Newton's Laws Censorship Revolt

Author: Thomas Newton

In a recent column of mine, I discussed the issues with Digital Rights Management, the government's feeble attempt at curbing digital media piracy. Feeble not only because it is an attempt to control copyrights in a market with no physical constraints, but also because it is woefully ineffective. A recent leak of a key that can unlock the information on new Blu-ray high-definition DVDs, and the ensuing reaction to that leak, perfectly exemplifies the lack of control the government exerts over the digital world.

Most people on campus can remember the outrage that resulted when Facebook.com introduced its "news feed" feature last fall. Hundreds of thousands of Facebook.com's users joined groups petitioning for the feature to be removed, as it changed Facebook-stalking from a sacred art to a creepily automated process. Users felt that their privacy was being compromised and responded accordingly. As a result, Facebook company founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote an apology and implemented more privacy features into the sytem.

The leak of the key to unlock the digital information on Blu-ray discs caused a similar reaction from the users of the social news site Digg.com (Digg). Digg, a collectively edited site, ranks links and news stories by the number of votes, or "diggs," users give them. After several Digg.com users posted the code that cracks the encryption on Blu-ray discs on the website, the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the consortium with ownership rights to the protective key that had been cracked, told Digg's CEO, Jay Adelson, that leaving them up would lead to legal consequences. Digg felt they had no choice but to delete these posts. Digg's users, who are used to a censorship-free experience, quickly revolted.

The users inundated the site with comments and submissions pertaining to the cracked code, to the point that all of Digg's top-ranked stories related to the issue. The site then changed its position and conceded to the will of the users. In a blog post from Tuesday night, the site stated, "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 companeffective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be."

The reaction of the Facebook community to the "news-feed" feature and the reaction of the Digg community to the censorship of a code that violates the Millennium Copyright Act, demonstrate the power that user-edited social web sites have. They allow for masses of people to express their opinions and engender change while remaining protected by the real or illusionary degree of separation that electronic communication and interaction provides. Will Digg be dragged down by litigations or will users supersede the law? There's no way of knowing. What can be known, though, is that the future of the Internet and the digital world will be in the hands of its users, as government and industry intervention falls to the wayside in favor of the desire of the powerful user community.