Digg lays off staff and shuts down app as company retools

San Francisco: Link-sharing website Digg is laying off many workers and taking down its app. Founder Kevin Rose will work full-time at Digg to try to fix problems with the site.

Digg wanted to create a new way for people to share links and talk about topics online. But after the site started testing its new design, workers saw many robot programs posting fake content. These robots were trying to trick search engines to make websites look more popular.

The company says robots make up a big part of the internet now. They blocked tens of thousands of fake accounts but still couldn’t stop the problem. Because Digg counts votes to decide what to show people, fake votes from robots made the system not work well.

The company will keep a small group of workers to rebuild Digg into something different. The app is gone from stores. Right now, only one article shows on the website – the news about these changes. A video show from Digg will still make new episodes.

Kevin Rose bought what was left of old Digg last year with help from other investors. They wanted to make a site where groups could better control their own spaces. This plan is changing now as Digg tries to find a new way forward.