Just two months after its hyped up re-reboot in January, old school social network Digg has already temporarily shut down and is cutting a tonne of jobs.
CEO Justin Mezzell is calling the move a “hard reset” required by an internet landscape that has changed massively since the platform’s heyday in the mid-2000s.
The relaunch was met with an onslaught of bots. Digg says the beta launch was swamped by sophisticated AI agents and SEO spammers looking to exploit the site’s Google link authority. If rival sites like Reddit can figure this out, why couldn’t Digg?
“We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn’t appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they’d find us,” the CEO shared. Despite banning tens of thousands of accounts and deploying advanced internal tools, the platform struggled to maintain its core promise. “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.”
Beyond the bot problem, the company admitted it underestimated the difficulty of pulling users away from established apps. It’s clear if you have been using Reddit or another app for years, why would you switch to the new Digg?
Despite the downsizing, the platform is not shutting down. A small, core team is staying on to rebuild with a “completely reimagined angle of attack.” In a move likely to please long-time fans, original founder Kevin Rose is returning to the company full-time starting in April to lead the next phase of development. Come on, this should have happened on day one.
“Ultimately, the internet needs a place where we can trust the content and the people behind it,” said Mezzell, in a letter now that takes over the main page of Digg. The official podcast, Diggnation, will continue to record monthly sessions, even though the site is in the dumps.
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