# Ben Werdmuller > Writing at the intersection of technology, journalism, and community. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About Ben Werdmuller URL: https://werd.io/about/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T21:44:26.000Z **I'm a technology leader, founder, and investor who builds teams and products for organizations that want to make the world more informed and equal.** I've spent over twenty years doing this across journalism, media, fintech, and open source, as a CTO, a CEO, and a venture investor. I've built platforms used by governments, universities, Fortune 500 companies, and social movements. I've led small, scrappy technology teams, and bigger, venture-scale teams. Across everything I've done, the through-line has been my belief that technology should serve communities rather than extract from them. I built Elgg, one of the first open source social networking platforms, from scratch with no external funding. We bootstrapped to profitability: MIT was our first client, and the University of Brighton partnered with us to launch the world's first campus-wide social network. Elgg was translated into 80 languages and adopted by governments, NGOs like Oxfam, Fortune 500 companies, and movements like Spain's anti-austerity protests. For the last few years, I've led technology in newsrooms serving the public interest. Most recently, I was Senior Director of Technology at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), where I led product engineering, enterprise technology, and security for a Pulitzer Prize-winning organization that investigates abuses of power in the public interest. Before that, I was Chief Technology Officer at [The 19th](https://19thnews.org), which reports at the intersection of gender, politics, and power. At [Matter Ventures](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/meet-matter-seven-d07f02683108), I invested in 24 early-stage media startups and mentored a portfolio of 73 companies as the San Francisco-based Director of Investments. I co-taught the accelerator's five-month course on venture design thinking for startup teams and innovation teams from the New York Times, the Associated Press, and other major media organizations. I also co-founded [Known](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/known/), an open source publishing platform that prioritized individual content ownership over platform lock-in. We built communities at Harvard, KQED, and Davidson College; KQED's implementation won a NAMLE media literacy award. I care about the open web. I've spent my career building alternatives to extractive platforms, from Elgg to Known to my work today. I'm an active participant in the open social web movement and a board member of [A New Social](https://anew.social). I think technology works best when it's open, values-aligned, and accountable to the people who use it. --- ### Contact - Bluesky: [@werd.io](https://bsky.app/profile/werd.io) - Mastodon: [@ben@werd.social](https://werd.social/@ben) - LinkedIn: [benwerd](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwerd/) - Signal: [benwerd.01](https://signal.me/#eu/%5FehMeopT5JeELrkt2lSk-R0V6d1AsGt%5F3Q98UOJhgBMTal5EGTdNIbZHB9H9CqBn) (please lead with who you are and why you're reaching out!) - Email: [ben@werd.io](mailto:ben@werd.io) --- ### About this site - [Colophon](https://werd.io/colophon/) ### The future of news URL: https://werd.io/the-future-of-news/ Last updated: 2025-11-29T02:07:28.000Z ✉️ I write about technology that serves journalism and democracy, informed by my work with newsrooms, open source movements, and startups. [****Sign up for a free subscription**](https://werd.io/#/portal/subscribe) or [****book a call**](https://werd.io/call/). ### [**Building a newsroom technology culture**](https://werd.io/building-a-newsroom-technology-culture/) > I like to say that journalism treats technology as something that happens to it — like an asteroid. But technology is too important to the future of news for it to be treated passively. > \[...\] Building a strong technology competence inside a newsroom is existentially important. Given journalism’s *platform* dependence, it’s vital to build and shape the technologies that newsrooms rely on in order to function. Given journalism’s *cultural* dependence, it’s also vital to ensure a newsroom understands how the internet is building and shaping culture — not just at the periphery, but as a core part of its own culture. ### [**Dispatches from the media apocalypse**](https://werd.io/dispatches-from-the-media-apocalypse/) > The principles of experimentation, curiosity, and empathy that are the hallmarks of great journalism must also be applied to the platforms that power their publishing and fundraising activities. They must foster great ideas, wherever they come from, and *be willing to try stuff*. That inherently also implies building a culture of transparency and open communication in organizations that have, on average, underinvested in these areas. ### [**AI won't live on publisher sites**](https://werd.io/ai-wont-live-on-publisher-sites/) > My proposal is this: you should consider what’s actually the most useful experience for the user, rather than what furthers your own interests, and make a bet on that, instead. ### [**When people trust humans more than brands: the incubator newsroom**](https://werd.io/when-people-trust-people-more-than-brands-the-incubator-newsroom/) > Rather than hand-wringing about whether a particular publication should survive, I think we should instead consider the value of newsrooms to journalists. If we believe that journalism is a societal good, but that existing newsrooms might not survive, then we might consider building new scaffolding that addresses the value they currently provide. ### [**No, newsrooms don't need to cede control to social media.**](https://werd.io/no-newsrooms-dont-need-to-cede-control-to-social-media/) > Should publishers build community on platforms owned by third parties or publish to a space fully under their control? The answer is an emphatic “yes”: you have to do both. Social media platforms are ephemeral — they are hugely popular but will appear and disappear — while your website is forever. Your digital strategy has to encompass both the near term and the long term. ### [**The internet is up for grabs again**](https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/12/the-internet-is-up-for-grabs-again/) > Just as it isn’t clear which networks will succeed in the next era of the web, it’s not obvious which newsroom experiments in community-building will work. The answer can only be to try, learn quickly from failure, and try again. Newsrooms will necessarily need to experiment and learn from each other. Ideally, they will collaborate on these experiments, sharing both code and approaches. ### [**The web floods**](https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/the-web-floods/) > Newsrooms that commit to AI-driven storytelling as a way to cut costs while increasing output will be lost in a sea of similarly bland content and spammy marketing. Newsrooms that cling to traditional SEO and social media tactics will find that they become less and less effective in the face of more and more noise. ### [**Use the tools of journalism to save it**](https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/01/use-the-tools-of-journalism-to-save-it/) > It takes a radical culture shift. The internet isn’t a broadcast medium — it’s a conversation. Instead of thinking in terms of having an audience, you need to think about building and serving a community. Instead of informing, you need to be listening. The opportunities to learn the nuances of your community and to serve it directly are unprecedented — but it takes work. ### Let's build together URL: https://werd.io/call/ Last updated: 2025-08-23T01:19:52.000Z I help leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges, from building high-performing engineering teams to evaluating vendor partnerships to planning digital transformations. [Here's more about me.](https://werd.io/about/) ### Who this is for: - Newsroom executives planning technology investments - Non-profit leaders scaling their technical capabilities - Boards conducting technical due diligence ### What you'll get: - A clear assessment of your technology challenges - Clarity on how to navigate similar decisions - Concrete next steps towards achieving your goal Let’s talk about the biggest technology challenges you’re facing— and how you might navigate through them. [Book a call ](https://calendly.com/benwerdmuller/mission-driven-tech) ### How can I support your work? URL: https://werd.io/get-support/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T21:22:14.000Z ### You’re trying to solve something important. I want to help. This short, intelligent form asks about your organization type and the challenge you’re facing. Based on your answers, it’ll let you know whether I’m likely to be a good fit – and if so, what the next steps look like. If not, it'll suggest the kind of person you should get in touch with instead. My goal is to respect your time and make sure you get support that actually meets your needs. What kind of organization are you from? What's the problem you're struggling with? Check if Ben can help ### White Paper: Building Trust in the Open URL: https://werd.io/trust/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T13:09:16.000Z Journalism's distribution channels are collapsing. Google search referrals to publishers fell by a third globally in the year to November 2025\. Social media referrals have plummeted even more dramatically: down 80% from Facebook and roughly 60% from X since 2020\. Email newsletters, long considered the last refuge of direct audience relationships, now face displacement by AI-mediated inboxes. And trust in news has flatlined at 40% globally, with 83% of Americans saying they have not paid for news in the past year. This paper presents the case for open protocols as trust infrastructure for journalism, examines early experiments from newsrooms and protocol builders working together, and offers practical recommendations for newsrooms, technologists, and funders who want to act on this opportunity. To download the paper, subscribe for free below. _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Colophon URL: https://werd.io/colophon/ Last updated: 2026-04-19T20:50:05.000Z ### Ownership Aside from clearly-marked quotes from other sites, I write every word of my posts. They are wholly mine and do not represent anyone else, including my current employer. All mistakes are therefore also mine. ### Researching I read using [NewsBlur](https://newsblur.com), which aggregates my sites and newsletters. You can see the latest posts from sites I subscribe to at [sources.werd.io](https://sources.werd.io). I browse articles using [Zen Browser](https://zen-browser.app/). I sometimes use [Sill](https://sill.social/) and [Surf](https://surf.social) to browse targeted sources. I also regularly check sites like [MetaFilter](https://metafilter.com), [Reddit](https://reddit.com), and, yes, [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/). I also find my social media networks to be very useful for finding interesting posts — particularly [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/werd.io), [Mastodon](https://werd.social/@ben), and [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwerd). ### Writing All my posts are written in [iA Writer](https://ia.net/writer). It’s probably the best text editor for writers I’ve ever used. For longer-form work, which is typically not published on this site, I use [Ulysses](https://ulysses.app). ### Publishing My site is powered and hosted by [Ghost (Pro)](https://ghost.org/). My link blog posts are drafted in iA Writer, then saved to a Notion database using [Save to Notion](https://savetonotion.so/). Then a [Zapier](https://zapier.com/) automation grabs them, publishes them to my website, and automatically posts them to my social networks. (It also saves them to [my Raindrop bookmarks](https://raindrop.io/).) ### Using artificial intelligence for writing I don’t use AI to write my posts for reasons that include but aren’t limited to: - Writing is my first love: why would I take away the fun bit? - If I used an LLM to generate text, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee that I wasn’t plagiarizing someone else. - If I stop using my brain for things my brain will adapt accordingly. I feel strongly that AI can never replace a human writer and don’t intend to start with myself. ## Posts ### A landmark study of AI in newsrooms reveals they need to be coaxed to experiment with their business models URL: https://werd.io/a-landmark-study-of-ai-in-newsrooms-reveals-they-need-to-be-coaxed-to-experiment-with-their-business-models/ Last updated: 2026-10-18T23:53:09.000Z Link: [*The News + AI Field Report, by Djordje Padejski for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication*](https://cronkite.asu.edu/knightcenter/field-report-AI-in-news) The [News + AI Field Report for 2022-2025](https://cronkite.asu.edu/knightcenter/field-report-AI-in-news), produced by [Djordje Padejski](https://www.djordje.padejski.net/) in conjunction with [ASU’s Knight Center for the Future of News](https://knightcenter.asu.edu/), is a landmark analysis of how newsrooms are experimenting with AI. The [interactive app](https://aimap.futureof.news/) is also a really useful way to explore the 160 projects covered by this research. I’ve been mulling over one of the findings described in the summary: > “Newsrooms are most worried about the business threat from AI and have built the least for it. Interviews reveal widespread anxiety about the effects of AI on site traffic, audience behavior and news business models. Yet relatively few projects focus on revenue, subscriptions or fundraising.” 20% of projects were business-related, but every fundraising project and over half of the business projects were grantees in the American Journalism Project’s AI programs. If those newsrooms are stripped out, the numbers drop significantly. I think there’s a subtext worth talking about: I suspect the innovation projects listed here (that weren’t a part of a specific cohort) are a temperature check on how newsrooms are building technology / product experiments in general. If that’s the case, it implies that news is sticking to its comfort zone and spending much more time innovating on editorial concerns, and much less time experimenting with solutions for its existential business threats. Reader-facing chatbots are a different angle on this: I’d call them a way for newsrooms to say they’re experimenting with AI without actually addressing a core user need. Newsroom websites are absolutely not where the chat layer should live (except, perhaps, for the use cases that provide deeper archive search for subscribers): AI users already have their own chatbots, which are the interfaces for *all* their AI-powered information. There are deeper ways AI could address user needs; the trick is that they would involve experimenting with the fundamental ways newsrooms do business. In turn, that requires both a willingness to do so, and much deeper collaboration between teams to make it happen. So then the question becomes: how do we not just beef up journalism’s experiments in its business models, but the excitement and appetite to do so? Often the product teams that might be the owners of these kinds of experiments don’t (quite reasonably) own business models; how can those teams collaborate effectively? Funding from AJP clearly made a difference — is outside scaffolding required for this work to take place? How might product teams empower every team in the newsroom to run experiments? These are much bigger questions than AI – and they’re questions newsrooms probably should be grappling with. In the meantime, I’m very grateful this analysis exists, and I hope it’s renewed to capture the year that follows. ### Notable links: October 16, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-october-16-2026/ Last updated: 2026-10-16T20:10:08.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-september-11-2026/#/portal)*.* --- I've been blogging since 1998\. A while back, I was very privileged to be interviewed about my journey writing on the web for 28 years as part of the [Wonders of Web Weaving](https://web-weaving.jamesg.blog/) series. [I think it's a great audio conversation; here it is in its entirety.](https://web-weaving.jamesg.blog/23) --- ### [Two 23-year-olds used AI to create a daily audio briefing. It’s now the top news app in Argentina.](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/10/two-23-year-olds-used-ai-to-create-a-daily-audio-briefing-its-now-the-top-news-app-in-argentina/) I think there are several notable things about this story. The first, most obvious one is that two 23 year olds were able to create a news app that rose to become the top-ranked news app in their country, using AI. There is no way they would have been able to build this with the time, team, and resources at their disposal otherwise. From an engagement perspective, this is a bona-fide AI-in-journalism-distribution success story. The second is that it’s not a success story for incumbent newsrooms. Clearly, a short, personalized news briefing is something people wanted; every existing newsroom could have built it, at least using their own content, but they didn’t. The gap they left meant that two newcomers could come in with very few resources and gain an audience off the back of existing journalists’ work. The app credits stories in audio and leaves citations in the chat, but my guess is that most people aren’t looking at their screens as they listen to their audio briefing. Very few people will click through; I think these listens won’t translate to pageviews or subscriptions. The third is that outsiders are clearly much more free to build experiments than existing newsrooms. The latter have the weight of their brands and existing revenue operations to consider. Most outsiders have none of that: nobody expects anything from them, so they’re free to experiment. Most experiments will fail, but some may succeed. Left alone, this represents intermediation that could undermine the connection between newsrooms and their communities. But there’s an opportunity to partner more deeply and represent newsroom needs in the app. And then consider how they can foster an ecosystem with more experimentation, not less. --- ### [Election Night 2026](https://midterms.graze.social/) [This prototype from Graze](https://midterms.graze.social/) is pretty cool. [Graze](https://graze.social), of course, allows you to create new Bluesky feeds. People have created feeds for news, sports, politics — anything you like. But they’ve mostly been consumed within the Bluesky experience itself. Its midterms dashboard is something different. Here, you can view discussion of candidate races based on the races you care about, determined by who you’re already following. Because newsrooms, pundits, and politically active individuals are posting across the network, and because the network itself is based on a permissionless protocol that is open to analysis, Graze can show you what’s happening as well as the mood of the conversation in real time. It’s all cited, so links point to newsrooms’s own accounts and websites. And it’s genuinely live. --- ### [Young People and the Future of Free Expression ](https://knightfoundation.org/articles/research/young-people-and-the-future-of-free-expression/) Worth paying attention to: > “New Knight Foundation-Ipsos research among young adults and high school students points to a generation that strongly values free speech as a democratic principle, but is less confident about exercising it without consequences.” Workplaces and classrooms feel the least free, but it’s good to hear that home is generally a space where they feel *more* free. What’s surprising, and a bit worrying, is that AI chatbots are also one of the spaces where they feel free — and, in fact, 48% of high school aged respondents that used AI chatbots said they felt more free to speak to them than the people in their lives. Those conversations might feel like intimate spaces, private to them; in reality, they may be available to their vendors for analysis and even training. People from low income backgrounds felt this more than most. Young people worry about conflict: they hold back because of peer censorship and the fear of being judged. The perception is that the AI won’t judge them. In a world where chatbots [have been linked to self-harm and suicide in young people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths%5Flinked%5Fto%5Fchatbots), that’s quite dangerous. The other findings here dovetail together to paint a pretty bleak picture. White and wealthier people feel more able to exercise their freedom of speech without consequence, and that number plummets to just 28% of Black respondents. Only around a half of college aged respondents felt like other democratic rights like voting were secure. So we find ourselves in a world where people don’t feel free to express themselves — except to AI chatbots that happen to be produced by some of the tech companies who have directly contributed to this underlying authoritarianism. It’s obvious how those conversations could be compromised, and there are certainly betrayals to come — but more than that, it’s just sad that young people don’t feel they can speak and share with each other. --- ### [Why We’re Banning AI](https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-were-banning-ai) The headline here is a bit of a misnomer. *Current Affairs* stresses that it’s not against technical innovation, but: > “\[…\] we need, first, to ensure that technologies are a tool used *by* workers to help them, rather than a tool used to *replace* workers. And, second, we need to make sure that *readers* aren’t being fed things that look like people’s genuine thoughts and creative expression but are in fact the product of disembodied mathematical formulas.” The result is something that seems entirely reasonable to me: journalists are free to use AI in the course of their work, but may not write or illustrate their pieces with it. This ensures that they remain in control of the work published under their bylines, while allowing them to take advantage of automation when it can serve their process. The side effects entirely benefit *Current Affairs*. Readers can trust that the work they read is produced by real people who have applied editorial judgment; the publication is also structurally incapable of publishing articles at a high volume or speed, forcing them to focus on quality rather than impressions. Journalists also know that their jobs are safer than they might be in an organization that doesn’t see a problem downsizing its newsroom in favor of predictive models. The piece runs down the effects generative AI have had on creative industries, and touches on the fallacy of using Milton Friedman economics in mission-driven spaces. But the most important thing the piece has to say is: *we will produce better journalism this way*. I tend to agree. And what’s exciting is that it’s baked into their contract with their workforce — there’s no way to back out. --- ### [Design Your One-on-Ones](https://pointc.co/design-your-one-on-ones/) I like this approach to 1:1s from [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co). Although some very high-profile founders have said that they don’t do or even like them, I think they’re a vital way to maintain a relationship with your team, make sure they’re well-served, and keep things running smoothly. But it’s also very easy to get caught into a reactive pattern — or, worse, just turn them into tactical status reports. The trick, like all meetings, is to take the time to design them and have a well-defined agenda ahead of time. I also like Corey’s thoughts on cadence here: an hour every two weeks feels like the right rhythm to be able to make room for depth. And the [one-on-one gift exchange](https://pointc.co/the-one-on-one-gift-exchange/) makes for important punctuation that turns 360-degree feedback into a habit rather than something that drives anxiety and asymmetries. What I’d add to Corey’s advice here is to space them out. Back-to-back 1:1s don’t give you the opportunity to reflect on what’s been said, take appropriate actions, or follow through on commitments, and they may get lost. As he suggests in another of his pieces: [go slow to go fast](https://pointc.co/go-slow-to-go-fast/). Take the time to set the relationship, take the time to design the meeting, take the time to work on the right things. ### Current Affairs says it's banning AI URL: https://werd.io/current-affairs-says-its-banning-ai/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T19:54:23.000Z Link: [*Why We’re Banning AI, by Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs*](https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-were-banning-ai) The headline here is a bit of a misnomer. *Current Affairs* stresses that it’s not against technical innovation, but: > “\[…\] we need, first, to ensure that technologies are a tool used *by* workers to help them, rather than a tool used to *replace* workers. And, second, we need to make sure that *readers* aren’t being fed things that look like people’s genuine thoughts and creative expression but are in fact the product of disembodied mathematical formulas.” The result is something that seems entirely reasonable to me: journalists are free to use AI in the course of their work, but may not write or illustrate their pieces with it. This ensures that they remain in control of the work published under their bylines, while allowing them to take advantage of automation when it can serve their process. The side effects entirely benefit *Current Affairs*. Readers can trust that the work they read is produced by real people who have applied editorial judgment; the publication is also structurally incapable of publishing articles at a high volume or speed, forcing them to focus on quality rather than impressions. Journalists also know that their jobs are safer than they might be in an organization that doesn’t see a problem downsizing its newsroom in favor of predictive models. The piece runs down the effects generative AI have had on creative industries, and touches on the fallacy of using Milton Friedman economics in mission-driven spaces. But the most important thing the piece has to say is: *we will produce better journalism this way*. I tend to agree. And what’s exciting is that it’s baked into their contract with their workforce — there’s no way to back out. ### Treat your 1:1 relationships with intention URL: https://werd.io/treat-your-1-1-relationships-with-intention/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T19:12:16.000Z Link: [*Design Your One-on-Ones, by Corey Ford at Point C*](https://pointc.co/design-your-one-on-ones/) I like this approach to 1:1s. Although some very high-profile founders have said that they don’t do or even like them, I think they’re a vital way to maintain a relationship with your team, make sure they’re well-served, and keep things running smoothly. But it’s also very easy to get caught into a reactive pattern — or, worse, just turn them into tactical status reports. The trick, like all meetings, is to take the time to design them and have a well-defined agenda ahead of time. I also like Corey’s thoughts on cadence here: an hour every two weeks feels like the right rhythm to be able to make room for depth. And the [one-on-one gift exchange](https://pointc.co/the-one-on-one-gift-exchange/) makes for important punctuation that turns 360-degree feedback into a habit rather than something that drives anxiety and asymmetries. What I’d add to Corey’s advice here is to space them out. Back-to-back 1:1s don’t give you the opportunity to reflect on what’s been said, take appropriate actions, or follow through on commitments, and they may get lost. As he suggests in another of his pieces: [go slow to go fast](https://pointc.co/go-slow-to-go-fast/). Take the time to set the relationship, take the time to design the meeting, take the time to work on the right things. ### Argentina's top news app was made by two 23 year olds using AI URL: https://werd.io/argentinas-top-news-app-was-made-by-two-23-year-olds-using-ai/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T17:05:34.000Z Link: [*Two 23-year-olds used AI to create a daily audio briefing. It’s now the top news app in Argentina., by Hanaa' Tameez in Nieman Lab*](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/10/two-23-year-olds-used-ai-to-create-a-daily-audio-briefing-its-now-the-top-news-app-in-argentina/) I think there are several notable things about this story. The first, most obvious one is that two 23 year olds were able to create a news app that rose to become the top-ranked news app in their country, using AI. There is no way they would have been able to build this with the time, team, and resources at their disposal otherwise. From an engagement perspective, this is a bona-fide AI-in-journalism-distribution success story. The second is that it’s not a success story for incumbent newsrooms. Clearly, a short, personalized news briefing is something people wanted; every existing newsroom could have built it, at least using their own content, but they didn’t. The gap they left meant that two newcomers could come in with very few resources and gain an audience off the back of existing journalists’ work. The app credits stories in audio and leaves citations in the chat, but my guess is that most people aren’t looking at their screens as they listen to their audio briefing. Very few people will click through; I think these listens won’t translate to pageviews or subscriptions. The third is that outsiders are clearly much more free to build experiments than existing newsrooms. The latter have the weight of their brands and existing revenue operations to consider. Most outsiders have none of that: nobody expects anything from them, so they’re free to experiment. Most experiments will fail, but some may succeed. Left alone, this represents intermediation that could undermine the connection between newsrooms and their communities. But there’s an opportunity to partner more deeply and represent newsroom needs in the app. And then consider how they can foster an ecosystem with more experimentation, not less. ### Young people trust AI more than the people in their lives. URL: https://werd.io/young-people-trust-ai-more-than-the-people-in-their-lives/ Last updated: 2026-10-13T18:28:49.000Z Link: [*Young People and the Future of Free Expression, by the Knight Foundation*](https://knightfoundation.org/articles/research/young-people-and-the-future-of-free-expression/) Worth paying attention to: > “New Knight Foundation-Ipsos research among young adults and high school students points to a generation that strongly values free speech as a democratic principle, but is less confident about exercising it without consequences.” Workplaces and classrooms feel the least free, but it’s good to hear that home is generally a space where they feel *more* free. What’s surprising, and a bit worrying, is that AI chatbots are also one of the spaces where they feel free — and, in fact, 48% of high school aged respondents that used AI chatbots said they felt more free to speak to them than the people in their lives. Those conversations might feel like intimate spaces, private to them; in reality, they may be available to their vendors for analysis and even training. People from low income backgrounds felt this more than most. Young people worry about conflict: they hold back because of peer censorship and the fear of being judged. The perception is that the AI won’t judge them. In a world where chatbots [have been linked to self-harm and suicide in young people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths%5Flinked%5Fto%5Fchatbots), that’s quite dangerous. The other findings here dovetail together to paint a pretty bleak picture. White and wealthier people feel more able to exercise their freedom of speech without consequence, and that number plummets to just 28% of Black respondents. Only around a half of college aged respondents felt like other democratic rights like voting were secure. So we find ourselves in a world where people don’t feel free to express themselves — except to AI chatbots that happen to be produced by some of the tech companies who have directly contributed to this underlying authoritarianism. It’s obvious how those conversations could be compromised, and there are certainly betrayals to come — but more than that, it’s just sad that young people don’t feel they can speak and share with each other. ### Graze's election night dashboard demonstrates the power of open algorithms URL: https://werd.io/grazes-election-night-dashboard-demonstrates-the-power-of-open-algorithms/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T17:25:52.000Z Link: [*Election Night 2026, by Graze Social*](https://midterms.graze.social/#trends) [This prototype from Graze](https://midterms.graze.social/) is remarkable. [Graze](https://graze.social), of course, allows you to create new Bluesky feeds. People have created feeds for news, sports, politics — anything you like. But they’ve mostly been consumed within the Bluesky experience itself. Its midterms dashboard is something different. Here, you can view discussion of candidate races based on the races you care about, determined by who you’re already following. Because newsrooms, pundits, and politically active individuals are posting across the network, and because the network itself is based on a permissionless protocol that is open to analysis, Graze can show you what’s happening as well as the mood of the conversation in real time. It’s all cited, so links point to newsrooms’s own accounts and websites. And it’s genuinely live. For someone who’s interested in the election, this is a fascinating tool. It may also be genuinely useful for newsrooms and other organizations that want to more easily have their finger on the pulse. And the fact that it’s all available openly, and built on a protocol that doesn’t require payment or permission, is huge. If this dashboard doesn’t quite meet your needs, you can build your own. ### The space to breathe URL: https://werd.io/the-space-to-breathe/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T17:14:05.000Z This January, [I wrote a hypothetical story about how to keep newsrooms safe from raids](https://werd.io/the-zurich-protocol/) the day before [federal agents raided Washington Post engagement reporter Hannah Natanson’s home](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/fbi-raid-washington-post-hannah-natanson). More than one industry person called me prescient, but I wasn’t. It was completely obvious this was going to happen. The environment for newsrooms during the second Trump administration is unprecedented: an increase in secret subpoenas, raids on journalists and newsrooms, ratcheted-up surveillance, new restrictions, and an overwhelming message that we should fall in line or face the consequences. In January, not every newsroom leader had accepted that the norms of American democracy were being so thoroughly undermined. Wouldn’t our Constitutional protections — and the principles we tell ourselves are American norms — hold up? I didn’t think so. For some Americans, those things had *never* been true; many newsroom leaders were simply too privileged to see it clearly, and therefore had a harder time believing it could happen. The gap between what America says it is and what it does was only going to become more obvious; I was firm in my intuition that the situation was going to be bad and get much worse. I didn’t make it up: my position was based on accounts from people inside government, stated intentions from administration politicians, and analysis from experts I trusted. It was also informed by the stories I grew up with, which in turn shaped how I see the world. Some of my father’s first memories are of the Ambarawa 6 concentration camp in Indonesia, run by Japanese forces to imprison around four thousand women and children. Torture and malnutrition were an ordinary part of life. My Oma gathered and cooked snails to provide extra protein for her children; my aunt escaped through the sewers to gather extra food. When they were finally liberated, they were on the brink of death. He later became an activist in Berkeley, protesting the Vietnam War and fighting for affirmative action. He experienced the betrayal of [COINTELPRO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO) and police overreach first hand. Years after Indonesia regained its independence after the war, [the US underwrote the killing of left-wing activists there](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FJakarta%5FMethod); simultaneously, it actively oppressed activists at home. I grew up with those stories. And I grew up hearing my Oma wailing as she suffered through nightmares every single night. As the Project 2025 plans began to play out, my limbic system was working overtime. If the things that were happening were not exactly the same as the stories I was raised on, they certainly rhymed. A lot of people feel this perception gap more than I do. I’ve usually worked in the C-suite, and although I have an immigrant background, I present as a straight, white man. Individual contributors in the newsroom are much more likely [to be women](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-03/Eddy%5Fet%5Fal%5FWomen%5Fand%5FLeadership%5F2023.pdf) and/or [people of color](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2025-03/Race%5Fand%5FLeadership%5F2025%5F0.pdf) than upper managers. They have been sounding the alarm, but haven’t always been listened to. Not only does that leave the newsroom unprepared, it leaves the people who are [on the ground actively doing the work](https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/reporters-newsroom-burnout-problem-solutions/) [burned out](https://racialreckoningmn.org/2021/09/17/poc-journalists-burning-out-leaving-mainstream-media/). Many reporters, particularly people of color, [wind up leaving the industry](https://voices.aaja.org/stories/virtual-2021/the-great-resignation-why-journalists-of-color-left-the-industry/), even though we arguably need their voices the most. I was not a reporter, although I was proud to work with people who were telling such important stories about our new reality. My role was to lead product engineering, IT, and security; the technology behind our publishing platforms, the systems that enabled the journalism to be done every day, and the digital policies that kept our newsroom safe. The day-to-day rhythm of those things is never boring in a *good* year. It was not a good year. One of the purposes of the relentless dystopia of the second Trump administration is to [“flood the zone”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood%5Fthe%5Fzone): provide an ongoing distraction that prevents real analysis of substantive policies, and keep the media in a reactive mode rather than one where they can take a step back and strategize. Even if you’re not reporting on each new development, you’re reading and internalizing it; the environment of non-stop cruelty has a real cognitive effect. As someone who worked in a newsroom, I couldn’t look away: there was no respite. That was particularly true when right-wing activists doxxed me [in the aftermath of ProPublica’s identification of the CBP agents who killed Alex Pretti](https://www.propublica.org/article/alex-pretti-shooting-cbp-agents-identified-jesus-ochoa-raymundo-gutierrez). ProPublica’s reporting is consistently high quality, thoroughly fact checked, and [visceral](https://www.propublica.org/article/usaid-cholera-deaths-trump-humanitarian-aid-cuts-south-sudan). An industry that has not had the foresight to be prepared, and is then hit in the face by an unstoppable firehose, can only be in reactive mode. But journalism can’t afford to be. As an industry, it’s been in decline for years: first through a failure to adapt to the web, then through loss of its incumbent business models, and finally because the administration and its allies are actively trying to harm it. These problems are urgent. We need trustworthy information and context to make good democratic decisions. We need sustained sunlight [to fight political corruption and abuse](https://business.gmu.edu/news/2024-11/are-us-news-deserts-hothouses-corruption). Even if we don’t care about the journalism industry itself, we should care about having a high-functioning democratic society. But if everybody is burned out from everything that’s happening outside their workplaces and from the disconnect with the people they work for, nobody is mentally present enough to do the work to fix it. Research consistently finds that stressors people cannot control [significantly reduce creativity](https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-00343-010.html). Uncontrollable stress impairs the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s seat of flexible, reflective thought, and [pushes cognition into a reactive mode](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2907136/). Unfortunately, that describes newsrooms in 2026 exactly. Flooding the zone doesn’t just work on institutions; it works on all of our brains. And in this era, the less power we have, the more uncontrollable stress we experience. I previously wrote about [looking for a “yes, and” space](https://werd.io/seeking-a-yes-and-space/), and how I found it in my [JSK Fellowship](https://jsk.stanford.edu). To that, I would add: to innovate, you need to be able to breathe and play. More than anything, you need to give yourself the time and space to let your brain *unclench*. You need a space to *breathe*. Those spaces are disproportionately available to the privileged. If you come from privilege, you have more ability to take time out, reflect, be healthy, and look at the bigger picture. But at the same time, people who *don’t* come from privilege — who are more likely to have more diverse backgrounds, cut across race, class, gender, and geography — have more value to add. [In news, people trust journalism less when they aren’t represented](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/08/31/americans-see-skepticism-of-news-media-as-healthy-say-public-trust-in-the-institution-can-improve/) in the newsrooms that serve them, because they’re [less likely to be covered accurately and fairly](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2023/09/26/black-americans-experiences-with-news/). Consider Kensington, one of the most complex neighborhoods in Philadelphia, which [the New York Times called “the Walmart of Heroin”](https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/kensington-voice-newsroom-community-journalism-20190215.html). [Kensington Voice](https://www.kensingtonvoice.com/) sprang up to accurately cover it, giving a more representative voice to that community. Of the two newsrooms, Kensington Voice could see the challenges its communities faced with much greater fidelity. But at the end of September, [it announced it no longer has the funding to publish new stories](https://www.kensingtonvoice.com/an-update-from-kensington-voice/). Finding that breathing space to do something different is *hard*. The people who can see America most clearly, and therefore have the best chance to solve its problems, are the people who have the least time and space to think. The JSK fellowships provide one way for a broader set of insightful people to find space to think. (My imposter syndrome still looms very large.) But we also need to think about how to create these spaces *inside* newsrooms. We can’t turn the firehose off: news is news, and everything is happening all of the time. But we can intentionally design our cultures to provide more room for breathing and innovation. We can build cultures that give everyone not just a voice but equity and say in the decisions a newsroom makes. The creativity-killer is *uncontrollable* stress; the more control and ownership everyone in a newsroom has, the more cognitive freedom they have to innovate. It’s also about time. We need to make space in our organizations to step away from the firehose, experiment, and build prototypes. We need [“yes, and”](https://werd.io/seeking-a-yes-and-space/) spaces, but we also just need the permission to spend some time doing something else, get feedback, and iterate, without the pressures that put us in a reactive mode. Those protected spaces can’t just be for upper managers and people with official strategy responsibilities; to be effective, they should be available to everyone, coupled with real design guidance and training. Ideally, we would build this inside the newsrooms we already have; if we need to build new ones to give people the space they need to better serve their communities, so be it. I came here thinking I’d focus on platforms. I think the bigger problem is culture. It’s a harder problem, but it all starts from there. ### Amazon tries to placate data center protesters URL: https://werd.io/amazon-tries-to-placate-data-center-protesters/ Last updated: 2026-10-03T16:05:43.000Z Link: [*Amazon pledges $1B to data center communities, warns that local opposition threatens U.S. AI lead, by Todd Bishop in GeekWire*](https://www.geekwire.com/2026/amazon-pledges-1b-to-data-center-communities-warns-that-local-opposition-threatens-u-s-ai-lead/) This is a sign that protests are working: > “Amazon says it will spend more than $1 billion over five years in the U.S. communities where it builds and operates data centers, responding to a growing backlash across the country against the tech industry’s massive AI infrastructure buildout.” But I’d consider this a *settlement* rather than a *win*: companies like Amazon need the data centers to be built in order to continue their growth. Communities opposing them should be able to keep pressing and get bigger, ongoing concessions at the very least. The objections here follow a predictable playbook: claims about widespread foreign interference (because surely no *real* American could oppose data centers in their communities) and a warning that America will lose to China if it doesn’t keep building. It’s a scaremongering technique designed to keep people in line without offering further benefits to communities. America won’t lose; *Amazon* might. The current concessions over five years represent 0.1% of Amazon’s annual capital spending. It’s less than pocket change — *and* Amazon isn’t forgoing tax breaks, so it may get it all back anyway. And it seems odd that these benefits are set up as something like an altruistic program through Amazon’s own “Built Together” program. Really it should be money that flows directly into towns and cities, on an ongoing basis, with zero strings attached and no involvement from the company. Those towns can do the same things Amazon is claiming to do, but on their terms, and in a way that doesn’t tie them to Amazon’s infrastructure and isn’t a weird PR win for the company. There’s more to do. This is a sign that the protesters can get much more for their communities. ### The Lenfest AI Collaborative has additional funding. That's great for open source in news. URL: https://werd.io/the-lenfest-ai-collaborative-has-additional-funding-thats-great-for-open-source-in-news/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T00:13:21.000Z Link: [*OpenAI doubles support for Lenfest’s AI and local news fellowships, by Andrew Deck in Nieman Lab*](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/09/openai-doubles-support-for-lenfests-ai-and-local-news-fellowships/) I participated in this program in my former role of Senior Director of Technology at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org). Because I’m no longer there, it’s no longer my place to say how it went / how it’s going, but I’ll summarize it this way: I have no regrets. The two AI fellows I got to hire are genuinely wonderful people who I hope to work with again, and I learned a ton from other newsrooms in the program. If you’ve followed my writing for any length of time you know that I’m very far from being an AI fanboy, and there was never a sense that I needed to stray from the extremely careful approach that is appropriate for a newsroom like ProPublica. We did not need to use any particular approach or vendor, and most importantly, nobody ever asked us to do anything that would compromise the trust or safety of the newsroom or its community. (The idea isn’t to displace reporters, or any human; it’s to *potentially* give them new tools.) At its core, it was just an opportunity to explore a new technology in community with other mission-driven newsrooms. It’s also a way for newsrooms to regain their confidence in sharing their technical approaches and code, collaborating with other newsrooms, and (sometimes) open-sourcing their work. That, to me, is a benefit that probably outweighs the use of any technology. Newsrooms *should* be sharing; they *should* be collaborating; they *should* be working together. Hopefully, even when the cohort is over and everyone has moved on to think about something else, they will retain this muscle. It’s important. ### The Public Ledger of Credentials directory is taking flight URL: https://werd.io/the-public-ledger-of-credentials-directory-is-taking-flight/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T18:50:34.000Z Link: [*First steps of the PLC organization, by Public Ledger of Credentials Organization*](https://blog.plcred.org/3mwlphq42d227) Since Bluesky’s foundation, its mission has been to work on an open social media protocol that gives users a “credible exit” from any one company’s services while allowing them to continue participating in the network. This has two important effects. The first is that users can feel safe investing in the network knowing they’re insulated from any one company’s individual business decisions (if their social media provider makes a boneheaded decision, they can move to another one without losing their networks or content). The second, which is even more important to me, is that the network is insulated against monopoly power. When one company owns the way everyone communicates and learns, their incentives and priorities dominate how the network works, granting them unprecedented power over democratic discourse. The most obvious example is Elon Musk, who bought Twitter [to spread his values and suppress those he disagrees with](https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/elon-musk-confirms-he-bought-twitter). But he’s not alone: the [US attempted to co-opt TikTok because they were worried the Chinese government might have undue influence over content viewed by American citizens](https://hls.harvard.edu/today/is-the-new-us-tiktok-safer/). In an open network, that level of control is much harder to obtain; anyone can start an alternative application provider, and anyone can migrate to it. In a fully decentralized network, no-one — not a would-be oligarch, nor a nation — can have outsized control. One criticism of Bluesky has historically been that it’s *not* been fully decentralized. Originally, it provided the only application and datastore that sat on the network, and it was the only organization doing identity management — so, while there was an open protocol underneath it, in practice users couldn’t pick anyone else’s services or really migrate. There have been alternative application and datastore providers for a while: [Blacksky](https://blackskyweb.xyz/) broke the ice with an application, algorithms, and data stores that allow communities to govern their own data and fund collective needs. [Eurosky](https://www.eurosky.tech/), which hosts and processes inside the EU, and [Gander](https://gandersocial.ca/), a Canadian alternative, are some of the providers that followed. More are showing up every day. Which left identity resolution — the underlying address book that takes a user’s ID on the network (their [Decentralized Identifier](https://web.plc.directory/)) and figures out where their data is stored. That had previously been handled by Bluesky itself, but today’s announcement heralds the first steps of transferring it into the hands of [an independent Public Ledger of Credentials Organization](https://blog.plcred.org/3mwlphq42d227), headquartered in Switzerland. This is exciting to see, and is another step towards having a fully decentralized network. Bluesky did a great job of attracting journalists, authors, and other people who want to discuss culture and society; those conversations are too important to be owned by any one entity. We’re closer than ever to a social media commons that really works. ### Trump TV is the only source of footage of the President. That may be exactly what he wants. URL: https://werd.io/trump-tv-is-the-only-source-of-footage-of-the-president-that-may-be-exactly-what-he-wants/ Last updated: 2026-09-22T16:56:05.000Z Link: [*Trump TV Draws Ire Amid White House Press Shutout: 'State-Run Media', by Casey Loving in The Wrap*](https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/trump-tv-press-shutout-state-run-media-reactions/) It’s not an accident that Trump’s move [to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8dx5dy5rzz2o) and, the same week, start his own friendly streaming channel happened just before the midterm elections. [As The Wrap reported](https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/trump-tv-press-shutout-state-run-media-reactions/): > “The White House posted \[a\] message on X on Monday to announce Trump TV, a 24/7 livestream of ‘top past moments, announcements and the latest and greatest from the administration all in one place.’ While the Trump administration and members of the political right are calling this feed a win, others have different words for it: ‘state-run media.’” It’s more than that: calling it “state-run media” would be pulling our punches. It’s a fully fledged propaganda network. If it had been established with press access to the White House fully functioning, it would have floundered as yet another half-assed also-ran attempt by the Presidency; without a fully functioning press pool, newsrooms are likely to turn to it to inform their coverage. And the press pool is in trouble. [Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC subsequently pulled out of pooled TV coverage of White House events in solidarity](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8dx5dy5rzz2o). This is good to see, but in some ways it may also be what Trump wants: his channel then becomes the main source of footage from the President’s own events. In a normal world where the norms of American democracy were seen as worth preserving, the White House would back down. In a world where the country is being deliberately dragged into authoritarianism, it may not. [A First Amendment lawsuit seeks to reinstate the banned newsrooms’ access](https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/tv-networks-suspend-white-house-pool-protest-trump-cnn-ban-1236871070/). Hopefully, it will succeed. In the meantime, Trump may still get eyes on a content channel his administration wholly owns, which broadcasts the Trump message without context or scrutiny, as he aims to take the country down a road it may not be able to easily return from. ### Seeking a "yes, and" space URL: https://werd.io/seeking-a-yes-and-space/ Last updated: 2026-09-30T20:30:10.000Z Twenty-two years ago this month, I moved house. I’d been living in Edinburgh, an ancient city whose gothic architecture cuts into an expansive sky. Even the air felt apart from the rest of the country: there was a different sort of chill to it, and it carried a malt smell from the breweries on the edge of town. When the train doors opened at Waverley Station, I didn’t just know I was home; I felt it on my skin and in my bones. Edinburgh is famous for its support of the arts: the Festivals double the population of the city each summer. People fly in from all over the world to showcase their creativity and find new audiences. The city is alive. But I had to leave. I’d been working on Elgg, the open source social networking platform I co-founded. It was originally built as a reaction to the prevailing educational technology platforms, which seemed to have been built to satisfy compliance teams rather than to help anybody learn. *People are already learning from each other on the web,* was the implication. *Let’s take those ideas and bring them in.* Nobody had coined “Web 2.0” yet, but that’s what we were building: a way to support the informal learning and connection that happens in hallways, study rooms, clubs, and parties. Those relationships and conversations are what you really take away with you when you graduate, but they were completely absent from the prevailing software. But the social headwinds were enormous. “It’ll never work here,” we were told, again and again. “Blogging is for teenage girls crying in their bedrooms,” one university leader memorably told us. We were in our early stages, looking for generative conversations, and they were hard to come by. In improv theater, there’s a [*yes, and* rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,%5Fand%5F...) that allows everyone to build on each other’s ideas without destroying the flow. A *no, but* response is conversation-ending punctuation: the generative energy has been terminated. But in Scotland, all we were getting was “no, but”. We were looking for optimistic creativity but could only find pessimism. The difference in energy when I moved back to Oxford, my hometown, was night and day. I was able to find the *yes, and* energy I needed, and I felt less alone in trying to build something new. Elgg eventually powered networks for Ivy League universities, multinational corporations and NGOs, governments, and impactful social movements. None of it would have happened if I’d succumbed to the pessimism. (It’s worth saying that Edinburgh has since established a robust innovation scene — and much of it is down to creating a cultural shift as well as simply providing infrastructure. Both help, but culture is key: it’s incredibly hard to create anything new if you’re being told none of it will work every day.) Twenty-two years later, I’ve made another move — and I’m experiencing the same vibe shift. There are one hundred and sixty-six Canary palms on Palm Drive, the long, straight road that leads to the oval that serves as the entrance to the Stanford campus. Every morning, I walk past each one. Every evening, I walk back. The sky is blue save for the low-flying planes coming in to land at SFO. Every few minutes, a Waymo self-driving car drives past me; more than once, a coyote or a hare has crossed my path. This is home now. A little over two weeks ago, I arrived on the Stanford campus. During the month of August, I moved out of my house and drove across country. The Pennsylvania forests and rolling hills of Appalachia gave way to cornfields, plains, salt flats, and mountains. Back home, my house was on the market. This isn’t a subtle move to a next chapter: it’s all change. For the next academic year, I’ll be a [JSK Fellow](https://jsk.stanford.edu/): part of [a cohort of thirteen people](https://jsk.stanford.edu/fellows) invited to Stanford to explore and test out practical responses to the challenges facing journalists and journalism around the world. I’ll spend almost every day on campus, taking courses, visiting research labs, attending and hosting events, and connecting with people across disciplines and backgrounds. Immediately, two things hit me. First: every single person in my fellowship cohort is inspiring. I get to share a room with people who have made enormous differences to their communities through their dedication to journalism, in places like Ukraine and Venezuela as well as here at home. The JSK staff are similarly impressive, with their own backstories of real impact. I feel very lucky to be in the room with them (and, inevitably, like a bit of an imposter). Second: this is *explicitly* a *yes, and* space. The change in pressure and energy was palpable. And it couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Newsrooms are under threat financially, politically, technically, and existentially. In that environment, it’s easy to become a *no, but* culture: when everything you do is scrutinized, the culturally safest thing to do is to take the conservative path. Decisions are made to iterate on the status quo rather than take leaps of faith. I’ve heard “this will never work here” as a thought-terminating statement at the early stages of a project’s ideation many times. When there *are* real changes, rather than innovate and do something new based on their community’s real needs, many newsrooms in the United States simply ask the question: “what is the *New York Times* doing?” It’s understandable — the conditions that newsrooms are forced to work under are far from ideal — but it comes with a real cost, particularly when trust in journalism and loyalty to newsrooms are plummeting, in the fastest period of technology change (and therefore journalistic and democratic change) in decades. Real journalism provides the information and context that people need to make informed decisions, including who to vote for; it is part of the bedrock for a functioning democracy. As it happens, journalism’s decline is coinciding with democracy’s decline. We need new ideas that will serve our communities more effectively, and fast. Entrenching in the status quo or copying the *Times* won’t cut it. And, speaking purely for myself, that widening gap between the immense, crucial need and what actions newsrooms are prepared to take can lead to burnout and learned helplessness. I badly needed a *yes, and* space. It’s been two weeks. If the onboarding was the extent of my JSK experience it would be incredibly valuable: the mindset shift I desperately needed, and a set of tools that usefully reframe what I’ve been thinking about. But it’s a nine-month program, and there’s a lot more to come. The need for innovation in news is not exactly new. When I first moved to the United States fifteen years ago, one of my first acts was to attend a design thinking session about the future of news at [the Stanford d.School](https://dschool.stanford.edu/) as part of [Ben Huh’s Moby Dick Project](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/cheezburger-ceo-ben-huhs-latest-voyage-time-to-rethink-journalism/). It foreshadowed everything that would happen next: I’ve been working on media innovation ever since, including for years [at Matter](https://matter.vc/meet-matter-seven/), a media accelerator that was heavily rooted in the d.School’s methodology. We liked to quote the academic Clay Shirky, who wrote about the need for experimentation in the industry as the newspaper market started to bottom out with the phrase: [“nothing *will* work, but everything *might*.”](http://shirky.com/weblog/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/) Last week, I spent the day at the d.School again as part of my onboarding, and I felt that phrase resonating again. “Nothing *will* work, but everything *might*.” Let’s be generative. Every JSK fellow applies with a question that they want to pursue. Here’s mine, as I originally framed it: Trust in journalism [is in long-term decline](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/29/how-americans-trust-in-information-from-news-organizations-and-social-media-sites-has-changed-over-time/). Referrals to news articles from search engines and social media [are also declining](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/search-traffic-has-declined-so-much-that-some-publishers-are-considering-opting-out-of-google-entirely/). There are many reasons for this. Google switching to AI-powered instant answers and seismic changes in incentives by the owners of prominent social media platforms are two commonly-stated causes, but they aren’t the whole story. It’s also true that many newsrooms didn’t understand or adapt to changes in how people want to interact with information that came about in the Web 2.0 era. Newsrooms still cling to a broadcast or publishing model rather than embracing conversation as a community of journalists and readers. People believe news is biased and shaped according to the needs of each newsroom’s corporate owners, but newsrooms don’t want to open up their process or add transparency for fear of becoming part of the story. Most modern newsrooms live or die on the web, but the web is a conversation, not a broadcast medium, and newsrooms typically haven’t upgraded their thinking to fit. Helping them to build stronger human relationships with their communities — and each other — on the web will increase trust, loyalty, and resilience. And new community platform technologies like [ATproto](https://atproto.com/guides/overview) and [ActivityPub](https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/) could help provide building blocks for new kinds of news sites that elevate community and relationships to first-class parts of a newsroom’s work. In [the community-first software era](https://werd.io/the-community-first-software-era/), I expanded on where I might start with this idea: > Newsrooms rely on something called a “callout” when they want to learn more from their readers. More often than not, this is a simple web form: “Has your doctor pushed this prescription medication? Let us know.” But instead of a two-dimensional form, what if we built a short-term community space that safely brought readers in and allowed them to discuss in more depth with the journalists? > > My bet is that two things will happen: the journalists will get better information, because it will arise in conversation, and those readers will build stronger, more transparent relationships with the newsroom. And stronger, more transparent relationships will lead to more trust and more loyalty. It sounds plausible, right? And maybe it is. But in the process of discussing my idea with other fellows, through the genuinely excellent facilitation by [Tran Ha](https://jsk.stanford.edu/people/tran-ha) and [Jenn Brandel](https://jennyeverything.com/), I’ve realized I’ve skipped into solution-land without spending enough time on making sure I’ve framed the problem correctly. I’ve been led by these beliefs: - I believe that good journalism is a vital prerequisite for democracy: good contextual information allows us to make strong democratic decisions, including who to vote for, when to protest, where to spend our money, and how to use our voices. - I also believe that many of our societal problems have been caused by platforms like X and Facebook that are so large that their owners can affect democratic discourse on a global scale, and that open protocols prevent anyone from having that much power. - And finally, I believe that AI is abstracting us away from the human information sources that can provide real context and connection. Those are genuine beliefs I hold. But they’re abstract, ideological ideas. The idea that journalism is important, or that AI has a distancing effect, doesn’t connect to someone who can’t find stories that represent their community or who has had to build an AI prompt to pull together actionable information because it was scattered. The idea that open protocols are better doesn’t speak to someone who needs to share information with their community in a safer way because they’re under attack on incumbent platforms. These things are hard to explore when you’re a part of an existing organization, with its own culture, norms, rhythms, and risks. Here, I’m not *Ben Werdmuller, Senior Director of Technology at ProPublica* (or *CTO at The 19th*, *Director of Investments at Matter*, *Co-founder of Elgg*, etc) — I’m a fellow with a mandate to explore independently. I don’t need to be restricted by an organizational context; I can sit with the problem in my own time and space. It’s a gift. For my project, my first task is to learn more about the ecosystem I want to help. Which communities should I start with? What are their characteristics? What are their needs? Who are the newsrooms that serve them today? As a human, my task is also to fully break out of a reactive, iterative mindset and into one of holistic exploration. How can I serve my own mind, body, and spirit so that I can work on these problems to the best of my ability? How can I learn from my fellowship cohort and the incredible people on the Stanford campus? How can I show up for them so that we can support each other’s work and each make the impact we set out to achieve? And how can I embrace my own inner *yes, and*? That’s my mission at the start of this year. I’m going to take you with me — and I hope to be in conversation with many of you as I progress. Let’s work on this together. ### Buy my house! URL: https://werd.io/buy-my-house/ Last updated: 2026-09-16T10:01:55.000Z This is, perhaps, an unusual post for me in this space, but: I’m selling my home, it's a great house, and I want you to know about it. [7 Windsor Ave, Elkins Park, PA](https://redf.in/nsPDEP) was built in 1925\. Set on half an acre of land, it’s a beautiful Tudor home with a ton of space and flexibility. [The photos speak for themselves.](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7-Windsor-Ave-Elkins-Park-PA-19027/9918234%5Fzpid/) I loved living here. Its second floor rooms are well-suited to being set up as spacious work-from-home offices, which is what we did — the whole family comfortably worked from the house. I commuted into the offices in Manhattan and DC many times a month, which I found both easy and genuinely fun via train — and the rest of the time I enjoyed the leafy, peaceful neighborhood. It’s very close to schools and daycares, and it felt like a privilege to be able to do drop-off and pick-up on foot. I’ve headed west for an opportunity I couldn’t say no to, but it was emotionally hard to part with it. I fell in love with it in many ways — there’s no way I could have this level of space and peace while maintaining proximity to major cities at this price in California. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcthrS-PxKI/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Charlotte Marinello Pellechia (@charpellechia)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcthrS-PxKI/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) Elkins Park is an architecturally significant suburb of Philadelphia: [Frank Lloyd Wright’s only synagogue](https://www.bethsholompreservation.org/) and [Lynnewood Hall](https://lynnewoodhallpreservation.org/) are both in the neighborhood, and the homes are magnificent. And as I mentioned above, it’s also a very accessible commute into New York City. There’s public transit within a few minutes’ walk, which takes you into Philadelphia, [30th Street Station](https://www.amtrak.com/stations/phl), and [Philadelphia International Airport](https://www.phl.org/) without changes. Elkins Park itself has restaurants, a coffee roastery, and [a great bookstore](https://openbookphilly.square.site/). The [*Crying in H Mart*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612676/crying-in-h-mart-by-michelle-zauner/) H Mart is also here; the Korean restaurants in the neighborhood are so good that people travel from NYC to eat there. It’s just a few minutes away from Glenside — the [Keswick Theatre](https://www.keswicktheatre.com/) there hosts acts like the Magnetic Fields and John Waters — and Jenkintown, which is home to breweries, indie movie houses, and more. 7 Windsor Ave is represented by Charlotte Pellechia at Kurfiss Sotheby’s. [You can book a viewing via its Zillow listing](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7-Windsor-Ave-Elkins-Park-PA-19027/9918234%5Fzpid/) or [contact Charlotte directly](https://www.sothebysrealty.com/kurfiss/eng/sales/detail/717-l-85065-jc4d2n/7-windsor-avenue-elkins-park-pa-19027). [![The entrance hall](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/09/6a30e9d4e6ab5c105036528c74c35c78-uncropped_scaled_within_1536_1152.webp)](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7-Windsor-Ave-Elkins-Park-PA-19027/9918234%5Fzpid/?utm%5Fcampaign=zillowwebmessage&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=txtshare) [![The library](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/09/image.png)](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7-Windsor-Ave-Elkins-Park-PA-19027/9918234%5Fzpid/?utm%5Fcampaign=zillowwebmessage&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=txtshare) [![Part of the master bedroom](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/09/image-1.png)](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7-Windsor-Ave-Elkins-Park-PA-19027/9918234%5Fzpid/?utm%5Fcampaign=zillowwebmessage&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=txtshare) [![7 Windsor Ave's large front garden](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/09/image-2.png)](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7-Windsor-Ave-Elkins-Park-PA-19027/9918234%5Fzpid/?utm%5Fcampaign=zillowwebmessage&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=txtshare) ### Notable links: September 11, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-september-11-2026/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T16:48:53.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-august-14-2026/#/portal)*.* --- ### [Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI and Microsoft](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/05/seattle-times-and-newsday-are-the-latest-publications-to-sue-openai-and-microsoft/) I have some complicated feelings about these ongoing newsroom lawsuits against AI companies. [The latest comes from The Seattle Times and Newsday](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/05/seattle-times-and-newsday-are-the-latest-publications-to-sue-openai-and-microsoft/). From the lawsuit itself: > “AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as producers of content, but in fact they are rapacious consumers, devouring human-authored content and delivering back to the world copies and derivative imitations of that same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial objectives.” [The government has argued that training LLMs is fair use](https://walledculture.org/us-government-argues-that-fair-use-applies-to-openais-training-of-llms-in-key-copyright-case/), and organizations like the EFF have agreed with it. [The EFF’s argument in particular is important to take note of](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/eff-courts-dont-rewrite-copyright-over-ai-hype): > “The “market dilution” theory would eviscerate not only the fair use doctrine, but also other limits on copyright that work specifically to prevent rightsholders from unfairly suppressing competition by claiming broad ownership over tropes, genres, styles, and so on. In other words, publishers would wield unchecked veto power over any expression that might conceivably compete with a work they own.” That’s a genuine problem! Expanding the scope of copyright law really does affect free expression. It’s an important concern to bring up — if the market dilution argument held, it could protect all sorts of businesses, both small and multinational. No industry deserves to exist for its own sake, and we can’t ask the world to stay still to protect an industry. Systems and methods that work against journalism can’t be illegal in their own right. At the same time, *we need journalism*. An informed voting population is a prerequisite for a functioning democracy. The implication is that if the old methods no longer allow it to be sustainable, journalism *must* evolve and find new methods that are. We need information, context, and reporting; we *don’t* need the businesses that produce those things to operate in the exact same way they do now, or to look similar to how they do today. There’s no doubt that AI in its current form takes work that is often independently produced by people with relatively few resources and uses it to enhance models that are controlled by large tech companies with billions of dollars at their disposal, which are often, in turn, *controlled* by billionaires. It’s a giant transfer of property from people with relatively low power to some of the most powerful people in the world. I think it’s fair to say they’re strip-mining culture to enrich themselves. But those power dynamics are not entirely cut and dry. The EFF’s point is, in part, that expanding copyright scope will primarily benefit large corporations like Disney that have often, themselves, applied a chokehold to cultural expression. In preventing strip-mining by some billionaires, there’s a risk of giving new powers to *other* billionaires. Although I want to focus on the power dynamics, there’s also a mechanical objection to consider. LLMs are performing statistical analysis on source material in order to train, and the outputs are created using probabilistic math, not intentional reproduction. We need to retain the ability to analyze creative work for all kinds of reasons, and even index it — consider search engine indices, which I think we generally want to exist so that people can find our work. Of course, actual verbatim outputs — or approximate copies thereof — are plagiarism. And the materials LLMs are trained on are often obtained illegally or outside the terms of their licensing agreements: unambiguous theft that needs to be treated accordingly. [The Anthropic copyright settlement was about this](https://authorsguild.org/advocacy/artificial-intelligence/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement/): it wasn’t that training on books was found to be infringing in itself. In fact, Anthropic was found not liable for this. It was that *it stole them*. [Anthropic settled for billions of dollars](https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/). That’s good in itself, but it turns out — surprise, surprise — that [many publishers took the money for themselves and didn’t pass them down to authors](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/books/anthropic-settlement-ai-copyright-books.html), even when the rights had reverted *to* those authors. The elephant in the room is that [copyright *was never* designed to protect individual authors](https://www.techdirt.com/2012/04/10/yes-copyrights-sole-purpose-is-to-benefit-public/): it was designed to benefit the public, with author protections a necessary means to that end. In practice, most journalists, artists, etc, don’t own their work to begin with, and royalties are frequently corporation-to-corporation transfers even without AI. The Newsday and Seattle Times lawsuits seek to protect corporate interests in a rapidly-changing market, with journalist reward effectively a trickle-down benefit. That's not to single them out in any way; it's just the industry dynamic. The licensing deals emerging as the market solution — among them [OpenAI with News Corp](https://openai.com/index/news-corp-and-openai-sign-landmark-multi-year-global-partnership/), [Axel Springer](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/global-news-publisher-axel-springer-partners-with-openai-landmark-deal-2023-12-13/), [the FT](https://aboutus.ft.com/press%5Frelease/openai); [Amazon with the New York Times](https://www.lawfuel.com/how-the-new-york-times-just-changed-the-ai-content-game-forever/) — are corporate deals. Individual journalists and freelancers whose work constitutes the value see little of it, except in that it’s revenue that theoretically allows their employers to continue to exist and employ them. We probably need a new deal for creators that touches several levels. The first is contracts and labor conditions. Unions have a huge part to play on this side of the equation. [The Writers Guild of America won reasonable AI concessions from studios after their 2023 strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%5FWriters%5FGuild%5Fof%5FAmerica%5Fstrike), ensuring that writer compensation couldn’t be diluted if a studio used AI. [A revised contract](https://www.wgacontract.org/the-campaign/summary-of-the-2026-wga-mba) this year also gave them written notice rights when studios intend to train models on their work, and a right to discuss compensation. That’s great for members of the WGA, but most creative workers aren’t a part of an industry union. If that changed, both publishers and AI vendors would need to negotiate more creator-favorable terms. It seems like it should be a goal. The second is infrastructure. We need independent creators to be able to set rights over their work and enforce them. [Really Simple Licensing](https://rslstandard.org/press/rsl-standard) is one effort that’s working in this direction: a way to create an ASCAP-like standard for creative work. Notably, though, [not a single major AI vendor has agreed to comply](https://www.implicator.ai/publishers-demand-payment-from-ai-through-new-licensing-protocol/). There are [criticisms of the collective licensing approach generally](https://legalblogs.wolterskluwer.com/copyright-blog/collective-licensing-for-gen-ai-training-feasible-or-flawed-part-1/), and there’s still a platform compensation problem: if Reddit implements RSL, *it* will receive revenue, but its users who created the licensed content probably won’t. The third is law. Our existing rules need to be updated to protect creators, *regardless* of AI; the advent of generative AI has made it even more important. Publishers must not be able to take all the money from licensing creative work ([the EU’s Digital Single Market Directive](https://www.arthurcox.com/knowledge/dsm-directive-and-fair-remuneration-for-authors-and-performers/) is a good model to follow). AI vendors should be transparent about what they’re training on and how. Nobody should be able to steal training material. And rules should be revised to reflect that work can now be trained on and used to generate content at scale, automatically, which has knock-on effects on the public good. These are all big topics. The shift we have to contend with is seismic in a way that hasn’t been rivaled since the advent of the web itself (and in some ways the impact on creators and publishers may be bigger than that). Each newsroom lawsuit is a kind of shot across the bow; the substantive conversations we need to be having are more expansive. But, in a political environment where AI vendors are aligned with the administration, and in a world where so many people want to be excited about AI in not very nuanced ways, I wonder if the conversations and actions that would lead to more equitable treatment and compensation for creators will be allowed to happen at all. Newsrooms should protect themselves, but news as an industry should make sure it's looking out for the people who create its value, too. --- ### [LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby](https://www.theverge.com/tech/991190/lg-tv-spying-standby-recording-wi-fi-scanning-gamers-nexus) [This is an enormous abuse of trust](https://www.theverge.com/tech/991190/lg-tv-spying-standby-recording-wi-fi-scanning-gamers-nexus): > “LG smart TVs are almost constantly logging and uploading data about owners and their homes, even when offline or on standby mode. \[…\] Packet captures showed the TVs scanning the local area network for nearby hardware like phones or smartwatches, as well as logging location data and details of nearby Wi-Fi networks, and feeding the information back to LG Ad Solutions. Perhaps more concerningly, the TVs were capable of recording microphone audio when in standby; this continued even after the TV was disconnected from the internet, with audio files stored offline and uploaded once a connection was restored.” Most households invite at least one television into their homes. It’s almost impossible to buy one without smart TV features; because most television shows are streamed over the internet these days, they’re usually online. You could leave the TV offline while connecting it to a separate box like an Apple TV, but it’ll keep nagging you to connect. The contract should look like this: you pay for a TV and it shows you stuff. The idea that it will scan your local network for devices, determine what content you like to watch, and maybe even *listen to you using a built-in microphone* is not something that anybody signs up for. Someone somewhere at LG has been so incentivized to make a graph go up and to the right that they have decided that basic ethical tenets like privacy and transparency aren’t worth holding on to. That’s particularly important in a world where the Department of Homeland Security has created *Minority Report*\-style [Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams who instruct police to pull people over based on profiled data like their financial activity](https://www.404media.co/a-secretive-dhs-predictive-policing-unit-is-analyzing-americans-financial-habits-and-pulling-them-over/), despite there being no evidence that they have committed a crime. Data from disparate sources is routinely bought by law enforcement and agencies like DHS in order to create these sorts of profiles; a connected TV in your home could easily contribute. Are you watching the wrong kind of content? Automatic Content Recognition could rat you out. Are the devices connected to your home network outside of the norm? Up goes a flag. So that’s homes. But most offices have TVs installed somewhere, too. Consider that an installed smart TV could easily be snooping on network devices, content, and even video calls conducted over these screens. Some more sophisticated offices will have them set to a less privileged network or insist on them remaining offline; most will dutifully connect them up. The result is a live microphone and content recognition tech installed in newsrooms, universities, non-profits, and businesses around the country. Manufacturers like LG can sell this data. They will likely argue that it keeps TV prices down – and maybe that’s true. But [this reporting comes after LG promised regulators in Texas to stop collecting viewing data without informed consent](https://decrypt.co/377637/lg-tv-might-be-listening-even-when-off); [there’s a second mic that may continue recording even when the main microphone setting has been turned off](https://atlas21.com/gamers-nexus-says-lg-tvs-capture-audio-and-scan-networks/). They’ve shown they cannot be trusted. This kind of invisible data gathering should be illegal. Nobody signed up to be spied on; they just want to watch TV. --- ### [AI safety is designed in the West, and failing users everywhere](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-safety-bias/) Amnesty International believes that [Facebook was complicit in the genocide against the Rohingya