Update: Looks like Kevin Rose has capitulated and has finally fallen inline with his fellow Diggers.  It will be interesting to see where this will go from a legal point of view. 

So in a bid to keep the codes that enable one to encrypt HD-DVD’s in Linux out of public knowledge, it seems like Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson have repeated taken down Digg submissions to keep themselves out of hot water. Unfortunately, they’ve subsequently set themselves up for a classic showdown that — quite frankly — I’m surprised hasn’t happeend sooner. I only say “classic” because its so deliciously dripping in irony.

On one end you have a Digg, the prototypical Web2.0 story made good, Kevin Rose appearing on the cover of BusinessWeek, yes, I started Digg with some rent-a-coder and some shared hosting (not quite the case, but you get the idea). Kevin builds Digg based on his reputation as the “dark-tipper” alpha-geek on G4TV, and its no surprise that it takes off — but, like any social anything, is built upon the backs of its users. Diggers need to submit news. Diggers need to promote that news.

Kevin and Jay, flush with success, take some VC funding — and have dollar signs in their eyes a-la Scrooge McDuck. They try and build a genuine business, branching out into multi-media/niche video productions (”we’re pulling 5 figures a month in advertising alone!”) that — wait for it — are actually sponsored by the HD-DVD group.

Ignoring that glaring conflict of interest for a second, in their bid to become corporate and “legitimate”, what have they done time and time again? Turned their backs on their community. Some have argued, as I have, that it makes perfect sense, in a Machiavellian way, to eschew their top Diggers since they only make a tiny percentage of the population.

What’s gone on now? Only that they taken the same approach and applied it to the Digg population at large.

I was criticized some months ago about my critical stance on Digg. Principally because of the way they were treating its top users. One of my principal arguments was that if they could do this to its most loyal boosters, what could they do to the rest of any of you? “Its his site”, some shouted. “Its free — why are you complaining”, others brayed.

Well, now we know.

Rightly or wrongly, for what many staid business types will regard as legitimate business and legal reasons has to now turn his back on this community — the same one that created Digg. And while I certainly understand Digg’s position, what I find deliciously ironic is that it was started out for geeks and had a geek-centered ethos; now, when there’s a geek-related issue that many of Digg’s fans want to take a stand on the best Digg can do is shut the conversation down.

Ok, let’s try it a little more concisely.

Kevin Rose creates Digg and wants to take advantage exploit target geek-centric issues? Then, in the guise of self-moderation and “social policing”, he introduces the “spam” button so that he doesn’t have to employ a serious number of moderators? He’s *depending* on the community to “police” itself, because he doesn’t have the will to hire enough people to police itself? (or the cash. Or, rather, the VCs don’t want to foot the bill to hire folks to do this).

Now, after he’s taken in millions of VC cash build on the backs of those same-said geeks he can’t moderate things fast enough for his VC overlords?

Kevin — you made your bed.

Dude … time to lie in it.