Ben Werdmuller
  • About me
  • Let's build together
  • Notable links
Sign in Subscribe

Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

NotableLinks

Four things about threads.net

"We're selling ourselves out by letting Facebook own a new social network and not putting that energy into building something that preserves our choice." I am worried that this might turn out to be correct.  #Technology [Link]

16 Mar 2024

NotableLinks

FBI sent several informants to Standing Rock protests, court documents show

"Up to 10 informants managed by the FBI were embedded in anti-pipeline resistance camps near the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation at the height of mass protests against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016." This seems obvious: there are informants in any major protest movement, and have been

15 Mar 2024

Seeking share URLs for every platform

I wish there was a conclusive list of “share-to” URLs. For example, here’s the URL you can use to build a “share to Threads” button: https://threads.net/intent/post?text= Here’s the equivalent URL for Reddit: https://reddit.com/submit?url= Every Known site has a URL

14 Mar 2024

NotableLinks

FCC scraps old speed benchmark, says broadband should be at least 100Mbps

"The Federal Communications Commission today voted to raise its Internet speed benchmark for the first time since January 2015, concluding that modern broadband service should provide at least 100Mbps download speeds and 20Mbps upload speeds." Finally. The previous 25Mbps down  3Mbps up benchmark was pathetic - and even

14 Mar 2024

NotableLinks

CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms

Something I've long suspected is often the case: the founder of a data privacy firm also ran dozens of the people search services the firm was set up to remove people from for a fee. "Onerep’s “Protect” service starts at $8.33 per month for individuals

14 Mar 2024

Coming back to Obsidian

After some to-ing and fro-ing, I finally cracked how using Obsidian is useful. I’d previously been trying to work in the open and update my thoughts for a public website there — but, of course, that’s what my personal site is for! So it didn’t click, because I

14 Mar 2024

NotableLinks

A smackdown over programmatic ads and why reader revenue is crucial

"There’s a reason that some 2,900 newspapers have closed since 2005, and that reason is the ad revenues publishers were hoping for to support what were initially free websites never materialized." What's left: paywalls and patronage. I've become much more bullish about

14 Mar 2024

NotableLinks

Former Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is putting together an investor group to buy TikTok

"Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building an investor group to acquire ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan piece of legislation winding its way through Congress threatens its continued existence in the U.S." Come on. This is brazen. Whatever you think of TikTok, I'm not

14 Mar 2024

Seeking a first-class Fediverse platform

Subsequent conversations have convinced me that I’m right about the assertions I made about the Fediverse for media organizations. There’s a huge need, a huge opportunity, and the underlying technology is there. The thing that’s a bit missing is a first-class Fediverse platform. Mastodon itself has become

14 Mar 2024

NotableLinks

Tiktok and the Fediverse

"The House bill, then, is an acknowledgment that algorithmic curation of feeds is a powerful feature that can have a major influence on individuals and society. It at least makes the point that allowing a foreign company, under its own government’s influence, to have some level of control

13 Mar 2024

NotableLinks

EU Parliament passes AI Act in world’s first attempt at regulating the technology

Europe once again leads the way by passing meaningful AI regulation. Banned unacceptable-risk uses of AI include facial recognition, social scoring, and emotion recognition at schools and workplaces. "The use of real-time facial recognition systems by law enforcement is permitted “in exhaustively listed and narrowly defined situations,” when the

13 Mar 2024

Exploring AI, safely

I’ve been thinking about the risks and ethical issues around AI in the following buckets: * Source impacts: the ecosystem impact of generative models on the people who created the information they were trained on. * Truth and bias: the tendency of generative models to give the appearance of objectivity and

13 Mar 2024
See all
Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

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

Recommendations

  • Elena Rossini
    Elena Rossini
    news.elenarossini.com

    Elena Rossini is an Italian filmmaker, photographer and activist. Her work focuses on issues of media literacy, digital sovereignty, and harnessing the power of the internet for change.

  • Relay, By We Distribute
    Relay, By We Distribute
    newsletter.wedistribute.org

    A weekly newsletter about the open social web. We Distribute is the best website about the next generation of social networks - their newsletter is a regular dive into what's going on.

  • Internet Exchange
    Internet Exchange
    internet.exchangepoint.tech

    Feminist perspectives on digital justice and tech from some of the most important voices in ethical tech.

  • When The Going Gets Weird
    When The Going Gets Weird
    newsletter.mathewingram.com

    Mathew Ingram, a longtime journalist whose bylines have chronicled the intersection of journalism and the web, shares links that interest him.

  • Point C
    Point C
    pointc.co

    Corey Ford has been a mentor and friend for over a decade. His advice changed my professional life, and now it can change yours, too.

Ben Werdmuller
Mastodon
Bluesky
Threads

Subscribe to new posts

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