people in Myanmar](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/): > “In 2017, the Rohingya were killed, tortured, raped, and displaced in the thousands as part of the Myanmar security forces’ campaign of ethnic cleansing. In the months and years leading up to the atrocities, Facebook’s algorithms were intensifying a storm of hatred against the Rohingya which contributed to real-world violence.” It wasn’t that anyone at Facebook actively wanted to enable a genocide: they just didn’t care about *not* enabling one. Their teams were warned at least fifteen times, but mitigating this obvious harm was deprioritized in favor of other things. They were focused on their own world, with its epicenter in Menlo Park, California. Ultimately, although Facebook was not the source of the genocide, its use contributed significantly, leading to Rohingya deaths. By prioritizing growth in Myanmar but not staffing for local needs, it invested in its valuation rather than preventing harm in a country it didn’t care about. So it’s more than a little concerning to see AI vendors making the same mistakes. As Rina Chandran writes in Rest of World, failures in the Global South caused by Silicon-Valley-centric product development [are becoming more common](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-safety-bias/): > “For example, in Tigrinya, spoken by about 9 million people in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, machine translation rendered smallpox as syphilis, gonorrhea as diabetes and ‘you have been given intravenous antibiotics’ as ‘you have been given intravenous insecticides.’” While international efforts like [the Bletchley Declaration](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-2023-the-bletchley-declaration/the-bletchley-declaration-by-countries-attending-the-ai-safety-summit-1-2-november-2023) aim to mitigate what are considered to be frontier risks of AI, it asks for little accountability for the other harms that inevitably arise from product teams that aren’t rooted in the interests, needs, norms, and values of diverse international communities. Those harms can add up to become deep wounds in themselves, but it’s also worth asking another question. As Rest of World points out: > “At the heart of the issue ‘is the question of who gets to define what counts as a safety problem in the first place,’ Elizabeth Orembo, a fellow at Research ICT Africa, a think tank, told *Rest of World*. Big tech firms tend to focus on model risks such as deception, autonomous behavior, cyber capabilities, and aiding bioweapons, she said. They do not pay much attention to deployment risks including discrimination, exclusion, surveillance, language failures, and the inability of affected communities to seek remediation.” Can affected communities be co-owners of those risk frameworks, including the resulting product roadmaps, or are they, once again, just expected to let technology happen to them? Facebook was warned fifteen times that it was doing the wrong thing in Myanmar, and still did nothing. AI companies are retreating from even the weak commitments they previously made. They need to be forced to do the right thing: if not by markets and investors, then by international regulation. ### Two more newsrooms are suing OpenAI. It's complicated. URL: https://werd.io/two-more-newsrooms-are-suing-openai-its-complicated/ Last updated: 2026-09-10T22:39:24.000Z Link: [*Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI and Microsoft, by Anthony Ha in TechCrunch*](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/05/seattle-times-and-newsday-are-the-latest-publications-to-sue-openai-and-microsoft/) I have some complicated feelings about these ongoing newsroom lawsuits against AI companies. [The latest comes from The Seattle Times and Newsday](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/05/seattle-times-and-newsday-are-the-latest-publications-to-sue-openai-and-microsoft/). From the lawsuit itself: > “AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as producers of content, but in fact they are rapacious consumers, devouring human-authored content and delivering back to the world copies and derivative imitations of that same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial objectives.” [The government has argued that training LLMs is fair use](https://walledculture.org/us-government-argues-that-fair-use-applies-to-openais-training-of-llms-in-key-copyright-case/), and organizations like the EFF have agreed with it. [The EFF’s argument in particular is important to take note of](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/eff-courts-dont-rewrite-copyright-over-ai-hype): > “The “market dilution” theory would eviscerate not only the fair use doctrine, but also other limits on copyright that work specifically to prevent rightsholders from unfairly suppressing competition by claiming broad ownership over tropes, genres, styles, and so on. In other words, publishers would wield unchecked veto power over any expression that might conceivably compete with a work they own.” That’s a genuine problem! Expanding the scope of copyright law really does affect free expression. It’s an important concern to bring up — if the market dilution argument held, it could protect all sorts of businesses, both small and multinational. No industry deserves to exist for its own sake, and we can’t ask the world to stay still to protect an industry. Systems and methods that work against journalism can’t be illegal in their own right. At the same time, *we need journalism*. An informed voting population is a prerequisite for a functioning democracy. The implication is that if the old methods no longer allow it to be sustainable, journalism *must* evolve and find new methods that are. We need information, context, and reporting; we *don’t* need the businesses that produce those things to operate in the exact same way they do now, or to look similar to how they do today. There’s no doubt that AI in its current form takes work that is often independently produced by people with relatively few resources and uses it to enhance models that are controlled by large tech companies with billions of dollars at their disposal, which are often, in turn, *controlled* by billionaires. It’s a giant transfer of property from people with relatively low power to some of the most powerful people in the world. I think it’s fair to say they’re strip-mining culture to enrich themselves. But those power dynamics are not entirely cut and dry. The EFF’s point is, in part, that expanding copyright scope will primarily benefit large corporations like Disney that have often, themselves, applied a chokehold to cultural expression. In preventing strip-mining by some billionaires, there’s a risk of giving new powers to *other* billionaires. Although I want to focus on the power dynamics, there’s also a mechanical objection to consider. LLMs are performing statistical analysis on source material in order to train, and the outputs are created using probabilistic math, not intentional reproduction. We need to retain the ability to analyze creative work for all kinds of reasons, and even index it — consider search engine indices, which I think we generally want to exist so that people can find our work. Of course, actual verbatim outputs — or approximate copies thereof — are plagiarism. And the materials LLMs are trained on are often obtained illegally or outside the terms of their licensing agreements: unambiguous theft that needs to be treated accordingly. [The Anthropic copyright settlement was about this](https://authorsguild.org/advocacy/artificial-intelligence/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement/): it wasn’t that training on books was found to be infringing in itself. In fact, Anthropic was found not liable for this. It was that *it stole them*. [Anthropic settled for billions of dollars](https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/). That’s good in itself, but it turns out — surprise, surprise — that [many publishers took the money for themselves and didn’t pass them down to authors](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/books/anthropic-settlement-ai-copyright-books.html), even when the rights had reverted *to* those authors. The elephant in the room is that [copyright *was never* designed to protect individual authors](https://www.techdirt.com/2012/04/10/yes-copyrights-sole-purpose-is-to-benefit-public/): it was designed to benefit the public, with author protections a necessary means to that end. In practice, most journalists, artists, etc, don’t own their work to begin with, and royalties are frequently corporation-to-corporation transfers even without AI. The Newsday and Seattle Times lawsuits seek to protect corporate interests in a rapidly-changing market, with journalist reward effectively a trickle-down benefit. The licensing deals emerging as the market solution — among them [OpenAI with News Corp](https://openai.com/index/news-corp-and-openai-sign-landmark-multi-year-global-partnership/), [Axel Springer](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/global-news-publisher-axel-springer-partners-with-openai-landmark-deal-2023-12-13/), [the FT](https://aboutus.ft.com/press%5Frelease/openai); [Amazon with the New York Times](https://www.lawfuel.com/how-the-new-york-times-just-changed-the-ai-content-game-forever/) — are corporate deals. Individual journalists and freelancers whose work constitutes the value see little of it, except in that it’s revenue that theoretically allows their employers to continue to exist and employ them. We probably need a new deal for creators that touches several levels. The first is contracts and labor conditions. Unions have a huge part to play on this side of the equation. [The Writers Guild of America won reasonable AI concessions from studios after their 2023 strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%5FWriters%5FGuild%5Fof%5FAmerica%5Fstrike), ensuring that writer compensation couldn’t be diluted if a studio used AI. [A revised contract](https://www.wgacontract.org/the-campaign/summary-of-the-2026-wga-mba) this year also gave them written notice rights when studios intend to train models on their work, and a right to discuss compensation. That’s great for members of the WGA, but most creative workers aren’t a part of an industry union. If that changed, both publishers and AI vendors would need to negotiate more creator-favorable terms. It seems like it should be a goal. The second is infrastructure. We need independent creators to be able to set rights over their work and enforce them. [Really Simple Licensing](https://rslstandard.org/press/rsl-standard) is one effort that’s working in this direction: a way to create an ASCAP-like standard for creative work. Notably, though, [not a single major AI vendor has agreed to comply](https://www.implicator.ai/publishers-demand-payment-from-ai-through-new-licensing-protocol/). There are [criticisms of the collective licensing approach generally](https://legalblogs.wolterskluwer.com/copyright-blog/collective-licensing-for-gen-ai-training-feasible-or-flawed-part-1/), and there’s still a platform compensation problem: if Reddit implements RSL, *it* will receive revenue, but its users who created the licensed content probably won’t. The third is law. Our existing rules need to be updated to protect creators, *regardless* of AI; the advent of generative AI has made it even more important. Publishers must not be able to take all the money from licensing creative work ([the EU’s Digital Single Market Directive](https://www.arthurcox.com/knowledge/dsm-directive-and-fair-remuneration-for-authors-and-performers/) is a good model to follow). AI vendors should be transparent about what they’re training on and how. Nobody should be able to steal training material. And rules should be revised to reflect that work can now be trained on and used to generate content at scale, automatically, which has knock-on effects on the public good. These are all big topics. The shift we have to contend with is seismic in a way that hasn’t been rivaled since the advent of the web itself (and in some ways the impact on creators and publishers may be bigger than that). Each newsroom lawsuit is a kind of shot across the bow; the substantive conversations we need to be having are more expansive. But, in a political environment where AI vendors are aligned with the administration, and in a world where so many people want to be excited about AI in not very nuanced ways, I wonder if the conversations and actions that would lead to more equitable treatment and compensation for creators will be allowed to happen at all. Newsrooms should protect themselves, but they should make sure they’re looking out for the people who create their value, too. ### Your TV is spying on you, and it's worse than you think. URL: https://werd.io/your-tv-is-spying-on-you-and-its-worse-than-you-think/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T16:33:41.000Z Link: [*LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby, by Dominic Preston in The Verge*](https://www.theverge.com/tech/991190/lg-tv-spying-standby-recording-wi-fi-scanning-gamers-nexus) [This is an enormous abuse of trust](https://www.theverge.com/tech/991190/lg-tv-spying-standby-recording-wi-fi-scanning-gamers-nexus): > “LG smart TVs are almost constantly logging and uploading data about owners and their homes, even when offline or on standby mode. \[…\] Packet captures showed the TVs scanning the local area network for nearby hardware like phones or smartwatches, as well as logging location data and details of nearby Wi-Fi networks, and feeding the information back to LG Ad Solutions. Perhaps more concerningly, the TVs were capable of recording microphone audio when in standby; this continued even after the TV was disconnected from the internet, with audio files stored offline and uploaded once a connection was restored.” Most households invite at least one television into their homes. It’s almost impossible to buy one without smart TV features; because most television shows are streamed over the internet these days, they’re usually online. You could leave the TV offline while connecting it to a separate box like an Apple TV, but it’ll keep nagging you to connect. The contract should look like this: you pay for a TV and it shows you stuff. The idea that it will scan your local network for devices, determine what content you like to watch, and maybe even *listen to you using a built-in microphone* is not something that anybody signs up for. Someone somewhere at LG has been so incentivized to make a graph go up and to the right that they have decided that basic ethical tenets like privacy and transparency aren’t worth holding on to. That’s particularly important in a world where the Department of Homeland Security has created *Minority Report*\-style [Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams who instruct police to pull people over based on profiled data like their financial activity](https://www.404media.co/a-secretive-dhs-predictive-policing-unit-is-analyzing-americans-financial-habits-and-pulling-them-over/), despite there being no evidence that they have committed a crime. Data from disparate sources is routinely bought by law enforcement and agencies like DHS in order to create these sorts of profiles; a connected TV in your home could easily contribute. Are you watching the wrong kind of content? Automatic Content Recognition could rat you out. Are the devices connected to your home network outside of the norm? Up goes a flag. So that’s homes. But most offices have TVs installed somewhere, too. Consider that an installed smart TV could easily be snooping on network devices, content, and even video calls conducted over these screens. Some more sophisticated offices will have them set to a less privileged network or insist on them remaining offline; most will dutifully connect them up. The result is a live microphone and content recognition tech installed in newsrooms, universities, non-profits, and businesses around the country. Manufacturers like LG can sell this data. They will likely argue that it keeps TV prices down – and maybe that’s true. But [this reporting comes after LG promised regulators in Texas to stop collecting viewing data without informed consent](https://decrypt.co/377637/lg-tv-might-be-listening-even-when-off); [there’s a second mic that may continue recording even when the main microphone setting has been turned off](https://atlas21.com/gamers-nexus-says-lg-tvs-capture-audio-and-scan-networks/). They’ve shown they cannot be trusted. This kind of invisible data gathering should be illegal. Nobody signed up to be spied on; they just want to watch TV. ### AI companies are at risk of making Silicon Valley's harmful mistakes all over again URL: https://werd.io/ai-companies-are-at-risk-of-making-silicon-valleys-harmful-mistakes-all-over-again/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T18:01:52.000Z Link: [*AI safety is designed in the West, and failing users everywhere, by Rina Chandran in Rest of World*](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-safety-bias/) Amnesty International believes that [Facebook was complicit in the genocide against the Rohingya people in Myanmar](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/): > “In 2017, the Rohingya were killed, tortured, raped, and displaced in the thousands as part of the Myanmar security forces’ campaign of ethnic cleansing. In the months and years leading up to the atrocities, Facebook’s algorithms were intensifying a storm of hatred against the Rohingya which contributed to real-world violence.” It wasn’t that anyone at Facebook actively wanted to enable a genocide: they just didn’t care about *not* enabling one. Their teams were warned at least fifteen times, but mitigating this obvious harm was deprioritized in favor of other things. They were focused on their own world, with its epicenter in Menlo Park, California. Ultimately, although Facebook was not the source of the genocide, its use contributed significantly, leading to Rohingya deaths. By prioritizing growth in Myanmar but not staffing for local needs, it invested in its valuation rather than preventing harm in a country it didn’t care about. So it’s more than a little concerning to see AI vendors making the same mistakes. As Rina Chandran writes in Rest of World, failures in the Global South caused by Silicon-Valley-centric product development [are becoming more common](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-safety-bias/): > “For example, in Tigrinya, spoken by about 9 million people in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, machine translation rendered smallpox as syphilis, gonorrhea as diabetes and ‘you have been given intravenous antibiotics’ as ‘you have been given intravenous insecticides.’” While international efforts like [the Bletchley Declaration](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-2023-the-bletchley-declaration/the-bletchley-declaration-by-countries-attending-the-ai-safety-summit-1-2-november-2023) aim to mitigate what are considered to be frontier risks of AI, it asks for little accountability for the other harms that inevitably arise from product teams that aren’t rooted in the interests, needs, norms, and values of diverse international communities. Those harms can add up to become deep wounds in themselves, but it’s also worth asking another question. As Rest of World points out: > “At the heart of the issue ‘is the question of who gets to define what counts as a safety problem in the first place,’ Elizabeth Orembo, a fellow at Research ICT Africa, a think tank, told *Rest of World*. Big tech firms tend to focus on model risks such as deception, autonomous behavior, cyber capabilities, and aiding bioweapons, she said. They do not pay much attention to deployment risks including discrimination, exclusion, surveillance, language failures, and the inability of affected communities to seek remediation.” Can affected communities be co-owners of those risk frameworks, including the resulting product roadmaps, or are they, once again, just expected to let technology happen to them? Facebook was warned fifteen times that it was doing the wrong thing in Myanmar, and still did nothing. AI companies are retreating from even the weak commitments they previously made. They need to be forced to do the right thing: if not by markets and investors, then by international regulation. ### Notable links: August 14, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-august-14-2026/ Last updated: 2026-08-14T09:00:14.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *I've been taking a hiatus during August while I* [*prepare to join the Stanford JSK fellowship*](https://werd.io/my-next-experiment/)*, but I couldn't wait to send you today's link.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-july-31-2026/#/portal)*.* --- ### [Can public media build its own social network? Chicago Public Media teams up with New\_ Public to try ](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/can-public-media-build-its-own-social-media-chicago-public-media-teams-up-with-new%5Fpublic-to-try/) I’ve been more excited about this announcement than any other development in either social media or news technology this year. Chicago Public Media — which runs both [WBEZ](https://www.wbez.org/) and [the Chicago Sun-Times](https://chicago.suntimes.com/) — will run a network of online social communities for Chicago neighborhoods at [chicago.com](https://chicago.com). These communities run on New\_ Public’s [Roundabout](https://joinroundabout.com/), a social networking platform designed to be a positive space for local communities to organize, meet, and share. [As Nieman Lab reports](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/can-public-media-build-its-own-social-media-chicago-public-media-teams-up-with-new%5Fpublic-to-try/): > “Roundabout’s team sees these communities as places local reporters can be invited into to listen and build trust — places where they can answer people’s questions and learn what they should be reporting on. Reporters, and reporting, are not central to what Roundabout is; they are components that can strengthen the local community conversation that is central.” I strongly believe that this sort of community engagement is how news turns around its precipitous decline in trust from the public. People trust human relationships, not brands; hosting a space to support those relationships, and forming them authentically and organically with a wider community, will lead to more representative journalism, stronger trust from the public, and better information overall. More than that, these sorts of communities have the potential to meet what most people need from local journalism in a format that feels more equitable (everyone participates rather than it being a voice from above) and modern. Roundabout is not the only game in town here: this is a genuine, growing trend across media. [The Newsmast Foundation](https://newsmastfoundation.org/) has been building community spaces for newsrooms that are backed by the Fediverse; its first major launch was British newspaper [the Bristol Cable last year](https://www.journalism.co.uk/bristol-cable-launches-hybrid-news-and-social-networking-app-in-bid-to-double-membership-2/). Meanwhile, [Bonfire Networks](https://bonfirenetworks.org/) has been building its community platform to operate with similar intentions to Roundabout, including [by working with media companies like Jacobin Germany](https://bonfirenetworks.org/case-studies/jacobin/). Still, this is a significant, brave development, particularly for US media, and is notable for its scope and ambition. It’s incredibly rare for a news organization to put their neck on the line and truly build new technology that up-ends existing paradigms. A new kind of social space for one of America’s largest cities fits that bill. Conversely, working with local media orgs — people who already understand their local communities deeply and are active in them — is a great way for New\_ Public to build a platform that is safer and less toxic than something like Nextdoor. Roundabout has a bunch of its own features that help provide this safety; the focus on conversation over profiles or clout, and Nextdoor’s [notoriously racist](https://www.theverge.com/21283993/nextdoor-app-racism-community-moderation-guidance-protests) “suspicious person” posts are banned. There’s something else here too: Blaine Cook, currently the platform’s principal engineer, [confirmed that it runs on AT Protocol](https://bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.social/post/3msymcoppdc2z), the open social web protocol that powers Bluesky. It’s its own archipelago for now, but once private spaces land in AT Protocol properly, it’ll be connected to the wider network (known as the Atmosphere). This protocol compatibility allows anyone to build their own apps. Once Chicago’s network is connected to the wider Atmosphere, anyone will be able to build other communities that connect up to it, and build platform software that interoperates with Chicago’s. Given the size of this project, it’s likely the biggest foray for any media company onto the open social web. If this experiment in Chicago is successful, I think we’ll see New\_ Public expand to work with other media orgs — and we’ll see some of the orgs that might not have considered this kind of platform come around to the idea. --- ### And more: Here are some of the stories I didn't get a chance to go into in depth this week. #### [How can news media wean themselves off the Big Tech drip?](https://www.uva.nl/en/shared-content/faculteiten/en/faculteit-der-maatschappij-en-gedragswetenschappen/news/2026/08/ai-and-journalism-hannes-cools.html) The University of Amsterdam is teaming up with European newsrooms De Correspondent and Follow the Money for a two-year project that will see researchers co-design news technology prototypes with the public. The goal is to help newsrooms build greater autonomy through building things their readers actually want to use. #### [The offline messaging apps challenging internet shutdowns](https://restofworld.org/2026/india-github-geoblock-jack-dorsey-bitchat/) Authoritarian governments sometimes combat protest by conducting internet shutdowns. A new set of offline-first, truly decentralized social apps allow protestors to communicate regardless by using Bluetooth mesh networks. Modi's government tried to block access to Bitchat's GitHub repo: a sure indication that they're worried about it. In turn, these apps are a sign that the genie cannot be put back into the bottle. #### [Mea Culpa - Dark Hours](https://blog.terrygodier.com/2026/08/09/mea-culpa-dark-hours.html) A developer used Claude to build a tool to give you an idea what you could see in the sky that night. The LLM created something that was so markedly similar to an existing open source project that it duplicated a bug that project's author had since fixed. The plagiarism was unintentional and didn't come to light until the open source author reached out. Everyone using AI to develop software (or anything releasable) should consider this a warning. #### [America’s largest newspaper chain, USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data as search traffic falls](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/americas-largest-newspaper-chain-usa-today-co-partners-with-palantir-to-analyze-audience-data/) Apparently Axel Springer and Fox News are doing the same. I'm not sure it makes me feel good to know that the firm that powers ICE also has access to data about which news stories people are reading. ### Chicago's social network is a huge bet for news. I think it's the future. URL: https://werd.io/chicagos-social-network-is-a-huge-bet-for-news-i-think-its-the-future/ Last updated: 2026-08-14T03:11:01.000Z Link: [*Can public media build its own social network? Chicago Public Media teams up with New\_ Public to try, by Sophie Culpepper in Nieman Lab*](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/can-public-media-build-its-own-social-media-chicago-public-media-teams-up-with-new%5Fpublic-to-try/) I’ve been more excited about this announcement than any other development in either social media or news technology this year. Chicago Public Media — which runs both [WBEZ](https://www.wbez.org/) and [the Chicago Sun-Times](https://chicago.suntimes.com/) — will run a network of online social communities for Chicago neighborhoods at [chicago.com](https://chicago.com). These communities run on New\_ Public’s [Roundabout](https://joinroundabout.com/), a social networking platform designed to be a positive space for local communities to organize, meet, and share. [As Nieman Lab reports](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/can-public-media-build-its-own-social-media-chicago-public-media-teams-up-with-new%5Fpublic-to-try/): > “Roundabout’s team sees these communities as places local reporters can be invited into to listen and build trust — places where they can answer people’s questions and learn what they should be reporting on. Reporters, and reporting, are not central to what Roundabout is; they are components that can strengthen the local community conversation that is central.” I strongly believe that this sort of community engagement is how news turns around its precipitous decline in trust from the public. People trust human relationships, not brands; hosting a space to support those relationships, and forming them authentically and organically with a wider community, will lead to more representative journalism, stronger trust from the public, and better information overall. More than that, these sorts of communities have the potential to meet what most people need from local journalism in a format that feels more equitable (everyone participates rather than it being a voice from above) and modern. Roundabout is not the only game in town here: this is a genuine, growing trend across media. [The Newsmast Foundation](https://newsmastfoundation.org/) has been building community spaces for newsrooms that are backed by the Fediverse; its first major launch was British newspaper [the Bristol Cable last year](https://www.journalism.co.uk/bristol-cable-launches-hybrid-news-and-social-networking-app-in-bid-to-double-membership-2/). Meanwhile, [Bonfire Networks](https://bonfirenetworks.org/) has been building its community platform to operate with similar intentions to Roundabout, including [by working with media companies like Jacobin Germany](https://bonfirenetworks.org/case-studies/jacobin/). Still, this is a significant, brave development, particularly for US media, and is notable for its scope and ambition. It’s incredibly rare for a news organization to put their neck on the line and truly build new technology that up-ends existing paradigms. A new kind of social space for one of America’s largest cities fits that bill. Conversely, working with local media orgs — people who already understand their local communities deeply and are active in them — is a great way for New\_ Public to build a platform that is safer and less toxic than something like Nextdoor. Roundabout has a bunch of its own features that help provide this safety; the focus on conversation over profiles or clout, and Nextdoor’s [notoriously racist](https://www.theverge.com/21283993/nextdoor-app-racism-community-moderation-guidance-protests) “suspicious person” posts are banned. There’s something else here too: Blaine Cook, currently the platform’s principal engineer, [confirmed that it runs on AT Protocol](https://bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.social/post/3msymcoppdc2z), the open social web protocol that powers Bluesky. It’s its own archipelago for now, but once private spaces land in AT Protocol properly, it’ll be connected to the wider network (known as the Atmosphere). This protocol compatibility allows anyone to build their own apps. Once Chicago’s network is connected to the wider Atmosphere, anyone will be able to build other communities that connect up to it, and build platform software that interoperates with Chicago’s. Given the size of this project, it’s likely the biggest foray for any media company onto the open social web. If this experiment in Chicago is successful, I think we’ll see New\_ Public expand to work with other media orgs — and we’ll see some of the orgs that might not have considered this kind of platform come around to the idea. ### My next experiment URL: https://werd.io/my-next-experiment/ Last updated: 2026-08-02T17:04:47.000Z On Thursday, I left my role as Senior Director of Technology at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), where I led IT, Security, and Engineering. In September, I will begin my [John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University](https://jsk.stanford.edu/). Which means that, during August, I will move with my family back to the San Francisco Bay Area. From September, I will be based in the vicinity of the Stanford campus. ### What can you expect from me? In August, my writing will likely be more sporadic. From September, I expect to spend more time documenting my research, opening conversations, and being intentional about pushing forward the ideas I’ve always held space for. My thesis is that community — and open community protocols and platforms — can help build trust, loyalty, and resilience in news. I laid out some of those ideas in [The Community-First Software Era](https://werd.io/the-community-first-software-era/). But I’m going into it with an ethos of [intentional serendipity](https://pointc.co/create-intentional-serendipity/), armed with [everything I’ve learned](https://werd.io/about) about leadership, technology, journalism, and entrepreneurship. I’ll *also* be armed with everything I *will* learn with Stanford as a platform. I can’t predict what I’ll emerge with — but I can commit to taking you along with me. ### Where else can you find me? I’m going to endeavor to stick close to Stanford over the next year. I’ve also decided that I won’t get on a plane for the rest of 2026, partially as a challenge to myself and partially as a reaction to some really bad flights earlier this year. But I’m making an exception for [the News Product Alliance Summit](https://newsproduct.org/summit) in Chicago from October 21-23\. Last year I found it to be the most substantive conference about news product and technology I’d been to. I was lucky enough to present two sessions and loved the experience. So I’m back, with [Joe Germuska](https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/people/joe-germuska/), to talk about [how newsrooms can benefit from open technology and protocols](https://schedule.newsproduct.org/): > Proprietary social media platforms have inserted themselves between newsrooms and the things journalism needs to survive: engagement, trust, and revenue. As AI creates new layers of intermediation and puts newsrooms at further risk, building direct relationships with your own audiences has never been more urgent. > > Drawing from our combined experience building technology for newsrooms, we'll make the case for open protocols — shared, interoperable technologies no single company controls — as the foundation for a healthier news ecosystem. We'll explore how building on open infrastructure, rather than proprietary platforms, helps publishers reach more people, deepen engagement, and control their own destinies, without losing out on user experience or adding complexity. I’m hoping to put on more events in California through Stanford, so watch this space. ### Can we chat? This work can’t be done in a vacuum. I want to learn and build alongside people who are doing great work, led by important values. If anything I’ve spoken about above — or anything I write in this space — resonates with you, I’d love to chat. In September I’ll resume my Open Office Hours and will be available both to chat online and over a coffee for folks who might be in the Bay Area. ### A note about ProPublica I truly loved my time leading tech at ProPublica. The phrase we used internally was that it was *never boring*: there was always something happening. It was sometimes exhilarating, sometimes frustrating, but it was always done with a community of really great human beings working together towards the most meaningful mission of my career. That mission runs deep throughout the newsroom: > To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing. Some newsrooms report. Some observe and have a view from nowhere. ProPublica exists to *spur reform*, and [its impact showcase](https://www.propublica.org/impact) demonstrates that it succeeds. Every workplace has things to improve or friction to overcome — they’re all works in progress — but it was hugely motivational to be working alongside these incredible people for this incredible reason. The day after I left, [the ProPublica Guild ratified its first contract](https://www.propublicaguild.org/updates/propublica-guild-ratifies-first-contract). It was a long, fraught conversation that had been happening almost the entire time I was at the organization. (My timing is impeccable.) I wasn’t a part of the Guild or manager bargaining, and I couldn’t say anything about it while the negotiation was happening for fear of accidentally interfering with the process. Now I can. I’m very glad everyone got there: every worker deserves a good union to support them, and the people who work to publish ProPublica’s journalism – across editorial and business teams – certainly deserve a great deal. I will be cheerleading for ProPublica forever, and I hope to be friends with the people behind it forever. I’m grateful that I was able to be a part of that community. And if you’re looking for a place to financially support that drives real change, [there are much worse places to donate](https://give.propublica.org/campaign/748664/donate?c%5Fsrc=im%5Fjust%5Fben). ### Notable links: July 31, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-july-31-2026/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T13:01:57.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-july-24-206/#/portal)*.* --- ### [Leaders are Leverage](https://pointc.co/leaders-are-leverage/) I’ve often shared [Corey Ford’s](https://pointc.co) pieces. I find his frameworks and thinking genuinely useful, and he’s been a friend and mentor to me for well over a decade. This piece outlines his underlying thinking, and why he’s focused where he has: > “When I work with one leader, I'm not working with one person. I'm working with every person on their team, every meeting they'll ever run, every piece of feedback they'll ever give, every subculture they'll ever build. A leader is not a single node in an organization. A leader is a multiplier. Change how one leader leads, and you change what work feels like for everyone around them, and everyone around the people they develop, for years.” It’s all about seeding culture. I see a lot of similarities in the underlying ideas in Corey’s work and the intention behind culture change manifestos like [*Emergent Strategy*](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781849352604). Change is fractal, bubbling up from one person to affect a whole system. I was involved in Matter, the accelerator Corey founded, in two ways: first as an entrepreneur, receiving an earlier version of the ideas he continues to teach, and then as a member of the team, helping to deliver them to cohorts of entrepreneurs. It changed my life, and I watched it change the way other participants think about building teams, products, and cultures. Those ideas are now part of the [Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program at Columbia University](https://pointc.co/sulzberger/). If you’re a newsroom leader, I believe you should strongly consider it. And even if you’re not, I recommend that you follow Corey and his work. I guarantee he’ll change your thinking. --- ### [Fed up with Big Tech, communities turn to data collectives for control](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-data-collectives-mozilla/) It’s interesting to contrast the current moment to the “information wants to be free” era of Web 2.0, twenty or so years ago. Back then, everyone was talking about open APIs and open data. Now, it’s become clearer that communities need to control the terms of their data if they’re going to avoid being strip-mined for somebody else’s profit. > “Workers, producers, consumers, and others have been establishing cooperatives and other community-led associations to pool resources, share benefits, and address socioeconomic challenges for centuries. The United Nations marked 2025 as the year of cooperatives, positioning them as “essential solutions to today’s global problems,” kindling renewed interest in data collectives and cooperatives.” While there’s certainly an argument to be made that communities tend to over-estimate the value of their own data (looking at you, news), some of these datasets may be truly unique in ways that would add value to an AI service or model. As this article points out, collectively-owned data includes creative works in more than 20 African languages that aren’t recognized in mainstream linguistic frameworks. The danger, of course, is that putting these kinds of gates in front of underrepresented cultures just works to further marginalize them: in that potential future, if everyone’s using a model where those languages are missing, they become irrelevant. But there’s another one where data collectives can pull the levers they have to bring about the world they want to see. That’s exactly what the [Nwulite Obodo Open Data License](https://datasciencelawlab.africa/nwulite-obodo-open-data-license/) aims to do: data rights holders can negotiate to share their work and cultural heritage without losing their right to benefit from it. (Nwulite Obodo is Igbo for raising, reviving, and building the community.) In one model, vendors building non-extractive and responsibly trained models for public interest purposes get to use their data for free, but the closed-model big tech vendors have to pay. That’s what Meesum Alam did with voice data for 39 at-risk languages in Pakistan: the communities he worked with determined that the data was free for research and non-commercial purposes, but for-profit tech companies would need to negotiate terms (which Meta did). That potentially becomes more interesting: either OpenAI et al negotiate to license the data, or they lose functionality to their public interest competitors. There’s also a world where some communities proactively document their cultures and make them available specifically so that models, whoever they’re built by, won’t omit them. Either the world has more equitable AI or the communities financially benefit from their cultural heritage. Whatever happens, these communities certainly have the right to control their data however they see fit. What vendors do about it is the open question. But initiatives like [Mozilla Data Collective](https://mozilladatacollective.com/) make it more possible to have more substantive conversations about how data is provided and used, and that can only be a good thing. --- ### [US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-protester-phone) This is worth knowing about and is concerning — but not necessarily for the main reason that’s being reported. The Department of Justice is trying to prosecute Sam Tunick, an Atlanta-based activist, for allegedly using a duress password on his [GrapheneOS](https://grapheneos.org/) phone when he crossed the border in January 2025. > “Agent Findley and several others repeatedly asked Tunick to open his phone during the interrogation, telling him they would seize it if he did not. When he finally provided a passcode, “the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart”, according to the motion.” The phone was wiped. According to the Department of Justice, rather than the usual unlock password, the one Tunick had provided was a signal that [GrapheneOS should reset the device to factory settings](https://grapheneos.org/features#duress). That’s the core issue: it’s not that he was using GrapheneOS or had set up a duress password, but he was accused of using it to reset his device rather than give his data to law enforcement when asked. At the point where law enforcement or border protection are asking you for data, it’s your right to refuse a search, but you typically can’t actively destroy it. I’ve always understood that [the police can’t compel you to unlock your phone without a warrant](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law%5Fpractice/resources/law-technology-today/2019/can-police-force-you-to-unlock-your-cell-phone/), although, unfortunately, Customs and Border Protection has an exemption around the border. If there *is* a warrant, or if CBP asks you in a border zone, you may still refuse to unlock it, but the device may be seized and held. The trick here, which Tunick’s lawyers are arguing, is that the request was unlawful to begin with. Because Tunick was a part of Atlanta’s [Stop Cop City protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop%5FCop%5FCity), he had been put on a terrorist watchlist; that fact was circulated just three hours prior. That flagged him for the secondary inspection that led to him being asked to unlock his phone. Protest is protected by the first amendment and a core component of democratic speech; putting protesters on a watchlist designed to protect the public against violent extremism is undemocratic. That’s even more affronting when you consider that the protest was against a police training center: the message it sends is nakedly authoritarian. Finally, and most egregiously, the questioning was about child exploitation imagery, which they had no reason to suspect him of holding. As a result, the search may not have been legal. While a duress password is a deliberate act of destruction, the better path when crossing the border is to not have data to seize to begin with. Anyone who deals with sensitive information should consider that their phone might be taken at the border. Customs and Border Protection policy even allows agents to clone it, giving them permanent access to your data even after they hand your device back to you. They’re only supposed to do this when there’s a national security concern or reasonable suspicion of a crime — but if activists are being targeted as terrorists, that policy threshold doesn’t feel like a solid protection. So: log out of your email, calendar, and file sharing before you embark upon your travels. Delete Signal entirely ([but back it up](https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages)). Consider which photos you want to travel with. Don’t travel with a stock phone — that can lead to more questions — but intentionally cut down your information footprint. That way, even if you are stopped, you won’t compromise sources (if you’re a journalist) or your compatriots (if you’re an activist). And you’re not forced to delete data in the moment in a way that could leave you vulnerable. ### Change is fractal. It starts with leaders URL: https://werd.io/change-is-fractal-it-starts-with-leaders/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T12:27:57.000Z Link: [*Leaders Are Leverage, by Corey Ford at Point C*](https://pointc.co/leaders-are-leverage/?ref=werd.io) I’ve often shared [Corey Ford’s](https://pointc.co) pieces. I find his frameworks and thinking genuinely useful, and he’s been a friend and mentor to me for well over a decade. This piece outlines his underlying thinking, and why he’s focused where he has: > “When I work with one leader, I'm not working with one person. I'm working with every person on their team, every meeting they'll ever run, every piece of feedback they'll ever give, every subculture they'll ever build. A leader is not a single node in an organization. A leader is a multiplier. Change how one leader leads, and you change what work feels like for everyone around them, and everyone around the people they develop, for years.” It’s all about seeding culture. I see a lot of similarities in the underlying ideas in Corey’s work and the intention behind culture change manifestos like [*Emergent Strategy*](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781849352604). Change is fractal, bubbling up from one person to affect a whole system. I was involved in Matter, the accelerator Corey founded, in two ways: first as an entrepreneur, receiving an earlier version of the ideas he continues to teach, and then as a member of the team, helping to deliver them to cohorts of entrepreneurs. It changed my life, and I watched it change the way other participants think about building teams, products, and cultures. Those ideas are now part of the [Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program at Columbia University](https://pointc.co/sulzberger/). If you’re a newsroom leader, I believe you should strongly consider it. And even if you’re not, I recommend that you follow Corey and his work. I guarantee he’ll change your thinking. ### Don't bring sensitive data to a border crossing URL: https://werd.io/dont-bring-sensitive-data-to-a-border-crossing/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T14:00:14.000Z Link: [*US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system, by Timothy Pratt in The Guardian*](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-protester-phone) This is worth knowing about and is concerning — but not necessarily for the main reason that’s being reported. The Department of Justice is trying to prosecute Sam Tunick, an Atlanta-based activist, for allegedly using a duress password on his [GrapheneOS](https://grapheneos.org/) phone when he crossed the border in January 2025. > “Agent Findley and several others repeatedly asked Tunick to open his phone during the interrogation, telling him they would seize it if he did not. When he finally provided a passcode, “the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart”, according to the motion.” The phone was wiped. According to the Department of Justice, rather than the usual unlock password, the one Tunick had provided was a signal that [GrapheneOS should reset the device to factory settings](https://grapheneos.org/features#duress). That’s the core issue: it’s not that he was using GrapheneOS or had set up a duress password, but he was accused of using it to reset his device rather than give his data to law enforcement when asked. At the point where law enforcement or border protection are asking you for data, it’s your right to refuse a search, but you typically can’t actively destroy it. I’ve always understood that [the police can’t compel you to unlock your phone without a warrant](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law%5Fpractice/resources/law-technology-today/2019/can-police-force-you-to-unlock-your-cell-phone/), although, unfortunately, Customs and Border Protection has an exemption around the border. If there *is* a warrant, or if CBP asks you in a border zone, you may still refuse to unlock it, but the device may be seized and held. The trick here, which Tunick’s lawyers are arguing, is that the request was unlawful to begin with. Because Tunick was a part of Atlanta’s [Stop Cop City protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop%5FCop%5FCity), he had been put on a terrorist watchlist; that fact was circulated just three hours prior. That flagged him for the secondary inspection that led to him being asked to unlock his phone. Protest is protected by the first amendment and a core component of democratic speech; putting protesters on a watchlist designed to protect the public against violent extremism is undemocratic. That’s even more affronting when you consider that the protest was against a police training center: the message it sends is nakedly authoritarian. Finally, and most egregiously, the questioning was about child exploitation imagery, which they had no reason to suspect him of holding. As a result, the search may not have been legal. While a duress password is a deliberate act of destruction, the better path when crossing the border is to not have data to seize to begin with. Anyone who deals with sensitive information should consider that their phone might be taken at the border. Customs and Border Protection policy even allows agents to clone it, giving them permanent access to your data even after they hand your device back to you. They’re only supposed to do this when there’s a national security concern or reasonable suspicion of a crime — but if activists are being targeted as terrorists, that policy threshold doesn’t feel like a solid protection. So: log out of your email, calendar, and file sharing before you embark upon your travels. Delete Signal entirely ([but back it up](https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages)). Consider which photos you want to travel with. Don’t travel with a stock phone — that can lead to more questions — but intentionally cut down your information footprint. That way, even if you are stopped, you won’t compromise sources (if you’re a journalist) or your compatriots (if you’re an activist). And you’re not forced to delete data in the moment in a way that could leave you vulnerable. ### Can data collectives help strengthen vulnerable cultures in the face of AI? URL: https://werd.io/can-data-collectives-help-strengthen-vulnerable-cultures-in-the-face-of-ai/ Last updated: 2026-07-25T14:23:05.000Z Link: [*Fed up with Big Tech, communities turn to data collectives for control, by Rina Chandran at Rest of World*](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-data-collectives-mozilla/) It’s interesting to contrast the current moment to the “information wants to be free” era of Web 2.0, twenty or so years ago. Back then, everyone was talking about open APIs and open data. Now, it’s become clearer that communities need to control the terms of their data if they’re going to avoid being strip-mined for somebody else’s profit. > “Workers, producers, consumers, and others have been establishing cooperatives and other community-led associations to pool resources, share benefits, and address socioeconomic challenges for centuries. The United Nations marked 2025 as the year of cooperatives, positioning them as “essential solutions to today’s global problems,” kindling renewed interest in data collectives and cooperatives.” While there’s certainly an argument to be made that communities tend to over-estimate the value of their own data (looking at you, news), some of these datasets may be truly unique in ways that would add value to an AI service or model. As this article points out, collectively-owned data includes creative works in more than 20 African languages that aren’t recognized in mainstream linguistic frameworks. The danger, of course, is that putting these kinds of gates in front of underrepresented cultures just works to further marginalize them: in that potential future, if everyone’s using a model where those languages are missing, they become irrelevant. But there’s another one where data collectives can pull the levers they have to bring about the world they want to see. That’s exactly what the [Nwulite Obodo Open Data License](https://datasciencelawlab.africa/nwulite-obodo-open-data-license/) aims to do: data rights holders can negotiate to share their work and cultural heritage without losing their right to benefit from it. (Nwulite Obodo is Igbo for raising, reviving, and building the community.) In one model, vendors building non-extractive and responsibly trained models for public interest purposes get to use their data for free, but the closed-model big tech vendors have to pay. That’s what Meesum Alam did with voice data for 39 at-risk languages in Pakistan: the communities he worked with determined that the data was free for research and non-commercial purposes, but for-profit tech companies would need to negotiate terms (which Meta did). That potentially becomes more interesting: either OpenAI et al negotiate to license the data, or they lose functionality to their public interest competitors. There’s also a world where some communities proactively document their cultures and make them available specifically so that models, whoever they’re built by, won’t omit them. Either the world has more equitable AI or the communities financially benefit from their cultural heritage. Whatever happens, these communities certainly have the right to control their data however they see fit. What vendors do about it is the open question. But initiatives like [Mozilla Data Collective](https://mozilladatacollective.com/) make it more possible to have more substantive conversations about how data is provided and used, and that can only be a good thing. ### Notable links: July 24, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-july-24-206/ Last updated: 2026-07-24T13:35:26.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-july-17-2026/#/portal)*.* --- ### [China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance ](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/967781/chinese-ai-models-open-source-moonshot-kimi-k3-alibaba-qwen) AI models, as a product in themselves, have very little moat beyond what amounts to brand loyalty and superficial switching costs. Instead, the moat is in the enterprise services that sit around them: the deals and contracts, connectivity with enterprise systems, and quality of life features in an enterprise context. If we consider the models themselves, it’s easy to switch between them: someone could be using ChatGPT today and Claude tomorrow, with very little impact on their workflows. This is particularly true in the engineering world, where models are accessed via API: you can swap out the API and use the same prompt. Those companies can make deals to lock their customers in, but in practice there’s very little long-term technical incentive to use one vendor over another. You pick the best model for your needs and change models and vendors if another one becomes better. The US government has placed export controls on GPUs. There are also strong regulations that (reasonably) prevent sharing certain kinds of data with Chinese servers. The result is that while Chinese companies have enough compute to *train* models, they can’t really provide the kinds of global-scale centralized services that we see from OpenAI and Anthropic — at least, not in the same way. And open almost always wins when it comes to infrastructure adoption. Open technologies can be used permissionlessly and therefore can be at the center of more innovation. You can host them where you want, experiment with them, alter them, and tweak to fit your use case. Open weights models are not open source, but they *are* portable and permissionless. With all this in mind, it makes sense for China to release its AI models openly. It turns a US-created compute disadvantage into a distribution advantage; it commoditizes the layer where American companies make money; and it creates a far more effective global ecosystem than could be established through locked-in, centralized services. It’s obvious to me that there are ecosystem benefits throughout China, from manufacturing to scientific research; every sector can just plug in these models. The saving grace for American companies has been that US frontier models have outperformed open ones. [That gap is now closing](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/967781/chinese-ai-models-open-source-moonshot-kimi-k3-alibaba-qwen): > “Moonshot and Alibaba unveiled models they claim can go toe-to-toe with the best from OpenAI and Anthropic at a fraction of the cost. The rapid-fire releases suggest America’s lead at the AI frontier is increasingly tight, just as the technology is becoming central to national security, economic power, and geopolitical influence.” Even without these new capabilities, the strategy has already been working. a16z partner Martin Casado noted in the Economist that [there’s an 80% chance that any given startup is using Chinese models](https://www.economist.com/business/2025/08/21/china-is-quietly-upstaging-america-with-its-open-models), and [Chinese models are poised to take the lead](https://www.interconnects.ai/p/on-chinas-open-source-ai-trajectory). It’s worth taking a step back and considering the surprising underlying dynamics. We think of China as being a locked-down society — and it is in many ways. I have serious concerns about how these models might reflect Chinese government perspectives ([try asking them about Tiananmen Square](https://www.rfa.org/english/opinions/2025/06/09/opinion-china-tiananmen-ai/)). But it’s American companies that are keeping tight control of their technology rather than releasing it as openly as possible. This is in stark contrast to the strategy behind US government support for the open internet, for example. Locked-down business practices for a technology with no real moat but significant potential ecosystem benefits is an obviously losing strategy; permissively releasing it with an open, collaborative approach is obviously a winning one. But the incentives in the US aren’t there: instead, these companies are forced to chase first-order profits rather than ecosystem benefits, and the government tries to put its finger on the scale through forcible measures like tight export controls. We should consider what would need to change to make those incentives more aligned. That’s particularly important given [how much of the US economy is currently driven by AI spending](https://www.epi.org/blog/how-ai-spending-is-impacting-the-u-s-economy/). If the bottom falls out of that spending — and I think it clearly will, given the dynamics — the outcome could be severe. I care about having open technology that can be run in the public interest, aligned with the public’s values. Threads like [public AI](https://publicai.network/), federated services, and open research have traction but need backing. Getting there in the US needs more nuanced strategy and support than we’re seeing today. --- ### [This Conversation Is Being Recorded. They All Are.](https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/ai-recording-apps-wearables-granola-39727559?st=VYcndA&reflink=desktopwebshare%5Fpermalink) I’ve been thinking about this story for days. > “A Zoom call isn’t complete without an artificial-intelligence note taker. Phones are out at meetings, capturing every word. During impromptu conversations with co-workers, someone might turn on the Granola transcription app, which can turn the interactions into one-page summaries or a list of action items. Even at bars and on dates, people are using AI-infused listening apps to analyze conversations later on.” The story goes on to talk to a woman who uses Granola to record her dates, then pours the transcripts into Claude to give her feedback about how she could have done better. And there’s account after account of people using it in meetings without asking for consent or revealing that they’re recording. Certainly in Silicon Valley, a societal shift seems to be underway. It’s likely much more widespread than that. I’ve been present in meetings outside the tech industry where Granola’s watermarking was visible but I wasn’t asked to consent. The watermarking is optional; I have to assume I’ve been in meetings where I’ve been recorded without my knowledge. Pair this trend with the story that the Trump Administration [actively sought the phone records of journalists — and their families — who reported on the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/business/media/new-york-times-subpoenas-phone-records.html). Subpoenas were issued to the phone carriers, and the Department of Justice notified the newsroom a week later. In some cases, subpoenas can be issued to carriers and service providers privately, allowing the data to be retrieved without the newsroom’s knowledge; in this case, the DoJ did try to gag the phone company from alerting the newsroom. A world in which every conversation is recorded and transcribed is one where every conversation can be subpoenaed or surveilled. Here, the surveillance is decentralized through people who actively want to conduct it for their own benefit, but the data is still stored centrally and available for authorities to subpoena or someone else to mine. [Granola’s security page](https://www.granola.ai/security) makes clear that the data is accessible to them — and therefore to a third party that compels them to hand it over — and notes that: > “Granola trains on your anonymized data so we can keep making Granola better. You can opt out of this in your Settings.” Granola makes a point of saying that audio is not stored, but given that transcriptions *are*, this seems moot: the words in a conversation carry its meaning. Subpoenas for your conversations go to it, not to you, and you may never know they were served. If you record someone’s conversation without letting them know, you’re putting them at risk. Don’t get me wrong: I would *love* to have an automatic summary of meetings I’ve taken part in. I have also run meetings on non-sensitive topics where I’ve asked for consent before starting transcription. It’s the ubiquity and covert nature of the transcription that bothers me, paired with its central storage in what amounts to a honeypot for subpoenas and hackers. Recording a conversation with someone without their consent is illegal in many states and countries, so this behavior may be forced to change. California is one of them, and Granola appears to be thriving there, so there is a world where the law changes to meet the new ubiquitous surveillance norm. Until the dust settles one way or the other, anyone who wants to talk about a sensitive topic, particularly in Silicon Valley, will need to be more wary than usual. --- ### [How OpenAI’s human mistake led to the AI-powered hack on Hugging Face](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/how-an-openais-human-mistake-led-to-the-ai-powered-hack-on-hugging-face/) The biggest technology story this week was how a combination of OpenAI models [hacked into third-party AI provider Hugging Face and breached its production database](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/21/openai-says-hugging-face-was-breached-by-its-pre-release-models/). The incident was initially spun as [a sort of partnership](https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/) between the two companies, but it seems like [that’s not what went down at all](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/how-an-openais-human-mistake-led-to-the-ai-powered-hack-on-hugging-face/). > “OpenAI failed to properly configure what it called a ‘highly isolated environment,’ allowing a testing sandbox that should have been completely secluded from the internet to actually connect to the internet.” That’s actually one of at least two lapses here: not only did OpenAI fail to properly isolate its models, but Hugging Face’s production database was in a state where those models could hack into it. The whole thing does not speak well of security practices at AI vendors overall. We’re being asked to share more and more private information with model vendors. The standard protection they offer — at least, to their paying customers — is that your data will not be used for model training purposes. That’s all well and good, but your data is still hitting their servers, potentially being logged for an extended period in such a way that it could, in theory, be accessed by their employees. Even before we bring in the possibility of hackers, that leaves your private data open to being accessed via subpoena, an unscrupulous employee, or, indeed, an unscrupulous *vendor*. (Consider that Uber [breached at least one journalist’s privacy and considered hiring an opposition research firm](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/19/uber-investigates-top-executive-after-journalists-privacy-was-breached). Do we really think AI vendors are more ethical? Why?) Leaving a production database in a state where it could be breached is the icing on the cake. In this case, the models weren’t even harnessed to hack Hugging Face — they did so autonomously to *cheat a test*. Imagine what they might do if they were *intentionally* pointed that way. Hacking is becoming cheaper and easier: once the preserve of talented technologists, this story proves that the latest frontier models can effectively find and exploit vulnerabilities in systems. And apparently, AI vendors can’t be trusted to secure their own infrastructure. The combination of us being encouraged to share more and more data, the inherent risks of centralizing that data, the dubious security of the places we’re being asked to share it, and the obvious shadiness of some of the companies involved should give us all pause. For newsrooms and anyone dealing with sensitive or private data, particularly relating to source materials or journalism in progress, this weak security environment is not enough. We need zero data retention contracts at minimum, but the only real way to be sure nobody can access our information is to use confidential computing environments and, ultimately, local models. Anything less leaves our work open to cowboys, hackers, and, apparently, misconfigured robots. --- ### [Staying in a job for the health insurance? About 1 in 4 Americans do, a survey says](https://www.npr.org/2026/07/22/nx-s1-5902333/health-insurance-jobs-gallup) [](https://www.npr.org/2026/07/22/nx-s1-5902333/health-insurance-jobs-gallup) [This is a striking](https://www.npr.org/2026/07/22/nx-s1-5902333/health-insurance-jobs-gallup), but not necessarily surprising, figure from a new survey by the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America: > “A new report finds that nearly a quarter of workers who get health insurance through their jobs report staying in unwanted jobs for health insurance — a figure that's risen dramatically in the last five years.” The figure rises to 41% of people with three or more chronic health conditions. The figure has risen wildly in part because Affordable Care Act subsidies were allowed to expire. I’ll get the soapbox out of the way first: having spent around thirty years of my life in the UK before moving to the US, the thing I miss most is the NHS. It’s been treated like a political football since I left and is apparently a shell of its former self — not because the idea is bad and can’t work but because conservative politicians, [some of whom have received funding from private healthcare companies](https://bylinetimes.com/2021/11/12/the-conservative-partys-private-healthcare-patrons/), have deliberately sabotaged it. But it’s hard to explain the *lack of fear* of walking into a doctor’s office or a hospital. You know for a fact that there won’t be an onerous bill. You can just get seen. That security allowed me to found my first startup, which in turn has set the stage for my entire career. If you’re in the US, you may have heard some less pleasant things about socialized healthcare: it turns out [much of it was a deliberate disinformation campaign by private health insurers](https://publicintegrity.org/health/the-canadian-health-care-system-i-disparaged/), which I think says a lot about how the whole American healthcare system actually works. That soapbox out of the way, I also want to highlight how the private healthcare system creates perverse incentives for employers and dampens innovation. If employees have freedom of movement between companies, the incentive for employers is to create the best working conditions possible: higher wages, great benefits, a nurturing working environment. If, on the other hand, some employees are effectively chained to their desks by their need to have healthcare, employers have less of a need to provide those things. As long as they provide a reasonable health plan, wages and working conditions are secondary. As the West Health-Gallup Center themselves assert, [the effect is lower wages and worse work](https://news.gallup.com/poll/712166/one-four-employees-locked-jobs-health-insurance.aspx). In turn, fewer innovators are empowered, which is a disaster for industries like news that desperately need innovation. Often, innovators will find themselves constrained by their existing employers for various reasons and want to leave to explore a new idea that has the potential to change their industry. (That was my experience leaving the university sector to build a social platform for learning, which was ultimately used by Ivy Leagues, non-profits, and governments around the world.) If they *can’t* because they’re tethered to employers who won’t greenlight their ideas, those innovations will never see the light of day. So not only does socialized healthcare allow people to be healthier by removing the fear of going to the doctor in the first place, it improves wages, creates more competitive working conditions, and promotes innovation. Even a representative for the Cato Institute — a libertarian think tank — has this to say in the piece: > “Favoring employer-sponsored health insurance creates coverage gaps, reduces income mobility, and is crying out for reform.” When even the libertarians want reform, you know it’s a bad deal. We need a different healthcare system. While the libertarians would likely disagree, my vote — having experienced and enjoyed it for much of my life — is for universal healthcare. The only real downside to it is that a bunch of companies that have entrenched their positions taking advantage of ordinary people will be denied a little profit. Which, you know. Pardon me while I find my tiny violin. --- ### And more: Here are some of the stories I didn't get a chance to go into in depth this week. #### [Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs](https://blog.codeberg.org/protecting-our-floss-commons-from-llms.html) The source code repository hosting service Codeberg has banned LLM-generated code. Time will tell whether that's a move that solidifies a niche as a place for hand-crafted software, or whether it just turns people back to GitHub. #### [Google search traffic to leading UK publishers set to halve by Q3 2027](https://pressgazette.co.uk/comment-analysis/google-search-traffic-to-leading-uk-publishers-set-to-halve-by-q3-2027/) The march towards Google Zero continues apace. I believe the most effective way to build resilience against this trend is by building stronger relationships – not just one-way audience strategies, but real community. #### [The Fourth Circuit Says Border Agents Can Search Your Phone By Hand, No Suspicion Required](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/fourth-circuit-says-border-agents-can-search-your-phone-hand-no-suspicion-required) A court upheld that border agents have the right to search your phone. Newsrooms should build strong, repeatable guidance for journalists who might want to cross borders with source information. #### [Kaiser Permanente nurses say technology is making their jobs — and patient care — worse](https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2026/07/09/kaiser-permanente-nurses-say-technology-is-making-their-jobs-and-patient-care-worse) Despite what vendors and management say, the people who are actually on the ground providing healthcare report that AI is having a detrimental effect on the care they can provide. That will eventually come to a head – particularly if it starts to reveal itself in patient outcome statistics. ### AI vendors can't be trusted to secure their systems. Newsrooms need to act accordingly URL: https://werd.io/ai-vendors-cant-be-trusted-to-secure-their-systems-newsrooms-need-to-act-accordingly/ Last updated: 2026-07-23T14:29:37.000Z Link: [*How OpenAI’s human mistake led to the AI-powered hack on Hugging Face, by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai in TechCrunch*](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/how-an-openais-human-mistake-led-to-the-ai-powered-hack-on-hugging-face/) The biggest technology story this week was how a combination of OpenAI models [hacked into third-party AI provider Hugging Face and breached its production database](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/21/openai-says-hugging-face-was-breached-by-its-pre-release-models/). The incident was initially spun as [a sort of partnership](https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/) between the two companies, but it seems like [that’s not what went down at all](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/how-an-openais-human-mistake-led-to-the-ai-powered-hack-on-hugging-face/). > “OpenAI failed to properly configure what it called a ‘highly isolated environment,’ allowing a testing sandbox that should have been completely secluded from the internet to actually connect to the internet.” That’s actually one of at least two lapses here: not only did OpenAI fail to properly isolate its models, but Hugging Face’s production database was in a state where those models could hack into it. The whole thing does not speak well of security practices at AI vendors overall. We’re being asked to share more and more private information with model vendors. The standard protection they offer — at least, to their paying customers — is that your data will not be used for model training purposes. That’s all well and good, but your data is still hitting their servers, potentially being logged for an extended period in such a way that it could, in theory, be accessed by their employees. Even before we bring in the possibility of hackers, that leaves your private data open to being accessed via subpoena, an unscrupulous employee, or, indeed, an unscrupulous *vendor*. (Consider that Uber [breached at least one journalist’s privacy and considered hiring an opposition research firm](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/19/uber-investigates-top-executive-after-journalists-privacy-was-breached). Do we really think AI vendors are more ethical? Why?) Leaving a production database in a state where it could be breached is the icing on the cake. In this case, the models weren’t even harnessed to hack Hugging Face — they did so autonomously to *cheat a test*. Imagine what they might do if they were *intentionally* pointed that way. Hacking is becoming cheaper and easier: once the preserve of talented technologists, this story proves that the latest frontier models can effectively find and exploit vulnerabilities in systems. And apparently, AI vendors can’t be trusted to secure their own infrastructure. The combination of us being encouraged to share more and more data, the inherent risks of centralizing that data, the dubious security of the places we’re being asked to share it, and the obvious shadiness of some of the companies involved should give us all pause. For newsrooms and anyone dealing with sensitive or private data, particularly relating to source materials or journalism in progress, this weak security environment is not enough. We need zero data retention contracts at minimum, but the only real way to be sure nobody can access our information is to use confidential computing environments and, ultimately, local models. Anything less leaves our work open to cowboys, hackers, and, apparently, misconfigured robots. ### Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change. URL: https://werd.io/private-healthcare-makes-industries-less-innovative-its-time-for-change/ Last updated: 2026-07-23T13:57:18.000Z Link: [*Staying in a job for the health insurance? About 1 in 4 Americans do, a survey says, by Joseph Kim at NPR*](https://www.npr.org/2026/07/22/nx-s1-5902333/health-insurance-jobs-gallup) [This is a striking](https://www.npr.org/2026/07/22/nx-s1-5902333/health-insurance-jobs-gallup), but not necessarily surprising, figure from a new survey by the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America: > “A new report finds that nearly a quarter of workers who get health insurance through their jobs report staying in unwanted jobs for health insurance — a figure that's risen dramatically in the last five years.” The figure rises to 41% of people with three or more chronic health conditions. The figure has risen wildly in part because Affordable Care Act subsidies were allowed to expire. I’ll get the soapbox out of the way first: having spent around thirty years of my life in the UK before moving to the US, the thing I miss most is the NHS. It’s been treated like a political football since I left and is apparently a shell of its former self — not because the idea is bad and can’t work but because conservative politicians, [some of whom have received funding from private healthcare companies](https://bylinetimes.com/2021/11/12/the-conservative-partys-private-healthcare-patrons/), have deliberately sabotaged it. But it’s hard to explain the *lack of fear* of walking into a doctor’s office or a hospital. You know for a fact that there won’t be an onerous bill. You can just get seen. That security allowed me to found my first startup, which in turn has set the stage for my entire career. If you’re in the US, you may have heard some less pleasant things about socialized healthcare: it turns out [much of it was a deliberate disinformation campaign by private health insurers](https://publicintegrity.org/health/the-canadian-health-care-system-i-disparaged/), which I think says a lot about how the whole American healthcare system actually works. That soapbox out of the way, I also want to highlight how the private healthcare system creates perverse incentives for employers and dampens innovation. If employees have freedom of movement between companies, the incentive for employers is to create the best working conditions possible: higher wages, great benefits, a nurturing working environment. If, on the other hand, some employees are effectively chained to their desks by their need to have healthcare, employers have less of a need to provide those things. As long as they provide a reasonable health plan, wages and working conditions are secondary. As the West Health-Gallup Center themselves assert, [the effect is lower wages and worse work](https://news.gallup.com/poll/712166/one-four-employees-locked-jobs-health-insurance.aspx). In turn, fewer innovators are empowered, which is a disaster for industries like news that desperately need innovation. Often, innovators will find themselves constrained by their existing employers for various reasons and want to leave to explore a new idea that has the potential to change their industry. (That was my experience leaving the university sector to build a social platform for learning, which was ultimately used by Ivy Leagues, non-profits, and governments around the world.) If they *can’t* because they’re tethered to employers who won’t greenlight their ideas, those innovations will never see the light of day. So not only does socialized healthcare allow people to be healthier by removing the fear of going to the doctor in the first place, it improves wages, creates more competitive working conditions, and promotes innovation. Even a representative for the Cato Institute — a libertarian think tank — has this to say in the piece: > “Favoring employer-sponsored health insurance creates coverage gaps, reduces income mobility, and is crying out for reform.” When even the libertarians want reform, you know it’s a bad deal. We need a different healthcare system. While the libertarians would likely disagree, my vote — having experienced and enjoyed it for much of my life — is for universal healthcare. The only real downside to it is that a bunch of companies that have entrenched their positions taking advantage of ordinary people will be denied a little profit. Which, you know. Pardon me while I find my tiny violin. ### People are transcribing your conversations without asking. That puts you at risk. URL: https://werd.io/people-are-transcribing-your-conversations-without-asking-that-puts-you-at-risk/ Last updated: 2026-07-21T02:40:50.000Z Link: [*This Conversation Is Being Recorded. They All Are., by Katherine Bindley at the Wall Street Journal*](https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/ai-recording-apps-wearables-granola-39727559?st=VYcndA&reflink=desktopwebshare%5Fpermalink) I’ve been thinking about this story for days. > “A Zoom call isn’t complete without an artificial-intelligence note taker. Phones are out at meetings, capturing every word. During impromptu conversations with co-workers, someone might turn on the Granola transcription app, which can turn the interactions into one-page summaries or a list of action items. Even at bars and on dates, people are using AI-infused listening apps to analyze conversations later on.” The story goes on to talk to a woman who uses Granola to record her dates, then pours the transcripts into Claude to give her feedback about how she could have done better. And there’s account after account of people using it in meetings without asking for consent or revealing that they’re recording. Certainly in Silicon Valley, a societal shift seems to be underway. It’s likely much more widespread than that. I’ve been present in meetings outside the tech industry where Granola’s watermarking was visible but I wasn’t asked to consent. The watermarking is optional; I have to assume I’ve been in meetings where I’ve been recorded without my knowledge. Pair this trend with the story that the Trump Administration [actively sought the phone records of journalists — and their families — who reported on the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/business/media/new-york-times-subpoenas-phone-records.html). Subpoenas were issued to the phone carriers, and the Department of Justice notified the newsroom a week later. In some cases, subpoenas can be issued to carriers and service providers privately, allowing the data to be retrieved without the newsroom’s knowledge; in this case, the DoJ did try to gag the phone company from alerting the newsroom. A world in which every conversation is recorded and transcribed is one where every conversation can be subpoenaed or surveilled. Here, the surveillance is decentralized through people who actively want to conduct it for their own benefit, but the data is still stored centrally and available for authorities to subpoena or someone else to mine. [Granola’s security page](https://www.granola.ai/security) makes clear that the data is accessible to them — and therefore to a third party that compels them to hand it over — and notes that: > “Granola trains on your anonymized data so we can keep making Granola better. You can opt out of this in your Settings.” Granola makes a point of saying that audio is not stored, but given that transcriptions *are*, this seems moot: the words in a conversation carry its meaning. Subpoenas for your conversations go to it, not to you, and you may never know they were served. If you record someone’s conversation without letting them know, you’re putting them at risk. Don’t get me wrong: I would *love* to have an automatic summary of meetings I’ve taken part in. I have also run meetings on non-sensitive topics where I’ve asked for consent before starting transcription. It’s the ubiquity and covert nature of the transcription that bothers me, paired with its central storage in what amounts to a honeypot for subpoenas and hackers. Recording a conversation with someone without their consent is illegal in many states and countries, so this behavior may be forced to change. California is one of them, and Granola appears to be thriving there, so there is a world where the law changes to meet the new ubiquitous surveillance norm. Until the dust settles one way or the other, anyone who wants to talk about a sensitive topic, particularly in Silicon Valley, will need to be more wary than usual. ### American AI is locked down and proprietary. It's losing. URL: https://werd.io/american-ai-is-locked-down-and-proprietary-its-losing/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T14:15:38.000Z Link: [*China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance, by Robert Hart in The Verge*](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/967781/chinese-ai-models-open-source-moonshot-kimi-k3-alibaba-qwen?utm%5Fsource=flipboard&utm%5Fmedium=activitypub) AI models, as a product in themselves, have very little moat beyond what amounts to brand loyalty and superficial switching costs. Instead, the moat is in the enterprise services that sit around them: the deals and contracts, connectivity with enterprise systems, and quality of life features in an enterprise context. If we consider the models themselves, it’s easy to switch between them: someone could be using ChatGPT today and Claude tomorrow, with very little impact on their workflows. This is particularly true in the engineering world, where models are accessed via API: you can swap out the API and use the same prompt. Those companies can make deals to lock their customers in, but in practice there’s very little long-term technical incentive to use one vendor over another. You pick the best model for your needs and change models and vendors if another one becomes better. The US government has placed export controls on GPUs. There are also strong regulations that (reasonably) prevent sharing certain kinds of data with Chinese servers. The result is that while Chinese companies have enough compute to *train* models, they can’t really provide the kinds of global-scale centralized services that we see from OpenAI and Anthropic — at least, not in the same way. And open almost always wins when it comes to infrastructure adoption. Open technologies can be used permissionlessly and therefore can be at the center of more innovation. You can host them where you want, experiment with them, alter them, and tweak to fit your use case. Open weights models are not open source, but they *are* portable and permissionless. With all this in mind, it makes sense for China to release its AI models openly. It turns a US-created compute disadvantage into a distribution advantage; it commoditizes the layer where American companies make money; and it creates a far more effective global ecosystem than could be established through locked-in, centralized services. It’s obvious to me that there are ecosystem benefits throughout China, from manufacturing to scientific research; every sector can just plug in these models. The saving grace for American companies has been that US frontier models have outperformed open ones. [That gap is now closing](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/967781/chinese-ai-models-open-source-moonshot-kimi-k3-alibaba-qwen): > “Moonshot and Alibaba unveiled models they claim can go toe-to-toe with the best from OpenAI and Anthropic at a fraction of the cost. The rapid-fire releases suggest America’s lead at the AI frontier is increasingly tight, just as the technology is becoming central to national security, economic power, and geopolitical influence.” Even without these new capabilities, the strategy has already been working. a16z partner Martin Casado noted in the Economist that [there’s an 80% chance that any given startup is using Chinese models](https://www.economist.com/business/2025/08/21/china-is-quietly-upstaging-america-with-its-open-models), and [Chinese models are poised to take the lead](https://www.interconnects.ai/p/on-chinas-open-source-ai-trajectory). It’s worth taking a step back and considering the surprising underlying dynamics. We think of China as being a locked-down society — and it is in many ways. I have serious concerns about how these models might reflect Chinese government perspectives ([try asking them about Tiananmen Square](https://www.rfa.org/english/opinions/2025/06/09/opinion-china-tiananmen-ai/)). But it’s American companies that are keeping tight control of their technology rather than releasing it as openly as possible. This is in stark contrast to the strategy behind US government support for the open internet, for example. Locked-down business practices for a technology with no real moat but significant potential ecosystem benefits is an obviously losing strategy; permissively releasing it with an open, collaborative approach is obviously a winning one. But the incentives in the US aren’t there: instead, these companies are forced to chase first-order profits rather than ecosystem benefits, and the government tries to put its finger on the scale through forcible measures like tight export controls. We should consider what would need to change to make those incentives more aligned. That’s particularly important given [how much of the US economy is currently driven by AI spending](https://www.epi.org/blog/how-ai-spending-is-impacting-the-u-s-economy/). If the bottom falls out of that spending — and I think it clearly will, given the dynamics — the outcome could be severe. I care about having open technology that can be run in the public interest, aligned with the public’s values. Threads like [public AI](https://publicai.network/), federated services, and open research have traction but need backing. Getting there in the US needs more nuanced strategy and support than we’re seeing today. ### Notable links: July 17, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-july-17-2026/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T13:28:46.000Z --- *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-july-10-2026/#/portal)*.