A handful of hours ago, the users of Digg collectively revolted, as reported by Mashable in a series of posts this evening. A story containing an encryption key for HD-DVD had been published on the site by a user but Digg received a cease-and-desist from, I gather, a powerful consortium called the AACS saying, presumably, that under the DMCA they need to take that key down. Digg did so, but another user submitted another story about the key. Digg took that down too.

And then all hell broke loose. Users of Digg collectively revolted against the management and posted the number millions of times across the site. At one point, every story going back five pages was apparently there to spread the encryption key. Digg’s servers also reportedly had trouble keeping up with the assault the users were giving them.

Within a few hours though, Digg’s management had to quickly change its stance because they simply had no choice. Digg may own the service but the users have a hell of a lot to say about that service’s ability to operate. It may be illegal to keep the code up there but Digg really seems to have no choice but to take the stance they did. To quote their founder’s blog,

“But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. 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.”

That’s pretty incredible. Digg is almost certainly going to get sued, and given that its users are likely to feel emboldened to post types of “illicit” information there now we’re sure to see other encryption codes posted, inviting further lawsuits if users won’t permit Digg to remove the articles.

I feel sorry for Digg and Kevin Rose (their founder) I have to say. Neither choice - suffering predations by self-righteous Digg users with too much time on their hands or being sued by organizations that represent powers many many times your size - sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Could Digg have done anything to stop this kind of revolt? It’s a pertinent question insofar as this kind of flash-revolt is only possible in a highly connected community filled with people passionate about what they’re involved in (like MUDs/MMORPGs, of course).

I’m not sure. The easy answer goes something like, “Well, Kevin could have set expectations among the users more appropriately.” but taking action to do that earlier on (a year ago for instance) might have blunted or killed Digg’s growth. Further, the speed with which this revolt “organized” (spontaneously as far as I can tell) was such that I’m not sure it could have been predicted any more than a lightning strike. It certainly wasn’t the first time Digg had removed content that wasn’t appropriate.

I think the lesson for game operators is that you are always one decision away from alienating a huge portion of your userbase. It doesn’t matter how many fanbois you have. Not only will some of them turn on you and become your harshest critics, but most of your players have little to no real loyalty to you. They may admire you but most of them are there for the experience, not you. Bad decisions are permitted, but decisions that fly directly in the face of everything your players expect from you could elicit a response remarkably like spontaneous combustion.

I’ll leave off with one thought-question. Does the (assumed) increased emotional investment that most people experience in an MMORPG decrease or increase the likelihood of this kind of flash-revolt as compared to people’s experience/”avatar” (their persona basically) in Digg? On the one hand, the greater attachment in an MMORPG serves to create a switching cost but it would also seem to create a more potentially volatile situation. Passion goes both ways.