\n<\/p>\n
Digg<\/a> \u2014 Kevin Rose\u2019s reboot <\/a>of his once-popular link-sharing site \u2014 is laying off a sizable portion of its staff, the company announced on Friday. The startup is not closing, however, Digg CEO Justin Mezzell said. Instead, Rose will return to work on Digg full-time as the company tries to find its footing.<\/p>\n Rose will continue to work as an advisor at investing firm True Ventures, but will make Digg his primary focus from here on out.<\/p>\n The startup had set out to offer an alternative to existing community forums, where people could post and share links, media, and text, and engage in topical discussions. But while Digg had clever ideas on how to better moderate content and verify that users were who they claimed to be, the company admits it was overwhelmed by bots even in its earliest days.<\/p>\n Nodding to the \u201cdead internet theory<\/a>,\u201d which claims today\u2019s web is more bots than people, Mezzell describes the problem of combating bot spam in a post on the Digg website<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the Digg beta launched, we immediately noticed posts from SEO spammers noting that Digg still carried meaningful Google link authority,\u201d the blog post about the layoffs states. \u201cWithin hours, we got a taste of what we\u2019d only heard rumors about. The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts. We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn\u2019t appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they\u2019d find us.\u201d<\/p>\n The company said it banned tens of thousands of accounts, deployed internal tooling, and worked with external vendors, but it wasn\u2019t enough. For a site that relied on user votes to rank content, an uncontrollable bot problem meant those votes couldn\u2019t be trusted.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a Digg problem. It\u2019s an internet problem,\u201d Mezzell notes.<\/p>\n Mezzell also said that taking on established rivals (likely a reference to Reddit) was too hard, calling the competition not just a moat but a wall.<\/p>\n The company didn\u2019t share how many people were affected by the layoffs, but said that a small team will continue to rebuild Digg as something \u201cgenuinely different.\u201d The Digg app has been pulled from the App Store, and the layoff post is currently the only content on Digg\u2019s website. The Diggnation podcast \u2014 a video show Rose hosts \u2014 will continue, however.<\/p>\n For context, Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian acquired what remained <\/a>of the old Digg earlier last year, intending to build up a site where communities had more moderator and admin control and ownership. The deal was a leveraged buyout involving True Ventures, Ohanian\u2019s firm Seven Seven Six, Rose and Ohanian personally, and the venture firm S32.\u00a0Funding details weren\u2019t made public.<\/p>\n Digg was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n