* --- ### [Mamdani invests in tech capacity to “solve real problems”](https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/mamdani-invests-in-tech-capacity) There’s a lot that newsrooms can learn from Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral administration in New York City. His latest announcement is the [Public Interest Technology (PIT) Crew](https://www.nyc.gov/content/pitcrew/pages/), a set of dynamic, cross-disciplinary digital teams that will solve problems across the city using a rapid, human-centered approach. [As Pamela Herd notes here](https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/mamdani-invests-in-tech-capacity), this is a shift from contracting out to building internal capacity: > “Traditionally, the conventional wisdom since the 1990s and before was that governments could buy tech products like an off-the-shelf product. This led to a massive turn to contracting out, which was great for consultants but bad for government capacity. The outsourced approach often cost too much, delivering too little and too late. > > \[…\] What people who know tech and government have been screaming for years is that building good tech needs in-house capacity, even when you are using contractors. It requires the government owning the design, development and delivery of technology, relying on rapid iteration to fix problems in a way that is impossible when contractors are running things.” This dynamic is also highly prevalent in newsrooms, resulting in the same problems. If you rely too heavily on buying existing technology or working with outside contractors, you are building operational, functional, and intellectual dependencies on those organizations. You import their values and ways of working, which in the case of some vendors may be catastrophic in itself, but you also put yourself on their timelines and make yourself subject to their feature priorities and interests. And that’s before you consider security and trust profiles, which may radically differ between newsrooms and the vendors that serve them. New York City isn’t alone; other governments are beginning to shift from outsourcing back to internally owned technology. The article links to [a report explaining Colorado’s move back to internally-run IT](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NG4ZOm1fgioLJc7eJZrBSIi4VJ2YyTPi/view), which states the issue plainly: > “There is an alignment problem: the issue is not effort, but that we have organized around internal structures rather than outcomes, and that misalignment has made excellent work harder.” Mamdani’s PIT Crew sounds a lot like how a product team should work: directed groups of experts rapidly prototyping solutions to concretely defined problems anchored in real people’s needs. By doing it internally, he can make sure these solutions are built exactly the way the city needs, build institutional capacity and knowledge, and, theoretically at least, do it far more cheaply in the long run. As these sorts of civic measures succeed, I think (or, perhaps, I *hope*) we’ll see more newsrooms translate those outcomes to their own businesses and begin to understand that they need to prioritize technical capacity too. All the same reasons apply here. Of course, most newsrooms don’t have the budget of the New York City Mayor’s office. I think the solution to that is third entities: non-profit organizations that exist to provide shared technical capacity across newsrooms, based on newsroom needs, *that behave as if they were part of newsroom teams*. Think of it as a kind of PIT Crew for news, operated independently but in deep collaboration with newsrooms. By using a radically open source approach, newsrooms can pool resources together and solve shared technical problems more easily, on their terms and according to their values. While there are always places for startups and tech platforms, the idea that the tech industry can always serve needs better than building institutional capacity is fundamentally broken; it’s also fundamentally right-wing. I’m delighted to see the New York City Mayor’s office move in a more productive direction. I hope it becomes an example for everyone. --- ### [We are not alone](https://restructurednews.substack.com/p/we-are-not-alone) I was delighted to be included in this roundup by Adiel Kaplan, the Program Director at the Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. [As Adiel says](https://restructurednews.substack.com/p/we-are-not-alone): > “Having a say in what the future of news looks like will likely require not just that collaboration across newsrooms, but also outside them, with other institutions that want to shape a future with informed communities at its center — which is, after all, the mission. Right? > > \[…\] It will also require a different way of thinking about our role in this ecosystem, beyond creating content and distributing it. It might mean getting more involved in building technology, or joining forces in new ways with government-funded institutions.” This is exciting to me: I’ve been saying for a while now that news needs to get more involved in building technology. My flippant line is that *news treats technology as something that happens to it, like an asteroid* — but it’s actually a creative work, like an article. Although many newsrooms are too small to build a strong capacity in themselves, it’s perfectly possible for news *as an industry* to build capacity and create the technology that is unique to its use cases on its terms. So I think it’s a very good thing that news institutions are talking about this need. The people listed in the article are exceptional. I’m just happy to be on the list in such fine company. Don’t sleep on any of them; I feel most connected to Ivan Sigal’s ambitious and vital work at the [Modal Foundation](https://www.modalfoundation.org/) and what Trei Brundrett [is building](https://newpublic.substack.com/p/introducing-roundabout-built-for) (in collaboration with Blaine Cook and others) at New\_ Public. But these are all worthy endeavors: the [Library Newsroom Project](https://www.librarynewsroom.com/) is a genius on-the-ground effort to create local newsrooms based in every public library in the US, and Sannuta Raghu’s [news atoms](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/introducing-news-atom-metadata-blueprint-journalism-age-ai) embed meaning and provenance in natural language articles. All are promising. We need to move forward. There are certainly more people who could have been added to such a list; my hope is that if one were written a year from now, it would be exponentially longer. Let’s innovate. --- ### [White House Directed Patel to Oversee Investigation Involving Times Reporting](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/us/politics/white-house-patel-investigation-times.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.xFA.9q52.ZL9VNq1-BClg&smid=url-share) The White House personally directed FBI Director Kash Patel to [issue subpoenas to journalists reporting on the President’s new Qatari-gifted Air Force One](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/business/media/new-york-times-trump-subpoenas.html). > “The White House’s deep involvement in the case came after officials said that President Trump was enraged about the coverage of the Qatari-donated plane, which The Times reported Thursday lacks the same defensive countermeasures of the previous Air Force One.” These subpoenas were delivered by hand to some of the reporters at home, echoing [the FBI’s raid of a Washington Post engagement reporter’s home](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/fbi-raid-washington-post-hannah-natanson) earlier this year. In both cases, it’s highly likely that these were attempts to discover who leaked information to their respective newsrooms. There’s lots to say about first amendment issues here, and commentators like [Dan Kennedy at Media Nation](https://dankennedy.net/2026/07/11/from-the-trump-regime-to-a-rogue-judge-in-new-jersey-the-first-amendment-is-under-assault/) have pertinent thoughts. It’s clear that journalism is under attack by the administration, and [they rescinded rules that protected journalists in leak investigations last year](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5377624/pam-bondi-reporters-subpoena-leaks). The [US Press Freedom Tracker](https://pressfreedomtracker.us/) is a sobering read. But it’s also important to take a moment to talk about the technology side of this story. When the administration wants to issue a subpoena to a newsroom, it has a few avenues available to it. The first is to issue it directly to the newsroom or to its reporters, as they did here. In some ways, this is the best outcome: then the newsroom knows about the subpoena and can actively fight it in court. The other avenue is to subpoena the newsroom’s service providers. If source information is stored unencrypted on a service like Google Workspace, the administration could subpoena Google. If a gag order is added — which might well happen if it’s a criminal subpoena or labeled a matter of national security — then the newsroom would never find out and have the chance to fight it. This is true even if the service provider nominally promises to notify the newsrooms about subpoenas: a gag order is a gag order. Larger newsrooms have strong data security practices for this reason: they know to create policies and architectures which force subpoenas to come through them. But not every newsroom has the capacity to build a strong security strategy. Which means for every story we hear about that involves these newsrooms, there may be many more that took place in secret. [The Freedom of the Press Foundation maintains digital security resources and runs training for newsrooms](https://freedom.press/digisec/) and [specific advice about source protection](https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/source-protection/). [The EFF also has some great resources](https://www.eff.org/issues/security-education). More resources are out there. But there is more of a need than ever for every newsroom to make sure they have access to someone who can advise them on digital security both holistically and on a case-by-case basis. Not every newsroom can afford a permanent member of staff, but finding access to some kind of resource is vital. Likewise, journalism funders should focus on providing access to experts, understanding that these issues are existential for the organizations they fund. Not only is this an attack on press freedoms, but it’s also an attack on trust. Every newsroom can do its reporting because sources feel safe to reach out to it; if their safety is in question, they may be less likely to leak, and we may be less likely to read the stories that help us make good democratic decisions. That’s what the administration seems to be banking on. --- ### [Trump dismantled a federal climate website. These women rebuilt it.](https://19thnews.org/2026/07/noaa-climate-data-website/) This shouldn’t have been necessary, but is still wonderful to see. Climate.gov had been the go-to resource for climate data, but it went offline when the Trump Administration radically cut NOAA’s funding. [At that point](https://19thnews.org/2026/07/noaa-climate-data-website/): > “\[Rebecca\] Lindsey joined forces with former NOAA employees Anna Eshelman, and Mary Lindsey, her older sister, to become the core team behind the deactivated site’s successor, [Climate.us](https://climate.us), preserving over 15 years of key climate data and resources. The trove features key maps, educational materials and climate indicator reports, including the now-deleted Fifth National Climate Assessment, the government’s most comprehensive analysis of climate change that was at risk of being lost to the public.” This is possible because US government data is public domain by law. Had it not been available under a permissive license, the administration’s act of vandalism would have meant the data was gone for good. But because it was, the datasets can find a new home. It’s a joy to use. [Check out the climate dashboard](https://www.climate.us/climatedashboard), which tracks numbers like the [total area of the Arctic Ocean that was at least 15% ice-covered each September](https://www.climate.us/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-arctic-sea-ice-summer-minimum). It also hosts a set of [resources for teaching climate and energy](https://www.climate.us/teaching). The [dataset gallery](https://www.climate.us/maps-data/dataset-gallery) includes crucial information like [the NOAA’s archive of oral histories from people whose lives were affected by climate change](https://www.climate.us/maps-data/dataset/noaa-voices-oral-history-archives). But it’s also precarious. The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for. Still, for the moment it’s wonderful to see people pick up the slack when government is no longer doing its job. In the absence of government support, archives like this are works of journalism in themselves: ways to help us make stronger decisions. They deserve stronger support, and ultimately, we all deserve the restoration of such important government infrastructure. --- ### [A Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes the New Reality of Urban Surveillance](https://www.wired.com/story/sfpd-drone-video-leak-surveillance/) I’m not sure I agree with this article’s implication that the problem with SFPD’s drone policing was that it accidentally leaked the data. > ““There’s a certain trust given to the police to use these things correctly,” says Curry. “When you're watching a drone feed live, you can look into dozens of different apartments, you can see police zooming in on people, you can see arrests. The fact that all of this was exposed feels like a really big issue from a privacy perspective.”” I’d humbly submit that the privacy problem exists regardless of whether the footage was leaked or not: this is ubiquitous surveillance of a city’s citizens from above. That footage can be analyzed, both by humans and software, to track people and target them for any reason. There is very little oversight, and because the police department is using a private company to run it, the teams there presumably have access to an enormous amount of private footage. The thing is, none of this actually makes us safer. [As the ACLU of Northern California points out in its Seeing Through Surveillance report](https://www.aclunorcal.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites/default/files//Seeing%5FThrough%5FSurveillance%5F%5FReport%5FWeb.pdf): > “The evidence is clear that while surveillance has increased exponentially, public safety has not. On the contrary, surveillance systems often make people less safe, especially for groups that have historically been in the government’s crosshairs. Modern surveillance technology makes it possible for the government to track who we are, where we go, what we do, and who we know. It fuels high-tech profiling and perpetuates systems of biased policing. It facilitates deportations, chills speech, and imperils the rights of activists, religious minorities, and people who need reproductive and gender-affirming care.” Most importantly, it doesn’t actually help. As the report points out, the city of San Francisco itself learned that adding cameras to its highest-crime neighborhoods *had no impact on crime*. Regardless, it added more funding to the program and voted to remove oversight in 2023\. The result is more money spent, less privacy, with no impact on public safety. And now we know that the footage is being accidentally leaked, the privacy footprint is obviously even worse. In a world that is becoming markedly more authoritarian, it’s unconscionable that supposedly permissive cities would add more surveillance. It doesn’t work, it misuses funds that could be spent helping the vulnerable, and it’s data that could be used for undemocratic purposes. It needs to stop — and to do that, we need to apply pressure to our elected representatives and raise awareness of how backwards it is. ### To innovate, news needs allies URL: https://werd.io/to-innovate-news-needs-allies/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T13:26:50.000Z Link: [*We are not alone, by Adiel Kaplan at the Tow-Knight Center*](https://restructurednews.substack.com/p/we-are-not-alone) I was delighted to be included in this roundup by Adiel Kaplan, the Program Director at the Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. [As Adiel says](https://restructurednews.substack.com/p/we-are-not-alone): > “Having a say in what the future of news looks like will likely require not just that collaboration across newsrooms, but also outside them, with other institutions that want to shape a future with informed communities at its center — which is, after all, the mission. Right? > > \[…\] It will also require a different way of thinking about our role in this ecosystem, beyond creating content and distributing it. It might mean getting more involved in building technology, or joining forces in new ways with government-funded institutions.” This is exciting to me: I’ve been saying for a while now that news needs to get more involved in building technology. My flippant line is that *news treats technology as something that happens to it, like an asteroid* — but it’s actually a creative work, like an article. Although many newsrooms are too small to build a strong capacity in themselves, it’s perfectly possible for news *as an industry* to build capacity and create the technology that is unique to its use cases on its terms. So I think it’s a very good thing that news institutions are talking about this need. The people listed in the article are exceptional. I’m just happy to be on the list in such fine company. Don’t sleep on any of them; I feel most connected to Ivan Sigal’s ambitious and vital work at the [Modal Foundation](https://www.modalfoundation.org/) and what Trei Brundrett [is building](https://newpublic.substack.com/p/introducing-roundabout-built-for) (in collaboration with Blaine Cook and others) at New\_ Public. But these are all worthy endeavors: the [Library Newsroom Project](https://www.librarynewsroom.com/) is a genius on-the-ground effort to create local newsrooms based in every public library in the US, and Sannuta Raghu’s [news atoms](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/introducing-news-atom-metadata-blueprint-journalism-age-ai) embed meaning and provenance in natural language articles. All are promising. We need to move forward. There are certainly more people who could have been added to such a list; my hope is that if one were written a year from now, it would be exponentially longer. Let’s innovate. ### The SFPD leaked its drone footage. It shouldn't be surveilling to begin with. URL: https://werd.io/the-sfpd-leaked-its-drone-footage-it-shouldnt-be-surveilling-to-begin-with/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T12:31:32.000Z Link: [*A Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes the New Reality of Urban Surveillance, by Andy Greenberg and Dhruv Mehrotra in WIRED*](https://www.wired.com/story/sfpd-drone-video-leak-surveillance/) I’m not sure I agree with this article’s implication that the problem with SFPD’s drone policing was that it accidentally leaked the data. > ““There’s a certain trust given to the police to use these things correctly,” says Curry. “When you're watching a drone feed live, you can look into dozens of different apartments, you can see police zooming in on people, you can see arrests. The fact that all of this was exposed feels like a really big issue from a privacy perspective.”” I’d humbly submit that the privacy problem exists regardless of whether the footage was leaked or not: this is ubiquitous surveillance of a city’s citizens from above. That footage can be analyzed, both by humans and software, to track people and target them for any reason. There is very little oversight, and because the police department is using a private company to run it, the teams there presumably have access to an enormous amount of private footage. The thing is, none of this actually makes us safer. [As the ACLU of Northern California points out in its Seeing Through Surveillance report](https://www.aclunorcal.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites/default/files//Seeing%5FThrough%5FSurveillance%5F%5FReport%5FWeb.pdf): > “The evidence is clear that while surveillance has increased exponentially, public safety has not. On the contrary, surveillance systems often make people less safe, especially for groups that have historically been in the government’s crosshairs. Modern surveillance technology makes it possible for the government to track who we are, where we go, what we do, and who we know. It fuels high-tech profiling and perpetuates systems of biased policing. It facilitates deportations, chills speech, and imperils the rights of activists, religious minorities, and people who need reproductive and gender-affirming care.” Most importantly, it doesn’t actually help. As the report points out, the city of San Francisco itself learned that adding cameras to its highest-crime neighborhoods *had no impact on crime*. Regardless, it added more funding to the program and voted to remove oversight in 2023\. The result is more money spent, less privacy, with no impact on public safety. And now we know that the footage is being accidentally leaked, the privacy footprint is obviously even worse. In a world that is becoming markedly more authoritarian, it’s unconscionable that supposedly permissive cities would add more surveillance. It doesn’t work, it misuses funds that could be spent helping the vulnerable, and it’s data that could be used for undemocratic purposes. It needs to stop — and to do that, we need to apply pressure to our elected representatives and raise awareness of how backwards it is. ### We need a PIT Crew for news URL: https://werd.io/we-need-a-pit-crew-for-news/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T12:07:18.000Z Link: [*Mamdani invests in tech capacity to “solve real problems”, by Pamela Herd in Can We Still Govern?*](https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/mamdani-invests-in-tech-capacity) There’s a lot that newsrooms can learn from Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral administration in New York City. His latest announcement is the [Public Interest Technology (PIT) Crew](https://www.nyc.gov/content/pitcrew/pages/), a set of dynamic, cross-disciplinary digital teams that will solve problems across the city using a rapid, human-centered approach. [As Pamela Herd notes here](https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/mamdani-invests-in-tech-capacity), this is a shift from contracting out to building internal capacity: > “Traditionally, the conventional wisdom since the 1990s and before was that governments could buy tech products like an off-the-shelf product. This led to a massive turn to contracting out, which was great for consultants but bad for government capacity. The outsourced approach often cost too much, delivering too little and too late. > > \[…\] What people who know tech and government have been screaming for years is that building good tech needs in-house capacity, even when you are using contractors. It requires the government owning the design, development and delivery of technology, relying on rapid iteration to fix problems in a way that is impossible when contractors are running things.” This dynamic is also highly prevalent in newsrooms, resulting in the same problems. If you rely too heavily on buying existing technology or working with outside contractors, you are building operational, functional, and intellectual dependencies on those organizations. You import their values and ways of working, which in the case of some vendors may be catastrophic in itself, but you also put yourself on their timelines and make yourself subject to their feature priorities and interests. And that’s before you consider security and trust profiles, which may radically differ between newsrooms and the vendors that serve them. New York City isn’t alone; other governments are beginning to shift from outsourcing back to internally owned technology. The article links to [a report explaining Colorado’s move back to internally-run IT](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NG4ZOm1fgioLJc7eJZrBSIi4VJ2YyTPi/view), which states the issue plainly: > “There is an alignment problem: the issue is not effort, but that we have organized around internal structures rather than outcomes, and that misalignment has made excellent work harder.” Mamdani’s PIT Crew sounds a lot like how a product team should work: directed groups of experts rapidly prototyping solutions to concretely defined problems anchored in real people’s needs. By doing it internally, he can make sure these solutions are built exactly the way the city needs, build institutional capacity and knowledge, and, theoretically at least, do it far more cheaply in the long run. As these sorts of civic measures succeed, I think (or, perhaps, I *hope*) we’ll see more newsrooms translate those outcomes to their own businesses and begin to understand that they need to prioritize technical capacity too. All the same reasons apply here. Of course, most newsrooms don’t have the budget of the New York City Mayor’s office. I think the solution to that is third entities: non-profit organizations that exist to provide shared technical capacity across newsrooms, based on newsroom needs, *that behave as if they were part of newsroom teams*. Think of it as a kind of PIT Crew for news, operated independently but in deep collaboration with newsrooms. By using a radically open source approach, newsrooms can pool resources together and solve shared technical problems more easily, on their terms and according to their values. While there are always places for startups and tech platforms, the idea that the tech industry can always serve needs better than building institutional capacity is fundamentally broken; it’s also fundamentally right-wing. I’m delighted to see the New York City Mayor’s office move in a more productive direction. I hope it becomes an example for everyone. ### Climate.gov was destroyed. Open data saved it. URL: https://werd.io/climate-gov-was-destroyed-open-data-saved-it/ Last updated: 2026-07-13T19:01:12.000Z Link: [*Trump dismantled a federal climate website. These women rebuilt it., by Jenae Barnes at The 19th*](https://19thnews.org/2026/07/noaa-climate-data-website/) This shouldn’t have been necessary, but is still wonderful to see. Climate.gov had been the go-to resource for climate data, but it went offline when the Trump Administration radically cut NOAA’s funding. [At that point](https://19thnews.org/2026/07/noaa-climate-data-website/): > “\[Rebecca\] Lindsey joined forces with former NOAA employees Anna Eshelman, and Mary Lindsey, her older sister, to become the core team behind the deactivated site’s successor, [Climate.us](https://climate.us), preserving over 15 years of key climate data and resources. The trove features key maps, educational materials and climate indicator reports, including the now-deleted Fifth National Climate Assessment, the government’s most comprehensive analysis of climate change that was at risk of being lost to the public.” This is possible because US government data is public domain by law. Had it not been available under a permissive license, the administration’s act of vandalism would have meant the data was gone for good. But because it was, the datasets can find a new home. It’s a joy to use. [Check out the climate dashboard](https://www.climate.us/climatedashboard), which tracks numbers like the [total area of the Arctic Ocean that was at least 15% ice-covered each September](https://www.climate.us/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-arctic-sea-ice-summer-minimum). It also hosts a set of [resources for teaching climate and energy](https://www.climate.us/teaching). The [dataset gallery](https://www.climate.us/maps-data/dataset-gallery) includes crucial information like [the NOAA’s archive of oral histories from people whose lives were affected by climate change](https://www.climate.us/maps-data/dataset/noaa-voices-oral-history-archives). But it’s also precarious. The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for. Still, for the moment it’s wonderful to see people pick up the slack when government is no longer doing its job. In the absence of government support, archives like this are works of journalism in themselves: ways to help us make stronger decisions. They deserve stronger support, and ultimately, we all deserve the restoration of such important government infrastructure. ### The Trump administration is subpoenaing journalists to reveal sources. Their data security is more important than ever. URL: https://werd.io/the-trump-administration-is-subpoenaing-journalists-to-reveal-sources-their-data-security-is-more-important-than-ever/ Last updated: 2026-07-12T14:59:17.000Z Link: [*White House Directed Patel to Oversee Investigation Involving Times Reporting, by Devlin Barrett, Glenn Thrush, and Maggie Haberman at the New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/us/politics/white-house-patel-investigation-times.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.xFA.9q52.ZL9VNq1-BClg&smid=url-share) The White House personally directed FBI Director Kash Patel to [issue subpoenas to journalists reporting on the President’s new Qatari-gifted Air Force One](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/business/media/new-york-times-trump-subpoenas.html). > “The White House’s deep involvement in the case came after officials said that President Trump was enraged about the coverage of the Qatari-donated plane, which The Times reported Thursday lacks the same defensive countermeasures of the previous Air Force One.” These subpoenas were delivered by hand to some of the reporters at home, echoing [the FBI’s raid of a Washington Post engagement reporter’s home](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/fbi-raid-washington-post-hannah-natanson) earlier this year. In both cases, it’s highly likely that these were attempts to discover who leaked information to their respective newsrooms. There’s lots to say about first amendment issues here, and commentators like [Dan Kennedy at Media Nation](https://dankennedy.net/2026/07/11/from-the-trump-regime-to-a-rogue-judge-in-new-jersey-the-first-amendment-is-under-assault/) have pertinent thoughts. It’s clear that journalism is under attack by the administration, and [they rescinded rules that protected journalists in leak investigations last year](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5377624/pam-bondi-reporters-subpoena-leaks). The [US Press Freedom Tracker](https://pressfreedomtracker.us/) is a sobering read. But it’s also important to take a moment to talk about the technology side of this story. When the administration wants to issue a subpoena to a newsroom, it has a few avenues available to it. The first is to issue it directly to the newsroom or to its reporters, as they did here. In some ways, this is the best outcome: then the newsroom knows about the subpoena and can actively fight it in court. The other avenue is to subpoena the newsroom’s service providers. If source information is stored unencrypted on a service like Google Workspace, the administration could subpoena Google. If a gag order is added — which might well happen if it’s a criminal subpoena or labeled a matter of national security — then the newsroom would never find out and have the chance to fight it. This is true even if the service provider nominally promises to notify the newsrooms about subpoenas: a gag order is a gag order. Larger newsrooms have strong data security practices for this reason: they know to create policies and architectures which force subpoenas to come through them. But not every newsroom has the capacity to build a strong security strategy. Which means for every story we hear about that involves these newsrooms, there may be many more that took place in secret. [The Freedom of the Press Foundation maintains digital security resources and runs training for newsrooms](https://freedom.press/digisec/) and [specific advice about source protection](https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/source-protection/). [The EFF also has some great resources](https://www.eff.org/issues/security-education). More resources are out there. But there is more of a need than ever for every newsroom to make sure they have access to someone who can advise them on digital security both holistically and on a case-by-case basis. Not every newsroom can afford a permanent member of staff, but finding access to some kind of resource is vital. Likewise, journalism funders should focus on providing access to experts, understanding that these issues are existential for the organizations they fund. Not only is this an attack on press freedoms, but it’s also an attack on trust. Every newsroom can do its reporting because sources feel safe to reach out to it; if their safety is in question, they may be less likely to leak, and we may be less likely to read the stories that help us make good democratic decisions. That’s what the administration seems to be banking on. ### Notable links: July 10, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-july-10-2026/ Last updated: 2026-07-10T13:42:43.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-july-3-2026/#/portal)*.* --- ### [Chicago Public Media launching community website — chicago.com — in the fall](https://chicago.suntimes.com/media/2026/07/08/chicago-public-media-launching-community-website-chicago-com-fall) In an increasingly AI-dominated information landscape, real trusted communities and relationships will be the way to build trust and loyalty — I’m convinced of it, [and organizations like New\_ Public agree](https://newpublic.org/afterthefeed). So it was exciting to see Chicago Public Media take a huge step towards building a community platform. > The site will include Chicago-area information, civic and cultural resources, community-sourced knowledge and opportunities for audience participation, the nonprofit said Wednesday. It will also curate headlines from the Sun-Times, WBEZ and other news sources. This will be a familiar argument to regular readers: > For independent journalism to “truly service the public … we should have digital infrastructure that is also steered by public media companies,” Chicago Public Media CEO Melissa Bell said. The news industry “has ceded a lot of distribution to places like Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, and I think that has done a disservice to centering civic discourse in a healthy way.” We’ve seen other platforms release similar efforts effectively. The Newsmast Foundation [builds community-first social media apps on open protocols](https://democratictech.fund/stories/newsmast/) for newsrooms that include [The Bristol Cable](https://www.journalism.co.uk/bristol-cable-launches-hybrid-news-and-social-networking-app-in-bid-to-double-membership-2/) and [Find Out Media](https://findoutmedia.substack.com/p/find-out-social-is-live). [Flipboard’s Surf platform](https://surf.social) powers curated social feeds, again built on open social web protocols, for the likes of [404 Media](https://404media.surf.social/) and [Rolling Stone](https://rollingstonepolitics.surf.social/) (as well as my own [curated non-profit US news feed](https://speakingtruthtopower.surf.social/)). And Canada’s [Village Media](https://www.villagemedia.ca/) serves [13 local social networks through its SPACES platform](https://www.spaces.ca/). But this is the first time we’ve seen a single social platform rolled out by a public media company at this scale. Chicago Public Media was gifted the underlying chicago.com domain and will be rolling it out to neighborhoods and suburbs throughout the area. It sounds like each community will be highlighted (perhaps with its own feed), with an attached hub that covers the entire region. Clearly, this is an experiment, but I’m delighted to see a public media innovator explore these ideas at this scale. I see it as vindication for the idea that building stronger community applications into the public media model is a path towards a more trusted future for local journalism. I’ll be watching very closely, and I’m curious to see who dives in next. --- ### [Your SaaS Metrics Are A Result, Not A Strategy](https://news.crunchbase.com/saas/metrics-unit-economics-questions-sagie/) I still subscribe to sites like [Crunchbase News](https://news.crunchbase.com/) from my time in startup-land; although it’s been a while since I’ve run the financial side of a business, I’m interested, and I know that I’ll run one again. I see stories like this and wonder: what would it look like for a newsroom to think this way? In startups, these metrics are known top to bottom, but I’ve rarely heard business teams talk about [LTV](https://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/thought-leadership/wharton-online-insights/why-customer-lifetime-value-matters/) (customer Life Time Value), [CAC](https://www.paddle.com/resources/customer-acquisition-cost) (Customer Acquisition Cost), or even [ARR](https://www.salesforce.com/sales/revenue-lifecycle-management/annual-recurring-revenue-arr/) (Annual Recurring Revenue). This may be happening in finance and fundraising teams, but the culture of talking about customers / donors in teams more widely often simply isn’t there: metrics aren't communicated, dashboards aren't made available, the concepts of the metrics themselves are not explained. Not everyone should be thinking about this all the time – the firewall between business and editorial is important to maintain – but in order to make sharp prioritization and experimentation decisions, the business side should be much more customer / donor focused than they often are. Beyond that, this piece points out, rightly, that metrics are not strategy: they’re the measurable outcome of your strategy. They’re important tools to help you figure out cause and effect and improve your revenue efficiency, but they are not the underlying mechanism. Interesting provocation here from the author: > “The Rule of 4 adds a simple durability check: ARR growth divided by annual customer churn should be above four. If it is low, growth may be hiding a leaking bucket. > > \[The board should ask:\] are we growing on top of a loyal customer base, or replacing customers we should have kept?” Growth in annual recurring revenue — the portion of your revenue that is from recurring customers like subscribers or monthly / annual donors — is expressed as a percentage. So is churn: what percentage of customers (paid subscribers, members, recurring donors) cancel their commitments and don’t return? How many newsrooms have those numbers handy? What would it take to measure them? Which systems are missing that would let you do that? There is *so much* that newsrooms — including non-profit publications — can learn from for-profit startups and other businesses. There’s a lot to be gained by sharing knowledge from those other domains. Figuring out which metrics successful businesses track and mapping the data gaps inside a newsroom is a good place to start. --- ### [How Kalshi infects the news](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/kalshi-cnn-cnbc) Kalshi’s deals with newsrooms seem to be paying dividends for the company: > “Since December CNBC has published 58 articles that do little more than advertise the existence of a Kalshi market related to a news event. \[…\] Since April, CNBC has employed a [dedicated reporter](https://www.cnbc.com/davis-giangiulio/) to produce these articles. CNBC also maintains a [page](https://www.cnbc.com/markets/prediction-markets/) on its website featuring Kalshi prediction markets selected by CNBC editors, along with its web coverage. \[…\] In at least 22 cases, CNBC has written about Kalshi and not disclosed its financial conflict.” [CNN doesn’t pay for access](https://www.axios.com/2025/12/02/cnn-kalshi-prediction-market-data), and instead is [paid to exclusively promote Kalshi](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/americas-betting-craze-has-spread-to-its-news-networks?%5Fsp=bc5180fe-4e8b-4c96-a107-44eca35ac553.1783442134229). [CNBC reporting carries a disclosure](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/kalshi-cnn-cnbc) which states that its relationship goes further: “CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.” CNBC will gain financially if its coverage leads to more signups or a growth in Kalshi’s valuation. CNN’s is a simpler paid placement, but both deals are aggressive ways for Kalshi to compete with Polymarket, which has been making similar deals with newsrooms like Yahoo Finance. This is even happening when markets are not significant enough to be newsworthy. [As the New Yorker noted in December](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/americas-betting-craze-has-spread-to-its-news-networks?%5Fsp=bc5180fe-4e8b-4c96-a107-44eca35ac553.1783442134229): > “When Enten lauded the benefits of analyzing betting odds, on air the other day, he failed to mention that only several hundred thousand dollars had been bet on that particular market. Kalshi’s odds provided good fodder for television, but, statistically speaking, they didn’t say much.” It reminds me of the deals Twitter made with newsrooms relatively early in its life. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, anchors read out tweets on the news, and shows promoted their official Twitter accounts over their websites. This didn’t happen organically: Twitter partnerships teams made deals behind the scenes to ensure their product was showcased well. It was one of the first times that a web startup impactfully executed on a media strategy, and startups have built on that pattern ever since. Here, rather than serving a social network, money is changing hands for newsrooms to promote gambling markets — and in CNBC’s case, they will make more money if more people gamble. It’s obviously weirder, and the incentives here would pull at traditional newsroom ethics in an uncomfortable way even if adequate disclosures were published. This comes at an unfortunate time when trust in news is falling quickly, and newsrooms like CNN are increasingly seen as serving their owners rather than bastions of trustworthy reporting. These Kalshi deals are weird, and an obvious conflict of interest that will likely drive people to trust the news even less than they do today. The Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report found that [70% of respondents think media owners and corporate parents exert undue influence on the news](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026). As more of these sorts of deals are made, and as trust in news continues to decline, newsrooms are going to need to more overtly state that their coverage is free from this sort of sponsored content. Stronger, more transparent ethics statements, and louder conversations about how reporting decisions are made, will help some newsrooms to explain how they stand apart from these dynamics. In the meantime, CNN and CNBC are helping to drive trust in media into the gutter. --- ### [AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn](https://www.pangram.com/blog/ai-in-your-feed) This is one of the core effects of AI: even when people are not engaging with AI-generated content directly, it’s hard to avoid. Our feeds are increasingly full of AI slop. > “AI-generated content appeared across all social media platforms in our data set. The average AI rate across all scanned items was 13.8%, but specific rates varied by platform and item length. On four out of five platforms, longer content was more likely to be AI-generated than shortform content. Across all platforms, one in four longform items (25.72% of items over 250 words) were fully AI-generated.” Specifically, long-form content on LinkedIn was 41% likely to be AI-generated, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s browsed LinkedIn lately. Medium was 31% likely and X was 29% likely. Open social web platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon don’t seem to have been a part of the dataset, but I think it would be foolish to assume they’re immune. Some caveats here: the analysis was done by Pangram, which builds a browser extension and back-end tech that attempts to detect AI-generated content. That’s an imperfect process, and there are no tools that are completely reliable at making this distinction. False positives and false negatives have been common with these tools, although [Pangram claims a 0.01% false positive rate](https://www.pangram.com/blog/all-about-false-positives-in-ai-detectors). So take it with a pinch of salt, but it’s reasonable to assume that these numbers are *directionally* true. All of this serves to drive trust in these platforms even lower. Increasingly, people on platforms like LinkedIn are being lazy writers and using AI to produce content that you don’t want to put the effort into. I generally think that if you can’t be bothered to write something, it’s not reasonable to ask people to read it; still, there may be some value in AI *assisted* writing, depending on the piece and how it was produced. (That kind of AI content, by the way, was not really measured by this test.) But AI has also led to a lot of outright spam making its way into people’s feeds in order to shamelessly build clout and advertising revenue. Both things are making these platforms unusable, which in turn is driving people to smaller communities and group chats with people they *know* they can trust. I believe that’s going to be a big trend: AI leading to a noticeable drop in quality that drives people away from the platforms where it’s allowed to thrive. In that world, platforms that foster trusted relationships and communities will win. *Via* [*404 Media, which has characteristically great coverage of the story*](https://www.404media.co/linkedin-and-x-are-flooded-with-ai-spam-browsing-data-suggests/)*.* ### Communities will build trust and loyalty for local public media. Chicago Public Media is taking a big leap forward. URL: https://werd.io/communities-will-build-trust-and-loyalty-for-local-public-media-chicago-public-media-is-taking-a-big-leap-forward/ Last updated: 2026-07-10T13:35:30.000Z Link: [*Chicago Public Media launching community website, by Amy Yee at the Chicago Sun-Times*](https://chicago.suntimes.com/media/2026/07/08/chicago-public-media-launching-community-website-chicago-com-fall) In an increasingly AI-dominated information landscape, real trusted communities and relationships will be the way to build trust and loyalty — I’m convinced of it, [and organizations like New\_ Public agree](https://newpublic.org/afterthefeed). So it was exciting to see Chicago Public Media take a huge step towards building a community platform. > The site will include Chicago-area information, civic and cultural resources, community-sourced knowledge and opportunities for audience participation, the nonprofit said Wednesday. It will also curate headlines from the Sun-Times, WBEZ and other news sources. This will be a familiar argument to regular readers: > For independent journalism to “truly service the public … we should have digital infrastructure that is also steered by public media companies,” Chicago Public Media CEO Melissa Bell said. The news industry “has ceded a lot of distribution to places like Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, and I think that has done a disservice to centering civic discourse in a healthy way.” We’ve seen other platforms release similar efforts effectively. The Newsmast Foundation [builds community-first social media apps on open protocols](https://democratictech.fund/stories/newsmast/) for newsrooms that include [The Bristol Cable](https://www.journalism.co.uk/bristol-cable-launches-hybrid-news-and-social-networking-app-in-bid-to-double-membership-2/) and [Find Out Media](https://findoutmedia.substack.com/p/find-out-social-is-live). [Flipboard’s Surf platform](https://surf.social) powers curated social feeds, again built on open social web protocols, for the likes of [404 Media](https://404media.surf.social/) and [Rolling Stone](https://rollingstonepolitics.surf.social/) (as well as my own [curated non-profit US news feed](https://speakingtruthtopower.surf.social/)). And Canada’s [Village Media](https://www.villagemedia.ca/) serves [13 local social networks through its SPACES platform](https://www.spaces.ca/). But this is the first time we’ve seen a single social platform rolled out by a public media company at this scale. Chicago Public Media was gifted the underlying chicago.com domain and will be rolling it out to neighborhoods and suburbs throughout the area. It sounds like each community will be highlighted (perhaps with its own feed), with an attached hub that covers the entire region. Clearly, this is an experiment, but I’m delighted to see a public media innovator explore these ideas at this scale. I see it as vindication for the idea that building stronger community applications into the public media model is a path towards a more trusted future for local journalism. I’ll be watching very closely, and I’m curious to see who dives in next. ### As social networks fill up with AI slop, trusted relationships and communities will win. URL: https://werd.io/as-social-networks-fill-up-with-ai-slop-trusted-relationships-and-communities-will-win/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T15:55:43.000Z Link: [*AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn, by Max Spero at Pangram*](https://www.pangram.com/blog/ai-in-your-feed) This is one of the core effects of AI: even when people are not engaging with AI-generated content directly, it’s hard to avoid. Our feeds are increasingly full of AI slop. > “AI-generated content appeared across all social media platforms in our data set. The average AI rate across all scanned items was 13.8%, but specific rates varied by platform and item length. On four out of five platforms, longer content was more likely to be AI-generated than shortform content. Across all platforms, one in four longform items (25.72% of items over 250 words) were fully AI-generated.” Specifically, long-form content on LinkedIn was 41% likely to be AI-generated, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s browsed LinkedIn lately. Medium was 31% likely and X was 29% likely. Open social web platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon don’t seem to have been a part of the dataset, but I think it would be foolish to assume they’re immune. Some caveats here: the analysis was done by Pangram, which builds a browser extension and back-end tech that attempts to detect AI-generated content. That’s an imperfect process, and there are no tools that are completely reliable at making this distinction. False positives and false negatives have been common with these tools, although [Pangram claims a 0.01% false positive rate](https://www.pangram.com/blog/all-about-false-positives-in-ai-detectors). So take it with a pinch of salt, but it’s reasonable to assume that these numbers are *directionally* true. All of this serves to drive trust in these platforms even lower. Increasingly, people on platforms like LinkedIn are being lazy writers and using AI to produce content that you don’t want to put the effort into. I generally think that if you can’t be bothered to write something, it’s not reasonable to ask people to read it; still, there may be some value in AI *assisted* writing, depending on the piece and how it was produced. (That kind of AI content, by the way, was not really measured by this test.) But AI has also led to a lot of outright spam making its way into people’s feeds in order to shamelessly build clout and advertising revenue. Both things are making these platforms unusable, which in turn is driving people to smaller communities and group chats with people they *know* they can trust. I believe that’s going to be a big trend: AI leading to a noticeable drop in quality that drives people away from the platforms where it’s allowed to thrive. In that world, platforms that foster trusted relationships and communities will win. *Via* [*404 Media, which has characteristically great coverage of the story*](https://www.404media.co/linkedin-and-x-are-flooded-with-ai-spam-browsing-data-suggests/)*.* ### IndieWeb Fiction Carnival: May 2026 Roundup URL: https://werd.io/indieweb-fiction-carnival-may-2026-roundup/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T14:15:13.000Z Back in May, I signed up to host the IndieWeb Fiction Carnival, and kicked it off with a prompt: [*sticks and stones will break my bones*](https://werd.io/indieweb-fiction-carnival-may-2026/)*.* I'm incredibly late with my roundup: just as soon as I'd kicked it off, life became chaotic in a way that won't settle down until September. Which is a poor excuse, because I received some great submissions. [Daniel Miller wrote *Pull*:](https://daniel.industries/2026/05/09/pull/) > The first chamber was larger than the second. Wren heard and felt the pneumatic doors close behind them and was careful to place one foot next to the other, in a stable stance, and took hold of the handrails. They felt their boots lock onto the walkway. The loud, mechanical horn blared its single warning and clouds of thin white mist filled the room. Wren stared straight ahead but could see in the peripheral vision possible through their helmet’s visor the particles cling to their suit. In seconds they covered the visor as well. [Zachary Kai wrote *Tear Me Down, Build Me Back Up*](https://zacharykai.net/notes/tear): > They repeated the usual version of this phrase, turned on him in the second person, until it became so pervasive they might've well have tattooed it on the insides of his eyelids. [April wrote *Lara's Neighbour*](https://aprilscable.neocities.org/posts/larasneighbour): > Being a young lady in the neighborhood. One of the elderly man came around one day towards Lara and asked when is she getting hitched? Flabbergasted by his question - she said she won't be getting married and then this oldie guy got on her nerves by saying that a young lady is a BURDEN on the family and getting married removes that burden. *Also syndicated to [IndieNews](https://news.indieweb.org/en).* ### Startups track business metrics. Newsrooms should learn from them. URL: https://werd.io/startups-track-business-metrics-newsrooms-should-learn-from-them/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T14:21:22.000Z Link: [*Your SaaS Metrics Are A Result, Not A Strategy, by Itay Sagie in Crunchbase News*](https://news.crunchbase.com/saas/metrics-unit-economics-questions-sagie/) I still subscribe to sites like Crunchbase News from my time in startup-land; although it’s been a while since I’ve run the financial side of a business, I’m interested, and I know that I’ll run one again. I see stories like this and wonder: what would it look like for a newsroom to think this way? In startups, these metrics are known top to bottom, but I’ve rarely heard business teams talk about [LTV](https://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/thought-leadership/wharton-online-insights/why-customer-lifetime-value-matters/) (customer Life Time Value), [CAC](https://www.paddle.com/resources/customer-acquisition-cost) (Customer Acquisition Cost), or even [ARR](https://www.salesforce.com/sales/revenue-lifecycle-management/annual-recurring-revenue-arr/) (Annual Recurring Revenue). This may be happening in finance and fundraising teams, but the culture of talking about customers / donors in teams more widely often simply isn’t there: metrics aren't communicated, dashboards aren't made available, the concepts of the metrics themselves are not explained. Not everyone should be thinking about this all the time – the firewall between business and editorial is important to maintain – but in order to make sharp prioritization and experimentation decisions, the business side should be much more customer / donor focused than they often are. Beyond that, this piece points out, rightly, that metrics are not strategy: they’re the measurable outcome of your strategy. They’re important tools to help you figure out cause and effect and improve your revenue efficiency, but they are not the underlying mechanism. Interesting provocation here from the author: > “The Rule of 4 adds a simple durability check: ARR growth divided by annual customer churn should be above four. If it is low, growth may be hiding a leaking bucket. > > \[The board should ask:\] are we growing on top of a loyal customer base, or replacing customers we should have kept?” Growth in annual recurring revenue — the portion of your revenue that is from recurring customers like subscribers or monthly / annual donors — is expressed as a percentage. So is churn: what percentage of customers (paid subscribers, members, recurring donors) cancel their commitments and don’t return? How many newsrooms have those numbers handy? What would it take to measure them? Which systems are missing that would let you do that? There is *so much* that newsrooms — including non-profit publications — can learn from for-profit startups and other businesses. There’s a lot to be gained by sharing knowledge from those other domains. Figuring out which metrics successful businesses track and mapping the data gaps inside a newsroom is a good place to start. ### CNN and CNBC promote gambling to make a cheap buck URL: https://werd.io/cnn-and-cnbc-promote-gambling-to-make-a-cheap-buck/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T17:12:08.000Z Link: [*How Kalshi infects the news, by Aaron Rupar and Judd Legum in Public Notice and Popular Information*](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/kalshi-cnn-cnbc) Kalshi’s deals with newsrooms seem to be paying dividends for the company: > “Since December CNBC has published 58 articles that do little more than advertise the existence of a Kalshi market related to a news event. \[…\] Since April, CNBC has employed a [dedicated reporter](https://www.cnbc.com/davis-giangiulio/) to produce these articles. CNBC also maintains a [page](https://www.cnbc.com/markets/prediction-markets/) on its website featuring Kalshi prediction markets selected by CNBC editors, along with its web coverage. \[…\] In at least 22 cases, CNBC has written about Kalshi and not disclosed its financial conflict.” [CNN doesn’t pay for access](https://www.axios.com/2025/12/02/cnn-kalshi-prediction-market-data), and instead is [paid to exclusively promote Kalshi](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/americas-betting-craze-has-spread-to-its-news-networks?%5Fsp=bc5180fe-4e8b-4c96-a107-44eca35ac553.1783442134229). [CNBC reporting carries a disclosure](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/kalshi-cnn-cnbc) which states that its relationship goes further: “CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.” CNBC will gain financially if its coverage leads to more signups or a growth in Kalshi’s valuation. CNN’s is a simpler paid placement, but both deals are aggressive ways for Kalshi to compete with Polymarket, which has been making similar deals with newsrooms like Yahoo Finance. This is even happening when markets are not significant enough to be newsworthy. [As the New Yorker noted in December](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/americas-betting-craze-has-spread-to-its-news-networks?%5Fsp=bc5180fe-4e8b-4c96-a107-44eca35ac553.1783442134229): > “When Enten lauded the benefits of analyzing betting odds, on air the other day, he failed to mention that only several hundred thousand dollars had been bet on that particular market. Kalshi’s odds provided good fodder for television, but, statistically speaking, they didn’t say much.” It reminds me of the deals Twitter made with newsrooms relatively early in its life. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, anchors read out tweets on the news, and shows promoted their official Twitter accounts over their websites. This didn’t happen organically: Twitter partnerships teams made deals behind the scenes to ensure their product was showcased well. It was one of the first times that a web startup impactfully executed on a media strategy, and startups have built on that pattern ever since. Here, rather than serving a social network, money is changing hands for newsrooms to promote gambling markets — and in CNBC’s case, they will make more money if more people gamble. It’s obviously weirder, and the incentives here would pull at traditional newsroom ethics in an uncomfortable way even if adequate disclosures were published. This comes at an unfortunate time when trust in news is falling quickly, and newsrooms like CNN are increasingly seen as serving their owners rather than bastions of trustworthy reporting. These Kalshi deals are weird, and an obvious conflict of interest that will likely drive people to trust the news even less than they do today. The Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report found that [70% of respondents think media owners and corporate parents exert undue influence on the news](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026). As more of these sorts of deals are made, and as trust in news continues to decline, newsrooms are going to need to more overtly state that their coverage is free from this sort of sponsored content. Stronger, more transparent ethics statements, and louder conversations about how reporting decisions are made, will help some newsrooms to explain how they stand apart from these dynamics. In the meantime, CNN and CNBC are helping to drive trust in media into the gutter. ### Governance can prevent AI from being used to undermine democracy. But only if it has teeth. URL: https://werd.io/governance-can-prevent-ai-from-being-used-to-undermine-democracy-but-only-if-it-has-teeth/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T13:40:43.000Z Link: [*In Geneva, the World Can Anchor AI Governance in Free Expression, by Isabelle Anzabi in Tech Policy Press*](https://www.techpolicy.press/in-geneva-the-world-can-anchor-ai-governance-in-free-expression/) I like that this is happening, will appreciate the recommendations that arise from it, and know with complete certainty that no major AI vendor will adhere to them unless they are forced: > “The United Nations is convening its [Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance](https://www.un.org/global-dialogue-ai-governance/en) in Geneva July 6-7, and the stakes are high: what rights will anchor the future of how the world governs AI? Generative AI systems mediate, filter, and generate the information we encounter every day. They are, at their core, a technology of expression and access to information. How we govern them will have downstream effects on what people can say, seek, and know. Geneva is where we can get that right.” A previous UNESCO meeting recommended governance that “bars AI systems from being used for social scoring or mass surveillance, and requires member states to ensure that AI actors respect rights in the AI lifecycle”. As we all know, that has *definitely* happened. Both AI vendors and the two countries that predominantly house them, the United States and China, are famously against surveillance and social scoring, and in favor of maintaining rights. Certainly none of them have, for example, used AI with [the most sensitive personal information government has access to](https://www.npr.org/2026/01/23/nx-s1-5684185/doge-data-social-security-privacy), or worked with the private sector to [create a surveillance apparatus](https://theconversation.com/us-government-ramps-up-mass-surveillance-with-help-of-ai-tech-data-brokers-and-your-apps-and-devices-277440) for policing [that includes the broad detainment of immigrants](https://www.404media.co/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-find-neighborhoods-to-raid/). Neither of them is famous for social scoring — in China by government or in the United States [through private enterprise](https://hai.stanford.edu/news/how-flawed-data-aggravates-inequality-credit). Job done! Sarcasm aside, it’s important to have these meetings, and it’s important to continue to add pressure to protect rights and prevent abuses of this technology. But we should be clear-eyed about the fact that any recommendations almost certainly won’t actually be followed unless major nations that represent real dollars to these vendors enshrine them in law and hold the line when countries like the US apply pressure to undermine them. It can’t just come down to *individual* governments. The linked article argues that we should also protect freedom of expression, in particular from government (although I’d argue we should also worry about the influence of wealthy private entities). Because these are black box systems, it’s vital that we prevent governments (or anyone with power) from opaquely tweaking their answers and outputs to benefit their agendas. They should not be allowed to be opaque systems; full transparency and auditability should be requirements. The danger is that, in the wrong hands, AI can be used to cement centralized, undemocratic power. To prevent this, ideally, organizations like the UN should apply real sanctions to nations that don’t obey transparency rules and tweak AI systems in service of undemocratic goals — but the UN’s history of doing this effectively is not strong. Part of the problem is the “AI is the information technology of the future” framing used here. If you believe that AI is the future of information systems, you are also more likely to believe that your nation will miss out if you don’t embrace it completely. (That’s been the marketing: if you don’t jump into AI, you will be left behind.) But the reality is, of course, far more nuanced. AI will absolutely change industries like software engineering, and has already made an impact there, although it’s far from an existential transformation. I’m less receptive to the idea that it will transform entire nations. AI vendors need global markets more than global markets need AI. Governments should understand the power they have, and use it. ### Happy 250th birthday, America URL: https://werd.io/happy-250th-birthday-america/ Last updated: 2026-07-05T13:09:51.000Z Celebrating the 250th anniversary of a declaration that [had a passage decrying slavery removed](https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery/) because southern states complained by eating [carcinogenic mass produced meat tubes](https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/new-us-poll-almost-9-out-10-adults-dont-know-risks-eating-hot-dogs) while [the President tells half of us we’re evil Marxists](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-speak-mount-rushmore-one-monument-cant-remake-rcna352734) while we swelter through [a man made heat wave](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/03/climate/heat-wave-us-canada-climate-change.html) is incredibly American. Happy 4th! All snark aside, genuinely, I do love America. The Declaration of Independence - 250 years ago! - was genuinely important. Most places you go, the people are kind, community-minded, and optimistic. One day, eventually, they will have an equitable government that redresses wrongs and provides real support. My entire political worldview is: what if you could maintain the optimism and energy of America but add an inclusive culture of support that gives everyone education, healthcare, a real safety net and a springboard for their lives, in a way that builds communities rather than extracts from them? It's not our current reality, but I'm certain we can get there. One day, we'll look back, and the corporatism, the militarism, the racism, and the subjugation will be a thing of the past. In their place will be thriving communities. And, finally, all of this will be great. ### Notable links: July 3, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-july-3-2026/ Last updated: 2026-07-03T14:09:16.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/notable-links-june-26-2026/#/portal)*.* --- ### [OpenAI proposes handing Trump administration 5% stake](https://www.ft.com/content/7c803eab-8e80-4431-9a87-e943bf00e00b?syn-25a6b1a6=1&ref=werd.io) In order to ward off backlash against AI and curry favor with the Trump administration, Sam Altman has floated the idea of giving 5% of OpenAI to a wealth fund that pays dividends to both the government and citizens — and that every leading AI vendor should do the same. > “Sam Altman, chief executive of the ChatGPT maker, has argued that giving the public a financial stake in the company is the best way to share the upside of AI and has suggested a stake of this size in early conversations with the administration, according to two people familiar with the talks.” It’s transparently a way to align everyone with AI vendor profits. If the sector increases in value, the government and the voting population benefit. If it *decreases* in value … well, the government is incentivized to prevent that from happening. It also wouldn’t be without precedent: it’s modeled on the Alaska Permanent Fund, which does this with oil profits for Alaskan residents. Intel is also now 10% government-owned, and the administration has reversed course to be behind it since gaining that stake. Would a government whose revenues are directly linked to the performance of a sector be likely to enact hard regulations on that sector? Perhaps not. It’s not a slam dunk, though: for example, the UK receives significant tax revenue on fossil fuels, but still promoted electric cars. There are lots of factors at play, and profit alignment isn’t necessarily outweighed by the effects of other harms. (See also: cigarettes, which are taxed but also tightly controlled as an addictive carcinogen.) Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has pushed for closer to 50% ownership through a sovereign wealth fund. At this much lower stake, Sam Altman’s proposal uses Sanders’s democratic socialist “share the wealth” language as a way to launder OpenAI’s profits through a thin veneer of good ethics. What’s also interesting to me is that all of these arguments assume that AI is going to be an enormous driver of wealth and innovation — but what if it isn’t? It’s another great way to advertise the technology as something world-changing that everybody must get behind right now. Even if AI turns out to be what the people heavily invested in its success say it will be, it doesn’t stand alone as a sea change innovation. The personal computer, the iPhone, word processors, and spreadsheets were pretty transformational technologies. Should there have been a wealth fund attached to each of those? What, exactly, makes AI different? The answer is that it represents labor displacement: people will lose their jobs. And if that’s actually going to be the case, we need bigger, more structural safety nets and reforms. Dividends from 5% of a sector aren’t going to replace wages at scale — and are heavily dependent on valuations continuing to rise. This proposal ties the welfare of people who have lost their jobs to the success of the companies that drove those losses. The incentives are perverse. We shouldn’t accept this proposal. Instead, we should push for stronger protections and stronger regulation. If a sector can’t succeed without real damage to working communities, then it must not be allowed to. And if these claims turn out not to be true, then it’s an empty gesture designed to add credibility to a self-interested science fiction view of the future. --- ### [Companies Are Making Claude and Codex Talk Like Cavemen to Stop AI’s Soaring Costs](https://www.404media.co/companies-are-making-claude-and-codex-talk-like-cavemen-to-stop-ais-soaring-costs/?ref=werd.io) I find this very funny: > “Companies are deliberately making their AI tools speak like cavemen in an attempt to stop burning through AI tokens and curb their massive expenditure on AI, 404 Media has found. The tool turns the usually verbose outpost of LLMs like Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini into a much more to the point answer. Think less “you’re right to push back, I was wrong,” and more “Hulk smash.”” If only we had other limited-vocabulary lexicons designed to talk to computers efficiently! I think we’re circling a few different possibilities that may show up over the next few years: - Literally LLM-specific “programming languages” that humans can use to talk to models more efficiently, of which Caveman is the hilarious first step - A proprietary bytecode-like language for LLMs that makes interactions more efficient but also just happens to be owned by one of the major vendors and creates a hitherto-unobtainable moat for their business - This all becomes moot when local models become viable for most businesses without insanely high hardware prices or configuration costs - LLM costs eventually fall to a fraction of their existing level But who knows? Maybe enterprise businesses will continue to talk in stilted caveman language to achieve their business goals forever. --- ### [Journalism Has the Receipts. It Won’t Use Them.](https://www.backstoryandstrategy.com/p/journalism-has-the-receipts-it-wont?ref=werd.io) Arts organizations learned long ago to prove their economic value with hard numbers: attendance, tourism revenue, multiplier effects. News, as Yoni Greenbaum argues here, likes to cling to civic virtue and assume that the work should speak for itself. > “Journalism operated on a commercial advertising revenue model for over 150 years. Publishers sold readers to advertisers, while editors fretted about maintaining a church-and-state divide between the newsroom and business desk. Journalists saw themselves as watchdogs, not wealth generators. Pitching our value based on our own economic impact felt gauche, too close to an advertorial.” Yoni points out that this is starting to change. [We know that news deserts cost communities at least $1.1B a year](https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/new-report-reveals-local-news-shortage-is-costing-communities-1-1-billion-a-year/?ref=werd.io), for example, because of a report by Rebuild Local News and the University of Illinois Chicago. But newsrooms themselves tend to shy away from reporting their own economic impact — even though they already have the tools to do so. It’s not obvious to me that this accounting would work as an argument across the board for newsrooms, and particularly for those with a national focus. Does ProPublica (my employer until the end of the month) save anyone money? It certainly does prevent corruption, and there are instances with real dollar amounts attached to them: Intuit, for example, paid back $141 million to its customers over deceptive marketing. But I’m not sure that its impact can be quantified easily overall, despite the newsroom’s obvious public benefit. On the other hand, for *local* newsrooms, this makes a lot of sense to me: at their best, they act as connective tissue for their communities. That $1.1B a year was *just* increased interest costs from lenders who felt they could charge more to unmonitored governments. They just need to get more comfortable at telling the economic side of their stories. And there’s a wider point here, which is that almost all nonprofit newsrooms need to be able to get more concrete and detailed about their business models. If you’re running an organization that wants to be sustainable, it’s not enough to care about the journalistic process, and your business accounting cannot be limited to activities like events and merchandise. You actually have to care about building a business holistically, and everything that entails. --- ### [Cascade PBS launches Local Public as standalone streaming tech company](https://thedesk.net/2026/07/local-public-launches-pbs-member-stations-apps/?ref=werd.io) I’ve got some complicated feelings about this announcement from Cascade PBS: > “Cascade PBS, the non-profit television station serving western Washington state, has spun out its technology division into a separate company that will help similar public broadcasters carve out their own streaming and digital identities. > > The new company, Local Public, will help develop streaming applications for connected TVs, mobile devices and the web, allowing public television stations to offer locally branded streaming experiences featuring their own programming alongside national PBS content.” On one hand, I absolutely love that they were able to spin out their technology division. Most public media companies don’t have the resources or skills to build their own tech, and building this capability outside of any one station so that all of them can take advantage of it makes a lot of sense to me. The Local Public site itself [also makes the ROI transparent](https://www.localpublic.tv/pricing/?ref=werd.io). WETA, the public media station for Greater Washington, ran the numbers and said that it would break even in the first year, and a calculator is available for other stations that want to check for themselves. The pricing hinges on Passport-eligible donors: those giving at least $60 a year. Local Public charges $60,000 a year for stations with fewer than 15,000, $75,000 for up to 40,000, and $100,000 a year for everyone else — which is not out of bounds. It all seems like a decent business, run in the public interest as a subsidiary of Cascade PBS, that will genuinely help public media stations. I want to see more of this. But I do wish it was fully based on open technology. While stations gain the right to modify the source code of their *apps* after a year, they remain locked into Local Public’s back-end services. For the CMS, which builds network effects the more stations use it, stations can only get support, maintenance, and customization through Local Public. Over time, that lock-in does not incentivize great support, and Local Public will need to work hard to buck the trends. NPR’s CMS, for example, is notorious among the stations that have to use it. I’m certain the will is there to do better, but they will need to proceed with intention. In my opinion it would be better if, at least after establishing a customer base, they open sourced their back-end CMS too. I tend to think that *any* technology provided to support the public interest should be fully open. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a tidy business available to its creator — ask [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=werd.io), which is generating millions of dollars off the back of its open source CMS. If there’s a class of organization that absolutely doesn’t deserve to be locked into a technology stack, it’s public service broadcasters. This isn’t Cascade PBS’s fault. It needs its spinout to be sustainable, and this model feels like it will hit that goal. The best scenario, in my mind, would be if there were central funders who bankrolled open tech that the whole ecosystem could use. But, of course, it’s 2026, and central funding for *anything* public media is hard to come by. Still, this is wonderful to see, and anything that encourages collaboration on a technical level between public service media organizations deserves support. --- ### [Emergency Mode for news](https://emergencymode.news/?ref=werd.io) Emergency Mode is a set of resources, tools, and training that aims to prepare small newsrooms for various disasters. It’s a co-production between [OpenNews](https://opennews.org/?ref=werd.io), [NC Local](https://nlocal.org/?ref=werd.io), and [Newspack](https://newspack.com/?ref=werd.io). They’ve done a great job. As their about page puts it: > “Emergency Mode for News equips local journalists and their newsrooms with the tools they need to respond to climate disasters. With a disaster reporting action pack, software and a learning community, Emergency Mode is designed to help journalists act nimbly and creatively to serve their communities when the unexpected happens.” Toolkits include things like [a practical checklist for newsrooms covering wildfires](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iEvYxJf1dnQ8jXS8IhBeqh9GrkTsxCqBjehG66aRJmA/edit?tab=t.0&ref=werd.io#heading=h.t2e0k24sy4l4) and [a template for maintaining source lists during an emergency](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dIeAA0yo3OXJKfjT4cwaPkZd01stJqaPD3kRZMpIsDA/edit?tab=t.0&ref=werd.io#heading=h.k4t85kcanet). There’s also [a hands-on workshop series](https://emergencymode.news/training/?ref=werd.io) and tools like WordPress plugins for [live rolling news updates](https://emergencymode.news/tools/?ref=werd.io) and providing bandwidth-light versions of sites. Most of all, I really appreciate the practical nature of all of it. Rather than hand-waving about principles and ideas, as many newsroom-facing resources do, everything here is a concrete tool that can actively be used in the field. Newsrooms are more squeezed than they’ve ever been, so it doesn’t hurt that it’s all free. I’d love to see this level of concrete specificity for *the normal working of a newsroom*. