Online Media Cultist

When the community is allowed to run the show, it’s difficult to know where and when to place limits on that power.

Digg, the most popular social news site (users submit stories and vote, and the most popular get elevated to the site front page), is at the forefront of figuring out the fine points of this still new news model, often in the midst of close scrutiny and even withering criticism from the community itself!

So it is with the case of The Numbers, which sounds kind of mysterious, almost out of Hurley’s back story on Lost. The long story short: someone posted a story to Digg that contained a decryption code that can illegally “crack open” HD-DVDs and therefore allow them to be copied and distributed. The story made the front page of Digg, was somewhere in the timeline pulled down after a cease and desist letter was issued, and was eventually allowed to be reinstated after heavy pressure from the Digg community. In the meantime, a flood of related stories – many of which contained the very same decryption code – basically took over Digg yesterday.

The reaction today throughout the blogosphere is varied, loud, and passionate. Digg founder Kevin Rose boils down Digg’s decision to reverse its policy of deleting stories with the code to giving the community what it wants. He writes, “You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.” This overturns Digg CEO Jay Adelson’s earlier statement that “in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law.”

Much like a benchmark Supreme Court decision, Digg’s handling of this case will set the stage for future situations for all community-driven websites. Does the voice of the community outweigh the right of site owners to “survive,” as Adelson put it? Where does democratic rule end and business rules take over?

Mashable answers in part by stating that Digg “may just tolerate the community’s behavior – what choice do they have?” MG Siegler agrees in a piece called “Kevin Rose Raises the White Flag,” writing that “It is a smart move. It is also quite literally the only thing they could have done to try and alleviate the situation with the Digg users.”

GigaOM analyzes “nerd anarchy” and “the greatest crisis” of Digg’s life, and then opens up the debate by drawing in the ongoing YouTube/Viacom feud.

And Jason at Webomatica issues a warning to corporations that once a meme goes public, it ain’t getting shoved back into the closet.