With the recent drama that has involved the hex code used to decrypt HD-DVD movies, digg decided to pull all stories having to do with this. Well, diggers didnt like it, and digg almost went up in flames. This is what the founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, had to say:

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

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.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on,

Kevin

Obviously, digg can get in to some real trouble here for not following a cease and desist declaration. So, whats going to happen next? Who knows, but stay tuned, it might be a bumpy ride.

Should digg.com have done this? Should they of kept deleting all stories posted with this in order to comply with these terrible companies? What do you think?