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a list of business model checklists you could pull from? Or disaster recovery plans? Or data protection policies? Just as the tools on this site are going to be concretely useful to any newsroom that covers a disaster, checklists, tools, and training for standard operational practices could be really meaningful — particularly for smaller newsrooms that don’t have the ability to hire CTOs, CFOs, and so on. In other words: more, please. This is lovely. --- ### [The Quiet Erosion of Collective Action Under Digital Surveillance](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-quiet-erosion-of-collective-action-under-digital-surveillance/?ref=werd.io) The most important outcome of increased surveillance is a chilling effect on free speech and expression. As Gina Romero, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, notes here, that extends to the organizations that have been established to protect those rights: > “As organizations operate under the constant assumption that they are being monitored, their core functions are profoundly affected. Their ability to serve as watchdogs, provide rights-based services, protect victims of human rights abuses, and educate the public is severely constrained. Ultimately, the very possibility of advancing and protecting rights, democracy and the rule of law is undermined.” Civil society organizations and advocates have been mislabeled as national security threats around the world. It’s true in some of the nations that we’ve long thought of as being authoritarian, but it’s also true in the United States. Even places like the United Kingdom have tried to apply pressure to technology companies so that they can gain access to backdoors. Tools like [Signal](https://signal.org/?ref=werd.io) have become all the more important. We need more easy to use end to end encrypted systems so that we can communicate and organize with each other without fear of government surveillance. That also allows whistleblowers and sources for journalists to reach out with less of a fear they they will suffer repercussions. But those tools don’t stop you from being surveilled in the real world. Cameras and microphones are everywhere; license plate readers are now commonplace; even [AI-enabled drones have been deployed](https://theconversation.com/world-cup-propels-surveillance-to-new-heights-284712?ref=werd.io) for events like the World Cup. It’s generally true that if government *can* do something, it will. So the only way to stop this kind of widespread surveillance is to make it impossible. Romero calls for legislative prevention that takes into account the whole systemic impact of surveillance rather than just the immediate first-order effects. Her report also calls out that it can be very difficult to challenge these systems because what they are and who owns them tends to be complicated or obfuscated: > “The study reveals a lack of transparency surrounding the relationship between state power and non-state actors, creating an information vacuum that makes surveillance practices exceedingly difficult to challenge through litigation. As a result, the right to an effective remedy is fundamentally weakened.” So I think we also need more technical capabilities that interfere with how these systems of surveillance actually work. We need more spaces that are designated privacy-first and enforce an anti-surveillance rulebook. And, just as [communities have taken it upon themselves to dismantle Flock cameras](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/?ref=werd.io), we need to take back our streets. --- ### [OpenAI will delay GPT-5.6 after Trump administration request](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/957372/openai-will-delay-gpt-5-6-after-trump-administration-request?ref=werd.io) I’ve got (at least) two worries about the story that the Trump Administration halted the release of models from both Anthropic and OpenAI. Anthropic [recently pulled its Fable model release](https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access?ref=werd.io) in response to the government. Now it turns out that OpenAI has done something similar: > “The Information reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Wednesday in a company Q&A that it would release GPT-5.6 in limited preview form — granting access only to a small group of enterprise customers — in compliance with a request from the federal government. During that preview period, the Trump administration itself would reportedly approve access for customers on a case-by-case basis.” In some ways, what a coup for the AI industry. This technology is so powerful that the government doesn’t think anyone should have it — and when it does inevitably release into the public’s hands, what a valuable product that will be. Get the tech that’s too dangerous to be released! This magical product can be yours for an unbelievable price! So one worry is that this is, in essence, great marketing for these vendors. But it’s worth remembering that these AI models are black boxes that respond to information queries in opaque ways. The more people rely on them for knowledge, the more powerful the models become. The argument being presented is that they can be used in ways that might present traditional security threats — but consider that some versions of the truth, to the wrong kind of authoritarian-minded government, might also be considered a threat. (Remember that “extremism on migration, race, and gender” and hostility to “traditional American views” [are now considered markers of domestic terrorism](https://theconversation.com/labeling-dissent-as-terrorism-new-us-domestic-terrorism-priorities-raise-constitutional-alarms-269161?ref=werd.io).) This is a golden opportunity, in other words, to hit pause on frontier model releases, at a time when models are becoming more prevalent, in order to make sure models are shaped to represent a certain version of the world. The administration [has already signaled a willingness to do this](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-prevents-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government/?ref=werd.io); there is nothing to say they aren’t. The only way to *prove* that they aren’t is to open source not just the models but the training process and make the whole thing transparent and verifiable. The industry is a long way off from doing that. --- ### [Now we’re getting AI fake news complaining about how AI fake news is the death of real news ](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/now-were-getting-ai-fake-news-complaining-about-how-ai-fake-news-is-the-death-of-real-news/?ref=werd.io) A bunch of people — [including, unfortunately, me](https://werd.io/a-right-wing-media-chain-tried-to-replace-47-newspapers-with-ai-they-all-died/) — were taken in by this AI-generated newsroom earlier this week. The story was decently written and seemed to be well-cited, but it turned out to be nonsense. Ironically, it was about a would-be media empire that purchased struggling papers, fired their staff, and replaced them with AI, leading to the death of each newsroom. All false. So the big question about The Editorial is: why does it exist? [As Joshua Benton put it:](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/now-were-getting-ai-fake-news-complaining-about-how-ai-fake-news-is-the-death-of-real-news/?ref=werd.io) > “Fake news isn’t new, obviously. And while AI-generated slop is newer, it’s hardly unfamiliar at this point. But why would a spam site bother making up a story about Alabama weekly newspapers, of all things? Whose interest is it in to get that niche?” Here’s my theory: I think it’s a two-headed LLM poisoning scheme. On one hand, most of the content relates to Chinese-specific interests: articles about Taiwan or African nations where China is making inroads. These are all articles from a China-friendly perspective. If an LLM were to ingest them and *trust the site*, it might start repeating the assertions made in each one as fact. One way to make sure a site is trusted is to get other, trusted sources to point to it. That’s where the stories about journalism come in: there are few things that journalists engage in more than stories about their own industry. Get enough patsies (like, again, to my chagrin, *me*) to point links in their direction and journalists might post them in high-trust communities on high-trust sites like Reddit, as well as their own, and Bob’s your uncle. [We already know that it takes as little as 13 words](https://werd.io/all-you-need-to-poison-an-llm-is-13-words/) to poison an LLM with falsehoods. Of course, that might not be it at all. Frank, the site’s owner (who lists himself as CEO of Nordiso Group on LinkedIn), at least appears to be a Finnish solopreneur. If he wanted to clear the air, he could write a post (himself) about what he was up to. It might be that he’s running an experiment to see how easily an LLM can be poisoned with propaganda! Until then, I think it’s reasonable to assume that something underhand is going on. ### A new media spinout provides streaming apps for public service broadcasters. I just wish it was open. URL: https://werd.io/a-new-media-spinout-provides-streaming-apps-for-public-service-broadcasters-i-just-wish-it-was-open/ Last updated: 2026-07-03T13:56:53.000Z Link: [*Cascade PBS launches Local Public as standalone streaming tech company, by Matthew Keys at The Desk*](https://thedesk.net/2026/07/local-public-launches-pbs-member-stations-apps/) I’ve got some complicated feelings about this announcement from Cascade PBS: > “Cascade PBS, the non-profit television station serving western Washington state, has spun out its technology division into a separate company that will help similar public broadcasters carve out their own streaming and digital identities. > > The new company, Local Public, will help develop streaming applications for connected TVs, mobile devices and the web, allowing public television stations to offer locally branded streaming experiences featuring their own programming alongside national PBS content.” On one hand, I absolutely love that they were able to spin out their technology division. Most public media companies don’t have the resources or skills to build their own tech, and building this capability outside of any one station so that all of them can take advantage of it makes a lot of sense to me. The Local Public site itself [also makes the ROI transparent](https://www.localpublic.tv/pricing/). WETA, the public media station for Greater Washington, ran the numbers and said that it would break even in the first year, and a calculator is available for other stations that want to check for themselves. The pricing hinges on Passport-eligible donors: those giving at least $60 a year. Local Public charges $60,000 a year for stations with fewer than 15,000, $75,000 for up to 40,000, and $100,000 a year for everyone else — which is not out of bounds. It all seems like a decent business, run in the public interest as a subsidiary of Cascade PBS, that will genuinely help public media stations. I want to see more of this. But I do wish it was fully based on open technology. While stations gain the right to modify the source code of their *apps* after a year, they remain locked into Local Public’s back-end services. For the CMS, which builds network effects the more stations use it, stations can only get support, maintenance, and customization through Local Public. Over time, that lock-in does not incentivize great support, and Local Public will need to work hard to buck the trends. NPR’s CMS, for example, is notorious among the stations that have to use it. I’m certain the will is there to do better, but they will need to proceed with intention. In my opinion it would be better if, at least after establishing a customer base, they open sourced their back-end CMS too. I tend to think that *any* technology provided to support the public interest should be fully open. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a tidy business available to its creator — ask [Ghost](https://ghost.org), which is generating millions of dollars off the back of its open source CMS. If there’s a class of organization that absolutely doesn’t deserve to be locked into a technology stack, it’s public service broadcasters. This isn’t Cascade PBS’s fault. It needs its spinout to be sustainable, and this model feels like it will hit that goal. The best scenario, in my mind, would be if there were central funders who bankrolled open tech that the whole ecosystem could use. But, of course, it’s 2026, and central funding for *anything* public media is hard to come by. Still, this is wonderful to see, and anything that encourages collaboration on a technical level between public service media organizations deserves support. ### Newsrooms need to get comfortable expressing their business value - and raising money on it. URL: https://werd.io/newsrooms-need-to-get-comfortable-expressing-their-business-value-and-raising-money-on-it/ Last updated: 2026-07-03T13:13:06.000Z Link: [*Journalism Has the Receipts. It Won’t Use Them., by Yoni Greenbaum in Backstory & Strategy*](https://www.backstoryandstrategy.com/p/journalism-has-the-receipts-it-wont) Arts organizations learned long ago to prove their economic value with hard numbers: attendance, tourism revenue, multiplier effects. News, as Yoni Greenbaum argues here, likes to cling to civic virtue and assume that the work should speak for itself. > “Journalism operated on a commercial advertising revenue model for over 150 years. Publishers sold readers to advertisers, while editors fretted about maintaining a church-and-state divide between the newsroom and business desk. Journalists saw themselves as watchdogs, not wealth generators. Pitching our value based on our own economic impact felt gauche, too close to an advertorial.” Yoni points out that this is starting to change. [We know that news deserts cost communities at least $1.1B a year](https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/new-report-reveals-local-news-shortage-is-costing-communities-1-1-billion-a-year/), for example, because of a report by Rebuild Local News and the University of Illinois Chicago. But newsrooms themselves tend to shy away from reporting their own economic impact — even though they already have the tools to do so. It’s not obvious to me that this accounting would work as an argument across the board for newsrooms, and particularly for those with a national focus. Does ProPublica (my employer until the end of the month) save anyone money? It certainly does prevent corruption, and there are instances with real dollar amounts attached to them: Intuit, for example, paid back $141 million to its customers over deceptive marketing. But I’m not sure that its impact can be quantified easily overall, despite the newsroom’s obvious public benefit. On the other hand, for *local* newsrooms, this makes a lot of sense to me: at their best, they act as connective tissue for their communities. That $1.1B a year was *just* increased interest costs from lenders who felt they could charge more to unmonitored governments. They just need to get more comfortable at telling the economic side of their stories. And there’s a wider point here, which is that almost all nonprofit newsrooms need to be able to get more concrete and detailed about their business models. If you’re running an organization that wants to be sustainable, it’s not enough to care about the journalistic process, and your business accounting cannot be limited to activities like events and merchandise. You actually have to care about building a business holistically, and everything that entails. ### OpenAI wants to give us 5% of its success. It's a bad bargain. URL: https://werd.io/openai-wants-to-give-us-5-of-its-success-its-a-bad-bargain/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T13:36:10.000Z Link: [*OpenAI proposes handing Trump administration 5% stake, by Cristina Criddle in the Financial Times*](https://www.ft.com/content/7c803eab-8e80-4431-9a87-e943bf00e00b?syn-25a6b1a6=1) In order to ward off backlash against AI and curry favor with the Trump administration, Sam Altman has floated the idea of giving 5% of OpenAI to a wealth fund that pays dividends to both the government and citizens — and that every leading AI vendor should do the same. > “Sam Altman, chief executive of the ChatGPT maker, has argued that giving the public a financial stake in the company is the best way to share the upside of AI and has suggested a stake of this size in early conversations with the administration, according to two people familiar with the talks.” It’s transparently a way to align everyone with AI vendor profits. If the sector increases in value, the government and the voting population benefit. If it *decreases* in value … well, the government is incentivized to prevent that from happening. It also wouldn’t be without precedent: it’s modeled on the Alaska Permanent Fund, which does this with oil profits for Alaskan residents. Intel is also now 10% government-owned, and the administration has reversed course to be behind it since gaining that stake. Would a government whose revenues are directly linked to the performance of a sector be likely to enact hard regulations on that sector? Perhaps not. It’s not a slam dunk, though: for example, the UK receives significant tax revenue on fossil fuels, but still promoted electric cars. There are lots of factors at play, and profit alignment isn’t necessarily outweighed by the effects of other harms. (See also: cigarettes, which are taxed but also tightly controlled as an addictive carcinogen.) Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has pushed for closer to 50% ownership through a sovereign wealth fund. At this much lower stake, Sam Altman’s proposal uses Sanders’s democratic socialist “share the wealth” language as a way to launder OpenAI’s profits through a thin veneer of good ethics. What’s also interesting to me is that all of these arguments assume that AI is going to be an enormous driver of wealth and innovation — but what if it isn’t? It’s another great way to advertise the technology as something world-changing that everybody must get behind right now. Even if AI turns out to be what the people heavily invested in its success say it will be, it doesn’t stand alone as a sea change innovation. The personal computer, the iPhone, word processors, and spreadsheets were pretty transformational technologies. Should there have been a wealth fund attached to each of those? What, exactly, makes AI different? The answer is that it represents labor displacement: people will lose their jobs. And if that’s actually going to be the case, we need bigger, more structural safety nets and reforms. Dividends from 5% of a sector aren’t going to replace wages at scale — and are heavily dependent on valuations continuing to rise. This proposal ties the welfare of people who have lost their jobs to the success of the companies that drove those losses. The incentives are perverse. We shouldn’t accept this proposal. Instead, we should push for stronger protections and stronger regulation. If a sector can’t succeed without real damage to working communities, then it must not be allowed to. And if these claims turn out not to be true, then it’s an empty gesture designed to add credibility to a self-interested science fiction view of the future. ### I have a theory about AI fake news site The Editorial URL: https://werd.io/i-have-a-theory-about-ai-fake-news-site-the-editorial/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T00:33:10.000Z Link: [*Now we’re getting AI fake news complaining about how AI fake news is the death of real news, by Joshua Benton in Nieman Lab*](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/now-were-getting-ai-fake-news-complaining-about-how-ai-fake-news-is-the-death-of-real-news/) A bunch of people — [including, unfortunately, me](https://werd.io/a-right-wing-media-chain-tried-to-replace-47-newspapers-with-ai-they-all-died/) — were taken in by this AI-generated newsroom earlier this week. The story was decently written and seemed to be well-cited, but it turned out to be nonsense. Ironically, it was about a would-be media empire that purchased struggling papers, fired their staff, and replaced them with AI, leading to the death of each newsroom. All false. So the big question about The Editorial is: why does it exist? [As Joshua Benton put it:](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/now-were-getting-ai-fake-news-complaining-about-how-ai-fake-news-is-the-death-of-real-news/) > “Fake news isn’t new, obviously. And while AI-generated slop is newer, it’s hardly unfamiliar at this point. But why would a spam site bother making up a story about Alabama weekly newspapers, of all things? Whose interest is it in to get that niche?” Here’s my theory: I think it’s a two-headed LLM poisoning scheme. On one hand, most of the content relates to Chinese-specific interests: articles about Taiwan or African nations where China is making inroads. These are all articles from a China-friendly perspective. If an LLM were to ingest them and *trust the site*, it might start repeating the assertions made in each one as fact. One way to make sure a site is trusted is to get other, trusted sources to point to it. That’s where the stories about journalism come in: there are few things that journalists engage in more than stories about their own industry. Get enough patsies (like, again, to my chagrin, *me*) to point links in their direction and journalists might post them in high-trust communities on high-trust sites like Reddit, as well as their own, and Bob’s your uncle. [We already know that it takes as little as 13 words](https://werd.io/all-you-need-to-poison-an-llm-is-13-words/) to poison an LLM with falsehoods. Of course, that might not be it at all. Frank, the site’s owner (who lists himself as CEO of Nordiso Group on LinkedIn), at least appears to be a Finnish solopreneur. If he wanted to clear the air, he could write a post (himself) about what he was up to. It might be that he’s running an experiment to see how easily an LLM can be poisoned with propaganda! Until then, I think it’s reasonable to assume that something underhand is going on. ### AI's costs are going through the roof - so businesses are telling LLMs to talk like cavemen URL: https://werd.io/ais-costs-are-going-through-the-roof-so-businesses-are-telling-llms-to-talk-like-cavemen/ Last updated: 2026-07-01T12:59:39.000Z Link: [*Companies Are Making Claude and Codex Talk Like Cavemen to Stop AI’s Soaring Costs, by Joseph Cox at 404 Media*](https://www.404media.co/companies-are-making-claude-and-codex-talk-like-cavemen-to-stop-ais-soaring-costs/) I find this very funny: > “Companies are deliberately making their AI tools speak like cavemen in an attempt to stop burning through AI tokens and curb their massive expenditure on AI, 404 Media has found. The tool turns the usually verbose outpost of LLMs like Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini into a much more to the point answer. Think less “you’re right to push back, I was wrong,” and more “Hulk smash.”” If only we had other limited-vocabulary lexicons designed to talk to computers efficiently! I think we’re circling a few different possibilities that may show up over the next few years: - Literally LLM-specific “programming languages” that humans can use to talk to models more efficiently, of which Caveman is the hilarious first step - A proprietary bytecode-like language for LLMs that makes interactions more efficient but also just happens to be owned by one of the major vendors and creates a hitherto-unobtainable moat for their business - This all becomes moot when local models become viable for most businesses without insanely high hardware prices or configuration costs - LLM costs eventually fall to a fraction of their existing level But who knows? Maybe enterprise businesses will continue to talk in stilted caveman language to achieve their business goals forever. ### They tell us surveillance makes us safer. It undermines our democratic rights. URL: https://werd.io/they-tell-us-surveillance-makes-us-safer-it-undermines-our-democratic-rights/ Last updated: 2026-07-01T12:51:20.000Z Link: [*The Quiet Erosion of Collective Action Under Digital Surveillance, by Gina Romero in Tech Policy Press*](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-quiet-erosion-of-collective-action-under-digital-surveillance/) The most important outcome of increased surveillance is a chilling effect on free speech and expression. As Gina Romero, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, notes here, that extends to the organizations that have been established to protect those rights: > “As organizations operate under the constant assumption that they are being monitored, their core functions are profoundly affected. Their ability to serve as watchdogs, provide rights-based services, protect victims of human rights abuses, and educate the public is severely constrained. Ultimately, the very possibility of advancing and protecting rights, democracy and the rule of law is undermined.” Civil society organizations and advocates have been mislabeled as national security threats around the world. It’s true in some of the nations that we’ve long thought of as being authoritarian, but it’s also true in the United States. Even places like the United Kingdom have tried to apply pressure to technology companies so that they can gain access to backdoors. Tools like [Signal](https://signal.org) have become all the more important. We need more easy to use end to end encrypted systems so that we can communicate and organize with each other without fear of government surveillance. That also allows whistleblowers and sources for journalists to reach out with less of a fear they they will suffer repercussions. But those tools don’t stop you from being surveilled in the real world. Cameras and microphones are everywhere; license plate readers are now commonplace; even [AI-enabled drones have been deployed](https://theconversation.com/world-cup-propels-surveillance-to-new-heights-284712) for events like the World Cup. It’s generally true that if government *can* do something, it will. So the only way to stop this kind of widespread surveillance is to make it impossible. Romero calls for legislative prevention that takes into account the whole systemic impact of surveillance rather than just the immediate first-order effects. Her report also calls out that it can be very difficult to challenge these systems because what they are and who owns them tends to be complicated or obfuscated: > “The study reveals a lack of transparency surrounding the relationship between state power and non-state actors, creating an information vacuum that makes surveillance practices exceedingly difficult to challenge through litigation. As a result, the right to an effective remedy is fundamentally weakened.” So I think we also need more technical capabilities that interfere with how these systems of surveillance actually work. We need more spaces that are designated privacy-first and enforce an anti-surveillance rulebook. And, just as [communities have taken it upon themselves to dismantle Flock cameras](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/), we need to take back our streets. ### A concrete tool to help newsrooms cover emergencies URL: https://werd.io/a-concrete-tool-to-help-newsrooms-cover-emergencies/ Last updated: 2026-06-30T22:15:27.000Z *Get stories like this sent to you every Friday:* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/#/portal)*.* --- Link: [*Emergency Mode for News, by OpenNews, NC Local, and Newspack*](https://emergencymode.news/) Emergency Mode is a set of resources, tools, and training that aims to prepare small newsrooms for various disasters. It’s a co-production between [OpenNews](https://opennews.org/), [NC Local](https://nlocal.org/), and [Newspack](https://newspack.com/). They’ve done a great job. As their about page puts it: > “Emergency Mode for News equips local journalists and their newsrooms with the tools they need to respond to climate disasters. With a disaster reporting action pack, software and a learning community, Emergency Mode is designed to help journalists act nimbly and creatively to serve their communities when the unexpected happens.” Toolkits include things like [a practical checklist for newsrooms covering wildfires](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iEvYxJf1dnQ8jXS8IhBeqh9GrkTsxCqBjehG66aRJmA/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.t2e0k24sy4l4) and [a template for maintaining source lists during an emergency](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dIeAA0yo3OXJKfjT4cwaPkZd01stJqaPD3kRZMpIsDA/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.k4t85kcanet). There’s also [a hands-on workshop series](https://emergencymode.news/training/) and tools like WordPress plugins for [live rolling news updates](https://emergencymode.news/tools/) and providing bandwidth-light versions of sites. Most of all, I really appreciate the practical nature of all of it. Rather than hand-waving about principles and ideas, as many newsroom-facing resources do, everything here is a concrete tool that can actively be used in the field. Newsrooms are more squeezed than they’ve ever been, so it doesn’t hurt that it’s all free. I’d love to see this level of concrete specificity for *the normal working of a newsroom*. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a list of business model checklists you could pull from? Or disaster recovery plans? Or data protection policies? Just as the tools on this site are going to be concretely useful to any newsroom that covers a disaster, checklists, tools, and training for standard operational practices could be really meaningful — particularly for smaller newsrooms that don’t have the ability to hire CTOs, CFOs, and so on. In other words: more, please. This is lovely. ### Community Survey 2026 URL: https://werd.io/community-survey-2026/ Last updated: 2026-06-30T18:51:10.000Z I’m grateful that people stop by and read my posts. I think I’m really lucky. Thank you! I love writing here, but I’d love to know how I could serve you better. So every year I ask my readers to fill in a short survey. It doesn’t take more than a minute or two. This survey will help me figure out which problems and ideas people are thinking about, which will help me figure out how helpful I can be. [**Click here to answer a few short questions**](https://airtable.com/appY4OgjGxGnXFgBU/shrseIW6fl9DlMchu)**.** It’s entirely anonymous (unless you decide to leave your email address). And it helps me out a great deal. Thank you in advance for your feedback! ### A right-wing media chain tried to replace 47 newspapers with AI. They all died. URL: https://werd.io/a-right-wing-media-chain-tried-to-replace-47-newspapers-with-ai-they-all-died/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T00:37:01.000Z *Get stories like this sent to you every Friday:* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/#/portal)*.* --- **Hey, so, mea culpa.** I referenced an article here by what appears to be a fully AI-generated newsroom. The irony! The story doesn’t seem to be real — at least, not the piece about 1819 News. (My points about local news are real and important!) In particular, some of the newsrooms listed still appear to exist. And it’s questionable whether the journalists are real, either. Thank you to Damon Kiesow for bringing this to my attention. So the new question is: who is behind [The Editorial](https://theeditorial.news/), and what is the purpose of this site? I’ve left my post up below. --- I've removed the link: *The Ghost Paper That Ate Alabama: How a Media Startup Killed 47 Weekly Newspapers and No One Noticed, by Elena Marchetti in The Editorial* This is a horrifying story: 47 small, local, weekly newspapers were acquired by a man with ambitions to create a new conservative media empire. He fired much of their staff and replaced them with AI — with predictable results. Subscriptions fell, there were accuracy and ethics issues, and the papers even lost their printing contracts because local print shops didn’t want to print slop. The media empire fizzled out. This isn’t the first time someone has bought into the AI marketing — and had a disregard for human expertise — enough to make a foolish staffing decision. Companies as big as Ford have [sacked humans in favor of AI only to backtrack with their tails between their legs and re-hire](https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-humans-hiring-artificial-intelligence-b3004733.html). But here the aftermath was news deserts in 43 of the poorest communities in America. When a community becomes a news desert, [it is more likely to experience corruption](https://business.gmu.edu/news/2024-11/are-us-news-deserts-hothouses-corruption), making them still more vulnerable. But for me, the most important part of the story is what the communities did next: > “In three towns, residents have started volunteer-run Facebook groups to share local news. In one — Grove Hill, population 1,800 — a retired teacher named Evelyn Petty has taken it upon herself to write a weekly newsletter, which she prints on her home laser printer and distributes at the post office. “It’s not a newspaper,” she says. “But it’s something.” She has seventy-three subscribers. Each pays $20 a year. She loses money on every issue.” Community news is so important that, in the absence of anything else, people will spontaneously start groups, publish newsletters, and fill the void however they can. (It’s also not lost on me that Facebook groups — in other words, community spaces — have, with journalistic support, the potential to occupy that gap.) But they need support. I’m reminded of the story of Kari Mar, who launched a non-profit community newsroom, [La Conner Community News](https://laconnercommunitynews.org/) after her local paper shut down. That effort succeeded to the extent that she could [buy a neighboring community’s struggling weekly paper](https://www.cascadiadaily.com/2026/jan/22/la-conner-publisher-to-take-over-the-northern-light/). Similarly, I recently had the privilege of meeting Amy Bushatz, whose non-profit [Mat-Su Sentinel](https://www.matsusentinel.com/) in Alaska [bought its local weekly in order to revitalize it](https://www.tinynewsco.org/what-it-takes-for-a-newsroom-of-one-to-buy-its-hometown-legacy-paper-step-by-step/). Both are supported by [Tiny News Collective](https://www.tinynewsco.org/), which supports early-stage local news funders. I recently joined the board, and will write more about their work in a future post. Not only are these new local startup newsrooms a way to prevent news deserts and the kind of strip-mining the newsletters in this story were subject to, but they’re also more likely to innovate with models for news. I think they offer some hope for both the future of news itself and as democratic infrastructure for the communities they support. And in turn, they deserve *our* support. ### Two posts about writing URL: https://werd.io/two-posts-about-writing/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T22:11:28.000Z [Winnie Lim](https://winnielim.org/journal/my-mortality-and-my-writing/): > “When I think about what I wish to accomplish if I knew I was going to die, apart from spending time with my loved ones I think only writing is left. It is a way of emptying myself I guess, a way of sublimating my sad existence. I wouldn’t pretend that my writing is useful, but at least it will be a window into an interior world that doesn’t exist anywhere else.” Co-signed. [Eliot Peper](https://eliotpeper.substack.com/p/write-what-only-you-can-write): > “Writing about whatever you’re uniquely obsessed is hardly a new approach, it’s the basis of all good writing. The only new thing is that writing about anything else is less valuable than it used to be, and it was never that valuable in the first place. Life is short. If you’re going to write, write something worth reading. > > Write what only you can write.” ### Are frontier models really too dangerous? URL: https://werd.io/are-frontier-models-really-too-dangerous/ Last updated: 2026-06-27T14:50:40.000Z Link: [*OpenAI will delay GPT-5.6 after Trump administration request, by Hayden Field in The Verge*](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/957372/openai-will-delay-gpt-5-6-after-trump-administration-request) I’ve got (at least) two worries about the story that the Trump Administration halted the release of models from both Anthropic and OpenAI. Anthropic [recently pulled its Fable model release](https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access) in response to the government. Now it turns out that OpenAI has done something similar: > “The Information reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Wednesday in a company Q&A that it would release GPT-5.6 in limited preview form — granting access only to a small group of enterprise customers — in compliance with a request from the federal government. During that preview period, the Trump administration itself would reportedly approve access for customers on a case-by-case basis.” In some ways, what a coup for the AI industry. This technology is so powerful that the government doesn’t think anyone should have it — and when it does inevitably release into the public’s hands, what a valuable product that will be. Get the tech that’s too dangerous to be released! This magical product can be yours for an unbelievable price! So one worry is that this is, in essence, great marketing for these vendors. But it’s worth remembering that these AI models are black boxes that respond to information queries in opaque ways. The more people rely on them for knowledge, the more powerful the models become. The argument being presented is that they can be used in ways that might present traditional security threats — but consider that some versions of the truth, to the wrong kind of authoritarian-minded government, might also be considered a threat. (Remember that “extremism on migration, race, and gender” and hostility to “traditional American views” [are now considered markers of domestic terrorism](https://theconversation.com/labeling-dissent-as-terrorism-new-us-domestic-terrorism-priorities-raise-constitutional-alarms-269161).) This is a golden opportunity, in other words, to hit pause on frontier model releases, at a time when models are becoming more prevalent, in order to make sure models are shaped to represent a certain version of the world. The administration [has already signaled a willingness to do this](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-prevents-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government/); there is nothing to say they aren’t. The only way to *prove* that they aren’t is to open source not just the models but the training process and make the whole thing transparent and verifiable. The industry is a long way off from doing that. ### Notable links: June 26, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-june-26-2026/ Last updated: 2026-06-26T13:39:14.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* *Did someone forward this to you?* [*Subscribe for free*](https://werd.io/#/portal)*.* --- Before we begin this week's roundup, I want to express my condolences to the friends and family of [Om Malik](https://om.co/), who [we sadly lost this week](https://om.co/2026/06/24/1966-2026/). Om was one of the most important voices in blogging, tech journalism, and then the wider industry. So many people in tech have a story about him that highlights his conscience, thoughtfulness, and kindness. He will be missed. --- ### [Journalism's logical fallacy](https://shirishkulkarni.co.uk/journalisms-logical-fallacy/) Journalism is in crisis, and it’s really easy (and lazy) to say that making a technology or process tweak will fix it: we just need to use AI to fill capacity gaps, or build stronger comments into our site, or we need a better business or distribution model. None of those things address the underlying question of *why* we need journalism, why it’s important, and what it should be. By addressing innovation at the edges, newsrooms are avoiding the hard, existential work of revisiting their core value to begin with. But it’s only by understanding that core value that they will actually reset their relationships with audiences, build greater trust and loyalty, and pull themselves out of the rut they find themselves in. Shirish Kulkarni’s findings from listening projects in Wales — with multiple dramatically different demographics — contradict a lot of the narratives newsrooms have been telling themselves. For example: > “The second finding challenges one of the journalism industry’s most comfortable premises: that audiences – particularly marginalised communities – are news-illiterate and need to be educated. The opposite is true. In fact, the communities we work with are forensically sharp about media – often more so than the industry insiders who talk about them.” This mirrors something you often hear from mission-driven tech projects: “we just need to educate the user”. Usually the opposite is true: you need to educate yourself *about* the user and give them the thing they actually need. And in the case of journalism, at least as a finding of this research, the need turns out to be pretty simple: > “They want help making good decisions. For themselves, their families, their communities. Not drama, not outrage, not the next breaking story. Practical, trustworthy, usable information that helps them navigate their lives.” It’s important, once again, to separate the work of *news* — breaking headlines, emergent facts — from *journalism’s* work to provide context and meaning. The first is a commodity; the second is both inherently community-driven and has always been more valuable. Here I want to bang an old drum: newsrooms like to talk about *audience* strategies, not *community* strategies. It’s a meaningful difference that Shirish highlights well. The first implies an ivory tower broadcast approach: “we just need to reach people”. The second is an active relationship between a newsroom and the people it serves; a two-way conversation that requires trust and understanding on both sides. The internet has always been a conversation. We’ve had the ability to build relationship-centric news organizations for 30 years, but most remain stubbornly set in a print mindset. This kind of research makes it clear how important that shift is, but, like Shirish, I don’t believe most existing newsrooms will evolve to actually meet this need. They can’t: the immediate commercial pressure is severe, and changing the model requires changing highly-ingrained cultural norms and assumptions that have been inherited from print. And in the midst of that panic, they’re jumping into bed with companies (AI vendors, proprietary social media platforms) that intermediate their relationships with their communities in exchange for some short-term wins. So their outlook is not rosy. Instead, I think we’ll see *new* newsrooms emerge that reinvent what journalism is, are unafraid to build real, lasting, two-way relationships with the people they’re trying to serve, and eat everybody else’s lunch. --- ### [Empower others](https://pointc.co/empower-others/) Another superb post from [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co/?ref=werd.io): > “There's a simple diagnostic for any organization: Are your leaders focused on accumulating control, or on empowering the people around them? > > Too many people in positions of power are overly focused on themselves. They hoard decisions. They micromanage. They grab power. And the people around them suffer for it. Those employees wait for direction instead of taking initiative. They bring problems instead of solutions. They ask "now what?" instead of saying "here's what I think we should do.”” He goes on to describe *bus factor*, the question of what happens if you’re hit by a bus. (My colleague Adam Hirsch recently offered “lottery factor”, reframing the question to be about what happens when someone wins the lottery and goes away to live the life of their dreams, which is more fun to think about.) Could your organization live without you? The only way to build an organization that can live without you is to devolve decision-making — and the only way to do *that* is to create the conditions to make devolved decision-making a safe norm. Corey’s been building on that idea in his recent posts, and I enthusiastically co-sign. I’ve taken “surround yourself with people who are better than you” to heart: the Director of Product Engineering, and Director of IT and Security, who both report to me, fit that description exactly and we’re all better off for it. When we examine situations where this doesn’t happen, it’s worth considering incentives. If you’re a founder or top-level leader who is building a sustainable organization in good faith, these principles are obviously, straightforwardly a good idea. If, on the other hand, you’re *not* in that position, and you’re worried about your own standing in the organization, you might feel like it’s a good idea to entrench your own power and decision-making. I think that’s short-sighted: you’re there to support the organization, and hiring an amazing team, as long as you support them well, can only make you look good. At various tech companies in particular, I’ve also encountered people who don’t want power to be devolved to them: they want to be given a plan and to follow it. I don’t think that’s realistic in most smaller companies, and even in larger ones autonomy, insight, and decision-making ability are prized. It’s a thing to hire for. When you want to devolve decision-making, you hire people who can make great decisions. When you want to entrench your own power and micro-manage, you hire followers. These are different paths. I can only recommend the former. This, from Corey, is absolutely vital: > “Real empowerment means saying: "That's not what I would have done. But you own the decision. Here's what I'm thinking about. Here are the questions I'd want you to consider. But ultimately, it's yours.”” Nobody will ever do it your way. If you want them to follow your lead exactly, you’re not devolving power. If you want them to be genuinely empowered, you need to not just accept that they do things their way, but embrace it — while also being transparent about your own thinking and principles, and setting norms mantras that help people navigate what’s important for the team. He’s got a lot to say about that. As always, [his full post](https://pointc.co/empower-others/?ref=werd.io), and [the underlying series](https://pointc.co/the-mantra-dashboard/?ref=werd.io), are required reading. --- ### [It is trivially easy to use Reddit to manipulate AI search, research suggests](https://www.404media.co/it-is-trivially-easy-to-use-reddit-to-manipulate-ai-search-research-suggests/) All good fun: > “A tiny snippet of user-generated text as short as 13 words long is often enough to manipulate the AI agents that power tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI search, [new research shows](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.24245?ref=werd.io). The study suggests that it is trivially easy for brands to inject promotional content on sites like Reddit, Quora, and Wikipedia with the end goal of poisoning or manipulating the output of AI tools.” So not only do we need to worry about AI-generated slop polluting our social spaces, we *also* have to worry about people who want to influence the *output* of the AI-generated slop polluting them, too. There’s a whole industry of companies trying to improve their clients’ coverage in AI results, just as there were for search engine results. And all of them will be spamming the crap out of our public communities and collaborative websites. As 404 Media points out, this poses a real question for moderators in those spaces. How can they possible stem the tide? It’s not clear that this is even possible. Which means, inevitably, that the signal vs noise ratio in those spaces will decline, leading to a decline in usership of those spaces overall, and a retreat for most people into private group chats and uncrawlable communities. To put it simply: > “Poisoning LLM results is basically just as easy as doing targeted posting on highly relevant subreddits to the industry or company you’re trying to promote, phrasing the comment to align with popular LLM queries, and attempting to evade moderation for as long as possible.” Guarding against bot-driven spam is a relatively simpler problem. In contrast, this content will often be insidiously human: cunningly designed to try to provide value while also hiding a paid agenda. In some ways, it’s all the same as it ever was, but the volume of the junk is only going to keep increasing. Of course, the silver lining is that eventually these sources will become unusable for AI training too. Then, finally, maybe everyone will go away. --- ### [Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/23/prairieland-ice-protesters-texas-sentenced) This is a litmus test for the freedom to protest in the United States: > “A group of Texas protesters convicted of terrorism charges received unusually harsh sentences of at least 50 years in prison on Tuesday in a closely watched case that was widely seen as a test case of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on dissent.” Let’s be clear: a few of the protesters were out of bounds. One fired an AR-15 at the police, which goes beyond legitimate protest into inciting violence (and maybe even deliberate provocation). I would never condone that kind of activity. None of us should. But these sentences far outstrip anything that’s been given to anyone on the right wing: the leader of the Proud Boys, as this article notes, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. One protester wasn’t even present, but was sentenced to 30 years for moving some zines: > “The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada was not at the protest, but was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record after prosecutors said he moved leftwing zines and other materials at the request of Rueda, his wife, after she was arrested. Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday.” Many of the protesters had guns and were part of a gun club. They all possessed them legally. I personally wish there was not a right to bear arms and think that their ubiquitous presence in America makes everyone less safe, but the right to own them is enshrined in the Second Amendment. Instead, other “evidence” was used to infer that they planned violence, including this specific argument that should give everyone pause: > “\[…\] including their decision to communicate and auto-delete messages on Signal, an encrypted messaging platform widely used among activists, journalists and other citizens wary of government surveillance.” Collectively, the justice department argued that these convictions are proof that anti-fascists are terrorists, which should *also* give us pause. The precedent here is obviously very dangerous for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and democracy in America. ### All you need to poison an LLM is 13 words. URL: https://werd.io/all-you-need-to-poison-an-llm-is-13-words/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T14:13:37.000Z Link: [*It Is Trivially Easy to Use Reddit to Manipulate AI Search, Research Suggests, by Jason Koebler at 404 Media*](https://www.404media.co/it-is-trivially-easy-to-use-reddit-to-manipulate-ai-search-research-suggests/?fbclid=IwY2xjawSqE49leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFMODdJUE03dUFTVGlkRXhNc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHn0civKk3lz3vxDimBkYZZbydQIiZbFEoOuTALgdgpMn500AHUKQKcVdwoE5%5Faem%5FO3SWM5Uz7EUrnFlbBPBgNw) All good fun: > “A tiny snippet of user-generated text as short as 13 words long is often enough to manipulate the AI agents that power tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI search, [new research shows](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.24245). The study suggests that it is trivially easy for brands to inject promotional content on sites like Reddit, Quora, and Wikipedia with the end goal of poisoning or manipulating the output of AI tools.” So not only do we need to worry about AI-generated slop polluting our social spaces, we *also* have to worry about people who want to influence the *output* of the AI-generated slop polluting them, too. There’s a whole industry of companies trying to improve their clients’ coverage in AI results, just as there were for search engine results. And all of them will be spamming the crap out of our public communities and collaborative websites. As 404 Media points out, this poses a real question for moderators in those spaces. How can they possible stem the tide? It’s not clear that this is even possible. Which means, inevitably, that the signal vs noise ratio in those spaces will decline, leading to a decline in usership of those spaces overall, and a retreat for most people into private group chats and uncrawlable communities. To put it simply: > “Poisoning LLM results is basically just as easy as doing targeted posting on highly relevant subreddits to the industry or company you’re trying to promote, phrasing the comment to align with popular LLM queries, and attempting to evade moderation for as long as possible.” Guarding against bot-driven spam is a relatively simpler problem. In contrast, this content will often be insidiously human: cunningly designed to try to provide value while also hiding a paid agenda. In some ways, it’s all the same as it ever was, but the volume of the junk is only going to keep increasing. Of course, the silver lining is that eventually these sources will become unusable for AI training too. Then, finally, maybe everyone will go away. ### To build resilient organizations, you need to empower your team to make decisions. URL: https://werd.io/to-build-resilient-organizations-you-need-to-empower-your-team-to-make-decisions/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T13:59:38.000Z Link: [*Empower Others, by Corey Ford at Point C*](https://pointc.co/empower-others/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter) Another superb post from [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co): > “There's a simple diagnostic for any organization: Are your leaders focused on accumulating control, or on empowering the people around them? > > Too many people in positions of power are overly focused on themselves. They hoard decisions. They micromanage. They grab power. And the people around them suffer for it. Those employees wait for direction instead of taking initiative. They bring problems instead of solutions. They ask "now what?" instead of saying "here's what I think we should do.”” He goes on to describe *bus factor*, the question of what happens if you’re hit by a bus. (My colleague Adam Hirsch recently offered “lottery factor”, reframing the question to be about what happens when someone wins the lottery and goes away to live the life of their dreams, which is more fun to think about.) Could your organization live without you? The only way to build an organization that can live without you is to devolve decision-making — and the only way to do *that* is to create the conditions to make devolved decision-making a safe norm. Corey’s been building on that idea in his recent posts, and I enthusiastically co-sign. I’ve taken “surround yourself with people who are better than you” to heart: the Director of Product Engineering, and Director of IT and Security, who both report to me, fit that description exactly and we’re all better off for it. When we examine situations where this doesn’t happen, it’s worth considering incentives. If you’re a founder or top-level leader who is building a sustainable organization in good faith, these principles are obviously, straightforwardly a good idea. If, on the other hand, you’re *not* in that position, and you’re worried about your own standing in the organization, you might feel like it’s a good idea to entrench your own power and decision-making. I think that’s short-sighted: you’re there to support the organization, and hiring an amazing team, as long as you support them well, can only make you look good. At various tech companies in particular, I’ve also encountered people who don’t want power to be devolved to them: they want to be given a plan and to follow it. I don’t think that’s realistic in most smaller companies, and even in larger ones autonomy, insight, and decision-making ability are prized. It’s a thing to hire for. When you want to devolve decision-making, you hire people who can make great decisions. When you want to entrench your own power and micro-manage, you hire followers. These are different paths. I can only recommend the former. This, from Corey, is absolutely vital: > “Real empowerment means saying: "That's not what I would have done. But you own the decision. Here's what I'm thinking about. Here are the questions I'd want you to consider. But ultimately, it's yours.”” Nobody will ever do it your way. If you want them to follow your lead exactly, you’re not devolving power. If you want them to be genuinely empowered, you need to not just accept that they do things their way, but embrace it — while also being transparent about your own thinking and principles, and setting norms mantras that help people navigate what’s important for the team. He’s got a lot to say about that. As always, [his full post](https://pointc.co/empower-others/), and [the underlying series](https://pointc.co/the-mantra-dashboard/), are required reading. ### Journalism is rearranging the deckchairs. It needs to reinvent itself. URL: https://werd.io/journalism-is-rearranging-the-deckchairs-it-needs-to-reinvent-itself/ Last updated: 2026-06-24T13:35:51.000Z Link: [*Journalism's Logical Fallacy, by Shirish Kulkarni*](https://shirishkulkarni.co.uk/journalisms-logical-fallacy/) Journalism is in crisis, and it’s really easy (and lazy) to say that making a technology or process tweak will fix it: we just need to use AI to fill capacity gaps, or build stronger comments into our site, or we need a better business or distribution model. None of those things address the underlying question of *why* we need journalism, why it’s important, and what it should be. By addressing innovation at the edges, newsrooms are avoiding the hard, existential work of revisiting their core value to begin with. But it’s only by understanding that core value that they will actually reset their relationships with audiences, build greater trust and loyalty, and pull themselves out of the rut they find themselves in. Shirish Kulkarni’s findings from listening projects in Wales — with multiple dramatically different demographics — contradict a lot of the narratives newsrooms have been telling themselves. For example: > “The second finding challenges one of the journalism industry’s most comfortable premises: that audiences – particularly marginalised communities – are news-illiterate and need to be educated. The opposite is true. In fact, the communities we work with are forensically sharp about media – often more so than the industry insiders who talk about them.” This mirrors something you often hear from mission-driven tech projects: “we just need to educate the user”. Usually the opposite is true: you need to educate yourself *about* the user and give them the thing they actually need. And in the case of journalism, at least as a finding of this research, the need turns out to be pretty simple: > “They want help making good decisions. For themselves, their families, their communities. Not drama, not outrage, not the next breaking story. Practical, trustworthy, usable information that helps them navigate their lives.” It’s important, once again, to separate the work of *news* — breaking headlines, emergent facts — from *journalism’s* work to provide context and meaning. The first is a commodity; the second is both inherently community-driven and has always been more valuable. Here I want to bang an old drum: newsrooms like to talk about *audience* strategies, not *community* strategies. It’s a meaningful difference that Shirish highlights well. The first implies an ivory tower broadcast approach: “we just need to reach people”. The second is an active relationship between a newsroom and the people it serves; a two-way conversation that requires trust and understanding on both sides. The internet has always been a conversation. We’ve had the ability to build relationship-centric news organizations for 30 years, but most remain stubbornly set in a print mindset. This kind of research makes it clear how important that shift is, but, like Shirish, I don’t believe most existing newsrooms will evolve to actually meet this need. They can’t: the immediate commercial pressure is severe, and changing the model requires changing highly-ingrained cultural norms and assumptions that have been inherited from print. And in the midst of that panic, they’re jumping into bed with companies (AI vendors, proprietary social media platforms) that intermediate their relationships with their communities in exchange for some short-term wins. So their outlook is not rosy. Instead, I think we’ll see *new* newsrooms emerge that reinvent what journalism is, are unafraid to build real, lasting, two-way relationships with the people they’re trying to serve, and eat everybody else’s lunch. ### Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines URL: https://werd.io/signs-youre-a-dangerous-terrorist-using-signal-moving-zines/ Last updated: 2026-06-23T18:16:36.000Z Link: [*Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison, by Sam Levine in The Guardian*](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/23/prairieland-ice-protesters-texas-sentenced) This is an outrageous litmus test for the freedom to protest in America: > “A group of Texas protesters convicted of terrorism charges received unusually harsh sentences of at least 50 years in prison on Tuesday in a closely watched case that was widely seen as a test case of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on dissent.” Let’s be clear: a few of the protesters were out of bounds. One fired an AR-15 at the police, which goes beyond legitimate protest into inciting violence (and maybe even deliberate provocation). I would never condone that kind of activity. But these sentences far outstrip anything that’s been given to anyone on the right wing: the leader of the Proud Boys, as this article notes, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. One protester wasn’t even present, but was sentenced to 30 years for moving some zines: > “The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada was not at the protest, but was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record after prosecutors said he moved leftwing zines and other materials at the request of Rueda, his wife, after she was arrested. Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday.” Many of the protesters had guns and were part of a gun club. They all possessed them legally. I personally wish there was not a right to bear arms and think that their ubiquitous presence in America makes everyone less safe, but the right to own them is enshrined in the Second Amendment. Instead, other “evidence” was used to infer that they planned violence, including this specific argument that should give everyone pause: > “\[…\] including their decision to communicate and auto-delete messages on Signal, an encrypted messaging platform widely used among activists, journalists and other citizens wary of government surveillance.” Collectively, the justice department argued that these convictions are proof that anti-fascists are terrorists, which should *also* give us pause. The precedent here is obviously very dangerous for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and democracy in America. ### Notable links: June 19, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-june-19-2026/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T09:00:30.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Change Agent](https://restructurednews.substack.com/p/change-agent?ref=werd.io) [Gina Chua](https://restructurednews.substack.com/?ref=werd.io) is one of the people in news who is doing the most to push the conversation forward and prepare the industry for the future. This piece of hers outlines what I think is a necessary skill for survival. We’re in the fastest period of technology change — and, consequently, the fastest period of journalistic change — in decades. Building takes time; if we aim to build for today, we’ll always be behind. So we need to consider what the future looks like. That doesn’t necessarily mean having one singular vision for the future, although it may be that one stands out as the most likely or compelling. It may be wise to juggle multiple *possible* futures, each with their own probabilities, prerequisites, and outcomes. If we deeply research them based on the work of experts in their fields, and then articulate them well, we can share them, and use them organizationally to prepare for what might become true. Will our information ecosystem radically change in the face of agentic systems? Will people look to community as AI intermediates everything else? Will the open internet fragment in the hands of authoritarianism? None of those things are necessarily the future, but it’s worth considering what all of them might mean. What we can’t do is assume that the world will stay the same. I would like to burn Gina’s words into the walls of every newsroom and every mission-driven organization in the world: > “You can hear that thinking if you roam the halls of any journalism conference. Get the platforms to pay for content. Do more original journalism. Build deeper relationships with audiences. Drive more direct traffic. But those aren’t theories of change; they are theories that the world won’t change that much, and that the strategies of the past will serve us well in the future, if only we execute them better, faster, and cheaper.” Each possible future is a kind of speculative fiction. It takes creativity — and bravery — to break out of existing frames and qualitatively consider what might be. These explorations must be informed by how things have played out already, where we are today, and what we know is coming down the pipeline, but they also must be generative and open. In doing so, we uncover ideas that can help us not just navigate what the future might be, but get in front of it and help to shape it — according to our own values and needs. The world won’t stay the same. Journalism *isn’t* staying the same. In addition to the rapid change in the platforms we depend on, trust is declining; engagement is declining; for many newsrooms, revenue is declining. A bet on the present is not a winning one. So we need to reach further. --- ### [Overview and key findings of the 2026 Digital News Report](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026/dnr-executive-summary?ref=werd.io) This year’s Reuters Digital News Report has a key finding that’s worth paying attention to: > “Though it has been the case in some individual countries for several years, at the global level (averaging across 48 markets) social media and video networks are for the first time the single most widely used way of accessing online news (used by 54% of all respondents), ahead of news organisations’ own websites and apps (51%). This shifting composition of news consumption is happening among all age groups.” For the first time, social media is the primary platform for news globally. News is how we learn about the world and make informed democratic decisions. That means that, more than ever before, we need to care about who owns these networks, who dictates how they function, and which narratives they promote. X, of course, was purchased by Elon Musk specifically because he wanted to suppress what he called the “woke mind virus”. It’s a propaganda play, which anyone can see if they load a feed on the platform: shocking white supremacist rhetoric is central. But every proprietary social platform is subject to some version of this. We don’t have the access to view (or even the ability to truly research) how companies like Meta choose to promote and suppress information. We are subject to their business decisions, including the backroom political decisions they make in order to ensure their own survival. In contrast, open social web platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky are open and verifiable. They run on open protocols that cannot be controlled by a single entity. Their algorithms are either non-existent (in the case of Mastodon) or fully under our control (in the case of Bluesky). Rather than gatekeeping the information we need to be democratic citizens, they give us full control over our information ecosystems. They’re also full of people who have already self-selected to inhabit more ethical spaces. These turn out to be people who are more likely to both engage with and financially support news. So not only does having an open social web strategy mean you’re engaging in platforms that don’t seek to intermediate democracy, they actually provide better return on investment than more traditional platforms. We need these platforms to exist if we want to have a healthy information landscape; it turns out that engaging in them yields real benefits *right now*. News has a choice here: it can shrug its shoulders as an industry and say that it should just meet people wherever they’re at, even if that’s on X. Or newsrooms can choose to promote and prioritize their accounts in spaces that are actually aligned with their values, needs, and business models. I strongly think they should do the latter. --- ### [CEOs Who Think AI Replaces Their Employees Are Just Bad CEOs ](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/09/ceos-who-think-ai-replaces-their-employees-are-just-bad-ceos/?ref=werd.io) I second this sentiment: > “It seems pretty clear to me that companies that think they’ll be able to layoff huge swaths of workers because of LLM tools are going to find out they’re mistaken pretty quickly. The power of LLMs is that when used well and used willingly it can help employees to get more done, but that doesn’t mean you need fewer humans. You need more humans who know how to work productively.” I’ve seen some pretty dumb stuff out in the wild: leaders who have expected their engineers to dramatically increase their output to inhuman levels, company-wide token leaderboards, product managers who believe they can replace real user research with synthetic personas, and, of course, high-level leaders who think they can replace their human workers with AI agents. (None of this, I should say, has been at my job, where our work is primarily done by humans and AI, when it is used at all, is an assistive tool.) I think Mike Masnick’s prescription is accurate: many CEOs are so distant from the actual productive work of a company that they miss the complicated nuance of what goes into it. So if they can produce something with Claude Code that feels analogous to it, a bad CEO might start wondering why they’re hiring all these people. A good CEO will understand that they’re missing a ton of expertise that goes into building something well, doing work with skill, or even just exercising humane human judgment. The others will find out the hard way that they’re wrong to underestimate their employees. --- ### [A Scottish Post: The New Election Threat: Disinformation Inside the Answer](https://willrobinson.substack.com/p/a-scottish-post-the-new-election?ref=werd.io) The dangers of AI-generated answers in search results are enumerated here in the context of the recent Scottish election. 75 questions about the ballot were posed on AI systems, and the findings were sobering. On average, 44.4% of responses were at least partially wrong; ChatGPT was specifically wrong 46.2% of the time. Improbably, Grok actually performed the best in this test, with only 8.97% of responses containing factual inaccuracies. These findings held true in other UK elections: > “Days before the Senedd election in Wales, also held on May 7, BBC Wales tested six major chatbots, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Meta AI, and Grok, against fictional voter profiles. The results echoed Scotland’s almost exactly.” Some of this is likely just an outcome of how these systems work: hallucinations are par for the course. Nobody knows how to build a completely accurate LLM. But it’s also relatively easy to seed bad information as training data, which can be used to whitewash disinformation: you establish the intentional falsehoods, the LLM poisons its training corpus by ingesting your information, and it then presents your falsehoods as fact. Researchers at NYU discovered that [if 0.001 percent of the training data of a given LLM is “poisoned,” or deliberately planted with misinformation, the entire training set becomes likely to propagate errors](https://futurism.com/training-data-ai-misinformation-compromised?ref=werd.io). You can do that just by hosting harmful information online: in blogs, on Reddit, in otherwise-trustworthy sites. Once the falsehoods have been internalized by the LLM, the end user will never know. As the linked article points out, between 7 and 13% of voters in these elections used a chatbot to figure out who to vote for. We’re at the foothills of AI use; these numbers will continue to rise. And with them, a real risk to maintaining an informed democratic voting population. --- ### [W Social, Public Institutions and the Theater of European Digital Sovereignty](https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/?ref=werd.io) [Elena Rossini](https://blog.elenarossini.com/) (rightly) calls shenanigans on what’s been happening in the European social world. I think what happened should be instructive for any pro-social technology movement. Here’s what happened: Earlier this month, the European Commission [announced a technology sovereignty plan](https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/strengthening-europes-tech-sovereignty-2026-06-03%5Fen?ref=werd.io) that included a reliance on open source software as a path to autonomy. [Eurosky](https://eurosky.tech/?ref=werd.io), a non-profit fork of Bluesky that is both fully open source and stores all its data in the EU, subsequently launched [Mu](https://mu.social/?ref=werd.io), a social media application running on AT Protocol that is fully EU-based and is arguably more fully-featured than Bluesky itself. But the European Commission, including its President and its Central Bank’s President, went another way by migrating to [W Social](https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/?ref=werd.io), a proprietary AT Protocol. Whereas Eurosky is a non-profit that has worked extensively in the open with open social web and democratic communities, W Social is a for-profit startup that has been opaque about its intentions and, [as Elena now reports](https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/?ref=werd.io), has now pulled its code from being available on an open source basis. These EC profiles now live on a platform that contradicts the EC’s own sovereignty plan. Worse, the founders have a [track record of using causes like climate change for their own profit](https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/?ref=werd.io), notably using Greta Thunberg to raise money for a venture capital firm without her knowledge or consent. So I strongly agree with Elena’s implication that the Commission made a poor decision here. But it happened because its founders are heavily connected: it launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and its advisors include politicians from across Europe. Ten years ago I joined a top 100 website after working in open source social for a decade. Based on my naïve experience in open circles, I’d assumed it competed on having a great product. In fact, it hired well-connected partnerships people, already known to influential decision-makers, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes. That team included the relatives of Presidential hopefuls and people who had built wildly successful careers as media executives. Having a good product was table stakes at best; being successful meant negotiating politics, making quid-pro-quo deals, and convincing people to join by any means necessary. W Social is the insider’s tool: a platform created people who know how to work the system for their own benefit. That ultimately means it’s more likely to betray its users. It seems likely to me that when the discourse moves away from sovereignty to something else, the founders will also shift. But it’s not a surprise to me that European politicians are more likely to work with a platform that partners with and pays people they already know. The nice thing about open platforms is that there doesn’t need to be one winner. The European Commission has made a bad decision, but Eurosky can still find everyone else. By building better tools for the writers, the artists, the culture-makers, and onboarding people through careful outreach one community at a time, it can serve as the basis for a new social commons. I hope it succeeds. ### The European Commission falls for openness theater by working with W Social URL: https://werd.io/the-european-commission-falls-for-openness-theater-by-working-with-w-social/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T16:31:37.000Z Link: [*W Social, Public Institutions and the Theater of European Digital Sovereignty, by Elena Rossini*](https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/) Elena Rossini (rightly) calls shenanigans on what’s been happening in the European social world. I think what happened should be instructive for any pro-social technology movement. Here’s what happened: Earlier this month, the European Commission [announced a technology sovereignty plan](https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/strengthening-europes-tech-sovereignty-2026-06-03%5Fen) that included a reliance on open source software as a path to autonomy. [Eurosky](https://eurosky.tech/), a non-profit fork of Bluesky that is both fully open source and stores all its data in the EU, subsequently launched [Mu](https://mu.social), a social media application running on AT Protocol that is fully EU-based and is arguably more fully-featured than Bluesky itself. But the European Commission, including its President and its Central Bank’s President, went another way by migrating to [W Social](https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/), a proprietary AT Protocol. Whereas Eurosky is a non-profit that has worked extensively in the open with open social web and democratic communities, W Social is a for-profit startup that has been opaque about its intentions and, [as Elena now reports](https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/), has now pulled its code from being available on an open source basis. These EC profiles now live on a platform that contradicts the EC’s own sovereignty plan. Worse, the founders have a [track record of using causes like climate change for their own profit](https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/), notably using Greta Thunberg to raise money for a venture capital firm without her knowledge or consent. So I strongly agree with Elena’s implication that the Commission made a poor decision here. But it happened because its founders are heavily connected: it launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and its advisors include politicians from across Europe. Ten years ago I joined a top 100 website after working in open source social for a decade. Based on my naïve experience in open circles, I’d assumed it competed on having a great product. In fact, it hired well-connected partnerships people, already known to influential decision-makers, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes. That team included the relatives of Presidential hopefuls and people who had built wildly successful careers as media executives. Having a good product was table stakes at best; being successful meant negotiating politics, making quid-pro-quo deals, and convincing people to join by any means necessary. W Social is the insider’s tool: a platform created people who know how to work the system for their own benefit. That ultimately means it’s more likely to betray its users. It seems likely to me that when the discourse moves away from sovereignty to something else, the founders will also shift. But it’s not a surprise to me that European politicians are more likely to work with a platform that partners with and pays people they already know. The nice thing about open platforms is that there doesn’t need to be one winner. The European Commission has made a bad decision, but Eurosky can still find everyone else. By building better tools for the writers, the artists, the culture-makers, and onboarding people through careful outreach one community at a time, it can serve as the basis for a new social commons that is free from US influence. I hope it succeeds. ### More people get their news from social media than anywhere else - globally. The platforms we use matter. URL: https://werd.io/more-people-get-their-news-from-social-media-than-anywhere-else-globally-the-platforms-we-use-matter/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T14:13:23.000Z Link: [*Overview and key findings of the 2026 Digital News Report, by Jim Egan at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism*](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026/dnr-executive-summary) This year’s Reuters Digital News Report has a key finding that’s worth paying attention to: > “Though it has been the case in some individual countries for several years, at the global level (averaging across 48 markets) social media and video networks are for the first time the single most widely used way of accessing online news (used by 54% of all respondents), ahead of news organisations’ own websites and apps (51%). This shifting composition of news consumption is happening among all age groups.” For the first time, social media is the primary platform for news globally. News is how we learn about the world and make informed democratic decisions. That means that, more than ever before, we need to care about who owns these networks, who dictates how they function, and which narratives they promote. X, of course, was purchased by Elon Musk specifically because he wanted to suppress what he called the “woke mind virus”. It’s a propaganda play, which anyone can see if they load a feed on the platform: shocking white supremacist rhetoric is central. But every proprietary social platform is subject to some version of this. We don’t have the access to view (or even the ability to truly research) how companies like Meta choose to promote and suppress information. We are subject to their business decisions, including the backroom political decisions they make in order to ensure their own survival. In contrast, open social web platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky are open and verifiable. They run on open protocols that cannot be controlled by a single entity. Their algorithms are either non-existent (in the case of Mastodon) or fully under our control (in the case of Bluesky). Rather than gatekeeping the information we need to be democratic citizens, they give us full control over our information ecosystems. They’re also full of people who have already self-selected to inhabit more ethical spaces. These turn out to be people who are more likely to both engage with and financially support news. So not only does having an open social web strategy mean you’re engaging in platforms that don’t seek to intermediate democracy, they actually provide better return on investment than more traditional platforms. We need these platforms to exist if we want to have a healthy information landscape; it turns out that engaging in them yields real benefits *right now*. News has a choice here: it can shrug its shoulders as an industry and say that it should just meet people wherever they’re at, even if that’s on X. Or newsrooms can choose to promote and prioritize their accounts in spaces that are actually aligned with their values, needs, and business models. I strongly think they should do the latter. ### AI answers are a new vector for election disinformation URL: https://werd.io/by-the-pricking-of-my-corpus-something-wicked-answers-for-us/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T13:39:26.000Z Link: [*A Scottish Post: The New Election Threat: Disinformation Inside the Answer, by Tim Chambers in Will Robinson's Newsletter*](https://willrobinson.substack.com/p/a-scottish-post-the-new-election) The dangers of AI-generated answers in search results are enumerated here in the context of the recent Scottish election. 