Photo Credit: Julien Lasseur (Kevin Rose & Alexis Ohanian)

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Digg's original founder Kevin Rose have joined forces to repurchase Digg, the pioneering social news website. This move comes shortly after Ohanian's involvement in Frank McCourt's TikTok U.S. operations bid.

The revamped Digg aims to address current social media challenges, focusing on genuine community engagement and discovery. The platform promises to tackle issues like misinformation, spam, and hostile interactions that plague existing social platforms.

The new version will leverage AI technology while prioritizing human connection. "Online communities thrive when there's a balance between technology and human judgment," says Ohanian. "AI should handle the grunt work in the background while humans focus on what they do best—building real connections."

Key aspects of the new Digg:

• Focus on genuine community building
• AI-powered background operations
• Reduced emphasis on content moderation
• Enhanced user experience for creating and connecting

The venture is financially backed by True Ventures and Seven Seven Six, with Justin Mezzell appointed as CEO. The platform plans to roll out invites in the coming weeks, positioning itself as "the front page of the internet, now with superpowers."

This revival comes at a crucial time, following Reddit's recent controversies over third-party app support and AI content scraping, which led to significant user exodus. The original Digg's crowd-sourced voting system inspired Reddit's upvote/downvote mechanism before being sold to Betaworks in 2012, with LinkedIn later acquiring its assets and patents.

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