What’s the big deal about this hex string?

The number was posted to Digg.com and received a huge number of votes (including one from me!). The story was pulled, and quickly another story with the number was posted. Once again the story was pulled, which started a vicious cycle.

But things went from bad to worse for social new site Digg.com. The repeated “censorship” of Digg users sparked a revolt, which at one time had every story on the front page of Digg.com containing the key.

How will Digg operators put out the flame? This should be interesting… will they ban the several thousand user accounts that digg a story containing the hex number, or just the 5-10 “top” diggers? If they thought a revolt from a story removal was bad, I can only imagine the backlash they’ll encounter with a mass ban.

The press is also covering this revolt…. Drudge, C|Net, and a number of other site are covering the “War at Digg”.

Update: Digg founder, Kevin Rose, has responded to the HD-DVD revolt on the Digg Blog. The users have won!