75 questions about the ballot were posed on AI systems, and the findings were sobering. On average, 44.4% of responses were at least partially wrong; ChatGPT was specifically wrong 46.2% of the time. Improbably, Grok actually performed the best in this test, with only 8.97% of responses containing factual inaccuracies. These findings held true in other UK elections: > “Days before the Senedd election in Wales, also held on May 7, BBC Wales tested six major chatbots, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Meta AI, and Grok, against fictional voter profiles. The results echoed Scotland’s almost exactly.” Some of this is likely just an outcome of how these systems work: hallucinations are par for the course. Nobody knows how to build a completely accurate LLM. But it’s also relatively easy to seed bad information as training data, which can be used to whitewash disinformation: you establish the intentional falsehoods, the LLM poisons its training corpus by ingesting your information, and it then presents your falsehoods as fact. Researchers at NYU discovered that [if 0.001 percent of the training data of a given LLM is “poisoned,” or deliberately planted with misinformation, the entire training set becomes likely to propagate errors](https://futurism.com/training-data-ai-misinformation-compromised). You can do that just by hosting harmful information online: in blogs, on Reddit, in otherwise-trustworthy sites. Once the falsehoods have been internalized by the LLM, the end user will never know. As the linked article points out, between 7 and 13% of voters in these elections used a chatbot to figure out who to vote for. We’re at the foothills of AI use; these numbers will continue to rise. And with them, a real risk to maintaining an informed democratic voting population. ### The honest truth about leaders who want to replace their workers with AI URL: https://werd.io/the-honest-truth-about-leaders-who-want-to-replace-their-workers-with-ai/ Last updated: 2026-06-10T22:19:28.000Z Link: [*CEOs Who Think AI Replaces Their Employees Are Just Bad CEOs, by Mike Masnick in TechDirt*](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/09/ceos-who-think-ai-replaces-their-employees-are-just-bad-ceos/) I second this sentiment: > “It seems pretty clear to me that companies that think they’ll be able to layoff huge swaths of workers because of LLM tools are going to find out they’re mistaken pretty quickly. The power of LLMs is that when used well and used willingly it can help employees to get more done, but that doesn’t mean you need fewer humans. You need more humans who know how to work productively.” I’ve seen some pretty dumb stuff out in the wild: leaders who have expected their engineers to dramatically increase their output to inhuman levels, company-wide token leaderboards, product managers who believe they can replace real user research with synthetic personas, and, of course, high-level leaders who think they can replace their human workers with AI agents. (None of this, I should say, has been at my job, where our work is primarily done by humans and AI, when it is used at all, is an assistive tool.) I think Mike Masnick’s prescription is accurate: many CEOs are so distant from the actual productive work of a company that they miss the complicated nuance of what goes into it. So if they can produce something with Claude Code that feels analogous to it, a bad CEO might start wondering why they’re hiring all these people. A good CEO will understand that they’re missing a ton of expertise that goes into building something well, doing work with skill, or even just exercising humane human judgment. The others will find out the hard way that they’re wrong to underestimate their employees. ### To build the future, we need theories of change URL: https://werd.io/to-build-the-future-we-need-theories-of-change/ Last updated: 2026-06-10T14:05:04.000Z Link: [*Change Agent, by Gina Chua in (Re)Structured News*](https://restructurednews.substack.com/p/change-agent) [Gina Chua](https://restructurednews.substack.com/) is one of the people in news who is doing the most to push the conversation forward and prepare the industry for the future. This piece of hers outlines what I think is a necessary skill for survival. We’re in the fastest period of technology change — and, consequently, the fastest period of journalistic change — in decades. Building takes time; if we aim to build for today, we’ll always be behind. So we need to consider what the future looks like. That doesn’t necessarily mean having one singular vision for the future, although it may be that one stands out as the most likely or compelling. It may be wise to juggle multiple *possible* futures, each with their own probabilities, prerequisites, and outcomes. If we deeply research them based on the work of experts in their fields, and then articulate them well, we can share them, and use them organizationally to prepare for what might become true. Will our information ecosystem radically change in the face of agentic systems? Will people look to community as AI intermediates everything else? Will the open internet fragment in the hands of authoritarianism? None of those things are necessarily the future, but it’s worth considering what all of them might mean. What we can’t do is assume that the world will stay the same. I would like to burn Gina’s words into the walls of every newsroom and every mission-driven organization in the world: > “You can hear that thinking if you roam the halls of any journalism conference. Get the platforms to pay for content. Do more original journalism. Build deeper relationships with audiences. Drive more direct traffic. But those aren’t theories of change; they are theories that the world won’t change that much, and that the strategies of the past will serve us well in the future, if only we execute them better, faster, and cheaper.” Each possible future is a kind of speculative fiction. It takes creativity — and bravery — to break out of existing frames and qualitatively consider what might be. These explorations must be informed by how things have played out already, where we are today, and what we know is coming down the pipeline, but they also must be generative and open. In doing so, we uncover ideas that can help us not just navigate what the future might be, but get in front of it and help to shape it — according to our own values and needs. The world won’t stay the same. Journalism *isn’t* staying the same. In addition to the rapid change in the platforms we depend on, trust is declining; engagement is declining; for many newsrooms, revenue is declining. A bet on the present is not a winning one. So we need to reach further. ### It's not enough to have better ideals. URL: https://werd.io/its-not-enough-to-have-better-ideals/ Last updated: 2026-06-10T16:15:47.000Z Last week I was privileged to contribute to the [PublicSpaces conference in Amsterdam](https://conference.publicspaces.net/en), which discussed the impact of technology on democracy. I was there all-too-briefly, but I was reminded how wonderful Amsterdam really is as a city: both culturally rich and a reminder of how a city’s infrastructure can work if it receives the investment and thoughtful attention it deserves. PublicSpaces itself is a marvel: a conference that dives into the underlying power dynamics behind tech and aims to create space to discuss alternatives. Robin Berjon’s *‌*[*We Build On Hope*](https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/session/opening-keynote-robert-berjon) and Erin Kissane’s *‌*[*Holdfast*](https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/session/keynote-erin-kissane) were both standout talks that were both excellent in themselves and representative of the tone of the entire event. On Friday, I participated in a panel that asked whether journalism can use the Open Social Web to strengthen democracy. I shared the stage with [Catherine Tait](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine%5FTait), expert in residence at [New\_ Public](https://newpublic.org/) and former president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; [Robert Amlung](https://presseportal.zdf.de/biografien/uebersicht/amlung-robert), the Senior Innovation Advisor at ZDF; and [Björn Staschen](https://savesocial.eu/), the founder of the European non-profit Save Social. Our moderator was [Marjolein Lanzing](https://www.uva.nl/profiel/l/a/m.lanzing/m.lanzing.html), Assistant Professor Philosophy of Technology at the University of Amsterdam. The conversation was spirited, taking in the rise of authoritarianism, what we are hopeful about, and generational shifts in how people seek out news and information. We did plan for one more question that we sadly didn’t get to. It’s a point that I think is important to make, so I thought I’d go into it here. > As an early-stage investor in media startups at Matter, and Founder of Elgg and now in your role as Senior Director of Technology at ProPublica you probably have had to balance ideals vs business. What would you advise us when we talk about ‘Technology for democracy’: what kind of strategies should we use / explore to combine our lofty ideals while still being able to earn a living? If we have lofty ideals — and we should! — we probably want these three things: - To build tools and networks with pro-social values - To have lots of people use them - To be able to keep doing it The message I’d send to anyone who wants to build a pro-social tool or network is: we are not absolved from doing the complex product work of building something people need in a way that has the potential to be self-sustaining. But the good news is, doing that work is also how we reach more people and get to keep building. In product, we sometimes talk about vitamins vs painkillers. Vitamins are always optional, but if you’re actively experiencing pain, you’re highly motivated to find something that will solve it. Painkillers are the products that truly drive value. Although pro-social values are important, it’s never enough to build something that is *ideologically* better. We need to build tools that are *practically* better for people today, based on people’s actual needs. “Twitter but decentralized” is not a particularly useful idea. You need to figure out who you’re going to help first, get to know them, understand what is *painful* for them, and solve that pain. Extractive networks have literally brought down democracies and enabled genocides, so we know we need software that encodes better ideals — but to most *individuals*, those ideals alone are vitamins at best. If your project has better ideals but the experience of using your software compared to the incumbents is the same or worse, you’ll only attract the most dedicated idealists. To attract more, you need to *both* provide better ideals *and* solve a real need better than the alternatives. And you have to offer it sustainably. Sustainability isn’t a thing you think about after you’ve designed a product. Your product’s business model is *an integral part of it*: whether your solution is valuable or not to a user depends in large part on the business model you use to provide it. Its cost, and the friction of using it, are a key part of the equation a user will use to determine whether your solution is worth using. If you’re doing something good, you need to be able to *keep doing it*, so figuring this out very early is really important. You can’t hand-wave it away. A lot of pro-social developers yearn to be paid for building something with great values and distributing it for free in the commons. I like that idea too! It sounds like a great gig. But in reality, that’s almost never how the value exchange actually works. Not to belabor the point, but people will pay you because doing so is an easier way to solve their pain than anything they might be able to do themselves. *What about government grants?* you might ask — but this harsh reality *includes* grant funding. For example, the EU is highly motivated to build an alternative tech stack this year because it’s begun to see US tech as a security risk. But it’s only going to pay you if it sees your work as a plausible way to accelerate its path towards getting there in measurable ways. National security risk is certainly pain, but you have to be able to prove you can reduce it. So you always need to understand who your customers will be; you need to know who your users will be (if they’re different); then you need to figure out what their needs are; and you need to serve them better than anyone else. Nobody gets to hunker down and just scratch their own itch or build something they believe in. Not in a vacuum. Most idealists are not that excited to think about money. Me included! And we make all kinds of excuses to avoid having to think about it. Here are two fallacies I’ve seen over and over again: 1. Startups don’t need to consider sustainability from the beginning 2. Open source contributors do it for the love of it First, the startups. Years ago, Twitter famously decided to grow as fast as possible and worry about a model for sustainability later. It spent years just building product without even so much as a word dedicated to how it would make money. That set the tone for a lot of idealistic founders — I’ve met many who want to do the same thing. What they missed is that Twitter had Ev Williams, who had previously sold Blogger to Google. That gave him both the capital and the investor goodwill to experiment — he used his Blogger proceeds to buy Odeo, the startup that became Twitter, back from its investors. Even then, the lack of attention to business model meant that when Twitter eventually *did* get serious, it pulled back on the open APIs and libraries that had built its ecosystem. So while many founders and builders find it distressing to think about money, I don’t think avoiding the topic is wise. Meanwhile, we often look to the open source ecosystem as a beautiful ecology of people building things and releasing them for free. The entire internet is based on open source libraries, tools, and radical collaborations. Couldn’t we have a nice life doing the same? It’s kind of an illusion. [Over half of contributors are paid to write open source code directly](https://training.linuxfoundation.org/blog/open-source-jobs-remain-secure-during-covid-19-pandemic-and-more-findings-from-linux-foundation-and-laboratory-for-innovation-science-at-harvard-report/), usually for larger corporations. In these cases, open source software solves infrastructure pain for these employers: the code is required for them to realize their strategies but isn’t a core part of their competitive advantage. Collaborating in the open lowers their costs and allows them to build better infrastructure more efficiently. At the same time, [Tidelift found that 60% of open source project maintainers aren’t paid at all](https://assets-eu-01.kc-usercontent.com/ef593040-b591-0198-9506-ed88b30bc023/d325a56f-05be-4379-bfd1-ee4776fcad41/2024-tidelift-state-of-the-open-source-maintainer-report-.pdf). We’ve all heard stories of open source contributors building load-bearing infrastructure without any real compensation. Between the corporate backed contributors and open source’s deep bench of starving artists, there are very, very few people actually managing to find sustainability building open source code projects independently. Despite these dynamics, if you release a project on an open source basis, you’ll find that lots of people celebrate your work. They’re very happy that you’ve done this, because they share your values and are excited to see more people build with them. Sometimes they’ll help spread the word in ways that help more people discover your product, and they’ll often have useful technical ideas. But they’re almost never going to be your customers themselves. Some of them may even get angry if you choose to sell a service in order to achieve sustainability. “The community” is helpful in terms of figuring out shared values and connecting to other projects, but in terms of solving concrete needs and providing value, they’re rarely who you should optimize for. Pro-social developers often worry that they shouldn’t add a feature because “the community won’t like it”, without asking the wider group of people who have a real problem the software could solve whether they need it. Allies are not the same as customers. To be clear: pro-social values matter. Open source matters. It’s just, if we want to build something with pro-social values that will reach a lot of people, and do it in such a way that it can continue to exist for as long as it needs to, they’re not the *only* things that matter. Doing great product and business work is how you achieve those things. And make no mistake: those things *are fully achievable*. I have so much hope. When we build something that solves a real problem better than anyone else and we do it with pro-social values, we further those values in a meaningful way. The values themselves give us a meaningful lift: nobody *wants* to be locked in or to otherwise be at the mercy of big tech companies. They subject themselves to those things when they have a problem that can’t be solved any other way. They’re *actively looking for great solutions that aren’t in opposition to their values*. And we can meet them where they’re at. We should all have hope. We also need to have discipline. The discipline is how the hope becomes reality. Making a valuable product isn’t in opposition to having lofty ideals. It’s how we bring those ideals to the world. ### The community-first software era URL: https://werd.io/the-community-first-software-era/ Last updated: 2026-06-04T07:00:42.000Z I’m at the [PublicSpaces Conference](https://conference.publicspaces.net/en) in Amsterdam this week. This year’s theme is “why a digital public space is essential for a healthy democratic society”. This is an idea space I care about deeply and I feel very privileged to have been invited to contribute. I’ll be giving a talk [to kick off the unconference](https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/session/Unconference-EN) today, and then tomorrow will be on a panel about [Social media, Journalism & Democracy](https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/session/social-media-journalism-and-democracy): > Can journalism use open social networks to combat disinformation, hate speech, and news fatigue, and free audiences from broligarchical algorithms, while still earning a living? What is the role of politicians, representatives, legislation, and the enforcement of judicial agreements? And what examples should we look to for inspiration and guidance? This panel dives deeper into the Open Social Web and the possibilities for journalism to contribute to the well-informed citizens needed to uphold and strengthen our democracy. In September, I’ll move on from my role as Senior Director of Technology at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) in order to spend a year more deeply exploring ideas that I think are important at the intersection of journalism, technology, and democracy. I’ll write more about this later, but a year to consider what is important is a gift. In the spirit of the conference and my new direction, I thought I’d write about some threads I’m interested in pulling on right now. We’re in the fastest era of technological change in decades. Consequently, we’re also in the fastest era of journalistic change — and possibly the fastest era of democratic change. Given that context, what’s going to be important? Here are some ideas. In particular, I’ve been thinking a lot about how encoding and building on technology protocols (the rules that dictate how software interacts) and human protocols (the processes and norms that dictate how *people* interact) could help us build software that reflects our needs and values. ### Communities build trust and loyalty If you work in news, you could be forgiven for thinking that AI is ruining everything. We rely on good journalism to understand the world around us, but those newsrooms need engagement, subscriptions, and membership to survive. AI intermediates those things by providing an aggregated, summarized view of its source material, and it fills social networks with slop. Newsrooms are seeing sharp declines in referrals from search and social. They’ve been investing in email newsletters because those feel closer to building a direct relationship with their readers, but [AI is coming to intermediate the inbox, too](https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gmail/gmail-is-entering-the-gemini-era/). At the same time, many incumbent newsrooms have failed to adapt to meet their readers where they are or to represent contexts and perspectives that are recognizable to them. Trust in news has significantly dropped [in a short time period](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/29/how-americans-trust-in-information-from-news-organizations-and-social-media-sites-has-changed-over-time/). Some legacy newsrooms maintain an almost bloody-minded culture of *not changing*, and have not invested in understanding who their readers actually are. It’s a mindset that was established when print was the only game in town — but the internet is a conversation, and that’s what modern readers expect. The biggest exceptions are local news startups, which are building trust, evolving business models for journalism, and building far more representative editorial rosters. Most of all, they’re engaging with their local communities. Their constituents *know them*; that representation and those relationships are how trust is built. And their readers are more loyal because they know they can’t get the context and information they need from anywhere else. Newsrooms rely on something called a “callout” when they want to learn more from their readers. More often than not, this is a simple web form: “Has your doctor pushed this prescription medication? Let us know.” But instead of a two-dimensional form, what if we built a short-term community space that safely brought readers in and allowed them to discuss in more depth with the journalists? My bet is that two things will happen: the journalists will get better information, because it will arise in conversation, and those readers will build stronger, more transparent relationships with the newsroom. And stronger, more transparent relationships will lead to more trust and more loyalty. The key, though, is *short-term*. Each space is ephemeral. Once the community outlives its usefulness, it disappears. Each one is tailored for its need: rather than a one-size-fits-all social media space, the features and design are adapted to the question or the context at hand. The new generation of open social web protocols help us here: if these community spaces are built on [AT Protocol](https://atproto.com/), both the newsrooms and readers are able to keep those contributions and relationships even after the community space itself has vanished. The reader has independent control; messages are saved to a user’s [PDS](https://atproto.wiki/en/wiki/reference/core-architecture/pds). AT Protocol gives us tools for identity and user-centered data persistence that we can use as core building blocks. [Private data over AT Protocol is in the works](https://atproto.wiki/en/working-groups/private-data), and will be helpful, too. These aren’t group chats and they’re not long-lived social media sites or social networking instances. It’s not just about the content; the *form* of these communities, which is inherently self-contained, is important to have more focused activity and to build both trust and safety. Each one is different, which means focusing on how technology can improve user control and safety, but not how it might abstract or generalize social interactions across them. That also means these spaces probably shouldn’t be federated: if the conversation is removed from its form and context, it loses much of its meaning. And, yes, AI could actually *help* here too — although none of this relies on it. Newsroom teams could create ephemeral communities from building blocks using natural language, and through use of underlying open social web standards, reusable code, and plug-in services for functions like trust and safety, know that the resulting community space will be trustworthy. Beyond news, I bet that ephemeral, tailored community spaces can support lots of needs for lots of different kinds of organizations. Through facilitating genuine, transparent connections between people, they will help to build trust and loyalty in a world where those things are broadly in decline. I think there’s something valuable here and I’ll be actively thinking about it over the next year. If this is something you’re interested in too, let’s chat about it. ### Culture is critical but our tools don’t know about it Culture is core to any organization. It governs the norms and conventions that dictate how work is done, how people communicate with each other, what is tolerated, who is welcome, who is accountable, and whose ideas can be heard. But how organizations *build* culture is wildly inconsistent. Quite often, leaders will focus on the outcomes of their work — the product in a tech company, the journalistic process in a newsroom — but under-invest in the culture of the organization that gets them there. They tell themselves that they don’t need HR or a people officer; norms and formal processes that determine how work gets done will just get in the way. The result of that under-investment is typically that people are unhappy, fewer ideas are heard, friction builds, and the actual work of the organization falls short of its potential. New ideas and hard truths aren’t heard by leadership, perhaps because people don’t have the safety or the avenues to speak up, or because leadership hasn’t established the norm that they will listen. Under-investing in culture always results in lost opportunities. Regular readers will know that I often recommend [Corey Ford’s writing and coaching](https://pointc.co). He’s been influential in building my understanding of how central culture is in an organization’s success. One of his superpowers is boiling down sophisticated ways to build culture [into repeatable mantras that make them easy to follow](https://pointc.co/the-safety-levers/) — which, in fact, is [one of the tools he advocates for](https://pointc.co/the-mantra-dashboard/). But here’s the thing: mantras are protocols, too. The productivity tools we use are one-size-fits-all. Yes, you can build custom workflows into tools like Jira, but it’s cumbersome, and the result superficially represents the way the organization works, if it represents it at all. Some tools, like Salesforce, have built an entire cottage industry around customization: you either need to be an expert or you need to hire a consultant and spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because we all use these tools to do our work on a daily basis, the way *they* work dictates the way *we* work. The assumptions made by their authors become deeply ingrained in our own organizational cultures — particularly if we haven’t done the work to establish a strong culture ourselves. We import their values, assumptions, and cultures wholesale. But they’re not applicable. A tool built for a tech company in Menlo Park should not dictate the culture of a newsroom in Alabama. That’s not necessarily a value judgment: they’re just different organizations with different contexts and different constituents and communities. Most importantly, tech companies are built for scale; the one-size-fits-all growth that doesn’t let you build deep, meaningful relationships. Adopting those values, even unconsciously, is one way a newsroom can lose trust with its community. So instead, imagine a way that an organization could actually encode its values in ways most never have. Its leaders build mantras — atomic units of culture — that encode how they work, how they talk to each other, and so on. Consider Corey’s: [make space for every voice](https://pointc.co/make-space-for-every-voice/), [feedback is a gift](https://pointc.co/feedback-is-a-gift-not-a-demand/), and [one consultative decision-maker per lane](https://pointc.co/one-consultative-decision-maker-per-lane/), for example. Mantras could be available to pick from; organizations would write their own; some would make theirs available on an open-source basis for others to build on. That [mantra dashboard](https://pointc.co/the-mantra-dashboard/) becomes readable by everyone in the company, which is an important step towards establishing shared norms and processes. That would be game-changing enough for most organizations. But it *also* becomes readable by our productivity tools, which read a machine-optimized version of each mantra in order to adapt the way they work to the way we want to think. Here, for example, an automated system reads the protocol [one consultative decision-maker per lane](https://pointc.co/one-consultative-decision-maker-per-lane/), and builds it into the design of a productivity tool. The system is set up with clear decision-making lanes that each have a single owner, but with facilities to share their thinking openly and consult others using the process defined in [make space for every voice](https://pointc.co/make-space-for-every-voice/) before arriving at a conclusion. We’re in a world where everyone can roll their own bespoke software. Some organizations have the capability to do this with engineers; others will use AI, or generators, or some other means. This ability to create software that is more tailored for us gives us the opportunity to enforce and encode our values and norms in ways that include the tools we use. The human work of building and establishing a culture must always come first. But our machines can now follow it, too. ### What if software is Duplo now Both of the above examples have discussed creating more bespoke platforms, often with the use of AI. I do think that’s the core way software is changing: the era of shrink-wrapped, one-size-fits-all products that are optimized for scale is coming to a close. But it’s also true that any organization that thinks it’s going to vibe code its own tools is in for a world of hurt. There are unforeseen maintenance costs, hidden design considerations that expert teams have worked on for decades, research outcomes and underlying science. Building software involves multiple highly-skilled disciplines; building great software that really works is hard. An LLM that has been trained on the outcome of all that work can cargo cult a software product, but it can’t reproduce the underlying skill. Unless it is itself in the hands of an expert, its work can never be as good. And for most organizations, vibe coded software will be spiritually the same as Microsoft Access databases in enterprises twenty years ago: these tools will proliferate invisibly, nobody will know how to maintain them, they will create privacy and security risks, and ultimately will create more friction than they solve. Protocols live in the middle ground. Borrowing from Corey, think of them as mantras for how entities — people, software, networks — interact with each other. Each of them should start with a human-first need. They need to be deeply considered. Building them is deeply human work that must be informed by research, study, experimentation, and collaboration. Some protocols are purely technical: AT Protocol and ActivityPub are great examples. But as I discussed in the last section, our norms and values can be encoded as protocols that dictate how software works, too. Once we have them, we can use them as building blocks for new things. Skilled engineers, designers, and product teams can create more sophisticated software building blocks, too. And then we can combine them in ways that more closely represent the needs of our organization and context. Instead of using an LLM to build inherently unmaintainable software messes, we can connect well-built building blocks according to protocols and recipes that have been developed by experts. The resulting software would fit an organization’s needs more deeply. Because those underlying protocols would be shared, different tools that are built this way could work together more easily. This combination of protocols, building blocks, and recipes would have a mix of underlying models: some would be open-source, some would be proprietary. They would all allow for far more remixing, customization, and interoperability than we experience using cloud software today. If building software by hand is like an industrial manufacturing process (or a movie studio), what I’m talking about here is more akin to building with [Duplo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego%5FDuplo). It’s also kind of [the Unix philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix%5Fphilosophy), if you squint a bit, although that was solely about a modular approach to technical systems. Here I’m advocating that we turn human norms into protocols that help automated systems to build software based on our needs and values. It’s undoubtedly less flexible than forging each atom yourself; it’s also safer, builds on the work of experts, and allows for far greater maintainability. Most importantly, it allows organizations to put their values first — and forces them to encode their cultures and assumptions. That’s a benefit in itself, not least because it allows both organizations and the software that supports them to be responsive to the needs and values of their communities. ### The community-first software era Technology companies can build our underlying software; they shouldn’t dictate our culture. But to change that dynamic, we have to define what our culture actually is. Building and using software that better supports democracy means, in part, building and using software that better supports communities. If we are to do that, we have to be clear about what our values are, and we need to have mechanisms to build them into the tools we depend on. We can no longer depend on one-size-fits-all. Platforms can be bespoke, they can be ephemeral, and they can shift according to our changing needs. New technologies like LLMs give us the ability to create and customize those platforms. For them to be effective, we need to ensure that what we build is safe and maintainable; that it leverages the right underlying disciplines and expertise; and that, most of all, it puts the needs of real people and real communities first. ### Notable links: May 29, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-may-29-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-30T03:27:54.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Know your Point C](https://pointc.co/know-your-point-c/?ref=werd.io) There’s so much packed into this idea: > “You started at Point A. Now you're at Point B. To reach your big goal, you don't just need to paint a picture of the long-term vision. You need to sell Point C: the concrete, vivid destination you will take yourself, your team, and your company to over the next twelve to twenty-four months.” I’ve worked with so many teams where the Point C is essentially defined as: “continue existing”. And on one level, sure, it may be a good idea to find a sustainable path and keep plugging along. But how are you supposed to rally your team and community around that vision? It becomes an argument for treading water, and worse, a way to avoid making an opinionated decision about where the team should head. Every team needs a mission (why it exists in the first place), a vision (the world it intends to create), and a strategy (the concrete steps to get there). The Point C is a well-defined, strategic, coherent lily pad on the way to that vision. Corey calls it the next fundable lily pad: what “fundable” means probably varies on your context, but it’s always a big decision milestone for your team. Not every team finds it easy to know where it’s going. I like Corey’s point about prototyping potential futures, and particularly the way it should be undertaken as a collective activity. Implicit is that there needs to be an underlying “why”: *why* is this the Point C that this team needs to head to? What will you be able to do from there? Is this anchored in the needs of your community — the people you’re trying to serve? Does it hang together as a vision that improves their lives, serves the needs of your business, and inspires the team who will make it real? And it’s worth asking: who on your team is empowered to define this? Is anyone? And if the answer is “no”, how might that change? --- ### [In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few ](https://religionnews.com/2026/05/25/in-his-first-encyclical-pope-leo-xiv-says-ai-must-serve-humanity-not-the-powerful-few/?ref=werd.io) It’s perhaps a sign of how integrated technology is into society that this is a quote from the actual Pope: > “AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data. Small but highly influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes and steer economic dynamics to their own advantage, undermining social justice and solidarity among peoples.” I’m not religious, and had to look up what an *‌encyclical* is. It’s a formal letter that the Pope writes to his Bishops and “people of good will”. That he chose to spend his first one talking about the adverse power dynamics and power centralization inherent to artificial intelligence is significant. “Technology is never neutral,” the Pope wrote. I agree, of course; this is my entire career thesis. I very much appreciate the implication that decentralizing power and focusing on the humanity of individuals and communities is the ethical, moral path. If you’d asked me at any time in the past if I thought it would be something advocated for by the *Pope*, I would have laughed in your face, but it’s nice to be surprised. More importantly, this is absolutely a discussion that’s worthy of focus. As technology becomes more and more ingrained in society — with people now making very consequential decisions informed by AI systems, whether they should be or not — how those systems are built, who they benefit, and what achieving equity looks like in a world where they dominate could not be more important. The Pope’s on-side; are you? --- ### [Data Centers Now Consume 6% of US Electricity—and the Backlash Has Begun](https://singularityhub.com/2026/05/22/data-centers-now-consume-6-of-electricity-in-the-us-and-the-backlash-has-begun/?ref=werd.io) When the dotcom boom came to a crashing end, the companies behind it imploded in sometimes spectacular ways, but the infrastructure they built continued to exist. That in turn laid the groundwork for Web 2.0, the cloud revolution, and everything that came afterwards. When we think about the AI boom, we should consider what will be left behind: the infrastructure precedents being set that will be with us for a generation. If I was a betting person (I’m not), I’d put money down on the current crop of AI tech companies imploding at some point, with their assets acquired by companies like Microsoft and Google (who already own the majority of data centers). The applications will flounder, but the data centers will remain — and the energy infrastructure that enables them. As the linked article notes: > “Data centers have always been energy-hungry, but the AI explosion is causing computing demand to skyrocket. The biggest data centers now consume as much electricity as small cities and are proliferating at breakneck speed.” Data centers now account for 6% of US energy use, and their water use is similarly staggering. 13% of the underlying workloads are useless: zombie processes that have been left running by inattentive owners whose priorities now lie elsewhere. Beyond the environmental impacts, which are no joke, data center consumption is pushing up people’s bills and disrupting communities. And beyond *that*, they push up real estate costs, [with real knock-on effects for communities](https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/real-estate/a71253889/data-center-property-values/?ref=werd.io). It’s no surprise, then, that legislation is being written to limit their growth. It’s not that we shouldn’t have data centers. But their footprint is enormous, and the effects are sometimes disastrous. We need to consider the effect on people’s quality of life more than the impact to GDP, not least because economic indicators like these [don’t actually show if people’s lives are improving](https://unctad.org/news/gdp-not-enough-tell-if-people-are-better?ref=werd.io). It’ll be an arms race: [developers are considering building distributed data centers into people’s homes](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/09/ai-data-center-construction-public-opposition.html?ref=werd.io), making them harder to regulate. Presumably homeowners will be sold on the upside, but when the market crashes will be saddled with obsolete tech that comes at a cost to them. My take: require them to be built with self-sufficient renewable energy that pushes excess capacity to the grid and encourage the development of new architectures that don’t require water cooling to the same degree. Outlaw the widespread practice of building data centers using shell companies that obscure their real ownership. And ensure they are taxed robustly nationwide, so that revenues can benefit local communities. In a few years, when the hype cycle dies down and people understand the capabilities and limitations of AI with clearer eyes, we’ll have a ton of new infrastructure that can’t easily be turned down — and we will have set energy consumption precedents that will be hard to reverse. Now is the time to set the right standards, and for communities to push back against what they won’t tolerate. --- ### [The Web Is Being Made Accessible for AI, Not People](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-web-is-being-made-accessible-for-ai-not-people/?ref=werd.io) This is worth sitting with: > “The modern web, originally built for sighted humans using browsers, is now being redesigned for a new kind of user. > > What these developers are offering their AI visitors is essentially an accessibility accommodation. \[…\] But when the audience is a disabled person, it has historically been treated as an afterthought. Structured, concise text-based representations of complex content are almost exactly the kind of accommodation that blind and low-vision screen reader users have spent decades requesting from web developers, largely in vain.” One of the oddest parts of the AI shift is that people are much more willing to do things for LLMs that they should have been doing for human beings all along. Accessibility is clearly an important one: 95% of websites have accessibility flaws, and convincing teams to allocate time for accessibility concerns can be like pulling teeth. But now that similar affordances are required for LLM use, people are leaping over themselves to implement them. The same goes for specifications and documentation. Often, these have been afterthoughts; policies have been hand-waved rather than concretely written down in ways that people can point to. Sometimes it’s even made explicit that this is to preserve manager optionality. But now that LLMs need more concrete instructions in order to behave well, specifications, documents, plans, and policies have rocketed up the priority list. It would be beautiful if these needs converged, but as the article notes, the affordances needed by screen readers and LLMs are different. Similarly, documentation and planning documents aimed at an LLM are coercive in nature: they’re designed to force the software to do the right thing, rather than to provide background as to why something is the case. The simple truth is that there is clearly a perception, in some quarters, that there is a stronger productivity gain from doing this work to serve AI than doing it to serve real human people. That’s quite a dystopian idea, particularly as, even if you don’t care about people with disabilities or your own colleagues, *doing those things for humans clearly actually has a real benefit*. Making your site more usable allows more people to interact with your work and improves your search engine performance. Writing clear documentation and policies allows your colleagues to spend less time figuring out what to do. But you can’t measure those things neatly. The cause and effect aren’t immediately tethered; managers don’t see a boost they can cleanly ascribe to this work. In contrast, you know pretty instantly whether the AI you’ve trained on your documentation is doing the right thing. More importantly, whereas accessibility affordances provide new abilities for vulnerable people, an AI affordance provides new abilities for people with power. And that’s probably the heart of it. --- ### [The 'normal' response to the Social Web](https://forbetter.ghost.io/the-normal-response-to-the-social-web/?ref=werd.io) An accessible, nuanced piece from [Saskia Welch](https://forbetter.ghost.io/?ref=werd.io) about marketing the open social web, which translates easily to being a piece about marketing *any* transformative technology. > “Fediverse this, Social Web that, no one cares! > > Genuinely, no one cares. And, even if you get them to start caring, they do so in the complete opposite direction we've been heading with our messy, undoubtedly decentralised, marketing.” When we’re building as part of an open source movement (or any kind of ideological movement), we run the risk of gauging our decisions based on the reactions of the movement itself. It’s easy to say that you can’t build a feature, or talk about your project in a particular way, because the community won’t like it. Fine, but are those people the ones you want to reach? Are you speaking to the converted or trying to find a bigger audience? Talking to existing believers is fine if you want to gain approval or achieve consensus with collaborators who are already in the tent. It’s next to useless if you want to bring more people in and sell them on why what you’re building is going to make their lives better. It’s also worth saying, as Saskia does, that projects need money to reach sustainability; it’s rare that existing converts are going to be your customers. Converts are people who want your project to exist because they believe in the cause; they are not necessarily people who want it to exist because they themselves *need* it. The former group is comforting, but you need to find the latter group in order to survive. And if that group doesn’t exist, your project is dead in the water. The open social web — the fediverse, the atmosphere, any open standards movement — is not a product. Imagine selling the idea of Bluetooth instead of a great pair of wireless headphones. You set out to buy the headphones; Bluetooth is what makes them useful. Headphones can be designed and targeted for specific groups of people (people who work out, people working at their desk, frequent travelers, etc). If people get used to Bluetooth working seamlessly well, then Bluetooth becomes a feature they look for — but it’s not the thing they look for first. Really great social media platforms are the product. The underlying standards and tooling are what makes them work. Very few people go to Bluesky for AT Protocol; if AT Protocol then gives them superpowers that genuinely make their lives better, *then* they might look for other products that support it. Bluesky, Mastodon, Pixelfed, et al are the products. The onus is on them to be better than other social media for people who don’t care about the underlying principles or protocols. --- ### [The Pope on Defederation](https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr164-the-pope-on-defederation/?ref=werd.io) [Laurens Hof](https://connectedplaces.online/?ref=werd.io) provides some of the best and most important analysis of the open social web. This piece about how the Pope’s [Magnifica Humanitas](https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html?ref=werd.io) encyclical applies to technology movements that seek to take is beyond Big Tech is no different. > “The dominant thinking that decentralisation is built upon has lots to say about the threats of concentrated power, but has little to say about social obligations. Cyber-libertarian tradition can tell you why no one should rule the network, but it cannot really tell you why the individual pieces should be together once it does.” Pairing subsidiarity with solidarity is smart. The former is the liberartian-esque idea we know: that a larger entity should not affect the freedom of a smaller entity. But that’s where many decentralization projects end. Here, a call for *solidarity* covers the social contract we all have with each other; something that pure libertarianism often pretends doesn’t or shouldn’t exist. As Laurens notes: > “What is striking is that the two ecosystems struggle in opposite directions, where the fediverse has subsidiarity without solidarity, all autonomy and no way to govern the commons, and the atmosphere has solidarity without subsidiarity, a commons that almost no one shares responsibility for. The fediverse does not need more servers, it needs reasons for them to act like they owe each other something. The atmosphere does not need better tools, it has those, it needs the autonomy those tools enable to actually be taken up.” [His whole piece](https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr164-the-pope-on-defederation/?ref=werd.io) is very much worth your time. --- ### [25 years of OLDaily](https://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2026/05/25-years-of-oldaily.html?ref=werd.io) If you’re not in educational technology, it’s possible you might not know who [Stephen Downes](https://www.downes.ca/) is. If you are, there’s no way you don’t. For a quarter century now, his daily updates at [OLDaily](https://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm?ref=werd.io) have been one of the main ways people learn about the space; part reporter, part advocate, he’s pushed for an open web approach to education that’s been genuinely influential. And all on one of the very first ling blogs. My own work on Elgg, which kickstarted my career, was directly inspired [by a post Stephen made about a white paper Dave Tosh and I had written](https://www.downes.ca/post/7528?ref=werd.io) about social spaces for learning, 22 years ago: > “\[…\] The authors' proposal is visionary. "Creation of a learning landscape where learners engage in the whole process both academically and socially should increase the opportunity to build one's learning instead of just being the recipients of information." If your view of portfolios is just something akin to a content management system, don't bother. But if it's the student's personal and continuing presence in an online community of discourse, then you are on to something.” Twenty five years of this is an incredible achievement — clearly he touched my life, but I’m certain I’m not alone. As Stephen says: > “Though nothing I have ever written has been as popular as that first Guide to the Logical Fallacies (I could probably have built a career off it), I think that OLDaily has been my most substantial contribution, not the least because it wasn't about me and my accomplishments, but about the wider community that made everything possible. My story really is our story, my history really is our history.” For open educational technology, there has been no more diligent and influential chronicler. ### "The protocol world has been trying to solve the problem of how to leave, and the next step is working on how we can stay together." URL: https://werd.io/the-protocol-world-has-been-trying-to-solve-the-problem-of-how-to-leave-and-the-next-step-is-working-on-how-we-can-stay-together/ Last updated: 2026-05-29T15:42:25.000Z Link: [*The Pope on Defederation, by Laurens Hof in Connected Places*](https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr164-the-pope-on-defederation/) [Laurens Hof](https://connectedplaces.online/) provides some of the best and most important analysis of the open social web. This piece about the Pope’s [Magnifica Humanitas](https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html) encyclical is a standout. > “The dominant thinking that decentralisation is built upon has lots to say about the threats of concentrated power, but has little to say about social obligations. Cyber-libertarian tradition can tell you why no one should rule the network, but it cannot really tell you why the individual pieces should be together once it does.” Pairing subsidiarity with solidarity is smart. The former is the liberartian-esque idea we know: that a larger entity should not affect the freedom of a smaller entity. But that’s where many projects end. Here, *solidarity* covers the social contract we all have with each other; something that pure libertarianism often pretends doesn’t or shouldn’t exist. As Laurens notes: > “What is striking is that the two ecosystems struggle in opposite directions, where the fediverse has subsidiarity without solidarity, all autonomy and no way to govern the commons, and the atmosphere has solidarity without subsidiarity, a commons that almost no one shares responsibility for. The fediverse does not need more servers, it needs reasons for them to act like they owe each other something. The atmosphere does not need better tools, it has those, it needs the autonomy those tools enable to actually be taken up.” [His whole piece](https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr164-the-pope-on-defederation/) is very much worth your time, and his analysis on this space is unmissable. ### To reach your big goal, you need to sell where you're heading next URL: https://werd.io/to-reach-your-big-goal-you-need-to-sell-where-youre-heading-next/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T13:17:15.000Z Link: [*Know Your Point C, by Corey Ford*](https://pointc.co/know-your-point-c/) There’s so much packed into this idea: > “You started at Point A. Now you're at Point B. To reach your big goal, you don't just need to paint a picture of the long-term vision. You need to sell Point C: the concrete, vivid destination you will take yourself, your team, and your company to over the next twelve to twenty-four months.” I’ve worked with so many teams where the Point C is essentially defined as: “continue existing”. And on one level, sure, it may be a good idea to find a sustainable path and keep plugging along. But how are you supposed to rally your team and community around that vision? It becomes an argument for treading water, and worse, a way to avoid making an opinionated decision about where the team should head. Every team needs a mission (why it exists in the first place), a vision (the world it intends to create), and a strategy (the concrete steps to get there). The Point C is a well-defined, strategic, coherent lily pad on the way to that vision. Corey calls it the next fundable lily pad: what “fundable” means probably varies on your context, but it’s always a big decision milestone for your team. Not every team finds it easy to know where it’s going. I like Corey’s point about prototyping potential futures, and particularly the way it should be undertaken as a collective activity. Implicit is that there needs to be an underlying “why”: *why* is this the Point C that this team needs to head to? What will you be able to do from there? Is this anchored in the needs of your community — the people you’re trying to serve? Does it hang together as a vision that improves their lives, serves the needs of your business, and inspires the team who will make it real? And it’s worth asking: who on your team is empowered to define this? Is anyone? And if the answer is “no”, how might that change? ### The Fediverse is not a product. It's time to get real about marketing URL: https://werd.io/the-fediverse-is-not-a-product-its-time-to-get-real-about-marketing/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T12:44:29.000Z Link: [*The 'normal' response to the Social Web, by Saskia Welch*](https://forbetter.ghost.io/the-normal-response-to-the-social-web/) A smart, accessible, nuanced piece from [Saskia Welch](https://forbetter.ghost.io/) about marketing the open social web, which translates easily to being a piece about marketing *any* transformative technology. > “Fediverse this, Social Web that, no one cares! > > Genuinely, no one cares. And, even if you get them to start caring, they do so in the complete opposite direction we've been heading with our messy, undoubtedly decentralised, marketing.” When we’re building as part of an open source movement (or any kind of ideological movement), we run the risk of gauging our decisions based on the reactions of the movement itself. It’s easy to say that you can’t build a feature, or talk about your project in a particular way, because the community won’t like it. Fine, but are those people the ones you want to reach? Are you speaking to the converted or trying to find a bigger audience? Talking to existing believers is fine if you want to gain approval or achieve consensus with collaborators who are already in the tent. It’s next to useless if you want to bring more people in and sell them on why what you’re building is going to make their lives better. It’s also worth saying, as Saskia does, that projects need money to reach sustainability; it’s rare that existing converts are going to be your customers. Converts are people who want your project to exist because they believe in the cause; they are not necessarily people who want it to exist because they themselves *need* it. The former group is comforting, but you need to find the latter group in order to survive. And if that group doesn’t exist, your project is dead in the water. The open social web — the fediverse, the atmosphere, any open standards movement — is not a product. Imagine selling the idea of Bluetooth instead of a great pair of wireless headphones. You set out to buy the headphones; Bluetooth is what makes them useful. Headphones can be designed and targeted for specific groups of people (people who work out, people working at their desk, frequent travelers, etc). If people get used to Bluetooth working seamlessly well, then Bluetooth becomes a feature they look for — but it’s not the thing they look for first. Really great social media platforms are the product. The underlying standards and tooling are what makes them work. Very few people go to Bluesky for AT Protocol; if AT Protocol then gives them superpowers that genuinely make their lives better, *then* they might look for other products that support it. Bluesky, Mastodon, Pixelfed, et al are the products. The onus is on them to be better than other social media for people who don’t care about the underlying principles or protocols. ### When the AI boom subsides, the data centers will remain. What we do now matters URL: https://werd.io/when-the-ai-boom-subsides-the-data-centers-will-remain-what-we-do-now-matters/ Last updated: 2026-05-27T13:44:02.000Z Link: [*Data Centers Now Consume 6% of US Electricity—and the Backlash Has Begun, by Edd Gent at SingularityHub*](https://singularityhub.com/2026/05/22/data-centers-now-consume-6-of-electricity-in-the-us-and-the-backlash-has-begun/) When the dotcom boom came to a crashing end, the companies behind it imploded in sometimes spectacular ways, but the infrastructure they built continued to exist. That in turn laid the groundwork for Web 2.0, the cloud revolution, and everything that came afterwards. When we think about the AI boom, we should consider what will be left behind: the infrastructure precedents being set that will be with us for a generation. If I was a betting person (I’m not), I’d put money down on the current crop of AI tech companies imploding at some point, with their assets acquired by companies like Microsoft and Google (who already own the majority of data centers). The applications will flounder, but the data centers will remain — and the energy infrastructure that enables them. As the linked article notes: > “Data centers have always been energy-hungry, but the AI explosion is causing computing demand to skyrocket. The biggest data centers now consume as much electricity as small cities and are proliferating at breakneck speed.” Data centers now account for 6% of US energy use, and their water use is similarly staggering. 13% of the underlying workloads are useless: zombie processes that have been left running by inattentive owners whose priorities now lie elsewhere. Beyond the environmental impacts, which are no joke, data center consumption is pushing up people’s bills and disrupting communities. And beyond *that*, they push up real estate costs, [with real knock-on effects for communities](https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/real-estate/a71253889/data-center-property-values/). It’s no surprise, then, that legislation is being written to limit their growth. It’s not that we shouldn’t have data centers. But their footprint is enormous, and the effects are sometimes disastrous. We need to consider the effect on people’s quality of life more than the impact to GDP, not least because economic indicators like these [don’t actually show if people’s lives are improving](https://unctad.org/news/gdp-not-enough-tell-if-people-are-better). It’ll be an arms race: [developers are considering building distributed data centers into people’s homes](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/09/ai-data-center-construction-public-opposition.html), making them harder to regulate. Presumably homeowners will be sold on the upside, but when the market crashes will be saddled with obsolete tech that comes at a cost to them. My take: require them to be built with self-sufficient renewable energy that pushes excess capacity to the grid and encourage the development of new architectures that don’t require water cooling to the same degree. Outlaw the widespread practice of building data centers using shell companies that obscure their real ownership. And ensure they are taxed robustly nationwide, so that revenues can benefit local communities. In a few years, when the hype cycle dies down and people understand the capabilities and limitations of AI with clearer eyes, we’ll have a ton of new infrastructure that can’t easily be turned down — and we will have set energy consumption precedents that will be hard to reverse. Now is the time to set the right standards, and for communities to push back against what they won’t tolerate. ### The Pope used his first encyclical to warn about tech centralization URL: https://werd.io/the-pope-used-his-first-encyclical-to-warn-about-tech-centralization/ Last updated: 2026-05-25T13:12:01.000Z Link: [*In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few, by Claire Giangravè for Religion News Service*](https://religionnews.com/2026/05/25/in-his-first-encyclical-pope-leo-xiv-says-ai-must-serve-humanity-not-the-powerful-few/) It’s perhaps a sign of how integrated technology is into society that this is a quote from the actual Pope: > “AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data. Small but highly influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes and steer economic dynamics to their own advantage, undermining social justice and solidarity among peoples.” I’m not religious, and had to look up what an *‌encyclical* is. It’s a formal letter that the Pope writes to his Bishops and “people of good will”. That he chose to spend his first one talking about the adverse power dynamics and power centralization inherent to artificial intelligence is significant. “Technology is never neutral,” the Pope wrote. I agree, of course; this is my entire career thesis. I very much appreciate the implication that decentralizing power and focusing on the humanity of individuals and communities is the ethical, moral path. If you’d asked me at any time in the past if I thought it would be something advocated for by the *Pope*, I would have laughed in your face, but it’s nice to be surprised. More importantly, this is absolutely a discussion that’s worthy of focus. As technology becomes more and more ingrained in society — with people now making very consequential decisions informed by AI systems, whether they should be or not — how those systems are built, who they benefit, and what achieving equity looks like in a world where they dominate could not be more important. The Pope’s on-side; are you? ### Affordances for me, but not for thee URL: https://werd.io/affordances-for-me-but-not-for-thee/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T14:00:39.000Z Link: [*The Web Is Being Made Accessible for AI, Not People, by Jonathan Zong and Frank Elavsky in Tech Policy Press*](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-web-is-being-made-accessible-for-ai-not-people/) This is worth sitting with: > “The modern web, originally built for sighted humans using browsers, is now being redesigned for a new kind of user. > > What these developers are offering their AI visitors is essentially an accessibility accommodation. \[…\] But when the audience is a disabled person, it has historically been treated as an afterthought. Structured, concise text-based representations of complex content are almost exactly the kind of accommodation that blind and low-vision screen reader users have spent decades requesting from web developers, largely in vain.” One of the oddest parts of the AI shift is that people are much more willing to do things for LLMs that they should have been doing for human beings all along. Accessibility is clearly an important one: 95% of websites have accessibility flaws, and convincing teams to allocate time for accessibility concerns can be like pulling teeth. But now that similar affordances are required for LLM use, people are leaping over themselves to implement them. The same goes for specifications and documentation. Often, these have been afterthoughts; policies have been hand-waved rather than concretely written down in ways that people can point to. Sometimes it’s even made explicit that this is to preserve manager optionality. But now that LLMs need more concrete instructions in order to behave well, specifications, documents, plans, and policies have rocketed up the priority list. It would be beautiful if these needs converged, but as the article notes, the affordances needed by screen readers and LLMs are different. Similarly, documentation and planning documents aimed at an LLM are coercive in nature: they’re designed to force the software to do the right thing, rather than to provide background as to why something is the case. The simple truth is that there is clearly a perception, in some quarters, that there is a stronger productivity gain from doing this work to serve AI than doing it to serve real human people. That’s quite a dystopian idea, particularly as, even if you don’t care about people with disabilities or your own colleagues, *doing those things for humans clearly actually has a real benefit*. Making your site more usable allows more people to interact with your work and improves your search engine performance. Writing clear documentation and policies allows your colleagues to spend less time figuring out what to do. But you can’t measure those things neatly. The cause and effect aren’t immediately tethered; managers don’t see a boost they can cleanly ascribe to this work. In contrast, you know pretty instantly whether the AI you’ve trained on your documentation is doing the right thing. More importantly, whereas accessibility affordances provide new abilities for vulnerable people, an AI affordance provides new abilities for people with power. And that’s probably the heart of it. ### Like sunrise over a sink URL: https://werd.io/like-sunrise-over-a-sink/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T22:44:36.000Z Link: [*AI scandal engulfs prestigious short story prize after multiple entrants accused, by Shahana Yasmin for the Associated Press*](https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/books/news/commonwealth-short-story-winner-ai-generated-jamir-nazir-granta-b2980039.html) So I want to be a bit careful about this, because a false positive would be harmful, but it certainly *looks* like the short story that won the [Commonwealth Fund Short Story Prize](https://commonwealthfoundation.com/short-story-prize/) was [generated with AI](https://bsky.app/profile/emollick.bsky.social/post/3mm5gtrlvpk27). A lot has been said of the writing, which includes sentences like: > “She had the kind of walking that made benches become men.” And: > “The girl smiled like sunrise over a sink.” The author has no digital footprint except for an AI-shilling LinkedIn account. While he is a verified real person, his author photo [has very clearly also been AI-generated](https://x.com/JSweetLI/status/2056743816426562001). Here’s the thing I haven’t seen anyone mention yet: we know that [when AI is used in hiring, it preferences AI-generated resumés](https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00462). And [not by a small amount](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/does-ai-self-preferencing-create-more-bias-than-ever-luiza-hnl3f/): > “The preference rate for models evaluating their own outputs over human-written alternatives reached a staggering 67% to 82% across major commercial and open-source systems.” There were well over seven thousand submissions for the short story prize. Is it really outside of the realm of possibilities that the prize itself used AI to sift through them? I’m not saying any of this is definitely what actually happened, but it certainly makes for an interesting Turing test — and it’s worth making note of this moment as a marker as AI continues to ingrain itself culturally. ### Why micropayments can't save news URL: https://werd.io/why-micropayments-cant-save-news/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T18:13:36.000Z In an interview with Nicholas Thompson last month, [OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed a micropayments strategy for news](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/05/sam-altman-backs-micropayment-model-for-ai-agents-to-compensate-publishers/): > “What really makes sense in a world of agents is we try a sort of micropayment-based approach. \[…\] My agent can read it, pay $0.17, and give me a summary of that. If I want to go read the whole article, pay $1, or however that works. If my agent wants to calculate something for me that’s really difficult to do, it can go rent some cloud compute somewhere and pay for that, but I think there will be need to be a new economic model for these agents doing lots of small transactions and exchanges of value with each other on behalf of their human controllers or whatever, all of the time.” What he describes is a combination of pay-per-view and a utility model. In pay-per-view, you’re paying a custom price set by the publisher in order to access a resource; you as the user might get a prompt asking whether you approve the transaction, or you might just give it an approved budget. When he talks about an agent renting cloud compute, it would likely be paying based on usage like a utility, with financial transactions similarly carried out behind the scenes. It’s not really different from the Spotify model in the sense that artists are paid per stream; there it’s a percentage of your total listens, whereas here it’s probably a total budget that you preload into a wallet. This keeps coming up in software circles: I’ve heard, again and again, that an approach like Altman describes would help provide revenue for publishers in an AI-intermediated information ecosystem. I disagree; while I think there’s certainly value for utility-style pricing on the web, proposals to use it for news are based on a misunderstanding of how journalism is valued and paid for today, set up the wrong incentives for publishers, and conflate every kind of publisher into one very flat model. So, let’s talk about it. First, it’s important to understand what a micropayment actually *is*. Then I’ll discuss the incentives micropayments create, how they might apply to different kinds of publishers, where micropayments *might* be useful, and how platform owners might embrace the needs of publishers more directly in an agentic ecosystem. ### What is a micropayment? Micropayments are small payments — sometimes a fraction of a cent — that are charged to access digital goods or services. Usually, this happens more or less automatically: you load a wallet connected to your web browser or AI agent, and then when you or your agent visit a resource, a small payment is made. This could be a flat fee or it could be charged as a percentage of your total browsing for the month. There have been a number of attempts to make micropayments work on the web. [Flattr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr) was an early example: a browser extension that paid for content on your behalf. It struggled with getting enough people to fund their wallets and was faced with the high underlying transaction fees associated with credit card payments. It ultimately shut down in 2023\. The Brave browser [attempts something similar through cryptocurrency](https://brave.com/blog/introducing-brave-payments/). Today, the [Interledger Foundation](https://interledger.org/) is working on creating an open protocol that can be used for micropayments, among other kinds of compensation. The protocol is intended to overcome the kinds of financial friction that Flattr experienced. The Foundation is working hard on the problems I’ll raise here in the rest of the piece. ### We’ll make it up in volume Clickbait is enabled at scale on the web by display advertising. Because the revenue received by a publisher is directly connected to the number of pageviews they receive, publishers that are entirely tethered to this model have two incentives: 1. To drive as much traffic as possible to their articles 2. To lower the cost of each individual article as much as possible That’s led to an information ecosystem where many publishers produce low-quality content with misleading headlines in an effort to get as many people as possible to look at them. For many, it doesn’t even matter if the article is true; the reader doesn’t build a long-term trust relationship with the publisher and likely won’t come back unless they’ve been hoodwinked into looking at another one. These publishers are the tourist traps of the internet. There’s no ongoing relationship, so there’s no duty of care. Micropayments are effectively this model, with the difference that nobody has to look at an ad. Revenue is directly tethered to traffic, like a display ad model; the difference is that the money for a publisher comes from the reader’s pocket instead of the advertiser’s. Not only does this continue to incentivize clickbait, but these publishers are now competing for the checkbooks of millions of people rather than a few well-funded advertisers. In an advertising-based world, every visitor is highly likely (ad blockers excepted) to produce a small amount of revenue; in a distributed wallet world, we’re relying on individuals to be well-funded. It’s also worth considering the full user journey. For a reader to arrive at a particular article, one of two things is happening: 1. The reader has discovered the article off-platform, perhaps through a social media post or a search engine result 2. The reader already trusts the publication and is seeking out their information specifically In the first case, the publisher is incentivized to find ways to surface their work. That will be through a combination of tried and tested methods like social media audience work, paid acquisition, and SEO. But they have to do this work *for every single article, for every single reader*. The most efficient thing they can do is try to build an ongoing relationship with that reader so they don’t have to work as hard for that reader’s second pageview. In other words, the most desirable end state for a cold interaction with a reader is some kind of trusted relationship: they want the reader to sign up for a membership. In the second case, a trust relationship has already been established. Here, too, the most desirable end state is for the reader to have a membership. Because the reader already trusts the publication, it’s the most desirable end state for *them*, too: they likely want to prioritize this publication over other sources that are less trusted by them. ### Okay, but what about agents? There’s an argument to be made that, in an agentic world, the relationship isn’t between the publication and the reader; instead, the AI vendor sits in the middle as an intermediary. That’s much worse. Rather than allowing every reader to build their own information landscape, the decisions made by companies like OpenAI about which sources are trustworthy will affect the information that *everybody* receives. If agents build their own trust relationships with publications, the underlying assumptions that dictate how those agents select sources and process their information govern how everybody learns about the world around them. Micropayments probably *are* the financial backbone of that world, but I’d argue that it’s not a world we want to live in. On the other hand, if agents act based on human reader preferences, then the relationship returns to being between the publication and the reader, and we’re back to the incentives *for both readers and publishers* tending towards membership. If an agent-first world really is coming — and, to be clear, the jury’s still out — then finding ways to encode memberships into the underlying protocols and mechanisms is important. Micropayments are ephemeral. ### Publishers are not monolithic When we talk about “publishers” we miss a ton of nuance. What works for a local for-profit paper is not the same as what works for a non-profit national news website is not the same as what works for a premium international newspaper. These businesses all try to serve their communities with information, but they have different financial dynamics, communities, and needs. There are multiple overlapping spectra of business models, information types, communities served, publishing surfaces, and more. At some intersections, micropayments might make more sense than others. For example, if a local for-profit paper is serving event listings for the area, it might quite reasonably charge an agent to access it as a dataset on a utility basis. In general, micropayments do make sense as a way to access raw datasets or lists of facts; you don’t establish a trust relationship with a spreadsheet. But even then, it’s heavily dependent on the nature of the publisher. If it’s a non-profit paper, those charges might not fit within its mission. If we’re instead talking about ongoing, in-depth qualitative reporting on the characters behind a neighborhood, rather than flat facts, or an ongoing series by a journalist with a specific point of view, a reader might want to establish a subscriber or member relationship. But that, in turn, might make more sense for a for-profit publisher, while a non-profit might be serving its articles for free but asking for a donation. (Or it might not! There’s nothing *requiring* that it does this.) The medium matters, too: some models work better with the ways people interact with text, others with the ways people watch video. You also need to consider the characteristics of the intended audience. *Can* they pay for a micropayment or a membership, or does informing them require some other kind of underwriting like non-profit donations from an institutional backer or, yes, advertising? If we only inform audiences who can pay, we create news deserts in the communities that might need real reporting the most. There’s no single solution. Every publisher needs to figure out the business model that’s right for it based on its specific context, mission, audience, and focus. There’s a real distinction between commodity facts (a stock price, a sports score, an event listing) and the analytical, contextual, investigative work that makes journalism valuable. The latter is an ongoing process of building trust. It’s not ephemeral; it is relationship-based. And although, as I’ve discussed, there are also real differences across publisher type, medium, and community, it’s generally not a good fit for micropayments. ### So what should platforms do? I’ve discussed that publishers need to navigate all their contextual factors and choose the business model that’s right for them from first principles. Platform owners would likely prefer that publishers all use the same template — it’s much easier to build a scalable platform that way. Sam Altman isn’t just thinking about how to provide compensation to publishers; he’s also considering what would result in the least friction for his business. Micropayments are useful for people who build agentic platforms because they reduce friction. The user asks for information (or the system contextually decides they need to see it); the system serves up that information. The micropayment transaction happens behind the scenes in a non-interruptive way. Supporting trust relationships can be similarly non-interruptive, but they require a little more thought. Today, the thinking is that AI agents will use protocols like MCP to request information from sources. The protocol might change in the future, but the principle probably remains the same: it’s an API that happens to be designed for AI systems rather than traditional client applications. Adding a mechanism for explicit calls to action would be a great start. This would allow the publisher to prompt the user to start a membership. The publisher would receive more information about the reader, as well as potentially some revenue; in turn, the reader would receive access to more articles or data that their agent could use. One embodiment of this is that a user could subscribe to a publisher and receive its articles in a reader, perhaps even using an existing substrate like RSS; they could then use their accumulated corpus of subscribed articles with their AI agent. The agent is not intermediating a relationship with the publisher; the relationship is with the human subscriber, and the agent then operates on what they’ve subscribed to. This doesn’t just build trust in the publisher: it builds a loyalty relationship with the AI platform too. Both the publisher and the AI platform build a stronger relationship with the reader. Membership-first platforms like Ghost are already approaching this as they start to add more affordances for AI. It wouldn’t surprise me to see existing publisher platforms move in this direction, building more foundational AI technology for memberships in the process. Publishers don’t need to compromise on their relationships with their communities in order to adopt new technology. Platforms don’t need to flatten relationships in order to achieve scale. There’s a lot to be gained by working together and understanding each other — and remembering that human relationships build the kind of trust and loyalty that an ephemeral transaction never could. ### A quarter of a century of open educational technology URL: https://werd.io/a-quarter-of-a-century-of-open-educational-technology/ Last updated: 2026-05-16T16:29:53.000Z Link: [*25 Years of OLDaily, by Stephen Downes*](https://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2026/05/25-years-of-oldaily.html) If you’re not in educational technology, it’s possible you might not know who Stephen Downes is. If you are, there’s no way you don’t. For a quarter century now, his daily updates at [OLDaily](https://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm) have been one of the main ways people learn about the space; part reporter, part advocate, he’s pushed for an open web approach to education that’s been genuinely influential. And all on one of the very first ling blogs. My own work on Elgg, which kickstarted my career, was directly inspired [by a post Stephen made about a white paper Dave Tosh and I had written](https://www.downes.ca/post/7528) about social spaces for learning, 22 years ago: > “\[…\] The authors' proposal is visionary. "Creation of a learning landscape where learners engage in the whole process both academically and socially should increase the opportunity to build one's learning instead of just being the recipients of information." If your view of portfolios is just something akin to a content management system, don't bother. But if it's the student's personal and continuing presence in an online community of discourse, then you are on to something.” Twenty five years of this is an incredible achievement — clearly he touched my life, but I’m certain I’m not alone. As Stephen says: > “Though nothing I have ever written has been as popular as that first Guide to the Logical Fallacies (I could probably have built a career off it), I think that OLDaily has been my most substantial contribution, not the least because it wasn't about me and my accomplishments, but about the wider community that made everything possible. My story really is our story, my history really is our history.” For open educational technology, there has been no more diligent and influential chronicler. ### Notable links: May 15, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-may-15-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-16T02:56:44.