Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
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"Five dictionaries as well as eight encyclopedias and other reference materials including “The Guinness Book of World Records” and “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” are among over 1,600 books that Escambia County Public Schools removed from its library shelves in December and flagged for review." Alongside
I’ve spent much of my career telling organizations that they should publish in a space that they control, on their own domain name. My usual argument is that it shields you from major changes in company policy, or even from the platform you’re depending on from going out
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"So when we wonder where all the websites have gone, know it’s the curators we’re nostalgic for because the curators showed us the best the web had to offer once upon a time. And the curators— the tenders, aggregators, collectors, and connectors— can bring us back to
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It's feeling more and more like Substack will be toast if they don't significantly walk back their policy on Nazis. (And honestly, at this point, even if they did, who would want to be associated with it?) "This was never about the fate of a
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An in-depth writeup of Meta's fediverse meetup last year by Tom Coates, who was one of the roughly 20 people in attendance. Most of these details have been discussed and speculated on at this point, but it's good to read them in one place, and
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I like this argument that generated content is an invasive species in our content ecosystem. "As generated material rapaciously populates the Internet, human-created artworks will be outcompeted by generated graphics on social media platforms by virtue of volume." I agree that this is something to be concerned
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"The tools that likely brought down Harvard president Claudine Gay are improperly used on students all the time. [...] The technology of text mining can be used to destroy the career of any scholar at any time." Tools like Turnitin are rife with false positives, and can be weaponized
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I think Chuck Tingle is awesome and proves love. This was a disappointing decision by the Texas Library Association, which is hopefully a learning moment for every organization like it. Chuck's description of the intersectional challenges at play here is in-depth and well-stated. And there'
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This was why I started Known, and I wonder if I should try again. "If we want the future web we’re all clamouring for, we need to give people more options for self-hosted independence. If we seriously, truly want the independent, non-enshittified personal web to flourish,
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The headline here is a little misleading, because it should end: "... but not proactively, and with no changes to our content policy." Substack seems to want to have its cake and eat it: to offer content deals, promote writers, and shape its writer community, but also be treated
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"Every year, the Supreme Court’s nine justices fill out a form that discloses their financial connections to companies and people. Using our new database, you can now search for organizations and people that have paid the justices, reimbursed them for travel, given them gifts and more." Journalism
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Not just a retelling but a complete recasting of 1984. It's helpful to consider this as a separate work: a response to 1984, in a way, rather than a layering on top or a direct sequel. It's a criticism, an extension, a modernization, and a deep