Digg pauses relaunch after two months, blames AI bot spam
Mar 13th 2026
The revived link-sharing site is pausing operations for a hard reset after AI-driven bot spam overwhelmed moderation efforts, with founder Kevin Rose set to return to help rebuild.
- Digg opened a public Reddit-like beta two months after its relaunch was announced last year.
- CEO Justin Mezzell says bots reached an unexpected scale and sophistication, forcing the team to ban tens of thousands of accounts.
- Digg deployed internal tools and industry-standard external vendors but says those measures were insufficient.
- The company announced a hard reset that will shut down operations and significantly downsize the Digg team.
- Leadership describes the shutdown as temporary and plans to rebuild, with founder Kevin Rose returning as a full-time employee in April.
- The Diggnation podcast will continue recording while Digg works toward a relaunch.
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