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [After the Feed](https://newpublic.org/afterthefeed?ref=werd.io) I think this research-based presentation about the future of the information ecosystem in the age of AI is important for publishers, product leaders, and social platform builders to read and understand. If you assume that AI *will* dominate how people receive their information, its conclusions are sensible, well thought-through, and even optimistic in some ways. I think all signs — AI adoption curves, data about social media use, qualitative evidence about how people are using AI to gather information today — point to the fact that it will. This is the crux: > “Agentic interfaces are the new intermediaries for information about the world around you. This looks like a chat with Claude or a briefing from your personal AI agent — an interface built for an audience of one. > > These agentic interfaces will increasingly become the nexus through which you access information and connection.” For me, the framing of AI’s effects on existing information ecosystems while it establishes a new one was helpful. It’s, frankly, brutal: social networks, other online spaces, and the web itself are getting filled with bots and slop as people compete for engagement and eyeballs. In these spaces, AI-powered harassment, doxxing, and cheap, automated content are becoming more prevalent, while AI models are simultaneously making it easier to extract signal from those same spaces. AI vendors are clearly the “*new* new gatekeepers”. Like the previous ones, they will dominate how we learn about the world even while some of us turn to open source and liberatory alternatives. But they may not dominate how we *connect* and *share* our experiences of the world, and that’s the core of the opportunity: how do we design pro-social frameworks and spaces that sit alongside an agentic information ecosystem? I’m biased towards New\_ Public’s point of view: pro-social spaces, pro-democracy technology, and community as an ingredient for trust are all my jam. But everything laid out in this presentation is already happening. People are already getting AI-generated information summaries; they are already retreating into trust-based group chats and small spaces; much more software is already being produced, straining platforms like GitHub; social platforms are already declining. But the opportunities are genuinely emerging too: I’ve [written before about the opportunity for open protocols as building a foundation for bespoke micro-communities](https://werd.io/one-size-fits-none-let-communities-build-for-themselves/), and the core need on the internet has always been to connect with other people. How this plays out is not yet written, although new defaults are currently being established by the AI vendors. We need more research, more experimentation, and more dedicated space to explore pro-social spaces, trust, and connection. And we need builders. Communities and trust are going to be very central to my work and research over the next year; I’m grateful for this encapsulated research, which I think will help to guide us all. --- ### [Writers are fleeing the Substack Tax](https://www.theverge.com/tech/927294/substack-tax-ghost-beehiiv?ref=werd.io) If you weren’t all that bothered about Substack platforming and compensating Nazis, *The Verge* reports that there’s a new reason to be worried: it costs more and its much-touted network doesn’t count for much if you’re not one of its featured writers. Sean Highkin of *The Rose Garden Report* is quoted in the piece: > ““When I first joined up, \[Substack\] gave me a big push and featured me and funneled a lot of traffic to me, which led to a good amount of growth,” Highkin says. “But once I wasn’t one of the ‘new recruited talent’ they could tout, they stopped featuring me and I saw my growth stagnate.”” [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=werd.io) (with Ryan Singel’s [Outpost](https://outpost.pub/?ref=werd.io)) cost less than half and drove a significant increase in subscribers. It’s mentioned here alongside Beehiiv and Kit, but is the only truly open-source alternative. That means you *can* use Ghost’s services (as I do), but if you’re dissatisfied, you can move to another provider. This is in stark contrast with Substack, which has been promoting social media style following relationships over true subscriptions, and only allows creators to export their subscribers should they choose to move. Similarly, Beehiiv starts with open protocols like RSS switched off by default, locking readers into its ecosystem. That freedom is important. As [Casey Newton](https://www.platformer.news/?ref=werd.io) says in the piece: > “The more important thing is that we have a home on the open web that we control, and whatever anti-creator changes Substack is forced to make in the future to live up to its valuation we won’t be affected by.” Every media company, publisher, and individual creator needs to maintain their platform independence if they want to make independent business decisions. It’s good to see more people taking this step, and it’s good to see that they have options. --- ### [Radical Speed Month — The Reader Meets the Fediverse](https://activitypub.blog/2026/05/05/radical-speed-month-the-reader-meets-the-fediverse/?ref=werd.io) We’re closer to the entire web being a social environment than ever before. That’s very exciting to me on two fronts. The first is that it’s always been the promise of the web that anyone could publish and be heard, and baking in social functionality is a huge part of that. The second is that it undermines the stranglehold that traditional social media platforms have had on the public discourse and democracy itself. We need movements like these to grow. So I think it’s cool that WordPress.com just shipped some major improvements to its core reader: > “The Radical Speed Month bet: ship three protocol adapters in four weeks, and prove the Reader can become a universal aggregator. RSS / Google Reader API (so any reader app can use WordPress.com as a sync backend), ActivityPub (so Mastodon, Pixelfed, and friends show up natively), and ATProto / Bluesky (because that’s where a real chunk of the social-web conversation has gone). One Reader, every protocol you care about.” In practice, that means that you can read updated content from the web via RSS, the Fediverse, and ATproto from the WordPress dashboard — and connect any compatible reader app to that dashboard to make reading more seamless. (I’m a die-hard fan of [Reeder Classic](https://reederapp.com/classic/?ref=werd.io), and it sounds like that works.) WordPress is now compatible with *reading* the whole open social web. But, of course, it’s WordPress, which is a publishing environment at its heart. It’s supported RSS forever, and has supported the Fediverse for a while. Now it supports Bluesky, too. Unlike most readers, which are read-only environments, you can interact with those sources right from your feed, including by publishing posts and replying to other people’s. That’s something the [indie web](https://indieweb.org/?ref=werd.io) community has been thinking about forever: people like Aaron Parecki have been [building their own interactive readers](https://aaronparecki.com/2018/04/20/46/indieweb-reader-my-new-home-on-the-internet?ref=werd.io) using open web standards, and I remember working on a simple prototype at an IndieWebCamp in Portland. But it’s also an idea that has become more powerful as the open social web has grown. There are millions of people to interact with – all of whom might be publishing from their own websites, on their terms, free from intermediation. May it continue to grow and spread. --- ### [The First Year](https://pointc.co/the-first-year/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter) I could include Corey Ford’s posts in my [link roundups](https://werd.io/tag/links) every single week. Each one is genuinely gold — and I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with Corey in various ways for over a decade, so I also know they work. I use many of them in my own day-to-day practice, and I’ll have them front of mind as I move on to my next chapter later this year. I also want to say: posting every week on the same day, at the same time, for a whole year is an achievement in itself. I’ve been blogging since 1998 and I’m not convinced I’ve *ever* been that consistent. As he says, consistency compounds: > “I embraced constraints and forced myself to ship every week, without a long-term plan. Half sheet by half sheet. The first few posts felt like shouting into the void. (And if I'm being honest, I sometimes still wonder whether anyone has time to read these long posts at all.) But then I would run into someone in person at a conference. Or I would catch up with an old student on Zoom. And I would hear the same thing, over and over: Thank you for sharing these frameworks. I just sent our latest one to my team.” I’ve been quietly sharing his posts in our internal #product-reads channel on Slack, which I set up to share links that I think are either inspiring or will be useful in our work. I’ve been in board meetings at other orgs where his work has come up organically and I’ve been able to enthusiastically +1\. If you’re not following him, there’s still time to correct that. He’s the real deal, has changed my life *multiple* times, and has been similarly influential for others. And if you get a chance to work with him, [including as a coach](https://pointc.co/connect/?ref=werd.io) or [a consultant for your team and culture](https://pointc.co/tag/programs/?ref=werd.io) — run at it. --- ### [Bridging on a Budget](https://blog.anew.social/bridging-on-a-budget/?ref=a-new-social-newsletter) I’ve been in awe of [Ryan Barrett](https://snarfed.org/?ref=werd.io) since I first met him over a decade ago. He cofounded [Google App Engine](https://cloud.google.com/appengine?ref=werd.io) and led engineering at [Color Health](https://www.color.com/?ref=werd.io). His [Bridgy](https://fed.brid.gy/?ref=werd.io) tool, which allows people on different protocols and networks to follow and converse with each other, is now the basis of [A New Social](https://anew.social/?ref=werd.io), the open social web non-profit that he runs with [Anuj Ahooja](https://augment.ink/?ref=werd.io). (Disclosure: I’m on the board.) This post about how he reduced Bridgy costs is brilliantly detailed. It’s a good look into what’s involved when you need to refactor and reduce cost at scale — and what’s remarkable is how effective this work actually was. > “The end result of all of this is that we grew from 2k users to almost 150k, added a ton of heavy new functionality, and still managed to optimize and cut down costs from $.15 per active user per month to just $.03 or so.” But it didn’t come easily. When you’re connected to the kinds of firehoses that Bridgy needs to be, and serving the kind of traffic it’s starting to handle, every optimization really counts. Because it’s open-source, you can [dig down into individual optimizations](https://github.com/snarfed/arroba/issues/88?ref=werd.io) and follow along each exploration. It’s painstaking work and a demonstration of their commitment to financial responsibility. Try vibe coding *that*. Bridgy (and its parent A New Social) exists to help make the individual protocols less important: everyone should be able to collaborate with everyone else regardless of which platform they’re using. It’s the kind of thing that feels easy in the moment — but as this post proves, it’s far from simple under the hood. --- ### ['The Biggest Student Data Privacy Disaster in History': Canvas Hack Shows the Danger of Centralized EdTech](https://www.404media.co/the-biggest-student-data-privacy-disaster-in-history-canvas-hack-shows-the-danger-of-centralized-edtech/?ref=werd.io) I started in edtech. When I graduated with my Computer Science degree, I returned to the university to work at the Media and Learning Technology Service. There, I discovered that all the edtech software at the time was *so bad* — the learners hated it, the teachers hated it, the administrators hated it, and I have to assume the people who made it also had a deep-seated contempt for it — that it actively made learning worse. Worse, these platforms were charging institutions huge amounts of money for the privilege. Because I was an avid blogger at that time and knew that people were learning from each other on the web all the time, I built a prototype social network for learning and tried to give it to them. They told me they didn’t want it (in a way that was much ruder than that). So I quit my job and ended up releasing it under an open source license so it wouldn’t be centralized and hold institutions hostage. That act of hubris set up the entirety of the rest of my career. Which brings me to this article: > “Thursday afternoon, millions of students at thousands of universities and K-12 schools were locked out of Canvas, a piece of catch-all education technology software that has become the de facto core of many classes. ShinyHunters, a ransomware group, hacked Canvas’s parent company and apparently stole “billions” of messages and accessed more than 275 million individuals’ data, [according to the hacking group](https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/nation-world/canvas-hack-shinyhunters-schools-students-teachers-data-exposed/507-0f3f5973-3d68-45af-b309-666561b2bd87?ref=werd.io). The group also locked students out of Canvas.” [Ian Linkletter](https://linkletter.org/?ref=werd.io) — a librarian who has been an active, and in my opinion, unceasingly correct edtech critic — is quoted as calling this “the biggest student data privacy disaster in history”. It need not have been the case; Canvas is theoretically [open source](https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms?ref=werd.io). But [you can’t make money with open source alone](https://werd.io/open-source-maintainers-need-to-go-in-with-open-eyes/), and self-hosting is not something most institutions want to undertake. Canvas is a huge codebase with real quirks that is non-trivial to self-host, and the maintenance and infrastructure costs are real. It’s also not clear that self-hosted infrastructure would be more resilient: a university could be subject to a ransomware attack with very little recourse. At the same time, the centralized nature of Canvas’s core offering means *every* institution that uses it, [including over half of all US higher education institutions](https://www.npr.org/2026/05/08/nx-s1-5815956/canvas-data-breach-school-finals?ref=werd.io), were in a hard place right in the middle of final exam season. Access is coming back, but at the time of writing, it hasn’t been fully restored. It’s a hard lesson about the dangers of putting everything in the hands of a single cloud provider. --- ### [You couldn't create a more anti-news internet if you tried](https://mattdpearce.substack.com/p/you-couldnt-create-a-more-anti-news) Matt Pearce, Director of Policy for Rebuild Local News, writes a behavioral economics inspired take on why our current embodiment of the internet is so bad for news and information. In particular, he sees the introduction of “nudges” as being a pro-information feature that search engines, LLM interfaces, and social media platforms could introduce: > “Social media, too, could choose to feature quality news outlets as “defaults” or provide subtle “nudges” on content that prompt users to donate or subscribe to the news outlets providing high quality news videos on platforms like Instagram, which don’t pay for themselves.” I happen to particularly agree with his implied criticism of newsrooms going deep on Instagram, which usually leads to vanity metrics going up and to the right but not necessarily to conversions, impact, or revenue. And I think it’s true that nudges across all these platforms would have the effect he’s hoping for. But I think the tragedy is that there’s no real reason why any of these platforms would actually do it. The internet as it stands is perfectly optimized for the needs of these platforms: engagement, advertising revenue, and rapid growth. Adding pro-social nudges would add friction to their well-oiled loops and take users off-platform. That’s exactly why Google has moved from leading people to the best websites for a query to answering those questions on-page: its own needs are best served by keeping users in one place. For them to make different choices, they would need to be far more benevolent architects than they are. So, one path forward is that they need to be *forced* to do it. This would need regulations to govern the features an information platform can provide, and could have very adverse side effects. We’re seeing increased regulations with respect to things like age verification, so introducing regulation is possible — but that age verification tech has become a surveillance layer that impacts freedom of speech for vulnerable groups. And if publishers go too far in that direction, for example by dictating that platforms share more ad revenue, the networks might simply stop supporting news content at all, [as we’ve seen in places like Canada](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/online-news-act-meta-facebook-1.6885634?ref=werd.io). Another is to build new platforms that make better choices for the whole ecosystem: more interesting for readers, more supportive of publishers. We’re already seeing a resurgence in new open social web platforms as well as a regrowth in older technologies like RSS. But the incumbent platforms aren’t going to simply go away; any new pro-social platform has to directly compete with them while also building an ecosystem. Still, I think it’s more promising, particularly in a world where incumbent platforms are losing goodwill with the public. The kind of thinking that Matt’s done here is very useful in helping to design what those new platforms might look like. We’re not in a great place and there’s a hard road ahead. I’m sure of one thing: asking existing platforms to do better is not going to work. So we need to take matters into our own hands. ### 52 actionable posts about building a culture of innovation URL: https://werd.io/52-actionable-posts-about-building-a-culture-of-innovation/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T12:48:24.000Z Link: [*The First Year, by Corey Ford at Point C*](https://pointc.co/the-first-year/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter) I could include Corey’s posts in my [link roundups](https://werd.io/tag/links) every single week. Each one is genuinely gold — and I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with Corey in various ways for over a decade, so I also know they work. I use many of them in my own day-to-day practice, and I’ll have them front of mind as I move on to my next chapter later this year. I also want to say: posting every week on the same day, at the same time, for a whole year is an achievement in itself. I’ve been blogging since 1998 and I’m not convinced I’ve *ever* been that consistent. As he says, consistency compounds: > “I embraced constraints and forced myself to ship every week, without a long-term plan. Half sheet by half sheet. The first few posts felt like shouting into the void. (And if I'm being honest, I sometimes still wonder whether anyone has time to read these long posts at all.) But then I would run into someone in person at a conference. Or I would catch up with an old student on Zoom. And I would hear the same thing, over and over: Thank you for sharing these frameworks. I just sent our latest one to my team.” I’ve been quietly sharing his posts in our internal #product-reads channel on Slack, which I set up to share links that I think are either inspiring or will be useful in our work. I’ve been in board meetings at other orgs where his work has come up organically and I’ve been able to enthusiastically +1\. If you’re not following him, there’s still time to correct that. He’s the real deal, has changed my life *multiple* times, and has been similarly influential for others. And if you get a chance to work with him, [including as a coach](https://pointc.co/connect/) or [a consultant for your team and culture](https://pointc.co/tag/programs/) — run at it. ### AI may be the new gatekeepers, but human connection is more needed than ever URL: https://werd.io/ai-may-be-the-new-gatekeepers-but-human-connection-is-more-needed-than-ever/ Last updated: 2026-05-13T12:15:16.000Z Link: [*After the Feed, by New\_ Public*](https://newpublic.org/afterthefeed) I think this research-based presentation about the future of the information ecosystem in the age of AI is important for publishers, product leaders, and social platform builders to read and understand. If you assume that AI *will* dominate how people receive their information, its conclusions are sensible, well thought-through, and even optimistic in some ways. I think all signs — AI adoption curves, data about social media use, qualitative evidence about how people are using AI to gather information today — point to the fact that it will. This is the crux: > “Agentic interfaces are the new intermediaries for information about the world around you. This looks like a chat with Claude or a briefing from your personal AI agent — an interface built for an audience of one. > > These agentic interfaces will increasingly become the nexus through which you access information and connection.” For me, the framing of AI’s effects on existing information ecosystems while it establishes a new one was helpful. It’s, frankly, brutal: social networks, other online spaces, and the web itself are getting filled with bots and slop as people compete for engagement and eyeballs. In these spaces, AI-powered harassment, doxxing, and cheap, automated content are becoming more prevalent, while AI models are simultaneously making it easier to extract signal from those same spaces. AI vendors are clearly the “*new* new gatekeepers”. Like the previous ones, they will dominate how we learn about the world even while some of us turn to open source and liberatory alternatives. But they may not dominate how we *connect* and *share* our experiences of the world, and that’s the core of the opportunity: how do we design pro-social frameworks and spaces that sit alongside an agentic information ecosystem? I’m biased towards New\_ Public’s point of view: pro-social spaces, pro-democracy technology, and community as an ingredient for trust are all my jam. But everything laid out in this presentation is already happening. People are already getting AI-generated information summaries; they are already retreating into trust-based group chats and small spaces; much more software is already being produced, straining platforms like GitHub; social platforms are already declining. But the opportunities are genuinely emerging too: I’ve [written before about the opportunity for open protocols as building a foundation for bespoke micro-communities](https://werd.io/one-size-fits-none-let-communities-build-for-themselves/), and the core need on the internet has always been to connect with other people. How this plays out is not yet written, although new defaults are currently being established by the AI vendors. We need more research, more experimentation, and more dedicated space to explore pro-social spaces, trust, and connection. And we need builders. Communities and trust are going to be very central to my work and research over the next year; I’m grateful for this encapsulated research, which I think will help to guide us all. ### Bridging feels seamless. Behind the scenes, it's a technical marvel URL: https://werd.io/bridging-feels-seamless-behind-the-scenes-its-a-technical-marvel/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T22:29:51.000Z Link: [*Bridging on a budget, by Ryan Barrett at A New Social*](https://blog.anew.social/bridging-on-a-budget/?ref=a-new-social-newsletter) I’ve been in awe of [Ryan Barrett](https://snarfed.org/) since I first met him over a decade ago. He cofounded [Google App Engine](https://cloud.google.com/appengine) and led engineering at [Color Health](https://www.color.com/). His [Bridgy](https://fed.brid.gy/) tool, which allows people on different protocols and networks to follow and converse with each other, is now the basis of [A New Social](https://anew.social/), the open social web non-profit that he runs with [Anuj Ahooja](https://augment.ink/). (Disclosure: I’m on the board.) This post about how he reduced Bridgy costs is brilliantly detailed. It’s a good look into what’s involved when you need to refactor and reduce cost at scale — and what’s remarkable is how effective this work actually was. > “The end result of all of this is that we grew from 2k users to almost 150k, added a ton of heavy new functionality, and still managed to optimize and cut down costs from $.15 per active user per month to just $.03 or so.” But it didn’t come easily. When you’re connected to the kinds of firehoses that Bridgy needs to be, and serving the kind of traffic it’s starting to handle, every optimization really counts. Because it’s open-source, you can [dig down into individual optimizations](https://github.com/snarfed/arroba/issues/88) and follow along each exploration. It’s painstaking work and a demonstration of their commitment to financial responsibility. Try vibe coding *that*. Bridgy (and its parent A New Social) exists to help make the individual protocols less important: everyone should be able to collaborate with everyone else regardless of which platform they’re using. It’s the kind of thing that feels easy in the moment — but as this post proves, it’s far from simple under the hood. ### To maintain their independence, publishers are fleeing Substack URL: https://werd.io/to-maintain-their-independence-publishers-are-fleeing-substack/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T21:58:25.000Z Link: [*Writers are fleeing the Substack Tax, by Emma Roth in The Verge*](https://www.theverge.com/tech/927294/substack-tax-ghost-beehiiv) If you weren’t all that bothered about Substack platforming and compensating Nazis, *The Verge* reports that there’s a new reason to be worried: it costs more and its much-touted network doesn’t count for much if you’re not one of its featured writers. Sean Highkin of *The Rose Garden Report* is quoted in the piece: > ““When I first joined up, \[Substack\] gave me a big push and featured me and funneled a lot of traffic to me, which led to a good amount of growth,” Highkin says. “But once I wasn’t one of the ‘new recruited talent’ they could tout, they stopped featuring me and I saw my growth stagnate.”” [Ghost](https://ghost.org) (with Ryan Singel’s [Outpost](https://outpost.pub/)) cost less than half and drove a significant increase in subscribers. It’s mentioned here alongside Beehiiv and Kit, but is the only truly open-source alternative. That means you *can* use Ghost’s services (as I do), but if you’re dissatisfied, you can move to another provider. This is in stark contrast with Substack, which has been promoting social media style following relationships over true subscriptions, and only allows creators to export their subscribers should they choose to move. Similarly, Beehiiv starts with open protocols like RSS switched off by default, locking readers into its ecosystem. That freedom is important. As [Casey Newton](https://www.platformer.news/) says in the piece: > “The more important thing is that we have a home on the open web that we control, and whatever anti-creator changes Substack is forced to make in the future to live up to its valuation we won’t be affected by.” Every media company, publisher, and individual creator needs to maintain their platform independence if they want to make independent business decisions. It’s good to see more people taking this step, and it’s good to see that they have options. ### Asking platforms to do better won't work. We need to force their hands URL: https://werd.io/asking-platforms-to-do-better-wont-work-we-need-to-force-their-hands/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T14:33:19.000Z Link: [*You couldn't create a more anti-news internet if you tried, by Matt Pearce*](https://mattdpearce.substack.com/p/you-couldnt-create-a-more-anti-news?publication%5Fid=2382711&utm%5Fcampaign=email-post-title&r=a98j&utm%5Fmedium=email) Matt Pearce, Director of Policy for Rebuild Local News, writes a behavioral economics inspired take on why our current embodiment of the internet is so bad for news and information. In particular, he sees the introduction of “nudges” as being a pro-information feature that search engines, LLM interfaces, and social media platforms could introduce: > “Social media, too, could choose to feature quality news outlets as “defaults” or provide subtle “nudges” on content that prompt users to donate or subscribe to the news outlets providing high quality news videos on platforms like Instagram, which don’t pay for themselves.” I happen to particularly agree with his implied criticism of newsrooms going deep on Instagram, which usually leads to vanity metrics going up and to the right but not necessarily to conversions, impact, or revenue. And I think it’s true that nudges across all these platforms would have the effect he’s hoping for. But I think the tragedy is that there’s no real reason why any of these platforms would actually do it. The internet as it stands is perfectly optimized for the needs of these platforms: engagement, advertising revenue, and rapid growth. Adding pro-social nudges would add friction to their well-oiled loops and take users off-platform. That’s exactly why Google has moved from leading people to the best websites for a query to answering those questions on-page: its own needs are best served by keeping users in one place. For them to make different choices, they would need to be far more benevolent architects than they are. So, one path forward is that they need to be *forced* to do it. This would need regulations to govern the features an information platform can provide, and could have very adverse side effects. We’re seeing increased regulations with respect to things like age verification, so introducing regulation is possible — but that age verification tech has become a surveillance layer that impacts freedom of speech for vulnerable groups. And if publishers go too far in that direction, for example by dictating that platforms share more ad revenue, the networks might simply stop supporting news content at all, [as we’ve seen in places like Canada](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/online-news-act-meta-facebook-1.6885634). Another is to build new platforms that make better choices for the whole ecosystem: more interesting for readers, more supportive of publishers. We’re already seeing a resurgence in new open social web platforms as well as a regrowth in older technologies like RSS. But the incumbent platforms aren’t going to simply go away; any new pro-social platform has to directly compete with them while also building an ecosystem. Still, I think it’s more promising, particularly in a world where incumbent platforms are losing goodwill with the public. The kind of thinking that Matt’s done here is very useful in helping to design what those new platforms might look like. We’re not in a great place and there’s a hard road ahead. I’m sure of one thing: asking existing platforms to do better is not going to work. So we need to take matters into our own hands. ### WordPress powers 47% of the web. Now it's more social, too URL: https://werd.io/wordpress-powers-47-of-the-web-now-its-more-social-too/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T13:34:53.000Z Link: [*Radical Speed Month — The Reader Meets the Fediverse, by Mattias Pfefferle*](https://activitypub.blog/2026/05/05/radical-speed-month-the-reader-meets-the-fediverse/) We’re closer to the entire web being a social environment than ever before. That’s very exciting to me on two fronts. The first is that it’s always been the promise of the web that anyone could publish and be heard, and baking in social functionality is a huge part of that. The second is that it undermines the stranglehold that traditional social media platforms have had on the public discourse and democracy itself. We need movements like these to grow. So I think it’s cool that WordPress.com just shipped some major improvements to its core reader: > “The Radical Speed Month bet: ship three protocol adapters in four weeks, and prove the Reader can become a universal aggregator. RSS / Google Reader API (so any reader app can use WordPress.com as a sync backend), ActivityPub (so Mastodon, Pixelfed, and friends show up natively), and ATProto / Bluesky (because that’s where a real chunk of the social-web conversation has gone). One Reader, every protocol you care about.” In practice, that means that you can read updated content from the web via RSS, the Fediverse, and ATproto from the WordPress dashboard — and connect any compatible reader app to that dashboard to make reading more seamless. (I’m a die-hard fan of [Reeder Classic](https://reederapp.com/classic/), and it sounds like that works.) WordPress is now compatible with *reading* the whole open social web. But, of course, it’s WordPress, which is a publishing environment at its heart. It’s supported RSS forever, and has supported the Fediverse for a while. Now it supports Bluesky, too. Unlike most readers, which are read-only environments, you can interact with those sources right from your feed, including by publishing posts and replying to other people’s. That’s something the [indie web](https://indieweb.org) community has been thinking about forever: people like Aaron Parecki have been [building their own interactive readers](https://aaronparecki.com/2018/04/20/46/indieweb-reader-my-new-home-on-the-internet) using open web standards, and I remember working on a simple prototype at an IndieWebCamp in Portland. But it’s also an idea that has become more powerful as the open social web has grown. There are millions of people to interact with – all of whom might be publishing from their own websites, on their terms, free from intermediation. May it continue to grow and spread. ### Canvas is open source, but its cloud services ransomware attack really hurts URL: https://werd.io/canvas-is-open-source-but-its-cloud-services-ransomware-attack-really-hurts/ Last updated: 2026-05-09T13:51:02.000Z Link: [*'The Biggest Student Data Privacy Disaster in History': Canvas Hack Shows the Danger of Centralized EdTech, by Jason Koebler at 404 Media*](https://www.404media.co/the-biggest-student-data-privacy-disaster-in-history-canvas-hack-shows-the-danger-of-centralized-edtech/) I started in edtech. When I graduated with my Computer Science degree, I returned to the university to work at the Media and Learning Technology Service. There, I discovered that all the edtech software at the time was *so bad* — the learners hated it, the teachers hated it, the administrators hated it, and I have to assume the people who made it also had a deep-seated contempt for it — that it actively made learning worse. Worse, these platforms were charging institutions huge amounts of money for the privilege. Because I was an avid blogger at that time and knew that people were learning from each other on the web all the time, I built a prototype social network for learning and tried to give it to them. They told me they didn’t want it (in a way that was much ruder than that). So I quit my job and ended up releasing it under an open source license so it wouldn’t be centralized and hold institutions hostage. That act of hubris set up the entirety of the rest of my career. Which brings me to this article: > “Thursday afternoon, millions of students at thousands of universities and K-12 schools were locked out of Canvas, a piece of catch-all education technology software that has become the de facto core of many classes. ShinyHunters, a ransomware group, hacked Canvas’s parent company and apparently stole “billions” of messages and accessed more than 275 million individuals’ data, [according to the hacking group](https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/nation-world/canvas-hack-shinyhunters-schools-students-teachers-data-exposed/507-0f3f5973-3d68-45af-b309-666561b2bd87). The group also locked students out of Canvas.” [Ian Linkletter](https://linkletter.org/) — a librarian who has been an active, and in my opinion, unceasingly correct edtech critic — is quoted as calling this “the biggest student data privacy disaster in history”. It need not have been the case; Canvas is theoretically [open source](https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms). But [you can’t make money with open source alone](https://werd.io/open-source-maintainers-need-to-go-in-with-open-eyes/), and self-hosting is not something most institutions want to undertake. Canvas is a huge codebase with real quirks that is non-trivial to self-host, and the maintenance and infrastructure costs are real. It’s also not clear that self-hosted infrastructure would be more resilient: a university could be subject to a ransomware attack with very little recourse. At the same time, the centralized nature of Canvas’s core offering means *every* institution that uses it, [including over half of all US higher education institutions](https://www.npr.org/2026/05/08/nx-s1-5815956/canvas-data-breach-school-finals), were in a hard place right in the middle of final exam season. Access is coming back, but at the time of writing, it hasn’t been fully restored. It’s a hard lesson about the dangers of putting everything in the cloud. ### Notable links: May 8, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-may-8-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-08T14:31:42.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [An Invitation to Build the Civic Information Economy](https://www.newsfutures.org/library/civic-information-endowment?ref=werd.io) This feels like a vital exploration to me: > “What does it take to fund civic information? We often focus on “more money,” but we limit the field’s potential by ignoring better capital design. Today’s landscape often sees dollars concentrated in intermediary and national plays—often with good reason—but without deliberate examination, we risk stifling the imagination of a developing field.” This is part manifesto, but also part call to action and invitation to participate. Funding for news has often been reactive, filling gaps, but what does it mean to intentionally design a genuine ecosystem with dynamics that support production of, and access to, the civic information we need that is a prerequisite for democracy to function? I love how genuinely participative this is: rather than a bunch of people trying to be smart inside institutions, this requires that the people who struggle the most to find information are active co-designers. That feels non-negotiable to me. There’s been a pushback against inclusion and equity in news and everywhere recently, but there’s no other way to build an ecosystem that genuinely serves everybody. We’ve all got to own it. We’ve all got to take part. Everyone needs to be represented. I have high hopes for this, and I love that the effort exists. It’s something we should all support. --- ### [Some Rationalization May Finally Be Coming for Newsroom Intermediaries](https://dicktofel.substack.com/p/some-rationalization-may-finally?ref=werd.io) In his latest post, Dick Tofel talks about a need for consolidation in organizations that support newsrooms (and, in fact, in newsrooms themselves). > “Devoting limited resources to competing services where one offering is superior not only leads those using the inferior service to poorer results, it also subsidizes entirely unnecessary administrative costs at the inferior service. And in circumstances where competing services are roughly equivalent, mere duplication can also be inefficient—and, as noted above, may place an administrative burden on already over-stressed client newsrooms. Time is one of the scarcest resources of all.” I’m worried. This isn’t a criticism of Dick Tofel: he calls out the benefits of competition and the difficulty of determining winners in a market. But I do think there are two more things to consider. The first is that I don’t believe any intermediary service designed for newsrooms is optimal. That’s not a criticism of *them*, either: *every* service has room to grow. Any time you remove competition from a market and hand it to a single privately-owned player (nationalized services are another thing entirely), the offerings stagnate because the driver to improve has gone away. Just ask anyone who remembers the web’s Internet Explorer wilderness years before Firefox disrupted them and forced widespread standardization. The second, and probably most important, is that funders are a narrow group of people with a narrow set of perspectives. Unless they’ve done the work to be representative and inclusive in their work and culture, they may miss how one service serves a community better than another and erroneously mark them as duplicative. Or to put it another way, if there is any consolidation in *any* American market, I don’t trust that organizations run by women and people of color won’t be the ones to lose out. This isn’t anyone’s intention, but reducing competition at any level — funders, intermediaries, newsrooms, distributors — has the potential to create monopolies that become gatekeepers for vulnerable communities who need more support, not less. I don’t think that’s what the moment we’re living through needs. We need more ideas, more approaches, more funding, more communities served, and more diversity. The people who want to shut down an effective, independent press want to create a monoculture. The way to combat that is not to create another one. --- ### [Report on Burnout in Open Source Software](https://mirandaheath.website/report-on-burnout-in-open-source-software/?ref=werd.io) This bleak report on burnout in open source software communities from last year has been doing the rounds. I think it’s clearly indicative of where open source is at (and its trajectory), but the solutions aren’t immediately clear — we know this because similar concerns have been anecdotally highlighted by various people for well over a decade. However, this is the first formal research report I can remember reading. It’s pretty stark: 60% of open source maintainers work unpaid, 60% have quit or considered quitting, and 44% cite burnout specifically. From the author: > “In my report, I draw upon a combination of academic literature and OSS community discussion to identify 6 factors that contribute OSS developer burnout: difficulty getting paid, workload and time commitment, maintenance work as unrewarding, toxic community behaviour, hyper-responsibility and pressure to prove oneself. I then make 4 broad recommendations for how to address it: pay OSS engineers, foster a culture of recognition and respect, grow the community and advocate for maintainers.“ The thing is: *who* is going to pay OSS engineers? Every attempt to get downstream users to pay out of the goodness of their hearts has failed at scale. There are certainly corporate sponsors of OSS maintainers already, when there’s a clear link between an open source project and a company’s bottom line. That could certainly be a broader standard, but there are also a ton of open source projects that tie less obviously into bottom lines, or are useful for communities outside large corporations. Beyond the lack of direct compensation, it’s also a pretty thankless job. Downstream users will often make demands of maintainers that don’t take their contexts into account; people who are unpaid and overworked find themselves treated as if their users had paid them large sums of money. Open source users communities can sometimes also be wildly detached from reality; I’ve had people tell me that the solution is to move beyond a money-driven society or to have a revolution to overthrow capitalism. I mean, sure, whatever, but is that going to happen tomorrow? In the meantime there’s rent to be paid and food to buy. The answer may be that, actually, open source doesn’t work very well except (1) in mutualistic co-operative communities (2) as a strategic move by corporations who want to change the markets that affect them in some way (3) as a self-promotional way to gain more widespread recognition for your abilities. If that’s the case, maintainers should go into it with open eyes: if they’re successful, their work *will* be used by people who make a bunch of money without compensating them in any way. If new maintainers understand that they’re voluntarily signing up for extraction, I think it’s uncomplicated. If they think they’re going to “win” open source and make a living by giving their work away for free, they may be sorely disappointed. --- ### [I can never talk to an AI anonymously again](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/i-can-never-talk-to-an-ai-anonymously?ref=werd.io) On first read, I found this a little bit sobering: > “But soon, the entire debate over internet anonymity will be as anachronistic as an iPod Touch. That’s because Claude Opus 4.7 is here, and last week, I discovered it could identify me from text I had never published, text from when I was in high school, text from genres I have never publicly written in. And if it can identify me, soon, it will be able to identify many of you.” Kelsey Piper plugged in 125 words from an unpublished essay and asked Opus 4.7 to identify the author. It listed her as the most likely answer. I was skeptical, so I did the same: a few paragraphs from an essay, which I plugged into an account that isn’t connected to me. Here’s what Claude said: > “Based on the style, themes, and specific concerns in this snippet, my best guess is Ben Werdmüller. > > Several signals point this way: the framing of the open social web as a movement rather than a technical project, the explicit linkage between Mastodon/Bluesky, journalism, and broader liberatory politics, the critique of newsroom demographics ("very white, very coastal, wealthy"), and the historical framing of the early web as an anti-gatekeeping movement. Werdmüller writes frequently about all of these topics together — he works at ProPublica on technology, has a long history in the IndieWeb and federated social space (he co-founded Elgg and Known), and his personal blog regularly weaves these exact threads. > > The voice also fits: declarative, slightly polemical, comfortable making sweeping movement-level claims, and willing to name class and racial dynamics directly rather than hedging.” I’ll take that as a compliment! But it’s impressive that it was able to figure it out without searching. But those are topics I write about regularly. When I gave it a snippet of my short fiction piece [*Sharing is Caring*](https://outmap.org/sharing-is-caring/?ref=werd.io), it wasn’t able to find a match: > “The passage has hallmarks of contemporary speculative/dark YA or literary sci-fi short fiction — body-swapping or consciousness-transfer premise, a class-inflected ethical horror (poor family selling a daughter's body to a wealthy disabled girl's family), tight close-third POV, terse interior monologue in italics-style cut-ins ("Sure. No. Not a problem."), and the bleak ironic kicker about an eighteenth birthday. That cluster of moves shows up in writers like Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, Carmen Maria Machado, Alice Sola Kim, Karen Russell, or in anthology pieces from venues like Lightspeed, Tor.com, or various YA dystopia collections — but none of those is a confident match.” Again, I’ll take the comparisons as a compliment, but there isn’t enough of my fiction out there to make a real suggestion. That’s going to be true of most people’s writing — unless they’re publishing really regularly on the web, and have been for a while, the models might not know about them. Kelsey had a slightly different result: a school progress report was still identified as hers. But clearly, the reliability here is shakier. In other words, we’re a little way’s off from AI being able to identify most people quite yet. But if you’re publishing regularly, out in the open, you should expect your work to be fingerprinted. That *does* have implications for dissidents and people writing anonymously who have previously done so under their real names. ### Plugging the gaps won't save news. It's time to redesign URL: https://werd.io/plugging-the-gaps-wont-save-news-its-time-to-redesign/ Last updated: 2026-05-07T13:50:49.000Z Link: [*An Invitation to Build the Civic Information Economy, by Lillian Ruiz, Simon Galperin, and Jennifer Brandel at News Futures*](https://www.newsfutures.org/library/civic-information-endowment) This feels like a vital exploration to me: > “What does it take to fund civic information? We often focus on “more money,” but we limit the field’s potential by ignoring better capital design. Today’s landscape often sees dollars concentrated in intermediary and national plays—often with good reason—but without deliberate examination, we risk stifling the imagination of a developing field.” This is part manifesto, but also part call to action and invitation to participate. Funding for news has often been reactive, filling gaps, but what does it mean to intentionally design a genuine ecosystem with dynamics that support production of, and access to, the civic information we need that is a prerequisite for democracy to function? I love how genuinely participative this is: rather than a bunch of people trying to be smart inside institutions, this requires that the people who struggle the most to find information are active co-designers. That feels non-negotiable to me. There’s been a pushback against inclusion and equity in news and everywhere recently, but there’s no other way to build an ecosystem that genuinely serves everybody. We’ve all got to own it. We’ve all got to take part. Everyone needs to be represented. I have high hopes for this, and I love that the effort exists. It’s something we should all support. ### The way to save news is not to create monopolistic monocultures URL: https://werd.io/the-way-to-save-news-is-not-to-create-monopolistic-monocultures/ Last updated: 2026-05-03T15:00:29.000Z Link: [*Some Rationalization May Finally Be Coming for Newsroom Intermediaries, by Richard J. Tofel in Second Rough Draft*](https://dicktofel.substack.com/p/some-rationalization-may-finally) In his latest post, Dick Tofel talks about a need for consolidation in organizations that support newsrooms (and, in fact, in newsrooms themselves). > “Devoting limited resources to competing services where one offering is superior not only leads those using the inferior service to poorer results, it also subsidizes entirely unnecessary administrative costs at the inferior service. And in circumstances where competing services are roughly equivalent, mere duplication can also be inefficient—and, as noted above, may place an administrative burden on already over-stressed client newsrooms. Time is one of the scarcest resources of all.” I’m worried. This isn’t a criticism of Dick Tofel: he calls out the benefits of competition and the difficulty of determining winners in a market. But I do think there are two more things to consider. The first is that I don’t believe any intermediary service designed for newsrooms is optimal. That’s not a criticism of *them*, either: *every* service has room to grow. Any time you remove competition from a market and hand it to a single privately-owned player (nationalized services are another thing entirely), the offerings stagnate because the driver to improve has gone away. Just ask anyone who remembers the web’s Internet Explorer wilderness years before Firefox disrupted them and forced widespread standardization. The second, and probably most important, is that funders are a narrow group of people with a narrow set of perspectives. Unless they’ve done the work to be representative and inclusive in their work and culture, they may miss how one service serves a community better than another and erroneously mark them as duplicative. Or to put it another way, if there is any consolidation in *any* American market, I don’t trust that organizations run by women and people of color won’t be the ones to lose out. This isn’t anyone’s intention, but reducing competition at any level — funders, intermediaries, newsrooms, distributors — has the potential to create monopolies that become gatekeepers for vulnerable communities who need more support, not less. I don’t think that’s what the moment we’re living through needs. We need more ideas, more approaches, more funding, more communities served, and more diversity. The people who want to shut down an effective, independent press want to create a monoculture. The way to combat that is not to create another one. ### Open source maintainers need to go in with open eyes URL: https://werd.io/open-source-maintainers-need-to-go-in-with-open-eyes/ Last updated: 2026-05-02T14:55:00.000Z Link: [*Report on Burnout in Open Source Software, by Miranda Heath*](https://mirandaheath.website/report-on-burnout-in-open-source-software/) This bleak report on burnout in open source software communities from last year has been doing the rounds. I think it’s clearly indicative of where open source is at (and its trajectory), but the solutions aren’t immediately clear — we know this because similar concerns have been anecdotally highlighted by various people for well over a decade. However, this is the first formal research report I can remember reading. It’s pretty stark: 60% of open source maintainers work unpaid, 60% have quit or considered quitting, and 44% cite burnout specifically. From the author: > “In my report, I draw upon a combination of academic literature and OSS community discussion to identify 6 factors that contribute OSS developer burnout: difficulty getting paid, workload and time commitment, maintenance work as unrewarding, toxic community behaviour, hyper-responsibility and pressure to prove oneself. I then make 4 broad recommendations for how to address it: pay OSS engineers, foster a culture of recognition and respect, grow the community and advocate for maintainers.“ The thing is: *who* is going to pay OSS engineers? Every attempt to get downstream users to pay out of the goodness of their hearts has failed at scale. There are certainly corporate sponsors of OSS maintainers already, when there’s a clear link between an open source project and a company’s bottom line. That could certainly be a broader standard, but there are also a ton of open source projects that tie less obviously into bottom lines, or are useful for communities outside large corporations. Beyond the lack of direct compensation, it’s also a pretty thankless job. Downstream users will often make demands of maintainers that don’t take their contexts into account; people who are unpaid and overworked find themselves treated as if their users had paid them large sums of money. Open source users communities can sometimes also be wildly detached from reality; I’ve had people tell me that the solution is to move beyond a money-driven society or to have a revolution to overthrow capitalism. I mean, sure, whatever, but is that going to happen tomorrow? In the meantime there’s rent to be paid and food to buy. The answer may be that, actually, open source doesn’t work very well except (1) in mutualistic co-operative communities (2) as a strategic move by corporations who want to change the markets that affect them in some way (3) as a self-promotional way to gain more widespread recognition for your abilities. If that’s the case, maintainers should go into it with open eyes: if they’re successful, their work *will* be used by people who make a bunch of money without compensating them in any way. If new maintainers understand that they’re voluntarily signing up for extraction, I think it’s uncomplicated. If they think they’re going to “win” open source and make a living by giving their work away for free, they may be sorely disappointed. ### Claude Opus can now identify an author from their writing URL: https://werd.io/claude-opus-can-now-confidently-identify-an-author-from-their-writing/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T13:35:08.000Z Link: [*I can never talk to an AI anonymously again, by Kelsey Piper in The Argument*](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/i-can-never-talk-to-an-ai-anonymously) On first read, I found this a little bit sobering: > “But soon, the entire debate over internet anonymity will be as anachronistic as an iPod Touch. That’s because Claude Opus 4.7 is here, and last week, I discovered it could identify me from text I had never published, text from when I was in high school, text from genres I have never publicly written in. And if it can identify me, soon, it will be able to identify many of you.” Kelsey Piper plugged in 125 words from an unpublished essay and asked Opus 4.7 to identify the author. It listed her as the most likely answer. I was skeptical, so I did the same: a few paragraphs from an essay, which I plugged into an account that isn’t connected to me. Here’s what Claude said: > “Based on the style, themes, and specific concerns in this snippet, my best guess is Ben Werdmüller. > > Several signals point this way: the framing of the open social web as a movement rather than a technical project, the explicit linkage between Mastodon/Bluesky, journalism, and broader liberatory politics, the critique of newsroom demographics ("very white, very coastal, wealthy"), and the historical framing of the early web as an anti-gatekeeping movement. Werdmüller writes frequently about all of these topics together — he works at ProPublica on technology, has a long history in the IndieWeb and federated social space (he co-founded Elgg and Known), and his personal blog regularly weaves these exact threads. > > The voice also fits: declarative, slightly polemical, comfortable making sweeping movement-level claims, and willing to name class and racial dynamics directly rather than hedging.” I’ll take that as a compliment! But it’s impressive that it was able to figure it out without searching. But those are topics I write about regularly. When I gave it a snippet of my short fiction piece [Sharing is Caring](https://outmap.org/sharing-is-caring/), it wasn’t able to find a match: > “The passage has hallmarks of contemporary speculative/dark YA or literary sci-fi short fiction — body-swapping or consciousness-transfer premise, a class-inflected ethical horror (poor family selling a daughter's body to a wealthy disabled girl's family), tight close-third POV, terse interior monologue in italics-style cut-ins ("Sure. No. Not a problem."), and the bleak ironic kicker about an eighteenth birthday. That cluster of moves shows up in writers like Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, Carmen Maria Machado, Alice Sola Kim, Karen Russell, or in anthology pieces from venues like Lightspeed, Tor.com, or various YA dystopia collections — but none of those is a confident match.” Again, I’ll take the comparisons as a compliment, but there isn’t enough of my fiction out there to make a real suggestion. That’s going to be true of most people’s writing — unless they’re publishing really regularly on the web, and have been for a while, the models might not know about them. Kelsey had a slightly different result: a school progress report was still identified as hers. But clearly, the reliability here is shakier. In other words, we’re a little way’s off from AI being able to identify most people quite yet. But if you’re publishing regularly, out in the open, you should expect your work to be fingerprinted. That *does* have implications for dissidents and people writing anonymously who have previously done so under their real names. ### Notable links: May 1, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-may-1-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T12:59:23.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [The people do not yearn for automation](https://www.theverge.com/podcast/917029/software-brain-ai-backlash-databases-automation?ref=werd.io) This piece is important to internalize — particularly for the terminally AI-pilled and people who might want to force everyone into using LLMs to do work they were previously doing themselves. AI is *incredibly* unpopular, and it’s not because it’s bad at marketing. These are multi billion dollar companies that have attracted some of the brightest talent from across Silicon Valley across all disciplines. AI vendors are not underdogs who just need to get their message across. Indeed: > “You can’t advertise people out of reacting to their own experiences. This is a fundamental disconnect between how tech people with software brains see the world and how regular people are living their lives.” “Software brain” is a fantastic name for a worldview that sees everything as databases that can be controlled, normalized, and optimized. As Nilay Patel puts it: “the idea that we can force the real world to act like a computer and then have AI issue that computer instructions.” This is not a new problem that has arrived with AI: we’ve been talking about people who were very good at making software who therefore thought they were geniuses who could take on any global challenge for a very long time. Taking human experience, which is beautifully ambiguous and nuanced and nondeterministic, and trying to fit it into a database shape, is inherently extractive. Nilay points out that it flattens people, which is totally true, but it also transfers ownership of that experience from their subjective truth into a centralized database that someone else controls, sets the standards for, and profits from. And yes: computers should support people. People shouldn’t support computers. The idea that we’ll all be left behind if we don’t pour our experiences, information, source material, communications, creativity, and all the rest of it into a computer system is absurd and offensive. By extracting that experience, flattening it, and changing ownership of it, it inherently devalues *us*, the humans who were its previous custodians. It certainly devalues labor, which is a problem in itself, but it also devalues all of the frictionful, living, breathing parts of being an actual human being. The tools *are* useful. I think software development has probably changed forever. But they’re not useful for *everything*, and they’re not going to change *everything*. Everything isn’t a database. And if we think the world becomes better if we turn everything into one, we probably weren’t all that excited about humanity to begin with. --- ### [A three horizons framework for government reform ](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-horizons-framework-government-reform-jennifer-pahlka-9bmdc/?ref=werd.io) Important analysis from [Jennifer Pahlka](https://www.recodingamerica.us/?ref=werd.io), founder of [Code for America](https://codeforamerica.org/?ref=werd.io), that is about government technology and services but could just as easily be about news and journalism. She introduces the [Three Horizons framework](https://www.thinknpc.org/resource-hub/systems-practice-toolkit/the-three-horizons-framework/?ref=werd.io) for thinking about change and building towards a shared vision of the future. Here, Horizon 1 is the status quo, Horizon 2 represents improvements to that system, and Horizon 3 represents an improved *system* rather than an optimized present. [There are four kinds of innovation](https://hbr.org/2017/06/the-4-types-of-innovation-and-the-problems-they-solve?ref=werd.io): research, sustaining, breakthrough, and disruptive. The first two don’t lead us anywhere new on their own; they might provide extra capacity and create more headroom, but they aren’t systemic change. Any fundamental problems with the status quo probably won’t go away. In contrast, breakthrough innovation brings in fresh ideas to solve problems in a new way, and disruptive innovation creates new systemic models that serve people in new ways. Jennifer’s point is that a lot of government reform work — including Code for America — has been sustaining or incremental at best, which has relieved some pressure but hasn’t really changed anything. The same problems persist. Philanthropic funding has compounded the problem by funding that kind of innovation instead of more radical solutions. This, for me, is the key sentence in her piece: > “Funders need to ask not just whether an investment does good but whether it changes the conditions under which good can be done at scale.” And there’s a finite window for more aggressive change. This has been created by the AI shift, changes in the US government, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other changes that have highlighted how poorly our current system has adapted. In government, that need has become rather obvious, but it’s true in news too — another key part of our civic framework. (And this is also true for social media!) These same factors apply, and philanthropic funding has been similarly risk-averse, aiming for sustaining innovation that builds capacity rather than changing how everything works to serve people better. The fundamentals aren’t changing and they *haven’t* been serving us. We need to think much more radically, and we need to *fund* much more radically. In that framework, it’s incredibly important to articulate what the more radical futures we could work towards actually are. Jennifer points out that there are multiple, potentially contradictory, possible futures — the point is not to coalesce into one agreed-upon Horizon 3 end state, but to be able to describe where any current change might be leading to. Where is this taking us, and why? Let’s allow ourselves to imagine something better. And then, let’s finally go there. --- ### [Why AI alone cannot fix social problems](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-social-good-humans/?ref=werd.io) From the *AI is a tool for people and not a replacement for them* dept: > “AI is often framed as a tool for efficiency, but efficiency alone does not strengthen public systems without the underlying capacity being improved. Even when tasks are completed faster, the deeper constraints of the system do not automatically disappear. In many cases, AI ends up addressing the symptoms of these problems rather than their causes.” If an institution — or an industry — is declining, adding AI won’t magically make it better. In the cases that these Cornell researchers highlight in this piece, there were only meaningful improvements when the underlying systems were working well and the human infrastructure around the software was well-developed. Even beyond the lack of support for some regional needs (languages, dialects, accents) that created issues here, these systems worked best when the software was designed to support existing well-functioning human systems. If the human systems don’t work, if there isn’t human support, or if people are expected to adapt their processes to the needs of the software, the projects weren’t successful. It isn’t a magic wand. There are important lessons here for news and other declining industries: adding software doesn’t absolve you of figuring out your underlying problems, and it will not solve them for you. It might even paper over them and make them worse. It’s just another tool. Invest in your people. --- ### [Matt Mullenweg says “the wheels have fallen off” in wide-ranging WordPress critique](https://www.therepository.email/matt-mullenweg-says-the-wheels-have-fallen-off-in-wide-ranging-wordpress-critique?ref=werd.io) I’m going to put my neck on the line on this story about Matt Mullenweg’s criticism of Wordpress’s open source release culture: > “WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg has delivered a wide-ranging critique of the WordPress project, saying it has spent years doing damage to itself and calling out a release culture he says produces ‘boring or mediocre crap.’” It goes on to describe Mullenweg’s frustrations with an open source culture that prevents anything being released without a wide-ranging discussion that brings dozens of people into the thread. > “We are not being killed by competition, I believe we have done this to ourselves. We did it by blindly following rules and ideals to a point when they became iatrogenic. \[…\] By definition the things that will give us the biggest wins will be the most non-consensus, so we have to accept the occasional failure or mistake otherwise we will never have any wins.” So here’s my controversial statement in 2026: on these points, *Matt Mullenweg is completely right.* This bureaucratic, consensus-driven culture has also been a blight on other large open source projects, for example at Mozilla. Contributions should be made quickly, and product design should be opinionated rather than consensus-driven. The more a project seeks consensus, the less able it is to innovate. That doesn’t mean it should be a fiefdom or a dictatorship. Governance structures have been well-established by co-operatives and similar organizations that allow people to be elected into key roles; if they underperform, the voting base can support someone else. But it’s far better to put your trust in an architect — and achieve consensus about that trust — than it is to try and reach broad consensus about every change. Otherwise it’s not just that nobody wants to try bold new ideas; they literally *can’t*. This is distinct from web standards, for example, which *need* a consensus basis to prevent a single vendor from dominating how interoperability works. For example, [Mozilla’s objection to the web Prompt API that Google proposed](https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1213?ref=werd.io) is good; that’s how those systems should work. But for an individual software project, moving quickly and genuinely innovating are vital. [Dave Winer has another take](http://scripting.com/2026/04/30/125459.html?ref=werd.io): that WordPress should be more of a platform and allow different people to build opinionated interfaces on top of it. I think that makes a ton of sense too; in that world, WordPress *can* be an ecosystem monolith, and the opinionated innovation is left to smaller entrepreneurs. That, to be honest, might work a lot better. --- ### [Apple fixes bug that let FBI extract deleted Signal messages after 404 Media coverage](https://www.404media.co/apple-fixes-bug-that-let-fbi-extract-deleted-signal-messages-after-404-media-coverage/?ref=werd.io) You may remember [the story about the bug in Apple’s on-device notifications database that allowed the FBI to retrieve the content of Signal messages](https://werd.io/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database/). It’s good to see that it was treated as a genuine bug — and fixed. [Signal announced the change on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/signal.org/post/3mk4krp33bk27?ref=werd.io): > “We are very happy that today Apple issued a patch and a security advisory. This comes following 404 Media reporting that the FBI accessed Signal message notification content via iOS despite the app being deleted.” That’s good, because as the linked post notes, this had been actively used in court: > “They were able to capture these chats bc \[because\] of the way she had notifications set up on her phone—anytime a notification pops up on the lock screen, Apple stores it in the internal memory of the device.” There’s no doubt in my mind that the widespread coverage and outrage over the issue helped encourage Apple to fix it quickly. I’m grateful for the journalism and glad it was resolved. ### IndieWeb Fiction Carnival: May 2026 URL: https://werd.io/indieweb-fiction-carnival-may-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-16T21:13:41.000Z *This is the* [*IndieWeb Fiction Carnival*](https://indieweb.org/IndieWeb%5FFiction%5FCarnival) *call for submissions for May, 2026\. Everybody is welcome to participate.* I'm a long-term member of the indieweb community, and a speculative fiction writer, so I was *delighted* to see the IndieWeb Fiction Carnival appear. Previous prompts include [*platonic soulmates*](https://sarajaksa.eu/2026/03/indieweb-fiction-carnival-april-2026-call-for-submission-platonic-soulmates/) (for which I entered my story [*Sharing is Caring*](https://outmap.org/sharing-is-caring/)), [*silvered eyes*](https://www.dozenialdragons.me.uk/2026/04/03/iwfc%5Fmarch%5F26%5Fround-up/), and [*we've got to dream past it*](https://zacharykai.net/notes/ifcfeb26end). This month, I've signed up to host. ### Prompt This month's prompt is *sticks and stones will break my bones*. The old rhyme [dates back to at least 1830](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks%5Fand%5FStones): > Sticks and stones may break my bones > But words will never hurt me. Use this prompt however you like. Perhaps your protagonist has to learn to be impervious to a bully. Maybe it's ironic and words are more powerful than they appear. Or something else entirely might be going on. I'm excited to read what you come up with. ### Submissions The carnival is open to anybody. To submit a story, you first need to write or create any kind of fiction that responds to the prompt in a way that makes sense to you. Then, publish it openly on an independent website that you control. Once you've done that, either: - Email me the link at [ben@werd.io](mailto:ben@werd.io). - Send a webmention to this page. Your deadline is midnight on May 31, in whatever your local timezone is. I'll post a roundup during the first week of June. Happy writing! ### Matt Mullenweg thinks WordPress is in decline. He may be right URL: https://werd.io/matt-mullenweg-thinks-wordpress-is-in-decline-he-may-be-right/ Last updated: 2026-04-30T14:45:44.000Z Link: [*Matt Mullenweg Says “The Wheels Have Fallen Off” in Wide-Ranging WordPress Critique, by Rae Morey in The Repository*](https://www.therepository.email/matt-mullenweg-says-the-wheels-have-fallen-off-in-wide-ranging-wordpress-critique) I’m going to put my neck on the line on this story about Matt Mullenweg’s criticism of Wordpress’s open source release culture: > “WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg has delivered a wide-ranging critique of the WordPress project, saying it has spent years doing damage to itself and calling out a release culture he says produces ‘boring or mediocre crap.’” It goes on to describe Mullenweg’s frustrations with an open source culture that prevents anything being released without a wide-ranging discussion that brings dozens of people into the thread. > “We are not being killed by competition, I believe we have done this to ourselves. We did it by blindly following rules and ideals to a point when they became iatrogenic. \[…\] By definition the things that will give us the biggest wins will be the most non-consensus, so we have to accept the occasional failure or mistake otherwise we will never have any wins.” So here’s my controversial statement in 2026: on these points, *Matt Mullenweg is completely right.* This bureaucratic, consensus-driven culture has also been a blight on other large open source projects, for example at Mozilla. Contributions should be made quickly, and product design should be opinionated rather than consensus-driven. The more a project seeks consensus, the less able it is to innovate. That doesn’t mean it should be a fiefdom or a dictatorship. Governance structures have been well-established by co-operatives and similar organizations that allow people to be elected into key roles; if they underperform, the voting base can support someone else. But it’s far better to put your trust in an architect — and achieve consensus about that trust — than it is to try and reach broad consensus about every change. Otherwise it’s not just that nobody wants to try bold new ideas; they literally *can’t*. This is distinct from web standards, for example, which *need* a consensus basis to prevent a single vendor from dominating how interoperability works. For example, [Mozilla’s objection to the web Prompt API that Google proposed](https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1213) is good; that’s how those systems should work. But for an individual software project, moving quickly and genuinely innovating are vital. [Dave Winer has another take](http://scripting.com/2026/04/30/125459.html): that WordPress should be more of a platform and allow different people to build opinionated interfaces on top of it. I think that makes a ton of sense too; in that world, WordPress *can* be an ecosystem monolith, and the opinionated innovation is left to smaller entrepreneurs. That, to be honest, might work a lot better. ### Product-shaped or movement-shaped? URL: https://werd.io/product-shaped-or-movement-shaped/ Last updated: 2026-04-30T13:20:20.000Z [Yesterday I wrote about how the value for a product or service’s community may be different from the thing that drives its creators to build it](https://werd.io/building-with-love-and-paying-for-it/) — and unlocking and understanding that difference could be part of the key to making it sustainable. > The people *building* Bluesky might be excited to be creating a decentralized protocol and an open source platform, but it’s not a given that the people already *using* Bluesky care all that much about that. For them, it might be more important that there’s a real alternative to big tech platforms. The Mastodon team might be excited to build a federated platform using open source principles, but Mastodon users might feel more invested in the idea that their social channels are independent from US interests. I want to go a little further and share a hypothesis: **Mission-driven founders often think the value of their work is product-shaped when it’s really movement-shaped.** Mastodon and Bluesky are often put in the same bucket because, despite their clear differences, the value to most users is the same: *it’s not X*. The people who use them and want them to succeed don’t want to post on X, but they also don’t want X to succeed. To them, the open social web is a movement that isn’t so much about decentralized protocols and open source software as it is about providing an alternative to X, and the worldview that builds and maintains what X has become. The same goes for newsrooms. A newsroom that does substantial reporting on the administration (or local government, or anyone with power) is, to its audience, part of a movement that holds power to account at a time when people feel incredibly powerless. A newsroom that reports from a more representative perspective is part of a movement that is pushing against the traditionally very white, very coastal, wealthy demographic in newsrooms. The journalism is good, and is the engine for those movements, but the movements themselves are about liberatory change. This is clearly an era where a lot of people feel *more* powerless, are *more* worried about the world, and are therefore more inclined to support something that seems to be making a difference. But it also isn’t a new idea. The web itself was also a movement: a push against a world where, again, a few mostly white, wealthy people in places like New York and London could dictate whose voices could be published and heard. Its value was not that HTML and web browsers were cool. It was that suddenly anyone could have a platform and all those gatekeepers could be disrupted. In all these cases, it’s about who gets to have power, agency, and wealth. So what should change? Most projects and newsrooms are not comfortable with being this political. But I bet that if these organizations gather the stories of why the people who already love them are loyal, these are the reasons they’ll find. Embracing the movement side of their work will help encourage those people to deepen their support, allowing them to become more sustainable, and building a stronger foundation that allows them to broaden their base. They can’t support the movement side of their work without the product side. Newsrooms are built on journalism; pro-social tech is built on platforms. But there’s a lot to be gained by changing how they talk about their value with their communities. Very few people care about decentralization or the journalistic process. Lots and lots of people care about their world changing for the better. And that, I would argue, is what their stories should focus on. ### Building with love, and paying for it URL: https://werd.io/building-with-love-and-paying-for-it/ Last updated: 2026-04-29T23:46:41.000Z *A quick note before this one: this post isn’t intended as commentary on any internal conversations at ProPublica. We care a lot about sustainability, fundraising, and memberships! But this piece has a broader focus.* I remember the comment like it was yesterday. The social networking platform I was building had already been used by major non-profits, universities, Fortune 500 companies, and even governments. It was created in the public interest and distributed in such a way — under an open source license, with accessible code — that anyone could pick it up and use it. And we dared to think about an underlying business model. “Nobody pays for open source,” the comment read. “You should do this for the love of it.” I was aghast. I *was* doing it for love! I could have been paid an order of magnitude more money if I’d made a career in big tech. Public interest technology was not a choice I made for glory or riches. But also, I was doing it full-time. I needed to keep a roof over my head, pay my bills, and, you know, *buy food*. “Can I buy food with love?” I asked my cofounder. He shook his head (and maybe mentally rolled his eyes). The answer was, no. I could not. ### The funding problem Everyone who’s building something, even if it’s in the public interest, needs to find a way to make it sustainable, both as a project and for themselves. That means, as much as some of us might hate it, we have to talk about money sometimes. I’ve worked in public interest tech and public interest media. It turns out they both have the same funding problem: they’re doing something good that makes an impact, and putting it out into the world for free. There’s no paywall or subscription fee for the core product. That means finding funding for it is an uphill battle. Versions of the same conversation are happening in both communities, in spaces like [Atmosphere Conf](https://atmosphereconf.org/), the [Online News Association Conference](https://ona26.journalists.org/), at [FediForum](https://fediforum.org), and online. Public interest media has a stronger funding stack: donors and foundations with fixed theses. Support for public interest tech is much thinner. But even this media funding is primarily aimed at the big players; startup newsrooms have a much harder time finding funding. Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro’s [analysis of media impact funders](https://mediaimpactfunders.org/resources/rebuilding-local-journalism-at-scale-a-field-level-analysis-of-infrastructure-needs/), widely-circulated in the industry, made a recommendation that [she characterized to Dick Tofel this way](https://dicktofel.substack.com/p/learning-from-the-press-forward-infrastructure): > \[We need to\] really take stock of what are the solutions that are out there that are working, that are ready to scale, that have a track record or that we have some confidence could grow into next generation field infrastructure, and then we basically pick winners. The report is an important public good in itself, and [its core recommendation to build shared infrastructure for news](https://mediaimpactfunders.org/a-field-level-view-of-local-journalism-infrastructure/) is vital. But it’s also important to consider what happens if you’re not one of the winners that funders pick. It’s not that funders should fund *everyone* — that’s obviously not tenable. But there’s a real risk that picking winners starves the experimental edges where new models actually emerge. Given that some of the most interesting startup local newsrooms and infrastructure tend to be more representative than incumbents, reaching underserved markets and perspectives that might not fit within a funder’s worldview, there’s a real potential gap. The same dynamics are at play in public interest tech. Social media platforms like X have become less safe for people from vulnerable communities. As a direct result, many people have fled to platforms like Mastodon where they can have smaller, more controllable networks that lead to safer spaces to find likeminded people and have conversations with them. There are a great many Mastodon instances specifically provided for communities that might be under threat elsewhere. Mastodon has become infrastructure used by millions of people, including journalists and at-risk communities. And it has very little money. There is some grant funding here and there, and some revenue trickling in from its services operation. But institutional funders have bypassed it, and [the donors page is thin](https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors) given the level of use it receives. 