digg is a Reddit clone is ridiculous, since Reddit was a Digg clone!
Remember, Digg came first.
Bwah ha ha ha ha (Score:2)
Bwah ha ha ha ha!