The Power of Crowds

The people spoke, or rather posted, yesterday. Some say they revolted.

If you haven't heard by now, Digg management removed a posting that included an HD-DVD encryption key that would unlock copy-protected HD movies. In response to the removed post, users flooded the site, posting the key again and again until they took the site down themselves through the weight of their own traffic.

Today Digg is back up and seems relatively calm, but this is an interesting experiment in power, freedom of speech and trust in the online space. From's Digg's standpoint, they were protecting themselves against the threat of legal action, but in removing the post they alienated their user base.

In the end, Digg backed off, but they may still face legal troubles, troubles which may pose the ultimate threat from a sustainability standpoint. Will they survive it financially? Maybe each of their million+ users contribute $1 to Digg's legal fund. Stay tuned.