Inmates are Running the Asylim
In a weak-kneed move that caved in to peer pressure, the executives at popular site aggregator Digg recently threw up their hands and allowed users to publish the keys to allow people to illegally copy DVDs.
According to a recent Associated Press story on CNN:
By late Tuesday, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose said the site would stop trying. [to remove the DVD keys]
"Today was an insane day," Rose wrote in a company blog.
He said Digg agreed to the removal to "avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down."
"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," he wrote. "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying."
Would Digg be as accommodating if users were posting child pornography or al-Qaeda terrorist instructions?
I think not.
Sometimes being in charge requires leaders to make tough decisions that will make them unpopular or change the direction of the business. It comes with the job. Just ask the folks at Napster.
However hard it may be, doing the right thing is always the best course of action.
Unfortunately, Digg executives don't agree.
1 comment:
You are joking, right? Everything is not terrorism or the baby jesus. There is a spectrum - people can't do anything with the number anyway, so it seems moot to get all freaked out about the nth publication of it.
Would digg and/or wired or reddit allow postings about "how to j-walk", yeah probably. Because it is harmless. Do they allow postings about trying to undo the lies the govt told about the evils of drugs to promote the war on drugs. Yes. And on goes the list of stuff that falls between baby jesus and terrorism.
Where is the rage against the RIAA and record labels who stole and profited from the artistic work of poor black musicians - you know the ones who created pop music and rock and roll? A heartless, soulless crime that they could still make ammends for.
There are bad laws, people break bad laws as a form of protest, despite what the neocon authoritarians would have us believe, civil disobedience is not terrorism or child pornography.
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