In late 1999, law professor Lawrence Lessig published a book called "Code Is Law," exploring how the technical architecture of the Internet -- the code -- would regulate the Internet, in conjunction with the legal system. His aim was to counter the notion that the Internet was somehow beyond control -- a view that emerged as the Internet came of age in the 1990s -- and to clarify the choices faced by the Internet community going forward.

Lessig revisited the issue in a follow-up book, Code 2.0. "We can build, or architect, or code cyberspace to protect values that we believe are fundamental," he wrote. "Or we can build, or architect, or code cyberspace to allow those values to disappear." Since then, countries like China, not to mention the companies that do business there and supply governments with technology to censorship and monitor, have demonstrated that the Internet and its users can be brought to heel, mostly.

But social computing -- blogging, commenting, messaging's movement beyond e-mail, and other group-oriented, collaborative systems -- is emerging as a countervailing force. When everyone is an individual publisher, they are vulnerable as individuals. But when they band together in groups, when they form communities, when they connect, they become powerful, both politically and economically.

This has always been the case. It is the reason that governments try to limit public assembly. Now, thanks to Web 2.0 and social networking technologies, the crowd has become self-aware and self-protective.

For Digg at least, crowd is law.

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