News. Technology. Ramblings.

On May 2, 2007, at 12.32 am when most of the readers/reporters are asleep or finishing next days’s stories,  an event is happening on the internet that will become an example to news organizations.

Thousands of geeks and free speech enthusiasts used digg effect to bring Digg server down.

The feud started when Digg deleted a post containing protected HD-DVD ’s hacked key, that would allow any HD-DVD to be copied.

Digg deleted this post to save itself from infringement issues.

What resulted, Digg had never thought about. Diggers took this action as an action suppressing free speech, and by 11 pm on May 1, all the top 10 stories had nothing but the HD-DVD key. Wikipedia had to lock articles related to Digg and HD-DVD.

For the last 4 hours, every single story on the front page of Digg was related to HD-DVD. The wave went so crazy that Kevin Rose, CEO of Digg had to post an apology on the official Digg blog, redefining his stand taken on deletion issue.

Now, why the heck a techology site’s event should be noticed by News Corporations going online.

Because, these are exact examples of what they are going to face tomorrow. Remember, news organizations/social sites are promoting exact copy of what geeks have been doing since decades using message posts, Usenet and discussion platforms - E-EXISTANCE, where you consume, participate and respond.

As its already visible, readers have started asking for the same rights they have in real world - Right to free speech, to be most prominent.

Who would write the constitution of such existence, which would appeal to authorities across all borders? Who would define the rules defining rights? If a news site gives complete speech rights to user, how will they save themselves from legalities following defamatory statements? Who will define what should be the right opinion, perspective or taking on sensitive issues in citizen journalism?

There are a lot of questions that need answering.

In the meantime news organizations can learn from tech communities how they handle, what are going to be the future problems of news organizations.

Interestingly, none of the major news players(1, 2, 3) had the event in its technology headlines even after 24 hours of its start.