2024 was a transformative year, and it received €2.2M — up from €545k the previous year. Even with that funding, those millions of users are served by six members of staff and a network of volunteers. And it largely came from a single donor: [Jeff Atwood](https://blog.codinghorror.com/), cofounder of Stack Exchange. Such a dependence on major donors is always an existential risk: there is no guarantee they will continue to give. Meanwhile, Bluesky PBC is often put in the same category as Mastodon but is different in important respects; for one thing, while Mastodon is a non-profit, Bluesky is venture-funded. To date, it [has raised over $123M](https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-19-2026-series-b) across three funding rounds in order to build and grow its platform, based on the decentralized AT Protocol. That might seem like a counter-example, but that funding was largely predicated on the Bluesky network’s potential scale and its position as the custodian of AT Protocol; other companies who are actually building on that protocol, in that ecosystem, are having a very hard time finding funding. Even if Bluesky PBC funds some of them, that’s another dependence: a financial form of centralization that puts their future sustainability at risk if Bluesky itself ever goes away or pivots. Bluesky has its own goals, and its own investors who will seek a financial return. Many newsrooms, of course, are in exactly the same place: dependence on a small number of major funders who, as we’ve heard, increasingly are being encouraged to pick winners and consolidate on them. And open source software and news share a major characteristic: they’re freely available and very few people want to pay to support them. For public interest innovators, I think there are two related questions to answer: - How can this risky dependence on a few large funders be reduced? - How can more money be brought into the ecosystem overall? These imply a third, prerequisite question, whether for a newsroom or public interest tech: - What is its real value to its community? ### Optimizing your ask or growing the base Increasing the funding that comes from small donors or customers can both make an initiative less dependent on big donors *and* bring in money that was otherwise unclaimed. But to do that, we need to take something that people have been reluctant to pay for and figure out what is valuable enough to them that they might. If a public interest innovator with an established community — Mastodon, people building on AT Protocol, local newsrooms — wants to raise money quickly, it has two fundraising concentrations to choose from. It can either find a lot more people to bring into its community, some of whom will hopefully pay (assuming it has an established way for someone to do that); or it can look at its *existing* community, people who are already committed and loyal, and figure out how to more effectively ask *them* for money. Of course, a thriving organization should be doing both, but if you’re resource-strapped, you can probably only concentrate on one. So where to begin? If you increase the base, you get more people in the door. But if you haven’t optimized how you ask people for money, you’re leaving increasingly larger amounts of money on the table. It’s also a slower, more expensive burn to bring lots more people in than to get to know your existing community better; starting by optimizing your ask for your existing community is the right first move for anyone on a restricted budget. And optimizing has real impact. Today, [fewer than 1% of Mastodon users donate](https://joinmastodon.org/reports/Mastodon%20Annual%20Report%202024.pdf). Increasing that number to 5% would exceed the entirety of its 2024 revenue. By way of comparison, [around 10% of public radio listeners donate](https://current.org/2017/09/with-new-app-a-startup-wants-to-make-donating-to-public-radio-easy/). Public radio has far more mature fundraising expectations and infrastructure, but the potential is there. To optimize the ask, you need to understand what the value is to your community to begin with. Here’s the thing that’s sometimes difficult to accept: the reason they’re there may be substantially different from the reason you built it to begin with. A non-profit newsroom may have been established to publish pointed investigative journalism that couldn’t find a home elsewhere. And that work is clearly core to its existence. But it’s possible that people are driven to donate, and excited about promoting it, not so much of the journalism as such but because of the cathartic feeling that someone is *doing something* in a world where they feel powerless. The journalism is the “how”, but the driving “why” for them is to feel like they’re punching up. As a result, while asking people for money to keep doing journalism might yield some donors, asking people for money to keep holding the powerful to account, or to speak up for an underheard community that doesn’t feel like it has a voice, is likely to yield more. This idea also applies for public interest tech. The people *building* Bluesky might be excited to be creating a decentralized protocol and an open source platform, but it’s not a given that the people already *using* Bluesky care all that much about that. For them, it might be more important that there’s a real alternative to big tech platforms. The Mastodon team might be excited to build a federated platform using open source principles, but Mastodon *users* might feel more invested in the idea that their social channels are independent from US interests. The truth is, you don’t know until you ask them. Tech has promoted the idea that you should statistically instrument everything and survey your users at scale; this is useful beyond a certain community size, but it doesn’t capture the stories of the people in the community who love what you’re doing. Particularly when you’re small, the biggest thing you can do is get on the phone and get to know members of your community, 1:1, conversationally. Understanding your community and optimizing your ask means doing a lot of human-scale research and gathering the points of view of people who care about you. It’s never “would you pay for this?”; it’s “why are you here?” And it turns out that’s *also* important for widening the base. Once you’ve optimized the ask by understanding your community, you can use those same insights to improve your messaging and optimize your value to people who haven’t joined your community yet, too. None of this absolves you from creating an amazing product. You do that with an adjacent skill: figuring out what your community really needs and providing it better than anyone else. The newsroom actually has to do great journalism that makes the impact it claims to. Your public interest tech platform has to be a better solution for the people that use it to the alternative. But the way it *emotionally* lands is important: it’s how you ask for money more effectively. If you’re solving a real problem for real people well, connecting to their actual needs, and landing with them emotionally in a way that makes them want to support and promote your work, and if you’re making impact while doing so, that will also do work towards attracting those larger, institutional funders and prove that your ecosystem is worth supporting. It won’t solve the problem on its own: there needs to be both outreach and institutional reform. But it will certainly help tune a project’s storytelling for funders. The onus shouldn’t just be on innovators. Funders can and should do work here too: by providing more resources to help public interest innovators to connect with their communities and do this human-centered work, they can increase their impact and broaden the collection of initiatives they could potentially support. If they’re picking winners, they need to continually interrogate what a “winner” actually is, and which communities they’re learning from. Otherwise they will pick solutions from the same old communities and innovators, leaving other communities that could really use their help unaddressed. ### Buying food with love When my cofounder and I were asked to do our work for the love of it, we had three weeks of funding left. The situation was getting dire. We could easily have given up, but that’s not what we did. Instead, we reached out to people in the community who had picked up our software and really got to understand them. (Quickly. Money was running out.) Our ambitions — decentralized social networking, not unlike Mastodon’s today — were not important for our community. The technical ideology of our work mattered for us, but not for them. What they *did* want to do was create safe spaces to learn from each other. And that’s what we doubled down on. From that low point, our conversations helped us to acquire new customers, and eventually, build products that helped us move from a hand-to-mouth bootstrapped operation into one that had real money in the bank. There was certainly more we could have done — you never stop learning — but connecting to the emotional core of our community helped us rapidly improve. We might be excited about the work. The people we impact are excited about the effect the work has on them. Those are two distinct ideas — and learning the difference can be make or break. ### That terrible Signal exploit has been fixed. We have journalism to thank for it URL: https://werd.io/that-terrible-signal-exploit-has-been-fixed-we-have-journalism-to-thank-for-it/ Last updated: 2026-04-29T14:00:57.000Z Link: [*Apple Fixes Bug That Let FBI Extract Deleted Signal Messages After 404 Media Coverage, by Joseph Cox at 404 Media*](https://www.404media.co/apple-fixes-bug-that-let-fbi-extract-deleted-signal-messages-after-404-media-coverage/) You may remember [the story about the bug in Apple’s on-device notifications database that allowed the FBI to retrieve the content of Signal messages](https://werd.io/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database/). It’s good to see that it was treated as a genuine bug — and fixed. [Signal announced the change on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/signal.org/post/3mk4krp33bk27): > “We are very happy that today Apple issued a patch and a security advisory. This comes following 404 Media reporting that the FBI accessed Signal message notification content via iOS despite the app being deleted.” That’s good, because as the linked post notes, this had been actively used in court: > “They were able to capture these chats bc \[because\] of the way she had notifications set up on her phone—anytime a notification pops up on the lock screen, Apple stores it in the internal memory of the device.” There’s no doubt in my mind that the widespread coverage and outrage over the issue helped encourage Apple to fix it quickly. I’m grateful for the journalism and glad it was resolved. ### All You Fascists (Bound to Lose) URL: https://werd.io/all-you-fascists-bound-to-lose/ Last updated: 2026-04-27T14:50:27.000Z I've had "All You Fascists (Bound to Lose)" in my song rotation for a little while – for, you know, *reasons*. Bette Midler's getting some coverage for her cover, so I thought I'd round up some other versions I like very much. To begin with, here's that Bette Midler cover: This [Resistance Revival Chorus](https://www.resistancerevivalchorus.com/) version with [Rhiannon Giddens](https://rhiannongiddens.com/) is probably my favorite: upbeat and alive. The [Billy Bragg](https://www.billybragg.co.uk/) version with [Wilco](https://wilcoworld.net/) is really strong too: [Nina Hagen's](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/nina-hagen-live-forever-133000223.html) father Hans was a Holocaust survivor held at Moabit, and her paternal grandparents were murdered at Sachsenhausen. This is therefore a very personal cover: Here's [Ani DiFranco](https://anidifranco.com/) with [Zoe Boekbinder](https://zeoboekbinder.com/), [Gracie and Rachel](https://www.gracieandrachel.com/), and [Diane Patterson](https://www.dianepatterson.org/) \- all artists I love: And finally, here's the great [Woody Guthrie](https://woodyguthrie.org/), one of my heroes, singing the original: ### Sustaining innovation has failed us. It's time to think more radically URL: https://werd.io/sustaining-innovation-has-failed-us-its-time-to-think-more-radically/ Last updated: 2026-04-25T21:05:49.000Z Link: [*A Three Horizons Framework for Government Reform, by Jennifer Pahlka*](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-horizons-framework-government-reform-jennifer-pahlka-9bmdc/) Important analysis from [Jennifer Pahlka](https://www.recodingamerica.us/), founder of [Code for America](https://codeforamerica.org/), that is about government technology and services but could just as easily be about news and journalism. She introduces the [Three Horizons framework](https://www.thinknpc.org/resource-hub/systems-practice-toolkit/the-three-horizons-framework/) for thinking about change and building towards a shared vision of the future. Here, Horizon 1 is the status quo, Horizon 2 represents improvements to that system, and Horizon 3 represents an improved *system* rather than an optimized present. [There are four kinds of innovation](https://hbr.org/2017/06/the-4-types-of-innovation-and-the-problems-they-solve): research, sustaining, breakthrough, and disruptive. The first two don’t lead us anywhere new on their own; they might provide extra capacity and create more headroom, but they aren’t systemic change. Any fundamental problems with the status quo probably won’t go away. In contrast, breakthrough innovation brings in fresh ideas to solve problems in a new way, and disruptive innovation creates new systemic models that serve people in new ways. Jennifer’s point is that a lot of government reform work — including Code for America — has been sustaining or incremental at best, which has relieved some pressure but hasn’t really changed anything. The same problems persist. Philanthropic funding has compounded the problem by funding that kind of innovation instead of more radical solutions. This, for me, is the key sentence in her piece: > “Funders need to ask not just whether an investment does good but whether it changes the conditions under which good can be done at scale.” And there’s a finite window for more aggressive change. This has been created by the AI shift, changes in the US government, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other changes that have highlighted how poorly our current system has adapted. In government, that need has become rather obvious, but it’s true in news too — another key part of our civic framework. (And this is also true for social media!) These same factors apply, and philanthropic funding has been similarly risk-averse, aiming for sustaining innovation that builds capacity rather than changing how everything works to serve people better. The fundamentals aren’t changing and they *haven’t* been serving us. We need to think much more radically, and we need to *fund* much more radically. In that framework, it’s incredibly important to articulate what the more radical futures we could work towards actually are. Jennifer points out that there are multiple, potentially contradictory, possible futures — the point is not to coalesce into one agreed-upon Horizon 3 end state, but to be able to describe where any current change might be leading to. Where is this taking us, and why? Let’s allow ourselves to imagine something better. And then, let’s finally go there. ### AI is not a magic wand and it won’t fix your problems URL: https://werd.io/ai-is-not-a-magic-wand-and-it-wont-fix-your-problems/ Last updated: 2026-04-25T19:07:02.000Z Link: [*Why AI alone cannot fix social problems, by Deepak Varuvel Dennison and Aditya Vashistha in Rest of World*](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-social-good-humans/) From the *AI is a tool for people and not a replacement for them* dept: > “AI is often framed as a tool for efficiency, but efficiency alone does not strengthen public systems without the underlying capacity being improved. Even when tasks are completed faster, the deeper constraints of the system do not automatically disappear. In many cases, AI ends up addressing the symptoms of these problems rather than their causes.” If an institution — or an industry — is declining, adding AI won’t magically make it better. In the cases that these Cornell researchers highlight in this piece, there were only meaningful improvements when the underlying systems were working well and the human infrastructure around the software was well-developed. Even beyond the lack of support for some regional needs (languages, dialects, accents) that created issues here, these systems worked best when the software was designed to support existing well-functioning human systems. If the human systems don’t work, if there isn’t human support, or if people are expected to adapt their processes to the needs of the software, the projects weren’t successful. It isn’t a magic wand. There are important lessons here for news and other declining industries: adding software doesn’t absolve you of figuring out your underlying problems, and it will not solve them for you. It might even paper over them and make them worse. It’s just another tool. Invest in your people. ### The world is not a database URL: https://werd.io/the-world-is-not-a-database/ Last updated: 2026-04-25T18:31:08.000Z Link: [*The People Do Not Yearn For Automation, by Nilay Patel in The Verge*](https://www.theverge.com/podcast/917029/software-brain-ai-backlash-databases-automation) This piece is important to internalize — particularly for the terminally AI-pilled and people who might want to force everyone into using LLMs to do work they were previously doing themselves. AI is *incredibly* unpopular, and it’s not because it’s bad at marketing. These are multi billion dollar companies that have attracted some of the brightest talent from across Silicon Valley across all disciplines. AI vendors are not underdogs who just need to get their message across. Indeed: > “You can’t advertise people out of reacting to their own experiences. This is a fundamental disconnect between how tech people with software brains see the world and how regular people are living their lives.” “Software brain” is a fantastic name for a worldview that sees everything as databases that can be controlled, normalized, and optimized. As Nilay Patel puts it: “the idea that we can force the real world to act like a computer and then have AI issue that computer instructions.” This is not a new problem that has arrived with AI: we’ve been talking about people who were very good at making software who therefore thought they were geniuses who could take on any global challenge for a very long time. Taking human experience, which is beautifully ambiguous and nuanced and nondeterministic, and trying to fit it into a database shape, is inherently extractive. Nilay points out that it flattens people, which is totally true, but it also transfers ownership of that experience from their subjective truth into a centralized database that someone else controls, sets the standards for, and profits from. And yes: computers should support people. People shouldn’t support computers. The idea that we’ll all be left behind if we don’t pour our experiences, information, source material, communications, creativity, and all the rest of it into a computer system is absurd and offensive. By extracting that experience, flattening it, and changing ownership of it, it inherently devalues *us*, the humans who were its previous custodians. It certainly devalues labor, which is a problem in itself, but it also devalues all of the frictionful, living, breathing parts of being an actual human being. The tools *are* useful. I think software development has probably changed forever. But they’re not useful for *everything*, and they’re not going to change *everything*. Everything isn’t a database. And if we think the world becomes better if we turn everything into one, we probably weren’t all that excited about humanity to begin with. ### Notable links: April 24, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-april-24-2026/ Last updated: 2026-04-24T13:32:23.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [The Technological Republic, in brief](https://twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398573453312) Palantir CEO Alex Karp wrote a book last year called the Technological Republic, but perhaps because it didn’t have the impact he hoped, the company posted a tweet thread (and [LinkedIn post](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/technological-republic-brief-palantir-technologies-ktdde/?ref=werd.io), etc) that summarizes its core points. Which are, to be clear, an argument for hard-right nationalism — complete with remilitarization and implied cultural hierarchy — and fusing Silicon Valley with the national security state. In Karp’s world, Silicon Valley innovators have an *obligation* to build weapons through a kind of moral debt to the country. He also wants to see Germany and Japan re-militarized, escalating tensions that will see his company make more money through those arms sales — particularly as his manifesto declares that AI weapons, exactly of the kind he happens to sell, are an inevitable future of military action. He says we should be more tolerant of billionaires and scrutinize their private lives less, while being less tolerant of other cultures. He declares that no nation has advanced progressive values more than the US (a tough sell in itself), but then recites a litany of anti-progressive ideas. He takes time to defend Elon Musk by name. He also furthers the idea that people who further progressive ideas are some kind of “elite”, instead of what they actually are: people from all slices of life, including working class unions, who want to have a more inclusive, more peaceful society. Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins has [a great Bluesky thread](https://bsky.app/profile/eliothiggins.bsky.social/post/3mjtpunycuk2h?ref=werd.io) that lays out the issues plainly: > “Point 21 is the giveaway, some cultures produce "wonders," others are "regressive and harmful." Once you accept that hierarchy, you've quietly been given permission to apply different standards of verification to different actors. The form of verification stays, but the democratic function doesn’t. > > This is what verification looks like once national identity sits above method. Rigorous when it's pointed at adversaries, conveniently absent when it's pointed at us. Symmetric, evidence-led investigation of allied conduct, exactly what Bellingcat does, becomes the thing the worldview can't tolerate” In short, I find this offensive, often contradictory, and terrifying in equal measure. It makes clear that Palantir, its associates, and companies like it (Anduril, for example) are a threat to a democratic, peaceful, inclusive society. There’s no point in being cautious or pulling punches; it must be opposed. --- ### [“Data embassies” and safeguarding digital assets during wartime](https://restofworld.org/2026/gulf-war-data-center-risks/) Among the targets in the war between Iran and the US have been data centers. AWS was hit by drones, and Iran has threatened to target US tech. This piece makes the point that these buildings don’t just store vast amounts of civilian customer data: increasingly, they store military data, too. That make them an even more attractive target and makes the security consequences of an attack that much worse. Meanwhile, data centers — including here in Pennsylvania, where I live, as well as Chile, India, and many other places around the world — have been the cause of significant objections from local populations. They push energy costs up, have a serious environmental footprint, [and can even change the local climate](https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/30/climate/data-centers-are-having-an-underrported). So why have these giant megascale data centers at all? > ““It’s very possible that we see a move away from hyperscalers to small data centers for greater safety,” \[Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, professor of internet governance and regulation at the University of Oxford\] said. “Lots of small data centers with randomly distributed backup copies of data are more resilient – but harder and more complex to build, more costly to maintain, and less effective, as data needs to be kept up to date not just in one or two centers, but in many.”” The latter half of Mayer-Schoenberger’s claim is true if we cling to the same architectures. But if we embrace more decentralization on the architectural level as a founding premise, some of these inefficiencies become less of a problem. It could even be worth it to companies like AWS to build new underlying services that make decentralization easier: abstractions that allow data to be sharded across distributed data stores, and that make secure communication between distributed nodes easier. That’s clearly necessary if we move to smaller data centers: a smaller venue can’t simply hold a copy of all the same data as the larger ones but in more places. It also opens up the possibility for mesh application layers rather than the monolithic mainframe-style architectures we’ve mostly seen on the cloud. Behind the scenes, cloud services are a sea of proprietary micro services and components; building more distributed architectures could more easily allow each component to be built, hosted, and supported by different entities. Regardless, the change is an interesting thing to think about, and the cause for it is sobering. What *does* data infrastructure look like in an increasingly antagonistic world — one with more war, accelerated climate change, and authoritarian threats? Those considerations will need to be built into the internet at a backbone level, and into its applications from the ground up. --- ### [Flare Before You Focus](https://pointc.co/flare-before-you-focus/?ref=werd.io) Corey Ford’s advice on [separating flaring and focusing](https://pointc.co/always-separate-flaring-and-focusing/?ref=werd.io) is something I draw on every workday: it prevents self-editing, allows more creative ideas to flourish, and helps enforce a more rigorous creative process. But as he points out here, to encourage curiosity on your team, you’ve got to model it yourself. I have been in this meeting so many times: > “Two people, both in Focus mode, talking across each other, each trying to prove they have the sharper analysis. Everyone in the room thinks they're having a robust debate. What they're actually having is two monologues masquerading as a conversation. \[…\] They're asking themselves, How do I make sure everyone knows I'm smart?” The thing is, when everyone is coming into a brainstorm with genuine curiosity, and when everyone has the right to share and ideate without the outcome being predetermined, it’s genuinely more fun. It’s certainly more inclusive. And when it’s both of those things, you get more interesting ideas. If you “yes and” those ideas and model what it looks like to build with curiosity, you get more of them. It’s a virtuous circle. Conversely, if you’re coming in with predetermined ideas, or you set the tone of a meeting to be evaluative rather than collaborative, people won’t speak up. The output becomes monocultural. Or, at its worst, you get the kind of posturing that Corey described above: a culture where people want to be recognized for being smart rather than helping to get to the best possible outcome. It helps to be genuinely curious; playful; maybe risk being a little bit unserious. Then people start to loosen up, and that’s when the good stuff starts coming. --- ### [The Content Management System Is Dead. Long Live the Context Management System.](https://www.hackshackers.com/cms-is-dead-long-live-the-context-management-system/) I thought this demo, by Hacks / Hackers founder Burt Herman, was pretty compelling. It’s obviously a proof of concept, but it points to some interesting places journalism could go, and it opens up some new platform questions in the process. In Burt’s vision, the reader has a profile that expresses their interests, and then the newsroom curates material that is surfaced using that lens. His demo makes that more concrete: [here he’s pointed an engine at communications from New York City Mayor Mamdani’s office](https://nyc-mayor-context-demo-2026.hackshackers.com/?ref=werd.io), and set up personas like “renter in Bushwick” and “parent in Park Slope” that are served a briefing drawn from different information depending on that persona’s particular lens. A parent in Park Slope receives more information about schools in that neighborhood; a retiree in the West Village receives information about their neighborhood but also about services that pertain to them. You can easily imagine how this might scale up to a newsroom. An engine like this doesn’t have to be limited to source material as in Burt’s demo: it could also be journalistic investigations, interviews, and net-new content created by skilled reporters. In some ways it’s a vision for a better homepage (often among the least-visited parts of a news website) more than a redefinition of journalism itself, except in the sense that surfacing more raw material is welcome. There are so many interesting questions to consider — many of which dovetail with ideas that have been tackled outside news for years. For example: if a reader creates a profile, where does that live? Is it on the news website, in which case they have to create a new profile every time they read another site? Or does it live in the browser, so that the user creates their profile once and consents to share it with the various sites they read? People have been working on browser-based identity, and now identity for agentic users, for a long time. It may make sense to apply that work here. Where should the briefing live? Is it a news website’s homepage, as I’ve surmised above, or is it actually also at the browser or news reader level, drawing not just from *one* newsroom, but *all* the newsrooms a user reads? And if it’s the latter, how does the newsroom retain credit, get compensated, and build a first-party relationship with the reader? I also think there’s an obvious business model here: when a user has created a profile *for themselves*, it’s just as easy to say that they’re in the market for a car, or that they enjoy single-origin coffee beans. Then you can serve useful sponsored content (like deals) to people who actually want to buy those things, which is both significantly more valuable to an advertiser and more consensual / less adversarial for a reader. It brings newsrooms very close to the [Customer Commons](https://customercommons.org/?ref=werd.io) ideas that people like [Doc Searls](https://doc.searls.com/?ref=werd.io) have been talking about for many years. I agree with Burt’s warning here: > “For publishers and journalists who ignore this: Don't be surprised when human readers stop coming to your websites and mobile apps. Not because the journalism is bad, but because it's more efficient to send an AI agent to gather what you've published, sift out what's truly relevant to the user's own context, and reassemble it in whatever format works best for them.” What might a version of this future that centers reader needs but does it in alignment with the newsroom’s needs and values look like? It’s a good time to start experimenting. --- ### [Launching XOXO Explore](https://xoxofest.com/blog/2026-launching-xoxo-explore/?ref=werd.io) I freaking loved XOXO, the experimental festival for independent artists and creators from the internet. I attended [the first one](https://xoxofest.com/2012/?ref=werd.io) during a fraught, stressful, often sad period of my life; I’d ripped my life up to move to the US to be nearer to my terminally ill mother. I thought I knew where my life was going, and then everything was uncertain. And here was this joyful festival of people doing things on their own terms, in their own way. I attended with my partner at the time, who was visiting back from the UK, and we discovered Portland itself in the process. We played Johann Sebastian Joust with Dan Harmon. Ben Brown, who I had followed for years, silently sidled up at an arcade and played the 1990s *X-Men* cabinet game with me. We had a beer with MC Frontalot. And felt home in a way I desperately needed to. Clearly, a ton of work went into this archive site, which contains almost every talk. (One in particular was too sensitive to record.) I’m grateful that this exists. I can [relive Maggie Vail and Jesse Von Doom’s CASH Music talk](https://xoxofest.com/2012/videos/maggie-vail-jesse-von-doom/?ref=werd.io); relive one of my childhood heroes, Tim Schafer, [talking about his work](https://xoxofest.com/2013/videos/tim-schafer/?ref=werd.io); and see talks from years I couldn’t attend by people I am in awe of like [Molly White](https://xoxofest.com/2024/videos/molly-white/?ref=werd.io) and [Erin Kissane](https://xoxofest.com/2024/videos/erin-kissane/?ref=werd.io). It’s really worth plumbing the archive; it’s all good stuff. It *can’t* show me the absolutely insane Q&A with the [Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared](https://xoxofest.com/2024/videos/erin-kissane/?ref=werd.io) team ("...How?" "Because!"), or remind me or chatting with Cory Doctorow, or let me cuddle a baby goat again. But I can remember. And this is a lovely start. Bonus link: [here’s how I wrote about the first event at the time](https://werd.io/xoxo-crafty-makers-from-the-future/). --- ### [Copyright and DMCA Best Practices for Fediverse Operators](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/copyright-and-dmca-best-practices-fediverse-operators?ref=werd.io) A useful guide for anyone who is running their own community space — which includes folks running Mastodon instances, Bluesky hosts, RSS services, and so on. As the author explains in the preamble, there’s the potential for “massive, unpredictable financial liability”. It’s therefore really important to find ways to limit risk. A lot of this is common sense: > “Finally, make sure that nothing you post or advertise actively encourages copyright infringement. For example, don’t post examples of users uploading copyrighted music or video without permission, or insinuate that your server is a good place for infringing content.” Some of it is less obvious but still important. For example, responding promptly to DMCA notices — and not ignoring them regardless of technicalities — is one place where a less-savvy operator might fall over. It’s easy to imagine compliance as a service for these kinds of operators, baked into the platforms themselves. So if you install a Mastodon instance and you could be subject to US law (which isn’t limited to instances operating in the US), there could be an easy way to set up with a service to handle all that for you. It could sit right alongside trust and safety services that are more aligned for community safety. ### In wartime, megascale data centers may make way for distributed architectures URL: https://werd.io/in-wartime-megascale-data-centers-may-make-way-for-distributed-architectures/ Last updated: 2026-04-24T13:29:18.000Z Link: [*“Data embassies” and safeguarding digital assets during wartime, by Rina Chandran in Rest of World*](https://restofworld.org/2026/gulf-war-data-center-risks/) Among the targets in the war between Iran and the US have been data centers. AWS was hit by drones, and Iran has threatened to target US tech. This piece makes the point that these buildings don’t just store vast amounts of civilian customer data: increasingly, they store military data, too. That make them an even more attractive target and makes the security consequences of an attack that much worse. Meanwhile, data centers — including here in Pennsylvania, where I live, as well as Chile, India, and many other places around the world — have been the cause of significant objections from local populations. They push energy costs up, have a serious environmental footprint, [and can even change the local climate](https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/30/climate/data-centers-are-having-an-underrported). So why have these giant megascale data centers at all? > ““It’s very possible that we see a move away from hyperscalers to small data centers for greater safety,” \[Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, professor of internet governance and regulation at the University of Oxford\] said. “Lots of small data centers with randomly distributed backup copies of data are more resilient – but harder and more complex to build, more costly to maintain, and less effective, as data needs to be kept up to date not just in one or two centers, but in many.”” The latter half of Mayer-Schoenberger’s claim is true if we cling to the same architectures. But if we embrace more decentralization on the architectural level as a founding premise, some of these inefficiencies become less of a problem. It could even be worth it to companies like AWS to build new underlying services that make decentralization easier: abstractions that allow data to be sharded across distributed data stores, and that make secure communication between distributed nodes easier. That’s clearly necessary if we move to smaller data centers: a smaller venue can’t simply hold a copy of all the same data as the larger ones but in more places. It also opens up the possibility for mesh application layers rather than the monolithic mainframe-style architectures we’ve mostly seen on the cloud. Behind the scenes, cloud services are a sea of proprietary micro services and components; building more distributed architectures could more easily allow each component to be built, hosted, and supported by different entities. Regardless, the change is an interesting thing to think about, and the cause for it is sobering. What *does* data infrastructure look like in an increasingly antagonistic world — one with more war, accelerated climate change, and authoritarian threats? Those considerations will need to be built into the internet at a backbone level, and into its applications from the ground up. ### XOXO Explore is fitting showcase for a brilliant experiment URL: https://werd.io/xoxo-explore-is-fitting-showcase-for-a-brilliant-experiment/ Last updated: 2026-04-24T01:48:38.000Z Link: [*Launching XOXO Explore, by the Andys*](https://xoxofest.com/blog/2026-launching-xoxo-explore/) I freaking loved XOXO, the experimental festival for independent artists and creators from the internet. I attended [the first one](https://xoxofest.com/2012/) during a fraught, stressful, often sad period of my life; I’d ripped my life up to move to the US to be nearer to my terminally ill mother. I thought I knew where my life was going, and then everything was uncertain. And here was this joyful festival of people doing things on their own terms, in their own way. I attended with my partner at the time, who was visiting back from the UK, and we discovered Portland itself in the process. We played Johann Sebastian Joust with Dan Harmon. Ben Brown, who I had followed for years, silently sidled up at an arcade and played the 1990s *X-Men* cabinet game with me. We had a beer with MC Frontalot. And felt home in a way I desperately needed to. Clearly, a ton of work went into this archive site, which contains almost every talk. (One in particular was too sensitive to record.) I’m grateful that this exists. I can [relive Maggie Vail and Jesse Von Doom’s CASH Music talk](https://xoxofest.com/2012/videos/maggie-vail-jesse-von-doom/); relive one of my childhood heroes, Tim Schafer, [talking about his work](https://xoxofest.com/2013/videos/tim-schafer/); and see talks from years I couldn’t attend by people I am in awe of like [Molly White](https://xoxofest.com/2024/videos/molly-white/) and [Erin Kissane](https://xoxofest.com/2024/videos/erin-kissane/). It’s really worth plumbing the archive; it’s all good stuff. It *can’t* show me the absolutely insane Q&A with the [Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared](https://xoxofest.com/2024/videos/erin-kissane/) team ("...How?" "Because!"), or remind me or chatting with Cory Doctorow, or let me cuddle a baby goat again. But I can remember. And this is a lovely start. Bonus link: [here’s how I wrote about it at the time](https://werd.io/xoxo-crafty-makers-from-the-future/). ### The user-tailored newsroom URL: https://werd.io/the-user-centered-newsroom/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T14:01:37.000Z Link: [*The Content Management System Is Dead. Long Live the Context Management System., by Burt Herman at Hacks / Hackers*](https://www.hackshackers.com/cms-is-dead-long-live-the-context-management-system/) I thought this was a pretty compelling demo. It’s obviously a proof of concept, but it points to some interesting places journalism could go, and it opens up some new platform questions in the process. In Burt’s vision, the reader has a profile that expresses their interests, and then the newsroom curates material that is surfaced using that lens. His demo makes that more concrete: [here he’s pointed an engine at communications from New York City Mayor Mamdani’s office](https://nyc-mayor-context-demo-2026.hackshackers.com/), and set up personas like “renter in Bushwick” and “parent in Park Slope” that are served a briefing drawn from different information depending on that persona’s particular lens. A parent in Park Slope receives more information about schools in that neighborhood; a retiree in the West Village receives information about their neighborhood but also about services that pertain to them. You can easily imagine how this might scale up to a newsroom. An engine like this doesn’t have to be limited to source material as in Burt’s demo: it could also be journalistic investigations, interviews, and net-new content created by skilled reporters. In some ways it’s a vision for a better homepage (often among the least-visited parts of a news website) more than a redefinition of journalism itself, except in the sense that surfacing more raw material is welcome. There are so many interesting questions to consider — many of which dovetail with ideas that have been tackled outside news for years. For example: if a reader creates a profile, where does that live? Is it on the news website, in which case they have to create a new profile every time they read another site? Or does it live in the browser, so that the user creates their profile once and consents to share it with the various sites they read? People have been working on browser-based identity, and now identity for agentic users, for a long time. It may make sense to apply that work here. Where should the briefing live? Is it a news website’s homepage, as I’ve surmised above, or is it actually also at the browser or news reader level, drawing not just from *one* newsroom, but *all* the newsrooms a user reads? And if it’s the latter, how does the newsroom retain credit, get compensated, and build a first-party relationship with the reader? I also think there’s an obvious business model here: when a user has created a profile *for themselves*, it’s just as easy to say that they’re in the market for a car, or that they enjoy single-origin coffee beans. Then you can serve useful sponsored content (like deals) to people who actually want to buy those things, which is both significantly more valuable to an advertiser and more consensual / less adversarial for a reader. It brings newsrooms very close to the [Customer Commons](https://customercommons.org/) ideas that people like [Doc Searls](https://doc.searls.com/) have been talking about for many years. I agree with Burt’s warning here: > “For publishers and journalists who ignore this: Don't be surprised when human readers stop coming to your websites and mobile apps. Not because the journalism is bad, but because it's more efficient to send an AI agent to gather what you've published, sift out what's truly relevant to the user's own context, and reassemble it in whatever format works best for them.” What might a version of this future that centers reader needs but does it in alignment with the newsroom’s needs and values look like? It’s a good time to start experimenting. ### It pays to reward curiosity more than looking smart URL: https://werd.io/it-pays-to-reward-curiosity-more-than-looking-smart/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T13:39:48.000Z *Link:* [*Flare Before You Focus, by Corey Ford at Point C*](https://pointc.co/flare-before-you-focus/) Corey’s advice on [separating flaring and focusing](https://pointc.co/always-separate-flaring-and-focusing/) is something I draw on every workday: it prevents self-editing, allows more creative ideas to flourish, and helps enforce a more rigorous creative process. But as he points out here, to encourage curiosity on your team, you’ve got to model it yourself. I have been in this meeting so many times: > “Two people, both in Focus mode, talking across each other, each trying to prove they have the sharper analysis. Everyone in the room thinks they're having a robust debate. What they're actually having is two monologues masquerading as a conversation. \[…\] They're asking themselves, How do I make sure everyone knows I'm smart?” The thing is, when everyone is coming into a brainstorm with genuine curiosity, and when everyone has the right to share and ideate without the outcome being predetermined, it’s genuinely more fun. It’s certainly more inclusive. And when it’s both of those things, you get more interesting ideas. If you “yes and” those ideas and model what it looks like to build with curiosity, you get more of them. It’s a virtuous circle. Conversely, if you’re coming in with predetermined ideas, or you set the tone of a meeting to be evaluative rather than collaborative, people won’t speak up. The output becomes monocultural. Or, at its worst, you get the kind of posturing that Corey described above: a culture where people want to be recognized for being smart rather than helping to get to the best possible outcome. It helps to be genuinely curious; playful; maybe risk being a little bit unserious. Then people start to loosen up, and that’s when the good stuff starts coming. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/flare-before-you-focus/)\] ### Copyright and DMCA Best Practices for Fediverse Operators URL: https://werd.io/copyright-and-dmca-best-practices-for-fediverse-operators/ Last updated: 2026-04-22T15:11:14.000Z \[[Mitch Stoltz at the EFF](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/copyright-and-dmca-best-practices-fediverse-operators)\] A useful guide for anyone who is running their own community space — which includes folks running Mastodon instances, Bluesky hosts, RSS services, and so on. As the author explains in the preamble, there’s the potential for “massive, unpredictable financial liability”. It’s therefore really important to find ways to limit risk. A lot of this is common sense: > “Finally, make sure that nothing you post or advertise actively encourages copyright infringement. For example, don’t post examples of users uploading copyrighted music or video without permission, or insinuate that your server is a good place for infringing content.” Some of it is less obvious but still important. For example, responding promptly to DMCA notices — and not ignoring them regardless of technicalities — is one place where a less-savvy operator might fall over. It’s easy to imagine compliance as a service for these kinds of operators, baked into the platforms themselves. So if you install a Mastodon instance and you could be subject to US law (which isn’t limited to instances operating in the US), there could be an easy way to set up with a service to handle all that for you. It could sit right alongside trust and safety services that are more aligned for community safety. \[[Link](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/copyright-and-dmca-best-practices-fediverse-operators)\] ### The Technological Republic, in brief URL: https://werd.io/the-technological-republic-in-brief/ Last updated: 2026-04-19T16:36:03.000Z \[[Palantir](https://twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398573453312)\] Palantir CEO Alex Karp wrote a book last year called the Technological Republic, but perhaps because it didn’t have the impact he hoped, the company posted a tweet thread (and [LinkedIn post](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/technological-republic-brief-palantir-technologies-ktdde/), etc) that summarizes its core points. Which are, to be clear, an argument for hard-right nationalism — complete with remilitarization and implied cultural hierarchy — and fusing Silicon Valley with the national security state. In Karp’s world, Silicon Valley innovators have an *obligation* to build weapons through a kind of moral debt to the country. He also wants to see Germany and Japan re-militarized, escalating tensions that will see his company make more money through those arms sales — particularly as his manifesto declares that AI weapons, exactly of the kind he happens to sell, are an inevitable future of military action. He says we should be more tolerant of billionaires and scrutinize their private lives less, while being less tolerant of other cultures. He declares that no nation has advanced progressive values more than the US (a tough sell in itself), but then recites a litany of anti-progressive ideas. He takes time to defend Elon Musk by name. He also furthers the idea that people who further progressive ideas are some kind of “elite”, instead of what they actually are: people from all slices of life, including working class unions, who want to have a more inclusive, more peaceful society. Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins has [a great Bluesky thread](https://bsky.app/profile/eliothiggins.bsky.social/post/3mjtpunycuk2h) that lays out the issues plainly: > “Point 21 is the giveaway, some cultures produce "wonders," others are "regressive and harmful." Once you accept that hierarchy, you've quietly been given permission to apply different standards of verification to different actors. The form of verification stays, but the democratic function doesn’t. > > This is what verification looks like once national identity sits above method. Rigorous when it's pointed at adversaries, conveniently absent when it's pointed at us. Symmetric, evidence-led investigation of allied conduct, exactly what Bellingcat does, becomes the thing the worldview can't tolerate” In short, I find this offensive, often contradictory, and terrifying in equal measure. It makes clear that Palantir, its associates, and companies like it (Anduril, for example) are a threat to a democratic, peaceful, inclusive society. There’s no point in being cautious or pulling punches; it must be opposed. \[[Link](https://twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398573453312)\] ### Notable links: April 17, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-april-17-2026/ Last updated: 2026-04-17T09:00:05.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### ["Cognitive surrender" leads AI users to abandon logical thinking, research finds](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/research-finds-ai-users-scarily-willing-to-surrender-their-cognition-to-llms/) I’m tired. Everyone’s tired. There are so many demands being made of us constantly that the output from an AI chatbot can seem like a godsend: rather than buckling down and doing *yet more work*, the machine can shortcut that for us. Not so fast: > “Overall, across 1,372 participants and over 9,500 individual trials, the researchers found subjects were willing to accept faulty AI reasoning a whopping 73.2 percent of the time, while only overruling it 19.7 percent of the time. The researchers say this “demonstrate\[s\] that people readily incorporate AI-generated outputs into their decision-making processes, often with minimal friction or skepticism.” In general, “fluent, confident outputs \[are treated\] as epistemically authoritative, lowering the threshold for scrutiny and attenuating the meta-cognitive signals that would ordinarily route a response to deliberation,” they write.” There are no shortcuts to doing great work, but if AI is used in this pressure-driven way, it becomes little more than a shortcut machine: a way to get to the end goal faster without really scrutinizing the thinking it took to get there. It’s no wonder that AI users didn’t examine the answers they were given; in a world where AI allows people to be saddled with more tasks, they might not have had the time to do anything else. Good enough; onto the next thing. Most people don’t want to cut corners, but under adverse circumstances, they will. It may also be that they were rote learners who were less good at identifying the principles behind a solution. The people who bucked this trend were the ones who scored highly in “fluid reasoning” tests. I have to admit that this was new to me, but fluid learners are more able to find the underlying principles and links between topics and ideas in order to solve problems. The better people were at abstract thinking, the more likely they were to question outputs from the AI. That makes some sense to me. AI can’t reason particularly well: it outputs convincing-sounding responses, but the underlying principles behind them aren’t necessarily fully-formed. If you’re used to just accepting something that *looks right*, perhaps because you’ve been taught to memorize rather than understand, it’s harder to discern when this kind of superficially intelligible, highly confident answer is right. If you scratch the surface and try to understand the underlying logic, that’s when it becomes clearer that the LLM doesn’t know what it’s talking about. Managers that salivate about using AI to increase the workload / productivity of a team should consider this effect: the more you press people to use these systems, the more they might accept faulty reasoning from them. Hiring abstract thinkers — the people who are more likely to rise to be senior engineers etc — will help, but you need to give people the space, permission, and expectation to think for themselves. --- ### [The bottleneck shifts to distribution](https://newsletter.squishy.computer/p/the-bottleneck-shifts-to-distribution) This definitely gave me pause. In a world where writing code is something vastly more people can do, when even GitHub is struggling to keep up with the ballooning number of codebases out there, it’s going to be increasingly impossible to get recognition for your work. > “This is what it takes for your free and open source project to be recognized in 2026: you must secure the endorsement of legendary actress Milla Jovovich. You know, like a celebrity vodka.” I kicked against this — who says Milla Jovovich wasn’t a first class contributor? [The fundamentals of WiFi were created by Hedy Lamarr](https://www.history.com/articles/hedy-lamarr-inventor-frequency-hopping-wifi?ref=werd.io) — but it’s true that the commits are mostly assigned to Sigman, the CEO of Bitcoin Libre. She is credited as architect, he as engineer, together with a contributor called Lu. Regardless, it’s obvious that attaching her name to the project has drawn it more attention, and that this is a product that could result in a real financial outcome for both her and Sigman. I’m left feeling really glad that I released my first big open source software 22 years ago, when LLMs were an impossibility and big names didn’t attach themselves to open source. I was able to build a community with the funding equivalent of a can of Coke and a packet of crisps; if I’d been competing against Hollywood celebrities, I would have had no chance at all. But I don’t quite agree with the thesis. Whether you’re famous or not, the way to get a following for your code is to solve a real problem better than anyone else. It’s true that distribution platforms can be kingmakers, but starting small by building real relationships with people you’re trying to help in ways that don’t scale is still a good way to get off the ground. That means building something genuinely differentiated rather than something that’s a few degrees off from what everyone else is doing. For small players with no networks and no names, that’s always been the best way to start, and I think it likely still is. --- ### [You Own Your Role, We Own The Outcome](https://pointc.co/you-own-your-role-we-own-the-outcome/) This and its predecessor, [One Consultative Decision Maker Per Lane](https://pointc.co/one-consultative-decision-maker-per-lane/?ref=werd.io), go beyond being sound management advice into almost being a manifesto for how management should work. If people in your team stick to their lanes entirely, a lot can go wrong: > “The gaps between those lanes become the source of risk, and without a shared sense of ownership, those gaps go unaddressed until it is too late. > > No one dropped the ball. But the ball fell between them.” As Corey points out, roles and decision rights do matter a lot. If you don’t empower people to make real decisions in their respective lanes of responsibility and expertise, your team will grind to a halt (and, if you’re ultimately in charge, everyone will resent you). I’ve been in those teams and it’s always counterproductive; often that’s because there’s someone who wants to make *all* the decisions. By undercutting people’s decisions, they end up undermining the work of the team and making it impossible to make real progress. But you also can’t encourage people to put blinkers on. Everyone needs to feel responsibility over the team’s end result — which also means they need to feel ownership over it. I’ve been there too: places where people want to be heads down and just look at a particular piece of code, for example. It doesn’t work on small teams. Maybe there are companies out there, really big ones with cubicles and campuses, where it makes sense. I’ve never worked in one. There’s a productive tension here, obviously. You can’t go fully one way or the other. But if you treat a team as a community, and the team leader as the facilitator of that community, you can navigate these nuances more easily. I wanted to share this piece because it ties together so many important ideas: a culture of open feedback, ensuring every voice is heard, framing the work as a learning problem, and leading with vulnerability. I like to create teams that embody these values, and work in places that share my belief that they are important. So much of this is about trust in people. Trust in the expertise on your team to make sound decisions; trust that the collective can produce great work; trust that when you raise an issue or give feedback in good faith it will be received constructively. I think you have to start with trust as the default — and then vote with your feet if you find it isn’t there. --- ### [Google Broke Its Promise to Me. Now ICE Has My Data.](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-broke-its-promise-me-now-ice-has-my-data) There’s an important distinction at the heart of this case. The synopsis, from the EFF: > “In September 2024, Amandla Thomas-Johnson was a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa when he briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest. In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data. The next month, Google gave Thomas-Johnson's information to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement.” Subpoenas are legal orders compelling someone to either testify or produce evidence. They come in three broad flavors: civil, criminal, and administrative. *Civil* subpoenas arise from disputes between private parties (or between a party and the government in a non-criminal matter), typically over money, contracts, property, or rights. *Criminal* subpoenas are issued in the context of a criminal investigation or prosecution, where the government is pursuing charges against someone for violating criminal law. *Administrative* subpoenas are a legal grey area that sit in the middle. They’re issued by federal agencies (in this case, ICE, under the Department of Homeland Security) without prior approval from a judge or grand jury. Statutory non-disclosure orders and national security letters are common in criminal and national security contexts; they’re rare-to-nonexistent in civil ones. If one exists, the subject can’t disclose that a subpoena was given or that they provided the information. Otherwise, they are free to notify. The information here has often been given fewer Fourth Amendment protections under the third party doctrine. IP addresses, physical address, other identifiers, and session times and durations are metadata. US cell phone providers, too, will hand out this information with relatively little friction. When your data is stored with a cloud provider like Google, prosecutors are most likely to ask Google for it, rather than you. If they’re issued a subpoena without a gag order, they’re supposed to notify you about it. If they’re issued one *with*, they *can’t* tell you about it in order to stay within the bounds of the law. Even without one, some companies may be tempted to comply in advance in order to stay on the government’s good side. As is laid out in the linked piece, another student, Momodou Taal, was notified by both Google and Meta that his data was requested. Here, the system worked: because he was notified, he was able to fight off the order, and his data remained private. Amandla Thomas-Johnson didn’t receive the same courtesy. Google is *meant* to notify users, *if they can*. If they didn’t, that’s a real problem. And it seems like that’s the case: that’s why EFF is going after them. The precedent here will matter a great deal for everybody’s privacy: commitments to notify should be enforceable. Hopefully regulators will hold that they are. --- ### [FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database](https://www.404media.co/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database-2/) This understandably made a few journalists nervous when 404 Media originally reported it last week: > “The FBI was able to forensically extract copies of incoming Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even after the app was deleted, because copies of the content were saved in the device’s push notification database.” This reveals a shortcoming in how Apple stores notifications rather than in Signal itself. What happens is that if the text of a Signal message shows up on a lock screen, it’s stored in iOS itself, in a place where forensic investigators can gain access to it. That’s a really good reason to turn off lock-screen notifications for Signal, and to remove the text of Signal messages from its notifications entirely. Here’s how to mitigate: In the Signal app itself, go into settings, and then Notification Content. Depending on your level of comfort, select “Name Only” (which will still store the name of your Signal contact in your iPhone device memory) or “No Name or Content”. Then, in your iPhone settings panel, find the Notifications pane, and scroll down to Signal. De-select “lock screen”. --- ### [Stop Flock](https://stopflock.com/) This is nice to see: a grassroots protest movement against the proliferation of Flock cameras. From the site: > “Flock Safety markets AI surveillance that goes far beyond reading license plates; color, bumper stickers, dents, and other features are used to build databases and identify movement patterns. These systems are spreading rapidly, often without oversight, and are accessible to police without a warrant. They raise serious privacy and legal concerns, and contribute to a nationwide trend toward mass surveillance.” There’s little evidence that they do anything meaningful to prevent crime. But they do certainly create a surveillance layer, and help establish a culture of surveillance across law enforcement. 404 Media reported last year that [ICE has been tapping into these cameras](https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/?ref=werd.io), although they weren’t established for that purpose; local police have been proxy users for immigration enforcement. Not only does the platform read license plates and track individual cars, but it tracks *associations* between vehicles — cars that are often seen together, for example. Which, of course, reveals associations between people. I would echo what [Brandon Mitchell](https://bmitch.net/?ref=werd.io) [said on Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773673&ref=werd.io): > “I don't want to stop Flock the company. I want to stop Flock the business model, along with all the other mass surveillance, and the data brokers. If the business models can't be made illegal, it should at least come with liabilities so high that no sane business would want to hold data that is essentially toxic waste. > > Without that, we are quickly spiraling into the dystopia where privacy is gone, and when the wrong person gets access to the data, entire populations are threatened.” The [Take Action](https://stopflock.com/?ref=werd.io#take-action) section of the website is pretty good, with some common-sense tasks that include calling your representatives and supporting civil rights organizations like the ACLU and the EFF. Earlier this year, [TechCrunch reported that some people are going a step further](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/?ref=werd.io), ripping cameras off street lights themselves. In Oregon, protesters left a note that read, “Hahaha get wrecked ya surveilling f\*cks”. I couldn’t possibly endorse. ### Google Broke Its Promise to Me. Now ICE Has My Data. URL: https://werd.io/google-broke-its-promise-to-me-now-ice-has-my-data/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T14:25:31.000Z \[[Amandla Thomas-Johnson for the EFF](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-broke-its-promise-me-now-ice-has-my-data)\] There’s an important distinction at the heart of this case. The synopsis, from the EFF: > “In September 2024, Amandla Thomas-Johnson was a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa when he briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest. In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data. The next month, Google gave Thomas-Johnson's information to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement.” Subpoenas are legal orders compelling someone to either testify or produce evidence. They come in three broad flavors: civil, criminal, and administrative. *Civil* subpoenas arise from disputes between private parties (or between a party and the government in a non-criminal matter), typically over money, contracts, property, or rights. *Criminal* subpoenas are issued in the context of a criminal investigation or prosecution, where the government is pursuing charges against someone for violating criminal law. *Administrative* subpoenas are a legal grey area that sit in the middle. They’re issued by federal agencies (in this case, ICE, under the Department of Homeland Security) without prior approval from a judge or grand jury. Statutory non-disclosure orders and national security letters are common in criminal and national security contexts; they’re rare-to-nonexistent in civil ones. If one exists, the subject can’t disclose that a subpoena was given or that they provided the information. Otherwise, they are free to notify. The information here has often been given fewer Fourth Amendment protections under the third party doctrine. IP addresses, physical address, other identifiers, and session times and durations are metadata. US cell phone providers, too, will hand out this information with relatively little friction. When your data is stored with a cloud provider like Google, prosecutors are most likely to ask Google for it, rather than you. If they’re issued a subpoena without a gag order, they’re supposed to notify you about it. If they’re issued one *with*, they *can’t* tell you about it in order to stay within the bounds of the law. Even without one, some companies may be tempted to comply in advance in order to stay on the government’s good side. As is laid out in the linked piece, another student, Momodou Taal, was notified by both Google and Meta that his data was requested. Here, the system worked: because he was notified, he was able to fight off the order, and his data remained private. Amandla Thomas-Johnson didn’t receive the same courtesy. Google is *meant* to notify users, *if they can*. If they didn’t, that’s a real problem. And it seems like that’s the case: that’s why EFF is going after them. The precedent here will matter a great deal for everybody’s privacy: commitments to notify should be enforceable. Hopefully regulators will hold that they are. \[[Link](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-broke-its-promise-me-now-ice-has-my-data)\] ### You Own Your Role, We Own The Outcome URL: https://werd.io/you-own-your-role-we-own-the-outcome/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T13:55:04.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/you-own-your-role-we-own-the-outcome/)\] This and its predecessor, [One Consultative Decision Maker Per Lane](https://pointc.co/one-consultative-decision-maker-per-lane/), go beyond being sound management advice into almost being a manifesto for how management should work. If people in your team stick to their lanes entirely, a lot can go wrong: > “The gaps between those lanes become the source of risk, and without a shared sense of ownership, those gaps go unaddressed until it is too late. > > No one dropped the ball. But the ball fell between them.” As Corey points out, roles and decision rights do matter a lot. If you don’t empower people to make real decisions in their respective lanes of responsibility and expertise, your team will grind to a halt (and, if you’re ultimately in charge, everyone will resent you). I’ve been in those teams and it’s always counterproductive; often that’s because there’s someone who wants to make *all* the decisions. By undercutting people’s decisions, they end up undermining the work of the team and making it impossible to make real progress. But you also can’t encourage people to put blinkers on. Everyone needs to feel responsibility over the team’s end result — which also means they need to feel ownership over it. I’ve been there too: places where people want to be heads down and just look at a particular piece of code, for example. It doesn’t work on small teams. Maybe there are companies out there, really big ones with cubicles and campuses, where it makes sense. I’ve never worked in one. There’s a productive tension here, obviously. You can’t go fully one way or the other. But if you treat a team as a community, and the team leader as the facilitator of that community, you can navigate these nuances more easily. I wanted to share this piece because it ties together so many important ideas: a culture of open feedback, ensuring every voice is heard, framing the work as a learning problem, and leading with vulnerability. I like to create teams that embody these values, and work in places that share my belief that they are important. So much of this is about trust in people. Trust in the expertise on your team to make sound decisions; trust that the collective can produce great work; trust that when you raise an issue or give feedback in good faith it will be received constructively. I think you have to start with trust as the default — and then vote with your feet if you find it isn’t there. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/you-own-your-role-we-own-the-outcome/)\] ### FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database URL: https://werd.io/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database/ Last updated: 2026-04-15T14:02:05.000Z \[[Joseph Cox at 404 Media](https://www.404media.co/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database-2/)\] This understandably made a few journalists nervous when 404 Media originally reported it last week: > “The FBI was able to forensically extract copies of incoming Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even after the app was deleted, because copies of the content were saved in the device’s push notification database.” This reveals a shortcoming in how Apple stores notifications rather than in Signal itself. What happens is that if the text of a Signal message shows up on a lock screen, it’s stored in iOS itself, in a place where forensic investigators can gain access to it. That’s a really good reason to turn off lock-screen notifications for Signal, and to remove the text of Signal messages from its notifications entirely. Here’s how to mitigate: In the Signal app itself, go into settings, and then Notification Content. Depending on your level of comfort, select “Name Only” (which will still store the name of your Signal contact in your iPhone device memory) or “No Name or Content”. Then, in your iPhone settings panel, find the Notifications pane, and scroll down to Signal. De-select “lock screen”. \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database-2/)\] ### Stop Flock URL: https://werd.io/stop-flock/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T02:03:02.000Z \[[Stop Flock](https://stopflock.com/)\] This is nice to see: a grassroots protest movement against the proliferation of Flock cameras. From the site: > “Flock Safety markets AI surveillance that goes far beyond reading license plates; color, bumper stickers, dents, and other features are used to build databases and identify movement patterns. These systems are spreading rapidly, often without oversight, and are accessible to police without a warrant. They raise serious privacy and legal concerns, and contribute to a nationwide trend toward mass surveillance.” There’s little evidence that they do anything meaningful to prevent crime. But they do certainly create a surveillance layer, and help establish a culture of surveillance across law enforcement. 404 Media reported last year that [ICE has been tapping into these cameras](https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/), although they weren’t established for that purpose; local police have been proxy users for immigration enforcement. Not only does the platform read license plates and track individual cars, but it tracks *associations* between vehicles — cars that are often seen together, for example. Which, of course, reveals associations between people. I would echo what [Brandon Mitchell](https://bmitch.net/) [said on Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773673): > “I don't want to stop Flock the company. I want to stop Flock the business model, along with all the other mass surveillance, and the data brokers. If the business models can't be made illegal, it should at least come with liabilities so high that no sane business would want to hold data that is essentially toxic waste. > > Without that, we are quickly spiraling into the dystopia where privacy is gone, and when the wrong person gets access to the data, entire populations are threatened.” The [Take Action](https://stopflock.com/#take-action) section of the website is pretty good, with some common-sense tasks that include calling your representatives and supporting civil rights organizations like the ACLU and the EFF. Earlier this year, [TechCrunch reported that some people are going a step further](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/), ripping cameras off street lights themselves. In Oregon, protesters left a note that read, “Hahaha get wrecked ya surveilling f\*cks”. I couldn’t possibly endorse. \[[Link](https://stopflock.com/)\] ### One size fits none: let communities build for themselves URL: https://werd.io/one-size-fits-none-let-communities-build-for-themselves/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T02:53:49.000Z A little under twenty years ago, I stood on stage at the University of Brighton, in England, at our Elgg Jam event. Elgg was the open source social network I’d co-founded; Brighton used it to become the first university in the world to roll out a social network campus-wide. I was giving the keynote talk, explaining what we’d include in the next major version of the platform. I built up anticipation, hamming it up as the audience — many of whom had built social networks with tens or hundreds of thousands of users — waited for what I had to say. I moved to a blank slide. “None,” I said. “The next version of Elgg has no features.” Genuinely, there were gasps. I don’t think I’ve had a similar reaction at any talk I’ve given since. Years later, one of the attendees told me it was a mind-blowing moment: one of those sessions that immediately changes your perspective. I went on to explain. Instead of releasing a rigid social network out of the box, we recognized that for communities, one size didn’t fit all. Instead of giving everyone the same configuration, the same interface, and the same collection of tools, each community owner would easily compose their own combination of functionality and experience in order to best fit the community they served. By then, Elgg had been translated into 80 languages and there were a ton of plugins from across the ecosystem; there was a lot to configure a site with. The underlying point was that a social networking platform existed to support a real human community, and needed to be responsive to its needs. How could we, as platform developers, possibly know what every community needed? We couldn’t; we didn’t. It was better to put that power in the hands of people who did. Since that talk in September 2007, we’ve seen a lot of social networks that were one size fits all: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and a raft of others. Each has forced communities to adhere to its own design assumptions. Every platform’s user experience is rooted in the cultural and intellectual assumptions of its development team. A rigid user experience means that needs that aren’t in line with its team’s worldview may be ignored. That’s not a trivial gap. Some communities have specific requirements about identity; others have particular cultural sensitivities that need to be incorporated in an approach to trust and safety. In Myanmar, Facebook (which is based 8,000 miles away in Menlo Park, California) ignored local needs and community dynamics to the extent that it’s been accused of facilitating the genocide against the Rohingya people. For centralized, proprietary platforms, there have been few options. Even for platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon, which are based on open protocols and can be forked and self-hosted, changing the interaction model and user experience has traditionally required a significant amount of development work. If only there were some way to make that process easier. ### Custom code is easier than ever One of the most interesting developments this year has been agentic coding’s elevation [from interesting tool to code-producing productivity workhorse](https://werd.io/good-vibes-bad-vendors/). People I know who have been writing software for over thirty years are now using LLMs as their full-time coding engine. My friend Jesse Vincent, who has written open source software and managed the Perl programming language, now spends his time on [ways to bring senior engineer-level thinking to LLMs](https://blog.fsck.com/2025/10/09/superpowers/). Simon Willison, co-founder of [Lanyrd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanyrd) and creator of [Datasette](https://datasette.io/), [spends much of his time exploring, defining, and analyzing the space](https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms/). If LLMs sucked at this, they would say so. But they don’t, and instead these two veteran engineers have gone all-in. So have many thousands of other engineers. In a world where custom code can be created far more easily than it could in the past, communities can more easily build bespoke spaces for themselves. There’s no need to adopt a one-size-fits-all platform — even an open source one — when you can ask for the exact features you want. Beyond existing tools like Claude Code, you can imagine tuning an AI-powered system specifically designed to help community leaders create customized platforms. What would be needed then are agreed-upon rules about how community platforms behave: how they communicate with each other, how they integrate a user’s identity, and how they work with services for moderation, flagging, and other trust and safety necessities. There’s a word for agreed-upon rules for how software communicates with each other: protocols. And in a world where anyone can spin up their own software, they’re more important than ever. ### Protocols for parties The web already has protocols and standards. Web pages travel over the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and serve HyperText Markup Language (HTML). If anyone wants to build a new web browser, they don’t have to ask anyone; they just need to follow the HTTP and HTML specifications (okay, and CSS, JavaScript, etc etc — but these all follow the same principle). Just as the web is built on open protocols, the next generation of social platforms is too. [ActivityPub](https://activitypub.rocks/) describes how two different community platforms can send messages between each other on behalf of their users. Authenticated Transfer Protocol ([ATProto](https://atproto.com/docs)) defines how users can use and move their identities and provides a shared data layer. ActivityPub is used as glue between [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/), [Ghost](https://ghost.org), and [Threads](https://threads.com); ATProto is used by [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/), [Blacksky](https://blacksky.community/), [Eurosky](https://eurosky.tech/), and applications that sit on top of them. In both cases, just like HTTP and HTML, anyone can build a new community platform that uses them — and that therefore will be immediately compatible with all the *other* community platforms that use them. These protocols have been around for years. But now that software itself is becoming cheaper to produce, and everyone can build their own applications that are *right for them*, the center of gravity has changed. Whereas previously open protocols were the co-ordination layer for many instances of a few applications, now they’re the co-ordination layer for an exploding ecosystem of more custom applications, each of which could be installed many times over. Previously, libraries, modules and plugins were the building blocks of software. Consider what we were trying to do with Elgg, or what the WordPress project continues to push on: a core codebase that you can extend and configure by downloading plugins and themes from anywhere. Those plugins will still be a part of the ecosystem, but *new* plugins can be generated in hours or less. And increasingly, the existing ones will be configured for bespoke needs, too. That’s a lot of custom codebases. By default, they’re all siloed away from each other. If one person builds a community for a neighborhood over here, and another person builds a community for an affinity group over there, there’s no way for them to intersect. People have to find them, sign up for them, and interact with them separately — and every new community has to start with zero users. But if we make drawing on open protocol specifications as easy as pulling an open source library or a WordPress plugin, the definitions for how all these bespoke apps and communities talk to each other become the *new* shared building blocks. With them, each new codebase is part of an expansive web of applications and communities. ### Making it easier There’s more we could do to make this world possible. Today, software often relies on something called a *package manager* to easily incorporate libraries. You can imagine a *spec manager* that does something similar for agentic development. Tell it to import ActivityPub, and *boom*, through a combination of instantly-applied new skills and cleanly-written specification guidelines, what you’re building is compatible with the Fediverse. Just as libraries get added to a package manager today, new specifications could be added to a spec manager in the future. This would catalogue *all* protocol specs from across standards bodies — and, of course, anyone could publish their own, just as anyone can publish an open source library today. These become software dependencies. And we could use domain-specific tooling that makes building software easier for non-engineers. A community platform builder would help community leaders create software to support their work, but hide complex development, debugging, and infrastructure considerations. Despite the abstracted, walled-garden nature of this kind of interface, open protocols would mean that the software could be deployed to a choice of provider, and its data wouldn’t be locked up inside it. If it’s not obvious yet, none of this is tightly-bound to agentic development. If you hate LLMs or just want to write everything by hand — both reasonable positions — there’s nothing stopping this kind of infrastructure from being useful for *you*, too. ### What’s still to come We have established protocols for identity and communications between systems, but there’s more to running a community. For one thing, a community leader typically wants to *make it safe*: moderation, content flagging, and other abuse protections are vital. Every community needs to tend to its culture; making it welcome to more vulnerable users — the people more likely to be the subject of abuse — is an important step towards that. Part of the point of having bespoke community platforms is that these value systems may be different from community to community, and the signals of abuse may be specific to them. Facebook failed Myanmar for exactly this reason. So these communities need to handle their own trust and safety. But dedicated open protocols for trust and safety systems would allow these community owners to work with third-party platforms that might provide safety tooling and frameworks. It could also make it easier for multiple communities with similar values to pool their resources around trust and safety. These communities could all connect, through open protocols, to a third system where moderators can review content and take action through one central interface. Overall, it’s the human stuff that rises to the top when code becomes more of a solved problem. Rather than considering *how* to build it, or where to obtain it, we can finally spend most of our time on the more important considerations: *what* is needed, *why* and *for whom*. We can use our own cultural norms to define the answers to these questions rather than accepting one-size-fits-all approaches from people in Menlo Park. Which brings me to one last thing. ### How we generate the code matters While I don’t think these principles apply solely to agentic development, I believe that’s how they’ll most often be used. The LLMs we mostly use are centered on Silicon Valley culture, with Silicon Valley assumptions. Their inherent biases, drawn from the source material the vendors have chosen to use to train the models, are well-documented. The vendors themselves often work with government, the military, law enforcement, and immigration, which may sometimes be at odds with community values. If we are truly to use this technology to build community-first software, the technology itself must be values-aligned with the community. Writing code by hand, depending on the developers involved, fits this ethical standard. But we need LLMs that reach that bar, too. That’s most likely to mean grassroots models that are in themselves designed to be more community aligned, and whose source material is more likely to be ethically acquired. This work is already being done. [Small Language Models are being used to revitalize Indigenous languages](https://prismreports.org/2026/02/26/indigenous-languages-preservation-ai/). The [Mozilla Data Collective is enabling more consensual, ethical, representative training data](https://mozilladatacollective.com/). These are the kinds of tooling efforts that will support community-aligned development, alongside the open protocols that will govern how generated software works together. Many people are hard at work with the intention of supporting communities far better than the last generation of social media. Simultaneously, there’s been a resurgence in open protocols, and the rise of LLMs that can build software on our behalf. Together, these trends mean there’s so much more we can do. In particular, moving away from the assumption of one-size-fits-all scale and leaning into the idea of small, culturally-aligned applications and tooling will enable us to better support communities that are far away from the norms and assumptions of Silicon Valley. It will be hard. But it’s a journey worth taking. ### The bottleneck shifts to distribution URL: https://werd.io/the-bottleneck-shifts-to-distribution/ Last updated: 2026-04-08T16:34:46.000Z \[[Gordon Brander](https://newsletter.squishy.computer/p/the-bottleneck-shifts-to-distribution)\] This definitely gave me pause. In a world where writing code is something vastly more people can do, when even GitHub is struggling to keep up with the ballooning number of codebases out there, it’s going to be increasingly impossible to get recognition for your work. > “This is what it takes for your free and open source project to be recognized in 2026: you must secure the endorsement of legendary actress Milla Jovovich. You know, like a celebrity vodka.” I kicked against this — who says Milla Jovovich wasn’t a first class contributor? [The fundamentals of WiFi were created by Hedy Lamarr](https://www.history.com/articles/hedy-lamarr-inventor-frequency-hopping-wifi) — but it’s true that the commits are mostly assigned to Sigman, the CEO of Bitcoin Libre. She is credited as architect, he as engineer, together with a contributor called Lu. Regardless, it’s obvious that attaching her name to the project has drawn it more attention, and that this is a product that could result in a real financial outcome for both her and Sigman. I’m left feeling really glad that I released my first big open source software 22 years ago, when LLMs were an impossibility and big names didn’t attach themselves to open source. I was able to build a community with the funding equivalent of a can of Coke and a packet of crisps; if I’d been competing against Hollywood celebrities, I would have had no chance at all. But I don’t quite agree with the thesis. Whether you’re famous or not, the way to get a following for your code is to solve a real problem better than anyone else. It’s true that distribution platforms can be kingmakers, but starting small by building real relationships with people you’re trying to help in ways that don’t scale is still a good way to get off the ground. That means building something genuinely differentiated rather than something that’s a few degrees off from what everyone else is doing. For small players with no networks and no names, that’s always been the best way to start, and I think it likely still is. \[[Link](https://newsletter.squishy.computer/p/the-bottleneck-shifts-to-distribution)\] ### When the President threatens to commit a genocide URL: https://werd.io/when-the-president-threatens-to-commit-a-genocide/ Last updated: 2026-04-07T19:09:44.000Z Some of you might have missed that the President threatened Iran with genocide. So to be clear, he said: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Not a regime; a civilization. This is a meaningful threat on the entire population of a nation. If he follows through, it's a crime against humanity. If he doesn't follow through, it's a threat of genocide. This isn't a situation we can both-sides. He's threatened to end an entire nation. There's no "people are entitled to their opinion" here. If you think this is okay, you think threatening to commit genocide is something a President should be able to do. Some people will describe criticism of this as TDS or some knee-jerk "orange man bad". It's not those things. It's incredibly serious. It feels surreal: like something from a movie or a TV show. That effect can be paralyzing. But it's real. Using our voices is important at times like these. Even when it's professionally inconvenient. Even if we might lose friends when we do so. If he is allowed to continue along this path, bad things will likely happen. Even if he doesn't execute on his threat this time, he may another time. Other nations may feel they need to defend themselves from potential violence. What would it look like to bring the world back to a peaceful order? How can we ensure that the United States does not call for genocide again and cannot follow through with such an obscene threat? ### "Cognitive surrender" leads AI users to abandon logical thinking, research finds URL: https://werd.io/cognitive-surrender-leads-ai-users-to-abandon-logical-thinking-research-finds/ Last updated: 2026-04-05T17:34:11.000Z \[[Kyle Orland in ArsTechnica](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/research-finds-ai-users-scarily-willing-to-surrender-their-cognition-to-llms/)\] I’m tired. Everyone’s tired. There are so many demands being made of us constantly that the output from an AI chatbot can seem like a godsend: rather than buckling down and doing *yet more work*, the machine can shortcut that for us. Not so fast: > “Overall, across 1,372 participants and over 9,500 individual trials, the researchers found subjects were willing to accept faulty AI reasoning a whopping 73.2 percent of the time, while only overruling it 19.7 percent of the time. The researchers say this “demonstrate\[s\] that people readily incorporate AI-generated outputs into their decision-making processes, often with minimal friction or skepticism.” In general, “fluent, confident outputs \[are treated\] as epistemically authoritative, lowering the threshold for scrutiny and attenuating the meta-cognitive signals that would ordinarily route a response to deliberation,” they write.” There are no shortcuts to doing great work, but if AI is used in this pressure-driven way, it becomes little more than a shortcut machine: a way to get to the end goal faster without really scrutinizing the thinking it took to get there. It’s no wonder that AI users didn’t examine the answers they were given; in a world where AI allows people to be saddled with more tasks, they might not have had the time to do anything else. Good enough; onto the next thing. Most people don’t want to cut corners, but under adverse circumstances, they will. It may also be that they were rote learners who were less good at identifying the principles behind a solution. The people who bucked this trend were the ones who scored highly in “fluid reasoning” tests. I have to admit that this was new to me, but fluid learners are more able to find the underlying principles and links between topics and ideas in order to solve problems. The better people were at abstract thinking, the more likely they were to question outputs from the AI. That makes some sense to me. AI can’t reason particularly well: it outputs convincing-sounding responses, but the underlying principles behind them aren’t necessarily fully-formed. If you’re used to just accepting something that *looks right*, perhaps because you’ve been taught to memorize rather than understand, it’s harder to discern when this kind of superficially intelligible, highly confident answer is right. If you scratch the surface and try to understand the underlying logic, that’s when it becomes clearer that the LLM doesn’t know what it’s talking about. Managers that salivate about using AI to increase the workload / productivity of a team should consider this effect: the more you press people to use these systems, the more they might accept faulty reasoning from them. Hiring abstract thinkers — the people who are more likely to rise to be senior engineers etc — will help, but you need to give people the space, permission, and expectation to think for themselves. \[[Link](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/research-finds-ai-users-scarily-willing-to-surrender-their-cognition-to-llms/)\] ### Notable links: April 3, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-april-3-2026/ Last updated: 2026-04-03T11:58:00.