Digg launches public beta to challenge Reddit

The social media platform and news aggregator Digg is launching its open beta to the public on Wednesday. The launch marks a transition from its invite-only testing phase, which previously hosted 67,000 users. Before the public beta launch, the site offered 21 more generalized communities covering topics like gaming, technology, and entertainment. Under the new public format, anyone can join the platform, which operates as a competitor to Reddit, and establish their own communities on nearly any topic.

The platform is returning under the ownership of its original founder, Kevin Rose, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The transition follows a corporate history:

• In 2008, Digg reached a valuation of $175 million.
• The original platform was split up in 2012, with its assets divided and sold.
• The company drew additional investment in 2016 before being sold to a digital advertising company in 2018.
• Last March, the company was acquired through a leveraged buyout—an acquisition using a significant amount of borrowed money—by Rose, Ohanian, True Ventures, Seven Seven Six, and S32.

To address user verification without compromising privacy, the platform will try out new technologies. Specifically, Digg could use zero-knowledge proofs—cryptographic methods that verify information without revealing underlying data—to verify the people using its platform. Founder Kevin Rose noted that the company wants to avoid forcing users through an intensive Know Your Customer (KYC) process, which is a standard identity verification process used by financial institutions. Instead, the platform plans to gather smaller signals of trust to verify users, though Rose acknowledged that there is no single silver bullet to establish platform trust.

The platform’s current development strategy focuses on rapid, iterative updates. Digg CEO Justin Mezzell explained that the team chose to release a lightweight version and ship features weekly. “We kind of opted for … let’s just keep building this plane as we fly it,” said Justin Mezzell, the CEO of Digg. According to Rose, the current team is small, which provides the company with years of runway to find product-market fit as they build out the platform.

Why it matters

The reboot of the early internet online community Digg is moving forward with a public beta launch, aiming to address social media toxicity through new verification tools and community-led moderation.