“The dead internet theory is real,” Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian instructed Digg founder Kevin Rose, referring to the concept a lot of the web isn’t human — it’s largely bots.
The 2 entrepreneurs have since teamed as much as re-envision find out how to construct a social group on this world the place, very quickly, it will likely be laborious to inform who’s an actual individual on-line.
Earlier this yr, the 2 purchased the remaining property belonging to Digg, the long-shuttered information aggregation website initially based by Rose that was a staple of the Internet 2.0 period.
Now once more below Rose’s management, the brand new Digg is creating a spot for folks to socialize and join on-line inside communities, much like Reddit, nevertheless it has totally different concepts about how such a platform ought to work at a time when bots are practically indistinguishable from people.
Backstage on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 convention on Wednesday, Rose defined that he sees the way forward for social as being extra centered on protected on-line areas and “micro communities of trusted users.”
“I just have to imagine that, as the cost to deploy agents drops to next to nothing, we’re just gonna see…bots act as though they’re humans,” he mentioned. “So, small trusted communities, proof of heartbeat — there’s an actual human on the other end…is important.”
However as we speak’s verification strategies typically contain issues like facial recognition, ID uploads, or small funds with a bank card to make sure that somebody is an individual and never a bot. Not everybody on-line will really feel comfy doing one thing like that to entry a web based social group, in fact.
That’s why Digg is trying to make use of newer know-how, like a ZK proof (ZKP) to confirm folks utilizing its platform sooner or later.
Says Rose, the ZKP is a “fancy piece of math” which doesn’t expose who somebody is, however can confirm one thing important that will be vital for his or her participation in a web based group.
As an illustration, a moderator of a group for Oura ring house owners might use the know-how to confirm that somebody is definitely an Oura ring proprietor earlier than permitting them to submit. That identification might stick with them so that they’re generally known as a trusted member, however not essentially one the place they need to go by their actual title. This may very well be significantly helpful in communities centered on delicate matters or well being points, as properly.
The concept moderators ought to have extra of a say over their communities can also be important to the brand new Digg — and, Rose believes, these founding members must be compensated for his or her efforts.
“When we first started Digg in 2004 — before Reddit launched — we were very lucky because we had thousands and thousands of people, and eventually millions of people, that would come in and contribute content,” mentioned Rose, throughout his panel on the TechCrunch Disrupt occasion. “And they’re not getting paid.”
He mentioned that some Reddit moderators are basically working across the clock to deal with issues like spam and combating, however aren’t receiving any slice of the income, nor do they management the viewers.
“So you’re talking about something where you’re signing up and creating all this value for a platform, but you can’t port that platform anywhere else. You can’t capture any email addresses. You can’t stay in touch on that platform. You can be ousted [from] that platform,” he mentioned.
Rose additionally pointed to points the place bigger Reddit communities can develop into trademarked — one thing that prevented the founding father of the r/WallStreetBets subreddit from writing a e-book utilizing the title of the group they’d created.
“If anything, we should be more similar to Substack or Patreon, or some others that are actually giving you much more control of your community,” he mentioned.
