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You can preview the new, new Digg after its takeover by bots

Digg once described itself as “the homepage of the internet,” but a poorly-received redesign in 2010 saw many of its users migrate instead to Reddit, and it was sold for parts within two years.

An attempted reboot this year didn’t last long, failing for a spectacularly ironic reason, but the platform is back for a third attempt – and you can get early access today …

A quick recap

Digg was essentially a social news site. Both editors and users could post links, and users would then upvote them (“digg”) or downvote them (“bury”).  A key feature was that other sites could embed those digg buttons, allowing users to vote on links even without visiting the site itself.

The site was essentially killed by a combination of an unpopular update, widespread manipulation, and the growing popularity of Facebook – whose Like and Share buttons proved more popular.

There things remained until last year, when Digg founder Kevin Rose joined forces with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to bring it back from the dead.

The first failed revival

The revived series went into closed beta in late 2025 before launching to the public at the start of this year. The USP, said the company, would be the steps it was taking to ensure it wasn’t taken over by bots.

The new Digg will apply signals of trust to pick up on patterns of authentic participation. They will bundle multiple verification cues and technologies together to fight AI-driven spam, and may even require proof of product ownership before users can join and post in certain communities.

Less than two months later, it shut down after … being taken over by bots.

Digg is back, in a bizarre pivot

Digg has now announced it’s trying a second revival, but as a very different animal. This time it’s attempting to be an aggregator of social media posts, starting with the AI field.

The internet has more noise than ever, and the people who can sort signal from it have never been more valuable. Digg’s job is to find that signal and bring it to you. We’re starting with AI. It’s the noisiest, fastest-moving space on the internet right now. Papers, launches, threads, hot takes flying past faster than anyone can keep up with. If we can surface what actually matters here, we can do it anywhere.

To do this, Digg is following the posts of a thousand leading voices in AI.

You can get early access here

For whatever it may be worth, you can get early access here. The site says it will be using this during a preview period before relocating back to digg.com.

If you’re curious, I suggest you check it out sooner rather than later, as personally I expect this latest reboot attempt to last even less time than the previous one …

Photo by John Kakuk on Unsplash

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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