Digg Relaunch Fails - Slashdot

Digg Relaunch Fails - Slashdot
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binspam
dupe
notthebest
offtopic
slownewsday
stale
stupid
fresh
funny
insightful
interesting
maybe
offtopic
flamebait
troll
redundant
overrated
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interesting
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underrated
descriptive
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dupe
error
180973992
story
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
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AI Job Loss Research Ignores How AI Is Utterly Destroying the Internet
Reddit Is Weighing Identity Verification Methods To Combat Its Bot Problem
Don't Get Used To Cheap AI
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Digg Relaunch Fails
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Digg Relaunch Fails
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The Fine Print:
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Slashdot should rejoice!
Score:
, Funny)
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:04PM (
#66039828
It's actually more relevant than Digg!
Share
Re:Slashdot should rejoice!
Score:
, Interesting)
by
Waffle Iron
( 339739 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:12PM (
#66039846
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.
Parent
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Re: Slashdot should rejoice!
Score:
by
SoonerSkeene
( 1257702 )
writes:
Had not heard about that
Re: Slashdot should rejoice!
Score:
, Insightful)
by
timeOday
( 582209 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @06:07PM (
#66040128
Hmmmm, does that mean my account is now a scarce resource that will skyrocket in value? I'll start the bidding at $50k.
Parent
Share
Re:
Score:
by
Un-Thesis
( 700342 )
writes:
Yes! it does mean that! All 6-digit and lower, anyway.
Re:
Score:
by
Fly Swatter
( 30498 )
writes:
As much as many like to complain about walled gardens, Slashdot is now such a thing.
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.
Re:
Score:
by
cfalcon
( 779563 )
writes:
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.
Re:
Score:
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
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:
by
RedCard
( 302122 )
writes:
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:
by
eneville
( 745111 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:13PM (
#66039848
Homepage
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.
Share
Re: Slashdot method
Score:
by
dj245
( 732906 )
writes:
It's somewhat understandable though. The $5 contributors waited this long, they can wait a little longer for things to be fixed. If that is possible. Ultimately though they may need to verify identity or at least a domestic phone number within the user's region, which may not be what the users were looking for.
Re:
Score:
by
sinij
( 911942 )
writes:
Identity verification is also de-anonymization. Even if someone charging money to
delete data
[wikipedia.org], you still have to assume anything you provide is kept forever.
Re:
Score:
by
cfalcon
( 779563 )
writes:
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
Re:
Score:
by
thesinfulgamer
( 2537658 )
writes:
This is the first I heard of Digg shutting down again, Not a fuckin peep to my e-mail and I paid the $5 to be a groundbreaker lmao. Their communication sucks.
Re:
Score:
by
dinfinity
( 2300094 )
writes:
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:
, Informative)
by
FunkSoulBrother
( 140893 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:38PM (
#66039912
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.
Parent
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Re:Slashdot method
Score:
, Insightful)
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @07:33PM (
#66040334
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.
Parent
Share
Re:Slashdot method
Score:
, Interesting)
by
FunkSoulBrother
( 140893 )
writes:
on Saturday March 14, 2026 @01:16AM (
#66040680
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.
Parent
Share
Re:
Score:
by
Powercntrl
( 458442 )
writes:
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:
, Insightful)
by
liqu1d
( 4349325 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:30PM (
#66039892
There's not a lot of sophistication in the AI bot spam. It's so painfully obvious most of the time. The issue really is within the LLMs and Google ranking based on mentions around the web rather than actual quality of a product/website. I can see a need for the old curated link sites making a comeback.
Share
Re:
Score:
by
bdh
( 96224 )
writes:
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:
by
liqu1d
( 4349325 )
writes:
Exactly! I've noticed similar within programming related videos. Even within "comedic" ones there's random questions about some obscure WebSocket thing that's 100% a vibe coded website. Absolutely zero context to the video itself just 7/8 "people" all talking about this WebSockets paid library with a silly amount of thumbs up.
the relaunched version was a joke anyway
Score:
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
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:
by
SlashbotAgent
( 6477336 )
writes:
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:
, Insightful)
by
mabu
( 178417 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @05:12PM (
#66039994
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.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
by
aaronb1138
( 2035478 )
writes:
Reddit messing with their algo isn't a threat to Reddit as much as you think. They have cultivated dregs towards a level of mediocrity and intellectual sloth in most areas that the inertia is a black hole and have handed out fiefdoms to those who will freely labor 80+ hours a week to feel important. Being too articulate on Reddit triggers accusations of bot / AI generated content. There are entire subs which by context should be incredibly technical and science oriented which sound like a Pakled echo cham
Re:
Score:
by
Wheres the kaboom
( 10344974 )
writes:
> 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:
, Insightful)
by
SlashbotAgent
( 6477336 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @05:46PM (
#66040084
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
[reddit.com] the original Reddit interface. Unappealing to the eye, perhaps. But excellent for reading and navigating.
Parent
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AI will only make it worse
Score:
by
ILikeToMakeStuff22
( 10503322 )
writes:
Not better. Dead Internet theory may turn out to come true.
Used to like it
Score:
by
ZipNada
( 10152669 )
writes:
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:
by
mabu
( 178417 )
writes:
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:
by
machineghost
( 622031 )
writes:
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:
by
kackle
( 910159 )
writes:
Charge a tiny monthly fee? If not, we'll get what we pay for.
Raises hand
Score:
, Funny)
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
on Friday March 13, 2026 @06:28PM (
#66040172
At this point, shouldn't it be renamed "Dugg"?
Share
Lemmy ate their lunch
Score:
by
Baloo Uriza
( 1582831 )
writes:
If Lemmy wasn't already in the fediverse and established and launched when Reddit fucked the pooch on AI, they might have had a chance.
Digg isn't a Reddit Clone, Reddit is a Digg Clone.
Score:
by
Nabeel_co
( 1045054 )
writes:
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:
by
Sean Clifford
( 322444 )
writes:
Bwah ha ha ha ha!
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