Digg is shutting down its recently relaunched platform just two months after a public beta, citing an overwhelming and insurmountable problem with AI bot spam. The company is conducting a "hard reset," significantly downsizing its team, though leadership frames this as a temporary shutdown.
CEO Justin Mezzell stated that the scale and sophistication of the bots exceeded all defenses, leading to the failure. However, the company plans to rebuild with a new strategy, and founder Kevin Rose will return as a full-time employee in April.
The main topics covered are the shutdown of Digg's relaunch, the cause being AI bot spam, and the announced plans for another future comeback.
It’s only been a year since Digg founder Kevin Rose, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, and a few others announced the link-sharing site would relaunch, promising a “social discovery built by communities, not by algorithms.” Now, two months after opening its Reddit-like platform to the public, Digg is announcing a “hard reset” that’s shutting down operations and will “significantly downsize the Digg team.”
Digg’s open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam
Digg’s Reddit-like relaunch failed fast, but its CEO is already planning another comeback.
Digg’s Reddit-like relaunch failed fast, but its CEO is already planning another comeback.
When they announced its relaunch, Rose told The Verge that AI could “remove the janitorial work of moderators and community managers.” Now, the new Digg’s CEO Justin Mezzell writes in a note pinned to the homepage that, “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.”
Despite that, Mezzell paints the shutdown as temporary, saying, “We’re not giving up. Digg isn’t going away,” with “A small but determined team is stepping up to rebuild with a completely reimagined angle of attack.” The blog post also announces that Kevin Rose is returning as a full-time employee in April, and the Diggnation podcast will continue recording as they work toward relaunching, again.
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