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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

Doctor who provided abortion care to 10-year-old fights to protect medical records

“As a physician, I never imagined that I would be in the position to engage in a legal fight to protect the rights of women and girls to not have their private medical records released for political purposes. But nonetheless, I feel strongly that this fight — the fight for physicians

22 Nov 2022

Books We Love

NPR’s annual list of recommended books is as extensive and as beautiful as ever.  #Culture [Link]

22 Nov 2022

Colorado Springs shooting shares eerie parallels with 1980 anti-LGBTQ+ massacre

“This past Saturday, 42 years to the day after the West Street shooting, five were murdered and 18 wounded at Club Q, an LGBTQ+ bar in Colorado Springs. A suspect, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, is in custody and faces murder and hate crime charges. “These things don’t change,” Humm

22 Nov 2022

Word Persons and Web Persons

“It's likely that both word persons and web persons are in the minority on the modern internet. Most people would rather read short snippets of text rather than long blog posts. Most people would rather use apps than browse the web or consume content rather than write it

22 Nov 2022

Tanya O’Carroll v Meta; Landmark case to stop Facebook spying on us

“We shouldn’t have to give up every detail of our personal lives just to connect with friends and family online. The law gives us the right to take back control over our personal data and stop Facebook surveilling and tracking us.”  #Technology [Link]

21 Nov 2022

Announcing the Science Eye

Here I am debating social media content policies; meanwhile very impressive people I used to work with are building this.  #Technology [Link]

21 Nov 2022

Club Q shooting reshapes Trans Day of Remembrance for Colorado Springs community

“That the shooting took place on the evening before TDOR, a day honoring trans homicide victims, makes the tragedy even more painful, multiple advocacy groups said. They said the shooting is part of a bigger landscape of growing political attacks and harmful rhetoric aimed at trans people.”  #Society [Link]

21 Nov 2022

Moderation on Mastodon: there's a lot of work to do

I’ve realized that I need to temper my enthusiasm for Mastodon. I worked on open source social networking platforms for a full decade of my life, and I’m very emotionally attached to this moment. I really want the fediverse to work. I come by it honestly: I do

21 Nov 2022

Stephen Diehl: Crypto is the ‘commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime’

“In my most empathetic reading of crypto investors, look at this country — how many young people feel that they have a chance of getting on the housing ladder? A lot of them feel that they need to invest in higher-risk assets because they need higher returns.”  #Crypto [Link]

21 Nov 2022

We Joined Mastodon. Here’s What We Learned About Privacy and Security

“If you’ve been considering signing up for Mastodon, here are some things we have been thinking about as we take the leap.”  #Technology [Link]

21 Nov 2022

Online mobs are now coming for student journalists

“Targeted online harassment has become a pervasive threat to newsrooms across the country. A 2019 survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 85 percent of respondents believed their career had become less safe in the past five years and more than 70 percent said they experienced safety issues

21 Nov 2022

I told my team to pause our $750K/month Twitter ads budget last week

“I’ve seen a lot of technical and ideological takes on Elon Twitter but wanted to share the marketing perspective. For background I’m a director at a medium sized b2b tech company (not in finserv anymore) running a team that deploys about $80M in ad spend/year.”  #Twitter [Link]

21 Nov 2022
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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

Writing at the intersection of technology, journalism, and community.

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Ben Werdmuller explores the intersection of technology, democracy, and society. Always independently published, reader-supported, and free to read.