In what can only be described as the stupidest thing I've ever seen Digg.com is experiencing an incredible backlash form its users. The cause:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0. It's the HD-DVD processing key you can use to decrypt and play most HD-DVD movies in Linux. Movie studios are going ballistic over this leak, so Digg the story up and make it reach the front page.

1 of 53 photos in a Facebook support group (Graphic by Duncan Cunningham)

DELETE FROM digg;

At some point Tuesday Digg.com began deleting stories and comment threads that contained or talked about the HD-DVD encryption code. Digg also instantly deleted the user accounts of the offending submitters without warning. Digg users revolted and took over the home page making every single story about the HD-DVD encryption key. The site has been trying to keep up with the rebellion all day but resistance at this point is futile as it appears that Diggers have even more time to waste than previously thought.

Idiocracy

The best part about the digg community is how much it loves itself. Each post on the frontpage about the encryption key wreaks of entitlement and self importance. Every user is giving themselves a pat on the back in their rebellion against... well against something. Digg users champion democracy and the power of the people but lets be honest: Digg is an idiocracy run for and by the idiots. Their sense of false rights would be funny if it weren't so sad. It's a linkdump where people submit or buy links to drive traffic to their blog and not much more.

Get over Kevin Rose

Digg and Revision3 have an advertising and sponsorship relationship with the HD-DVD group. I've seen the HD-DVD ads in their videos and on Digg.com itself. Would this have happened if the key was for Blu-Ray? Who knows and more importantly who cares.

Kevin responds on the Digg Blog:

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.

Kevin: Expect to get flooded with tons of cease-and-desist type content. Good luck keeping Digg afloat with a full time legal department.

Reddit is about to get worse

Disgusted Digg users are reportedly fleeing the evil Kevin Rose empire for a new place to waste their time at work. My guess is that Reddit will soon become a nerd version of West Side Story. Flames within flames that have their own flames and short quips that will incite a knife-fight like "oh thats real good you n00b. you must be a digg refugee!" If these comments are any indication things should get interesting:

There's a ton of us coming over, sorry old angry reddit veterans, move your ass over and make room.

Comparing an influx of diggheads to a bunch of newbie AOL users in 1993, hmm... I'm tempted to say that sounds about right.

Who needs the Sopranos when you have a web 2.0 melodrama like this?

Update: There is now a song about the key on ytmnd. Dear god.