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [The open web isn't dying. We're killing it](https://ouvre-boite.com/the-open-web-isnt-dying-were-killing-it/) Julien Genestoux is right: > “Why did we keep outsourcing identity, distribution, and monetization to companies whose incentives were obviously misaligned with ours? > > \[…\] It is because, collectively, we preferred the short-term consumer surplus of convenience over the long-term responsibilities of stewardship.” We can raise the alarm about the demise of the open web all we want, but the truth is that other solutions were quicker and easier — even for many of us that held up the open web banner. Julien’s proposal is that we should think of ourselves as netizens rather than just consumers. I actually think that this is driving a lot of the innovation in the ATproto ecosystem in particular, but also on the Fediverse. People in those spaces have intentionally moved somewhere new where they *can* have a credible exit, *can* export their data cleanly, and *can* feel like they’re having safer, more productive, less fascistic conversations. But the money piece isn’t there. The running joke is that the Fediverse *hates* money — conversations about revenue or capitalism are very often shut down early, and people who try to fundraise are often criticized — but it’s also been an ongoing issue in ATproto land too. If people are going to build good things, they need to be able to eat and pay rent so they can keep doing it. I’d argue that, yes, you do need netizens, and I’m very excited to see a resurgence in this kind of movement across the open social web in particular. We need *more* netizens, and the more there are, the more likely it is that people will pay for the right kind of services. I work for [a newsroom](https://propublica.org/?ref=werd.io) that people often donate to out of a sense of catharsis — a gratitude that something is being done in a world where they feel powerless. I think there’s something to learn from here too. In the past, I’ve argued that highly ideological tech spaces need more product thinking so that we can more sharply identify valuable solutions to people’s problems, and there’s still truth in that — but I've learned that sometimes the product value is agency in the face of powerlessness rather than a set of features. There may well be value in *leaning right in* to the anti big tech angle on the open web. What might it look like to put people’s distrust of X, Google, Microsoft, *et al* front and center, and put a fundraising banner up [like Wikipedia does](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising/2025%5Fbanners?ref=werd.io)? I think we can take Julien’s point about netizens and connect it directly to the idea of *citizens*. People see what’s going on in the world and know that tech companies are intertwined with it. Some of them — not most of them, but a reasonable number — may want to do something about that. Not because they believe in an open web as such, or even know what that is, but because they believe in an open society. Using this kind of messaging would be overtly political in a way that tech is sometimes afraid to be, but we’ve seen similar messaging create interest in funding alternatives to US big tech in Europe, for example (and result in actual funding). I think the interest is there to move away from the tech powers-that-be globally, but engaged citizens don't always know what to concretely do about it. We can bring our message to them. We need more netizens and citizens both, and we should be talking about this more. Rather than de-emphasizing the ideology of the open web in favor of more proximate product value, which is a thing I’ve sometimes argued for in the past, we should accept that it is a work of engaged citizenry that verges on activism. Embracing that could find us aligned people outside of our existing development circles who might be interested in broadening our impact. I’d like to see us try. --- ### [An AI company set out to fix news deserts. Instead, it copied local journalists’ work](https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2026/nota-news-local-outlets-ai-plagiarism/) Repeat after me: AI cannot write journalism and should never be used in place of a journalist. I believe it can be a very useful tool — but it is a tool for humans. So this whole initiative was misconceived: > “Artificial intelligence company Nota — whose clients include organizations like The Boston Globe and the Institute for Nonprofit News — is scrapping its network of local news sites after learning that they contained dozens of instances of plagiarism. \[…\] The 11 sites — collectively called Nota News — launched in September as an effort to bring “bilingual local reporting and civic tools to underserved communities.”” The deal here was that the company would identify news deserts: places that were unserved or underserved by real newsrooms. And then it would try to serve those areas with content created by an LLM-based system. This was inevitably going to plagiarize existing journalism, because what other source could it possibly use? An agentic system can’t do the on-the-ground research and reporting work involved in creating a story. It *can* gather together data points and turn them into something that looks like news, rather than journalism: sports scores, city council votes, and that kind of thing. But it can’t provide context if someone hasn’t already written it. As [the linked Poynter article](https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2026/nota-news-local-outlets-ai-plagiarism/?ref=werd.io) points out: > “The articles were supposed to be based on publicly available civic information, such as press releases and videos of city council meetings. In reality, Poynter found more than 70 stories dating back to October that included reporting, writing and photography from local journalists without attribution.” Someone *had* already written it: human journalists whose work was subsequently incorporated without attribution. The eleven human editors who used the LLM tools to generate content apparently didn’t realize that this work had been drawn into the mix. Again: that was inevitably going to happen as the stories began to not just say what had happened but explain *why*. The AI hype cycle has created a bunch of really regrettable case studies that other organizations should learn from. This is one. There are more like it, where good intentions lead to accidental plagiarism (or hallucinations). There are plenty of stories where organizations have prematurely let people go because they incorrectly think they can replace human initiative with software. And all of them come down to believing a science fiction version of what this technology does instead of the actual reality of it. That’s understandable: the reality is shifting quickly, and the marketing machine is incredibly strong. But everyone needs to take a breath with AI and get themselves to a more nuanced understanding of what it is — and isn’t. --- ### [LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer](https://browsergate.eu/) This is quite a serious accusation: > “Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software, collects the results, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers and to third-party companies including an American-Israeli cybersecurity firm.” This is an EU-based site, hence the reference to the location of the cybersecurity firm. The authors are quick to point out that they believe this scanning is illegal in the EU. The claim is also partially a little bit hyperbolic. “Installed software” makes it sound like LinkedIn is scanning your whole computer. In reality, it’s checking for browser extensions. That’s a fairly common component of modern browser fingerprinting: at this point it’s fairly well-known that, because of the individual mix of extensions, fonts, etc available to a browser, this can be used to track individuals on the web without using cookies. That’s not to say that it’s not invasive — it clearly is! Browser extensions can cover a ton of identifying activity: they can reveal a person’s religion, sexuality, interests, political orientation, and so on. The implication is that this is specifically bad here because LinkedIn knows the identity of its logged-in users; as a result, this is information it could use to hydrate profiles of the specific, known individuals who use its site for unknown purposes. It’s a little over the top to call this espionage, as the linked site here does, but it’s an abuse of trust that is certainly worth calling out. I was mostly interested in how this works; if LinkedIn is doing it, then others surely are too. [The answer seems to be a set of JS calls that work in most Chromium-based browsers](https://browsergate.eu/how-it-works/?ref=werd.io) (Chrome, Edge, Arc, Dia, etc). They’re checking for over six thousand extensions that they know and care about, which all have specific “tells” that a website can check for. And then they check to see if the page has been modified by anything to catch any that weren’t on their list. They also check, cheekily, to see if you have “Do Not Track” switched on, but track you regardless (it’s just another part of the fingerprint to them). Finally, they’re gathering everything from your screen size and CPU type to your battery level. This all does double duty: the resulting fingerprint is so detailed that they can track you and notice when you’re using a different computer or have changed your settings, but can also be used to profile you for profit. The quickest solution is to use Firefox, which blocks these kinds of fingerprinting attacks. [Zen Browser](https://zen-browser.app/?ref=werd.io), which is based on the Firefox core, is my day-to-day browser, and [I love it](https://werd.io/why-im-all-in-on-zen-browser/). But Chromium-based browsers need to do more to stop fingerprinting, and jurisdictions like the EU need to ban the practice outright. --- ### [What Digital Isolation and Censorship Evasion Look Like In Wartime Iran](https://www.techpolicy.press/what-digital-isolation-and-censorship-evasion-look-like-in-wartime-iran/) I’ve worried that the internet will become a casualty of our worsening global politics. The inherent co-operation needed to let global networks talk to each other is aligned with an open world but not so much with an authoritarian one. Walled-off national internets — often called splinternets — may become more common. While I worry about this for the US as the authoritarian screws continue to tighten, this is the concrete reality for people in Iran and 20 other countries today. As [this piece in Tech Policy Press](https://www.techpolicy.press/what-digital-isolation-and-censorship-evasion-look-like-in-wartime-iran/?ref=werd.io) points out: > “The cybersecurity company Surfshark recorded 81 new internet restrictions in 2025 [across 21 countries](https://surfshark.com/research/study/internet-shutdowns-2025?ref=werd.io), pointing to evolving patterns of repression. Out of the 81 restrictions Surfshark tracked, 51 of these restrictive measures were taken [in response to](https://surfshark.com/research/study/internet-shutdowns-2025?ref=werd.io) political situations.” News and information needs to be shared differently in this kind of environment: the digital distribution techniques we’ve spent the last few decades learning simply don’t apply. Last year, in [*Building distributed media for a democratic breakdown*](https://werd.io/building-distributed-media-for-a-democratic-breakdown/), I wrote about how we might learn from Cuba’s *‌El Paquete Semanal* and take advantage of both sneakernets and peer-to-peer networks to overcome these kinds of blockades. In a restrictive environment, people need news and journalism more than ever. I wrote that piece somewhat speculatively, but the reception to it in journalistic circles took me by surprise. It’s an idea and a worry that people are taking seriously. And over the last six months, in a world that has seen more conflict, more restrictions, and more attacks on free speech, there have only been reasons to take it more so. --- ### [The Right Is Using AI Content Scanners to Try to Supercharge Book Banning](https://www.404media.co/blockade-the-right-is-using-ai-content-scanners-to-try-to-supercharge-book-banning/) This AI-powered effort is intentionally designed to create chilling effects and reduce support for vulnerable communities: > “Conservative parents’ advocacy groups have been experimenting with using commercially available artificial intelligence tools to help them flag more books they’ve deemed pornographic to be removed from public schools and libraries. Even though LLMs are notoriously error-prone, and the books in question aren’t pornographic, these groups continue to explore use cases for AI anyway.” According to 404 Media’s reporting, the script has a list of 300 or so words that form the basis of a heuristic that applies an “appropriateness” score to each one. If the book is deemed inappropriate, the script creates an automated report designed to be attached to book challenges at the school district level. This reminds me of DOGE itself, which [used a keyword-based system to flag “woke” grants that should be defunded](https://www.propublica.org/article/ted-cruz-woke-grants-national-science-foundation?ref=werd.io) that led to some incredibly dumb decisions about what should go: > “Among them, for example, was a $470,000 grant to study the evolution of mint plants and how they spread across continents. As best we can tell, the project ran into trouble with Republicans on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation because of two specific words used in its application to the NSF: “diversify,” referring to the biodiversity of plants, and “female,” where the application noted how the project would support a young female scientist on the research team.” These techniques are clearly inaccurate, but that’s not the point: it’s enough to cause havoc and make people second guess publishing books on certain topics. It’s the same culture of chaos that led to [a school librarian being fired for (correctly) refusing to remove over a hundred LGBTQ books from the children’s to the adult section of her library](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/tennessee-librarian-fired-refusing-move-lgbtq-books-childrens-adult-rcna266119?ref=werd.io). And it’s all designed to harm some of the people who need the most support. --- ### [The DOJ thinks news is contraband](https://freedom.press/issues/the-doj-thinks-news-is-contraband/) This Freedom of the Press piece is highly relevant to how one might think about source materials in any kind of newsroom that accepts tips from others. It might not be obvious to outsiders, but newsrooms don’t *facilitate* tips directly from sources: material has to be volunteered without participation from the newsroom. Aside from generic instructions, nobody’s helping sources to do it. A Biden-era precedent, now leapt on enthusiastically by the Trump administration, has begun to treat those materials as contraband regardless of how they were obtained. It’s also expanded that definition to include interviews with anyone who’s not approved to speak on the record. That line of thinking justified the raid on [Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/fbi-raid-washington-post-hannah-natanson?ref=werd.io), where they took terabytes of data. Natanson had, just a month prior, [published her account of being an engagement reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/24/trump-federal-government-workers/?ref=werd.io) whose job included receiving tips from the federal government. In more normal times, that account would not have made her a target. It was previously found, in the aftermath of Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers case, that newsrooms could publish information that was leaked to them. That’s a vital foundation for journalism and a free press, and therefore our ability to make informed democratic decisions. But this new precedent undermines that principle, and therefore our ability to understand the world around us. As the Freedom of the Press Foundation put it: > “The Pentagon Papers case stands for the proposition that the government cannot suppress the publication of truthful information of public concern, even when it would very much like to. The contraband theory is an attempt to achieve the suppression indirectly — by redefining journalists’ work product as something illicit that the government can confiscate.” As they point out in the piece, legislation is in the works to rein these abuses in, and the judge in a pending court case has the opportunity to stand up for the First Amendment and a free press. But there’s everything to play for. In the current political environment it’s not a slam dunk that our right to understand the world around us through investigative journalism will be upheld. We need it to be if we want to have any hope of holding people with power accountable. --- ### [The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it](https://www.theverge.com/tech/902703/white-house-app-iphone-android) A little history lesson from [the Wiener Holocaust Library](https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/informants/?ref=werd.io): > “In Nazi Germany, some citizens passed on information about their neighbours, family, and friends to the Gestapo . This was called informing. Nazi propaganda presented the Gestapo as an omnipresent , all-seeing, all-knowing group, but in reality there was just one secret police officer for approximately every 10,000 citizens of Nazi Germany. The Gestapo were therefore reliant on a network of thousands of informants. > > The information passed on by informants typically accused someone of breaking the law or of being a criminal in some way. The information provided was not always based on fact and could often be rumour or suspicion.” Meanwhile, in *completely unrelated* news, [The Verge reports on a new app from the White House](https://www.theverge.com/tech/902703/white-house-app-iphone-android?ref=werd.io): > “A new official White House app on Android and iOS takes the content from the White House website and copies it into app format. \[…\] A handful of tabs in the app mostly replicate pages that exist on the Trump Administration’s version of the White House website, including news, livestreams, social feeds, and a gallery. A prominent “Get in Touch” button on the social feeds tab includes an option for users to submit a tip to ICE, which takes them to a tip form on the ICE website.” Wow, am I glad to be living in a time where *everything is normal* and the historical precedents are not literally screaming at us. ### The open web isn't dying. We're killing it URL: https://werd.io/the-open-web-isnt-dying-were-killing-it/ Last updated: 2026-04-03T02:04:39.000Z \[[Julien Genestoux](https://ouvre-boite.com/the-open-web-isnt-dying-were-killing-it/)\] Julien is right: > “Why did we keep outsourcing identity, distribution, and monetization to companies whose incentives were obviously misaligned with ours? > > \[…\] It is because, collectively, we preferred the short-term consumer surplus of convenience over the long-term responsibilities of stewardship.” We can raise the alarm about the demise of the open web all we want, but you can’t sell or promote a technology based on ideology alone. The truth is that other solutions were quicker and easier — even for many of us that held up the open web banner. Julien’s proposal is that we should think of ourselves as netizens rather than just consumers. I actually think that this is driving a lot of the innovation in the ATproto ecosystem in particular, but also on the Fediverse. People in those spaces have intentionally moved somewhere new where they *can* have a credible exit, *can* export their data cleanly, and *can* feel like they’re having safer, more productive, less fascistic conversations. But the money piece isn’t there. The running joke is that the Fediverse *hates* money — conversations about revenue or capitalism are very often shut down early, and people who try to fundraise are often criticized — but it’s also been an ongoing issue in ATproto land too. If people are going to build good things, they need to be able to eat and pay rent so they can keep doing it. I’d argue that, yes, you do need netizens, and I’m very excited to see a resurgence in this kind of movement across the open social web in particular. We need *more* netizens, and the more there are, the more likely it is that people will pay for the right kind of services. I work for [a newsroom](https://propublica.org) that people often donate to out of a sense of catharsis — a gratitude that something is being done in a world where they feel powerless. I think there’s something to learn from here too. In the past, I’ve argued that highly ideological tech spaces need more product thinking so that we can more sharply identify valuable solutions to people’s problems, and there’s still truth in that — but I've learned that sometimes the product value is agency in the face of powerlessness rather than a set of features. There may well be value in *leaning right in* to the anti big tech angle on the open web. What might it look like to put people’s distrust of X, Google, Microsoft, *et al* front and center, and put a fundraising banner up [like Wikipedia does](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising/2025%5Fbanners)? I think we can take Julien’s point about netizens and connect it directly to the idea of *citizens*. People see what’s going on in the world and know that tech companies are intertwined with it. Some of them — not most of them, but a reasonable number — may want to do something about that. Not because they believe in an open web as such, or even know what that is, but because they believe in an open society. Using this kind of messaging would be overtly political in a way that tech is sometimes afraid to be, but we’ve seen similar messaging create interest in funding alternatives to US big tech in Europe, for example (and result in actual funding). I think the interest is there to move away from the tech powers-that-be globally, but engaged citizens don't always know what to concretely do about it. We can bring our message to them. We need more netizens and citizens both, and we should be talking about this more. Rather than de-emphasizing the ideology of the open web in favor of more proximate product value, which is a thing I’ve sometimes argued for in the past, we should accept that it is a work of engaged citizenry that verges on activism. Embracing that could find us aligned people outside of our existing development circles who might be interested in broadening our impact. I’d like to see us try. \[[Link](https://ouvre-boite.com/the-open-web-isnt-dying-were-killing-it/)\] ### An AI company set out to fix news deserts. Instead, it copied local journalists’ work URL: https://werd.io/an-ai-company-set-out-to-fix-news-deserts-instead-it-copied-local-journalists-work/ Last updated: 2026-04-03T01:26:38.000Z \[[Angela Fu in Poynter](https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2026/nota-news-local-outlets-ai-plagiarism/)\] Repeat after me: AI cannot write journalism and should never be used in place of a journalist. I believe it can be a very useful tool — but it is a tool for humans. So this whole initiative was misconceived: > “Artificial intelligence company Nota — whose clients include organizations like The Boston Globe and the Institute for Nonprofit News — is scrapping its network of local news sites after learning that they contained dozens of instances of plagiarism. \[…\] The 11 sites — collectively called Nota News — launched in September as an effort to bring “bilingual local reporting and civic tools to underserved communities.”” The deal here was that the company would identify news deserts: places that were unserved or underserved by real newsrooms. And then it would try to serve those areas with content created by an LLM-based system. This was inevitably going to plagiarize existing journalism, because what other source could it possibly use? An agentic system can’t do the on-the-ground research and reporting work involved in creating a story. It *can* gather together data points and turn them into something that looks like news, rather than journalism: sports scores, city council votes, and that kind of thing. But it can’t provide context if someone hasn’t already written it. As [the linked Poynter article](https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2026/nota-news-local-outlets-ai-plagiarism/) points out: > “The articles were supposed to be based on publicly available civic information, such as press releases and videos of city council meetings. In reality, Poynter found more than 70 stories dating back to October that included reporting, writing and photography from local journalists without attribution.” Someone *had* already written it: human journalists whose work was subsequently incorporated without attribution. The eleven human editors who used the LLM tools to generate content apparently didn’t realize that this work had been drawn into the mix. Again: that was inevitably going to happen as the stories began to not just say what had happened but explain *why*. The AI hype cycle has created a bunch of really regrettable case studies that other organizations should learn from. This is one. There are more like it, where good intentions lead to accidental plagiarism (or hallucinations). There are plenty of stories where organizations have prematurely let people go because they incorrectly think they can replace human initiative with software. And all of them come down to believing a science fiction version of what this technology does instead of the actual reality of it. That’s understandable: the reality is shifting quickly, and the marketing machine is incredibly strong. But everyone needs to take a breath with AI and get themselves to a more nuanced understanding of what it is — and isn’t. \[[Link](https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2026/nota-news-local-outlets-ai-plagiarism/)\] ### LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer URL: https://werd.io/linkedin-is-illegally-searching-your-computer/ Last updated: 2026-04-03T01:29:07.000Z \[[BrowserGate by Fairlinked](https://browsergate.eu/)\] This is quite a serious accusation: > “Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software, collects the results, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers and to third-party companies including an American-Israeli cybersecurity firm.” This is an EU-based site, hence the reference to the location of the cybersecurity firm. The authors are quick to point out that they believe this scanning is illegal in the EU. The claim is also partially a little bit hyperbolic. “Installed software” makes it sound like LinkedIn is scanning your whole computer. In reality, it’s checking for browser extensions. That’s a fairly common component of modern browser fingerprinting: at this point it’s fairly well-known that, because of the individual mix of extensions, fonts, etc available to a browser, this can be used to track individuals on the web without using cookies. That’s not to say that it’s not invasive — it clearly is! Browser extensions can cover a ton of identifying activity: they can reveal a person’s religion, sexuality, interests, political orientation, and so on. The implication is that this is specifically bad here because LinkedIn knows the identity of its logged-in users; as a result, this is information it could use to hydrate profiles of the specific, known individuals who use its site for unknown purposes. It’s a little over the top to call this espionage, as the linked site here does, but it’s an abuse of trust that is certainly worth calling out. I was mostly interested in how this works; if LinkedIn is doing it, then others surely are too. [The answer seems to be a set of JS calls that work in most Chromium-based browsers](https://browsergate.eu/how-it-works/) (Chrome, Edge, Arc, Dia, etc). They’re checking for over six thousand extensions that they know and care about, which all have specific “tells” that a website can check for. And then they check to see if the page has been modified by anything to catch any that weren’t on their list. They also check, cheekily, to see if you have “Do Not Track” switched on, but track you regardless (it’s just another part of the fingerprint to them). Finally, they’re gathering everything from your screen size and CPU type to your battery level. This all does double duty: the resulting fingerprint is so detailed that they can track you and notice when you’re using a different computer or have changed your settings, but can also be used to profile you for profit. The quickest solution is to use Firefox, which blocks these kinds of fingerprinting attacks. [Zen Browser](https://zen-browser.app/), which is based on the Firefox core, is my day-to-day browser, and [I love it](https://werd.io/why-im-all-in-on-zen-browser/). But Chromium-based browsers need to do more to stop fingerprinting, and jurisdictions like the EU need to ban the practice outright. \[[Link](https://browsergate.eu/)\] ### Surf demonstrates the power of the open social web URL: https://werd.io/surf-demonstrates-the-power-of-the-open-social-web/ Last updated: 2026-04-02T19:32:28.000Z My friends at [Flipboard](https://flipboard.com) launched [Surf](https://surf.social), its open social web browser, on the web today. I’ve been using Surf for a while. It’s a kind of browser for the open social web: a way to bring together all of your social feeds (Bluesky, Mastodon, RSS, YouTube) in one place and read them together. You can get an all-in-one feed, but anyone can create a curated feed for a specific topic. For example, [here’s my Speaking Truth to Power feed](https://speakingtruthtopower.surf.social), which I’ve curated to highlight reporting shared by non-profit newsrooms covering the US. I also have a companion [Speaking Truth to Tech Power](https://technews.surf.social) feed, which specifically highlights tech stories that go a little bit deeper and explore the power dynamics technology can enforce. For media companies, it’s even more interesting. [The feed for Decoder](https://decoder.surf.social/), the podcast from The Verge, lets you listen to every Decoder episode. But if you click through to the other tabs, you’ll also find posts from sources and topics that the Verge thinks are interesting, and any discussion about the show that uses the #decoder hashtag. You can also click to see the sources that the Verge used to make the feed, which allows you to remix and make your own. Beyond [Decoder](https://decoder.surf.social) and [The Verge](https://verge.surf.social/), there are a whole host of other publications already creating feeds in Surf. I’m aware of (deep breath): [WIRED](https://wired.surf.social/), [Rolling Stone Politics](https://rollingstonepolitics.surf.social/), [404 Media](https://404media.surf.social/), [Shutdown Fullcast](https://shutdownfullcast.surf.social/feed/surf%2Fcustom%2F01k319zkysbwq9=vpzbhtnahsgc), [The MMQB](https://themmqb.surf.social/), [Defector: Sports!](https://defectorsports.surf.social/feed/surf%2Fcustom%2F01k7sk3ybz6kstqw=6m0rx70v0z), [All Net](https://allnet.surf.social/), [FilmFeed](https://filmfeed.surf.social/), and [The Oregonian](https://oregonian.surf.social/), but more will follow. These are media properties that have chosen to create their own feeds with Surf, but it’s important to understand that they’ve also made the conscious choice to join the open social web. This kind of functionality is only possible on an open social web: a place where all content can be brought together using open protocols to create new kinds of community experiences. It’s genuinely exciting to me. Surf is a first-class consumer web service, but it’s also one of the first to show what the unique value of the open social web can truly be for publishers. Any publication can now showcase its own posts across platforms together, with the social proof of conversation from other people who are talking about its work, together with media from other, relevant companies. And they can do it without asking anyone for permission. And this openness goes both ways. As well as content from the open social web flowing into Surf, feeds made with Surf integrate with Bluesky, so you can follow the curated posts there, too. For example, here’s [Speaking Truth to Power](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:77tdak46psveqneyegsdyc7l/feed/speaking-trut) and [its tech equivalent](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:77tdak46psveqneyegsdyc7l/feed/speakingtruth) over there. This openness also demonstrates that publishers aren’t locked into Surf itself, and you can easily imagine more developers integrating with these feeds and creating other interesting experiences around them. In short, I think this is great: a tool that shows (not tells) what the open social web makes possible, creates new value for publishers in the process, and does it through a first-class experience. More like this, please. [You can sign up for Surf at surf.social](https://surf.social). ### What Digital Isolation and Censorship Evasion Look Like In Wartime Iran URL: https://werd.io/what-digital-isolation-and-censorship-evasion-look-like-in-wartime-iran/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T14:12:55.000Z \[[Laura Scherling in Tech Policy Press](https://www.techpolicy.press/what-digital-isolation-and-censorship-evasion-look-like-in-wartime-iran/)\] I’ve worried that the internet will become a casualty of our worsening global politics. The inherent co-operation needed to let global networks talk to each other is aligned with an open world but not so much with an authoritarian one. Walled-off national internets — often called splinternets — may become more common. While I worry about this for the US as the authoritarian screws continue to tighten, this is the concrete reality for people in Iran and 20 other countries today. As [this piece in Tech Policy Press](https://www.techpolicy.press/what-digital-isolation-and-censorship-evasion-look-like-in-wartime-iran/) points out: > “The cybersecurity company Surfshark recorded 81 new internet restrictions in 2025 [across 21 countries](https://surfshark.com/research/study/internet-shutdowns-2025), pointing to evolving patterns of repression. Out of the 81 restrictions Surfshark tracked, 51 of these restrictive measures were taken [in response to](https://surfshark.com/research/study/internet-shutdowns-2025) political situations.” News and information needs to be shared differently in this kind of environment: the digital distribution techniques we’ve spent the last few decades learning simply don’t apply. Last year, in [*Building distributed media for a democratic breakdown*](https://werd.io/building-distributed-media-for-a-democratic-breakdown/), I wrote about how we might learn from Cuba’s *‌El Paquete Semanal* and take advantage of both sneakernets and peer-to-peer networks to overcome these kinds of blockades. In a restrictive environment, people need news and journalism more than ever. I wrote that piece somewhat speculatively, but the reception to it in journalistic circles took me by surprise. It’s an idea and a worry that people are taking seriously. And over the last six months, in a world that has seen more conflict, more restrictions, and more attacks on free speech, there have only been reasons to take it more so. \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/what-digital-isolation-and-censorship-evasion-look-like-in-wartime-iran/)\] ### The Right Is Using AI Content Scanners to Try to Supercharge Book Banning URL: https://werd.io/the-right-is-using-ai-content-scanners-to-try-to-supercharge-book-banning/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T13:42:25.000Z \[[Claire Woodcock at 404 Media](https://www.404media.co/blockade-the-right-is-using-ai-content-scanners-to-try-to-supercharge-book-banning/)\] This AI-powered effort is intentionally designed to create chilling effects and reduce support for vulnerable communities: > “Conservative parents’ advocacy groups have been experimenting with using commercially available artificial intelligence tools to help them flag more books they’ve deemed pornographic to be removed from public schools and libraries. Even though LLMs are notoriously error-prone, and the books in question aren’t pornographic, these groups continue to explore use cases for AI anyway.” According to 404 Media’s reporting, the script has a list of 300 or so words that form the basis of a heuristic that applies an “appropriateness” score to each one. If the book is deemed inappropriate, the script creates an automated report designed to be attached to book challenges at the school district level. This reminds me of DOGE itself, which [used a keyword-based system to flag “woke” grants that should be defunded](https://www.propublica.org/article/ted-cruz-woke-grants-national-science-foundation) that led to some incredibly dumb decisions about what should go: > “Among them, for example, was a $470,000 grant to study the evolution of mint plants and how they spread across continents. As best we can tell, the project ran into trouble with Republicans on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation because of two specific words used in its application to the NSF: “diversify,” referring to the biodiversity of plants, and “female,” where the application noted how the project would support a young female scientist on the research team.” These techniques are clearly inaccurate, but that’s not the point: it’s enough to cause havoc and make people second guess publishing books on certain topics. It’s the same culture of chaos that led to [a school librarian being fired for (correctly) refusing to remove over a hundred LGBTQ books from the children’s to the adult section of her library](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/tennessee-librarian-fired-refusing-move-lgbtq-books-childrens-adult-rcna266119). And it’s all designed to harm some of the people who need the most support. \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/blockade-the-right-is-using-ai-content-scanners-to-try-to-supercharge-book-banning/)\] ### An alternate history of social media URL: https://werd.io/an-alternate-history-of-social-media/ Last updated: 2026-03-31T21:24:28.000Z I've been remiss about sharing it here, but I really enjoyed my conversation with [Rabble](https://evan.henshaw-plath.com/) on his excellent [Revolution.Social](https://revolution.social/) podcast, which published earlier this month. Revolution.Social describes itself as a podcast about the future of social media built on permissionless open protocols. It's hosted by Twitter's first employee, [Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath](https://evan.henshaw-plath.com/). [The list of other guests is an impressive who’s who of thinkers and change agents on the web](https://revolution.social/episodes/) — [Anil Dash](https://revolution.social/episodes/silicon-valley-has-lost-its-moral-compass-with-ani/), [Jay Graber](https://revolution.social/episodes/decentralized-social-media-for-40-million-users-wi/), [Cory Doctorow](https://revolution.social/episodes/cory-doctorow-on-escaping-big-tech-privacy-battles/), [Renee DiResta](https://revolution.social/episodes/invisible-rulers-author-renee-diresta-on-propagand/), [Mike McCue](https://revolution.social/episodes/i-ve-never-been-more-optimistic-flipboard-s-mike-m/), [Mallory Knodel](https://revolution.social/episodes/building-human-rights-into-the-social-web-with-mal/), [Rudy Fraser](https://revolution.social/episodes/rudy-fraser-on-blacksky-mutual-aid-reclaiming-soci/), and more — and I’m honored to be in this company. These are all great conversations. It’s available on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolution-social/id1824528874), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4wAyssF5EFAPi9WyMuGS33), [YouTube Music](https://www.youtube.com/@rabble/podcasts), and wherever you get your podcasts. [You should go and subscribe.](https://revolution.social/) And if you listen or watch – I'd love to hear what you think. ### Building trust in the open at ONA 2026 URL: https://werd.io/building-trust-in-the-open-at-ona-2026/ Last updated: 2026-03-30T15:13:44.000Z If you’re at the [Online News Association conference](https://ona26.journalists.org/) this week, stop by the [Newsmast Foundation](https://newsmastfoundation.org/): they’re building an app platform that allows any newsroom to have a first-class mobile experience that adds a tightly-directed federated community. One of their first partners is [The Bristol Cable](https://thebristolcable.org/), a reader-owned newspaper in England that is using their Newsmast community space to grow their membership base and build trust. Not only will you meet Newsmast founder [Michael Foster](https://backend.newsmast.org/@michael) and [Jaz-Michael King](https://jaz.co.uk/) (one of the world’s experts in community moderation), but you’ll also be able to pick up a paper copy of [my new white paper](https://werd.io/trust) about building news communities. Go along and say I sent you. Newsletter subscribers can download the white paper here: _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Bluesky leans into AI with Attie, an app for building custom feeds URL: https://werd.io/bluesky-leans-into-ai-with-attie-an-app-for-building-custom-feeds/ Last updated: 2026-03-30T14:05:53.000Z \[[Sarah Perez in TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/28/bluesky-leans-into-ai-with-attie-an-app-for-building-custom-feeds/)\] Attie is a tool by Bluesky that makes it easy for anyone to build their own algorithmic feed. I think what’s neat about this announcement is not the AI angle — AI is just there to make the process simpler for users that don’t want to code or get into the details. It’s the democratization of feed creation itself. > “With Attie, anyone will be able to build their own custom feed just by typing in commands in natural language, the same as if they’re chatting with any other AI chatbot. To use the app, people will sign in with their Atmosphere login (meaning their login for any app that runs on atproto, which includes Bluesky). Attie will immediately understand what you’ve been talking about, what sort of things you like, and more, because Bluesky and the wider ecosystem are open systems that share data across apps.” It’s important to say that Attie is not the first tool that allows anyone to build a feed. [Graze](https://www.graze.social/) and [Surf](https://surf.social) also offer this feature — for example, I’ve used the latter to create my [Speaking Truth to Power](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:77tdak46psveqneyegsdyc7l/feed/speaking-trut) feed of newsrooms covering the US and my [equivalent for structural tech news](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:77tdak46psveqneyegsdyc7l/feed/speakingtruth). But it does offer a very different kind of interface for doing so. The stated ambition is more than feeds: it’s also to help anyone to vibe code their own social app. Those features are coming down the line, but it’s a clear delineation between what open social platforms can do and the limitations of a traditional social media platform. In the latter, you’re stuck with the apps and algorithms you’re given, which is a huge problem if your platform happens to be owned by an oligarch who bought it to further their own ideological ends (looking at you, X). Here you can create the experience you want, and the platform custodians clearly want to make sure that customization isn’t limited to technical people. Accessibility is openness too. \[[Link](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/28/bluesky-leans-into-ai-with-attie-an-app-for-building-custom-feeds/)\] ### The DOJ thinks news is contraband URL: https://werd.io/the-doj-thinks-news-is-contraband/ Last updated: 2026-03-28T13:45:30.000Z \[[Seth Stern at the Freedom of the Press Foundation](https://freedom.press/issues/the-doj-thinks-news-is-contraband/)\] This Freedom of the Press piece is highly relevant to how one might think about source materials in any kind of newsroom that accepts tips from others. It might not be obvious to outsiders, but newsrooms don’t *facilitate* tips directly from sources: material has to be volunteered without participation from the newsroom. Aside from generic instructions, nobody’s helping sources to do it. A Biden-era precedent, now leapt on enthusiastically by the Trump administration, has begun to treat those materials as contraband regardless of how they were obtained. It’s also expanded that definition to include interviews with anyone who’s not approved to speak on the record. That line of thinking justified the raid on [Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/fbi-raid-washington-post-hannah-natanson), where they took terabytes of data. Natanson had, just a month prior, [published her account of being an engagement reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/24/trump-federal-government-workers/) whose job included receiving tips from the federal government. In more normal times, that account would not have made her a target. It was previously found, in the aftermath of Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers case, that newsrooms could publish information that was leaked to them. That’s a vital foundation for journalism and a free press, and therefore our ability to make informed democratic decisions. But this new precedent undermines that principle, and therefore our ability to understand the world around us. As the Freedom of the Press Foundation put it: > “The Pentagon Papers case stands for the proposition that the government cannot suppress the publication of truthful information of public concern, even when it would very much like to. The contraband theory is an attempt to achieve the suppression indirectly — by redefining journalists’ work product as something illicit that the government can confiscate.” As they point out in the piece, legislation is in the works to rein these abuses in, and the judge in a pending court case has the opportunity to stand up for the First Amendment and a free press. But there’s everything to play for. In the current political environment it’s not a slam dunk that our right to understand the world around us through investigative journalism will be upheld. We need it to be if we want to have any hope of holding people with power accountable. \[[Link](https://freedom.press/issues/the-doj-thinks-news-is-contraband/)\] ### The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it URL: https://werd.io/the-white-house-has-an-app-now-and-trump-wants-you-to-report-people-to-ice-on-it-2/ Last updated: 2026-03-28T13:15:23.000Z \[[Stevie Bonifield in The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/tech/902703/white-house-app-iphone-android?utm%5Fsource=flipboard&utm%5Fmedium=activitypub)\] A little history lesson from [the Wiener Holocaust Library](https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/informants/): > “In Nazi Germany, some citizens passed on information about their neighbours, family, and friends to the Gestapo . This was called informing. Nazi propaganda presented the Gestapo as an omnipresent , all-seeing, all-knowing group, but in reality there was just one secret police officer for approximately every 10,000 citizens of Nazi Germany. The Gestapo were therefore reliant on a network of thousands of informants. > > The information passed on by informants typically accused someone of breaking the law or of being a criminal in some way. The information provided was not always based on fact and could often be rumour or suspicion.” Meanwhile, in *completely unrelated* news, [The Verge reports on a new app from the White House](https://www.theverge.com/tech/902703/white-house-app-iphone-android): > “A new official White House app on Android and iOS takes the content from the White House website and copies it into app format. \[…\] A handful of tabs in the app mostly replicate pages that exist on the Trump Administration’s version of the White House website, including news, livestreams, social feeds, and a gallery. A prominent “Get in Touch” button on the social feeds tab includes an option for users to submit a tip to ICE, which takes them to a tip form on the ICE website.” Wow, am I glad to be living in a time where *everything is normal* and the historical precedents are not literally screaming at us. \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/tech/902703/white-house-app-iphone-android?utm%5Fsource=flipboard&utm%5Fmedium=activitypub)\] ### Notable links: March 27, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-march-27/ Last updated: 2026-03-27T13:28:54.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Why Knight Foundation Invested in Bluesky](https://knightfoundation.org/articles/why-did-knight-foundation-invest-in-bluesky/) This was exciting news at the exact intersection I’m interested in: > “Last year, Knight Foundation joined in a $100 million Series B funding round for the social media company Bluesky.” The funding round was led by Bain Capital Crypto. What strange bedfellows: the crypto investment arm of a famous global investment firm, and a national private foundation dedicated to fostering informed, equitable, and engaged communities. But Bluesky lives at that intersection; fostering better communities in a pro-social way while building an open platform that could potentially build a lot of value. What’s most exciting to me is that Knight cares about the open social web at all. I think it’s vying for the most important technical development for newsrooms: the most promising way for them to build first-party connections with their audiences, subscribers, and communities. Most of the newsrooms *themselves* don’t seem to care all that much, to be frank, but it’s good to see that one of the most important support organizations is paying attention. Hopefully that can be a signal for others to tune in. --- ### [I built a CLI for Ghost](https://john.onolan.org/i-built-a-cli-for-ghost/) One of the most fascinating things about the AI transformation is how quickly it’s pushed against the siloed model of web applications (not to mention mobile apps!) we’ve been used to for decades now. Claude Cowork and systems like OpenClaw use the inherent connectedness of our desktop computers to get stuff done. Command lines, the UNIX philosophy, and the openness of the filesystem itself are all plusses again. Ghost’s founder John O’Nolan built a CLI for his platform — a UI that he probably knows better than anyone else on the planet — and found that it sped him up in ways he wasn’t expecting: > “\[…\] Within about \~1hr of using Ghost via Claude/CLI, it was hard to imagine going back to caveman-clicking around a browser to get something done. \[…\] I know Ghost’s UI extremely well, and know exactly where to go and what to click to do the thing I want – and even for me, using Claude is significantly faster/easier than clicking myself.” A fun thing about this is that an update that’s aimed at making AI use faster and easier is also potentially very useful for humans that don’t want anything to do with AI. A command-line interface can be used to script updates, connect with other systems, and integrate in ways that just aren’t as easy if you’re limited to a web UI. For AI users, CLI tools are turning out to be more token-efficient than AI-native integrations like MCP. (And even MCP is encouraging every service to build an API at an accelerated rate.) For someone who has advocated for open systems with easy off-ramps for your data for decades, it’s slightly surreal. Suddenly what might have seemed like a niche thing to want to do is the mainstream, hottest thing in tech. It’s Web 2.0 mashups all over again — but on steroids. Everything AI can do, a human can do too. There’s no reason in the world why a non-AI system couldn’t use MCP. There’s *certainly* no reason why they couldn’t use a command-line interface, one of the most venerable user experiences in computing. Whatever you might think about LLMs themselves, this is quite a lovely thing. --- ### [We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them](https://writings.hongminhee.org/2026/01/histomat-foss-llm/) This is very close to how I feel: > “I want my code to be used for LLM training. What I don't want is for that training to produce proprietary models that become the exclusive property of AI corporations. The problem isn't the technology or even the training process itself. The problem is the enclosure of the commons, the privatization of collective knowledge, the one-way flow of value from the many to the few. > > \[…\] The question is: who owns the models? Who benefits from the commons that trained them? If millions of F/OSS developers contributed their code to the public domain, should the resulting models be proprietary?” The problem with LLMs, in my mind, isn’t that they exist to begin with. They’re genuinely useful. It’s an issue of power dynamics and consent. Training material shouldn’t be taken from creators without their knowledge or participation; the resulting models should not be owned by a small number of wealthy corporations instead of a collectively by the people who put their work and creativity into them. Rather than pretending that LLMs will go away and we’ll revert to a pre-AI state of being, what would it look like for these things to be built and run equitably and sustainably? I’m inspired by [ETH’s Apertus model](https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/09/press-release-apertus-a-fully-open-transparent-multilingual-language-model.html?ref=werd.io) — a fully open, multilingual LLM that is built with shared openness and representation in mind. More will likely follow (and I’m beginning to hear similar stories in specific fields like journalism). Can that be part of our future? Possibly, and the first step is not necessarily rejecting AI but rejecting how it’s run today. Software, as we’ve learned, is best built for the people, and open has historically won eventually. Open, consensual models will almost certainly win too. --- ### [AI is changing the style and substance of human writing, study finds](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-changing-style-substance-human-writing-study-finds-rcna263789) Repeat after me: an LLM cannot replace a human’s skill, judgment, or taste. Another exhibit for the jury: > “The research team found that users who heavily relied on large language models (LLMs) produced responses that diverged significantly in meaning from the answers of participants who only partially relied on LLMs or avoided their use altogether, suggesting heavy AI use alters the substance of humans’ arguments in addition to changing writing style.” It might seem easy or fast, or a neat way to push out more content with less effort. But the software really does change the substance of your writing in what I would call objectively bad ways: it makes it less personal and less emotional, and it actively changes its underlying meaning in the process. It’s less human. Sure, ask it to give you feedback, if you want, but don’t actually let it polish your writing itself. For the record, my posts aren’t written or conceived with an LLM, although I know an increasing number of people who use one to write a first draft and then edit. I’m not a fan. The whole point of the web — its beauty — is that it’s unrelentingly human and diverse. There are lots of ways in which AI is eating away at that core (fewer search engine referrals, more automated content, more spam), but this is the most insidious: through people who *believe they are writing the piece themselves* but are actually handing over their creativity to the model. --- ### [Make Space for Every Voice](https://pointc.co/make-space-for-every-voice/) I think this principle is absolutely core: > “Punting on facilitation leads to outcomes so predictable that you might as well be making a deliberate choice. We all know how it plays out. A question is asked to the group in a team meeting. The same people tend to be the first to speak up, they might be the loudest, the most extroverted, the most senior, the most powerful, or the most confident. And what they put out there tends to shape the rest of the meeting. The framing they introduce ends up dominating the conversation.” In the venture capital investment meeting that Corey goes on to describe, I was the Director of Investments in the room. Everyone would reflect first, then state their opinion, and we’d go round the room so that everyone had spoken their mind, starting with the minority opinions. The people in the room with the most power went last. It was consultative, but the expectation was that I would listen carefully to everyone’s opinion, and I did. It felt to me like a safe environment where everyone could truly participate; some of our most important contributions came from our interns and producers, so it meaningfully affected who received investment, what strategies we pursued, and how we thought about building community. I’ve also seen two other versions of this play out many times. One is where the framing is presented by a leader and other people react to it; typically, inevitably, the leader’s framing and perspective are maintained. The other is a laissez-faire attitude to discussion, which always creates a world where the people with the loudest voices and the most power dominate. Both are monocultures that, whether consciously or not, serve to enforce existing power structures. Having a small number of voices dominate hurts the work. By making it clear that everyone’s voice matters and making it safe for everyone to contribute, we widen the gene pool of ideas. By nurturing a more inclusive community and set of processes, all of our work is elevated, because we’re exposed to more perspectives and more expertise. And by not putting our thumb on the scales as leaders, we make the most of the smart, insightful people we’ve hired. This is a smart, simple process designed to avoid premature anchoring – and it really works. --- ### [Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case](https://www.theverge.com/policy/900654/meta-google-instagram-youtube-social-media-addiction-trial-kgm-jury-decision) This is a meaningful result that has the potential to undo Section 230 protections. > “The jury in a landmark trial testing claims about social media addiction against Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube determined that the two companies failed to warn users about the risks of using their products. The jury found the companies’ negligence was a substantial factor in harms like the mental health issues sustained by a now 20-year-old woman Kaley G.M., who used Instagram and YouTube.” Section 230 has traditionally shielded platforms from liability for what their users post. Under 230, platforms are distributors of third-party speech, not publishers, so they shouldn't be held responsible for individual pieces of content. That shield has been durable across decades of litigation, and has allowed generations of social media platforms to be built and thrive. Here, the argument was that *the design of the product itself* caused harm, and that the platforms were negligent for failing to warn users about risks of the platforms' addictive qualities. Instead of arguing that the platforms hosted harmful content and didn't take it down, which would have been protected under 230, they argued that the slot machines themselves were dangerous. If courts broadly accept that product design claims fall outside 230's protection, it opens a huge new category of liability that platforms haven't had to contend with. 230 wouldn't apply because the theory of harm would be about algorithmic design and the overall architecture of the product. While platform accountability might seem positive at first blush, consider that some attacks may be motivated by regressive politics and very restrictive point of view. For example, what if the design of a platform structurally protects gay teenagers who want to talk to each other? If this result survives an appeal, it creates a pathway around 230 that doesn't require Congress to amend the statute. Legislatures have struggled for years to reform 230 directly, but courts distinguishing between "content liability" (protected) and "design liability" (not protected) could achieve a similar practical effect through litigation. That's a pretty major change for any platform whose business model depends on engagement-maximizing design. And a potential line of attack for bad actors who want to harm people’s ability to connect and learn from each other online. One interesting side note: YouTube has tried very hard to characterize itself as a streaming platform rather than a social media site. That’s why the button says “subscribe” and not “follow”, and why it talks about “channels”. It’s an attempted legal defense against being held accountable by an increasing number of social media safety laws — something that’s front and center in its official statement on the case: > “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.” It’s interesting to think about the implications for YouTube specifically if this defense doesn’t work. How might it change if it (1) has to accept that it *is* a social media site, (2) has to comply with an increasing set of compliance rules? Also see [Mike Masnick on this](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/26/everyone-cheering-the-social-media-addiction-verdicts-against-meta-should-understand-what-theyre-actually-cheering-for/): > If you care about the internet — if you care about free speech online, about small platforms, about privacy, about the ability for anyone other than a handful of tech giants to operate a website where users can post things — these two verdicts should scare the hell out of you. Because the legal theories that were used to nail Meta this week don’t stay neatly confined to companies you don’t like. They will be weaponized against everyone. And they will functionally destroy Section 230 as a meaningful protection, not by repealing it, but by making it irrelevant. --- ### [Ageless Linux](https://agelesslinux.org/index.html) Ageless Linux is an act of open source activism designed to take the issue of age verification to the courts. I love it. As lots of people have noted, while age verification laws are ostensibly being proposed to protect children, they create an authentication layer that deanonymizes the internet. The effect is a surveillance layer that will both chill speech and disproportionately harm vulnerable communities by requiring people who may already be targeted by conservative governments to fully reveal their identities. [As Rindala Alajaji and Molly Buckley wrote in Techdirt recently](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/20/rep-finke-was-right-age-gating-isnt-about-kids-its-about-control/?ref=werd.io): > “The coalition of organizations that filed amicus briefs in support of Texas’s age verification law tells us everything we need to know about the true intentions behind legislating access to information online: censorship, surveillance, and control. After all, if the race to age-gate the internet was purely about child safety, we would expect its strongest supporters to be child-development experts or privacy advocates. Instead, the loudest advocates are organizations dedicated to policing sexuality, attacking LGBTQ+ folks and reproductive rights, and censoring anything that doesn’t fit within their worldview.” Enter [Ageless Linux](https://agelesslinux.org/index.html?ref=werd.io), which makes its position clear as it describes [its hardware product](https://agelesslinux.org/hardware.html?ref=werd.io): > “A physical computing device designed to satisfy every element of the California Digital Age Assurance Act's regulatory scope while deliberately refusing to comply with its requirements. The device costs less than lunch and will be handed to children.“ The site maintains [a list of age verification laws they are violating](https://agelesslinux.org/map.html?ref=werd.io), as well as states that have proposed laws that they *would* violate. It’s sobering: these aren’t just the usual suspects (although that would be bad enough in itself, of course). *California* has a pending law that *will* take effect in 2027\. New York and Illinois have laws under discussion. The named contact at the bottom of the site, John McCardle, [has an explanatory blog post](https://kn4obl.net/ageless-linux.html?ref=werd.io), where he concludes: > “Since the California AG can charge me $7,500 per child that uses my OS, I may need to lawyer up. If you'd like to give me some money, I'd appreciate [support on Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/JohnMcCardleSoldersAndHacks?ref=werd.io).” [Mike Godwin has published a riveting post about the unraveling of the Communications Decency Act in the nineties](https://mikegodwin.substack.com/p/from-the-archive-the-day-the-first?ref=werd.io). I hope these laws, which are cut from the same ideological cloth, suffer the same fate. Perhaps efforts like Ageless Linux can be part of the road to get there. --- ### [Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/23/earth-being-pushed-beyond-its-limits-as-energy-imbalance-reaches-record-high) My mental model is that a lot of what’s happening in the world right now (see the next link, below, for example) is driven by this: > “The United Nations body confirmed 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years ever measured, but a still bleaker message was that the rising temperature experienced by humans on the surface was only 1% of the faster-accumulating heat in the wider Earth system. > > More than 90% of that excess is absorbed by the oceans, which experienced the [highest heat content in history last year](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/04/global-sea-levels-underestimated-poor-modelling-research?ref=werd.io). The rate of ocean warming has more than doubled over the past two decades, compared with the average over the previous 45 years.” We’ve been experiencing the tip of the iceberg and making policy based on that, while the oceans have been absorbing the vast majority of the heat difference. That heat will continue to radiate back to us, committing us to more warming even if we drastically change now. The result is inevitably fewer resources. Fewer livable areas on Earth, plus agricultural upheaval, lead to increased migration, more competition for less land, less food, and, as an obvious outcome, more conflict. For those that seek to maintain control over resources, authoritarian governments are an easier path: a rigidly-controlled population is easier to keep in line. When we could be co-operating and building more equitable societies to deal with the crisis in collaboration with each other, many of the very wealthiest are encouraging the opposite in order to shore up their own positions. You can see it in right-wing governments moving away from renewable energy back to fossil fuels; in erosion of democratic norms; in backlashes to equity and inclusion policies that could lead to more equity and collaboration; in the surprising embrace by politicians of end times rhetoric from religious extremists. And you can see it in some of the very wealthiest buying land in places like New Zealand where they can maintain their own control and safety. We can still say no. There are people on the ground who are fighting for something better. Activists — often from vulnerable communities that have the most to lose — are showing the way. I hope that we can demand the more equitable societies that will bring more of us through the crisis and allow us to get through it together by sharing resources and working on science-based solutions. But there’s a window of opportunity, and it won’t stay open forever. --- ### [Democratic Backsliding Reaches Western Democracies, with U.S. Decline “Unprecedented”](https://www.v-dem.net/news/press-release-democratic-backsliding-reaches-western-democracies-with-us-decline-unprecedented/) File under “oh, fun”, from [the V-Dem Project at the University of Gothenburg](https://www.v-dem.net/about/v-dem-project/?ref=werd.io): > “The U.S. democracy is currently in a much faster deterioration process than any other democracy in modern times. Within only one year, the USA’s score on the V-Dem Liberal Democracy index has declined by 24 percent, while its world rank dropped from 20th to 51st place out of 179 nations.” The report compares the USA’s rate of decline to Hungary, Serbia, India, Russia, and Türkiye, and shows that what took Orbán four years and Modi a decade, the current administration accomplished in one. Only six countries have registered larger one-year drops on the LDI since 2000, and five of those were military coups. As the report points out, the midterms will be a litmus test. Will it be a free and fair election — or something else? Time will tell. Election-specific indicators in the report are only reassessed in election years, so the 2025 LDI score is actually *held up* by the quality of the 2024 elections. If the 2026 elections are compromised, our score will plummet. And it’s not just us. > “Nearly a quarter of the world’s nations are going through democratic backsliding, or autocratization, in 2025, and six out of the ten new autocratizing countries identified in the 2026 Democracy Report are in Europe and North America. Among them are large and influential countries like Italy, the United Kingdom, and the USA, according to the report authored by a team led by Professor Staffan I Lindberg at the V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg.” The UK doesn’t get away scot-free. It’s listed as a new autocratizer this year, driven primarily by declines in freedom of expression and media freedom. But as sobering as that fact is, the fall is nowhere near as fast or precipitous as the United States. It’s worth saying that this is the University of Gothenburg, an international university collaborating with other institutions, and not some random organization or mouthpiece. It should be taken seriously, and it's particularly the people who believe American ideals are infallible that need to wake up. ### Why Knight Foundation Invested in Bluesky URL: https://werd.io/why-knight-foundation-invested-in-bluesky/ Last updated: 2026-03-27T13:06:20.000Z \[[John Sands at The Knight Foundation](https://knightfoundation.org/articles/why-did-knight-foundation-invest-in-bluesky/)\] This was exciting news at the exact intersection I’m interested in: > “Last year, Knight Foundation joined in a $100 million Series B funding round for the social media company Bluesky.” The funding round was led by Bain Capital Crypto. What strange bedfellows: the crypto investment arm of a famous global investment firm, and a national private foundation dedicated to fostering informed, equitable, and engaged communities. But Bluesky lives at that intersection; fostering better communities in a pro-social way while building an open platform that could potentially build a lot of value. What’s most exciting to me is that Knight cares about the open social web at all. I think it’s vying for the most important technical development for newsrooms: the most promising way for them to build first-party connections with their audiences, subscribers, and communities. Most of the newsrooms *themselves* don’t seem to care all that much, to be frank, but it’s good to see that one of the most important support organizations is paying attention. Hopefully that can be a signal for others to tune in. \[[Link](https://knightfoundation.org/articles/why-did-knight-foundation-invest-in-bluesky/)\] ### Make Space for Every Voice URL: https://werd.io/make-space-for-every-voice/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T14:27:18.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/make-space-for-every-voice/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] I think this principle is absolutely core. > “Punting on facilitation leads to outcomes so predictable that you might as well be making a deliberate choice. We all know how it plays out. A question is asked to the group in a team meeting. The same people tend to be the first to speak up, they might be the loudest, the most extroverted, the most senior, the most powerful, or the most confident. And what they put out there tends to shape the rest of the meeting. The framing they introduce ends up dominating the conversation.” In the venture capital investment meeting that Corey goes on to describe, I was the Director of Investments in the room. Everyone would reflect first, then state their opinion, and we’d go round the room so that everyone had spoken their mind, starting with the minority opinions. The people in the room with the most power went last. It was consultative, but the expectation was that I would listen carefully to everyone’s opinion, and I did. It felt to me like a safe environment where everyone could truly participate; some of our most important contributions came from our interns and producers, so it meaningfully affected who received investment, what strategies we pursued, and how we thought about building community. I’ve also seen two other versions of this play out many times. One is where the framing is presented by a leader and other people react to it; typically, inevitably, the leader’s framing and perspective are maintained. The other is a laissez-faire attitude to discussion, which always creates a world where the people with the loudest voices and the most power dominate. Both are monocultures that, whether consciously or not, serve to enforce existing power structures. Having a small number of voices dominate hurts the work. By making it clear that everyone’s voice matters and making it safe for everyone to contribute, we widen the gene pool of ideas. By nurturing a more inclusive community and set of processes, all of our work is elevated, because we’re exposed to more perspectives and more expertise. And by not putting our thumb on the scales as leaders, we make the most of the smart, insightful people we’ve hired. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/make-space-for-every-voice/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] ### Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case URL: https://werd.io/meta-and-youtube-found-negligent-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-case/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T03:18:51.000Z \[[Lauren Feiner in The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/policy/900654/meta-google-instagram-youtube-social-media-addiction-trial-kgm-jury-decision)\] This is a meaningful result that has the potential to undo Section 230 protections. > “The jury in a landmark trial testing claims about social media addiction against Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube determined that the two companies failed to warn users about the risks of using their products. The jury found the companies’ negligence was a substantial factor in harms like the mental health issues sustained by a now 20-year-old woman Kaley G.M., who used Instagram and YouTube.” Section 230 has traditionally shielded platforms from liability for what their users post. Under 230, platforms are distributors of third-party speech, not publishers, so they shouldn't be held responsible for individual pieces of content. That shield has been durable across decades of litigation, and has allowed generations of social media platforms to be built and thrive. Here, the argument was that *the design of the product itself* caused harm, and that the platforms were negligent for failing to warn users about risks of the platforms' addictive qualities. Instead of arguing that the platforms hosted harmful content and didn't take it down, which would have been protected under 230, they argued that the slot machines themselves were dangerous. If courts broadly accept that product design claims fall outside 230's protection, it opens a huge new category of liability that platforms haven't had to contend with. 230 wouldn't apply because the theory of harm would be about algorithmic design and the overall architecture of the product. While platform accountability might seem positive at first blush, consider that some attacks may be motivated by regressive politics and very restrictive point of view. For example, what if the design of a platform structurally protects gay teenagers who want to talk to each other? If this result survives an appeal, it creates a pathway around 230 that doesn't require Congress to amend the statute. Legislatures have struggled for years to reform 230 directly, but courts distinguishing between "content liability" (protected) and "design liability" (not protected) could achieve a similar practical effect through litigation. That's a pretty major change for any platform whose business model depends on engagement-maximizing design. And a potential line of attack for bad actors who want to harm people’s ability to connect and learn from each other online. One interesting side note: YouTube has tried very hard to characterize itself as a streaming platform rather than a social media site. That’s why the button says “subscribe” and not “follow”, and why it talks about “channels”. It’s an attempted legal defense against being held accountable by an increasing number of social media safety laws — something that’s front and center in its official statement on the case: > “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.” It’s interesting to think about the implications for YouTube specifically if this defense doesn’t work. How might it change if it (1) has to accept that it *is* a social media site, (2) has to comply with an increasing set of compliance rules? \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/policy/900654/meta-google-instagram-youtube-social-media-addiction-trial-kgm-jury-decision)\] ### I built a CLI for Ghost URL: https://werd.io/i-built-a-cli-for-ghost/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T10:57:01.000Z \[[John O'Nolan](https://john.onolan.org/i-built-a-cli-for-ghost/)\] One of the most fascinating things about the AI transformation is how quickly it’s pushed against the siloed model of web applications (not to mention mobile apps!) we’ve been used to for decades now. Claude Cowork and systems like OpenClaw use the inherent connectedness of our desktop computers to get stuff done. Command lines, the UNIX philosophy, and the openness of the filesystem itself are all plusses again. Ghost’s founder John O’Nolan built a CLI for his platform — a UI that he probably knows better than anyone else on the planet — and found that it sped him up in ways he wasn’t expecting: > “\[…\] Within about \~1hr of using Ghost via Claude/CLI, it was hard to imagine going back to caveman-clicking around a browser to get something done. \[…\] I know Ghost’s UI extremely well, and know exactly where to go and what to click to do the thing I want – and even for me, using Claude is significantly faster/easier than clicking myself.” A fun thing about this is that an update that’s aimed at making AI use faster and easier is also potentially very useful for humans that don’t want anything to do with AI. A command-line interface can be used to script updates, connect with other systems, and integrate in ways that just aren’t as easy if you’re limited to a web UI. For AI users, CLI tools are turning out to be more token-efficient than AI-native integrations like MCP. (And even MCP is encouraging every service to build an API at an accelerated rate.) For someone who has advocated for open systems with easy off-ramps for your data for decades, it’s slightly surreal. Suddenly what might have seemed like a niche thing to want to do is the mainstream, hottest thing in tech. It’s Web 2.0 mashups all over again — but on steroids. Everything AI can do, a human can do too. There’s no reason in the world why a non-AI system couldn’t use MCP. There’s *certainly* no reason why they couldn’t use a command-line interface, one of the most venerable user experiences in computing. Whatever you might think about LLMs themselves, this is quite a lovely thing. \[[Link](https://john.onolan.org/i-built-a-cli-for-ghost/)\] ### Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high URL: https://werd.io/earth-being-pushed-beyond-its-limits-as-energy-imbalance-reaches-record-high/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T10:34:54.000Z \[[Jonathan Watts in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/23/earth-being-pushed-beyond-its-limits-as-energy-imbalance-reaches-record-high)\] My mental model is that a lot of what’s happening in the world right now is driven by this: > “The United Nations body confirmed 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years ever measured, but a still bleaker message was that the rising temperature experienced by humans on the surface was only 1% of the faster-accumulating heat in the wider Earth system. > > More than 90% of that excess is absorbed by the oceans, which experienced the [highest heat content in history last year](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/04/global-sea-levels-underestimated-poor-modelling-research). The rate of ocean warming has more than doubled over the past two decades, compared with the average over the previous 45 years.” We’ve been experiencing the tip of the iceberg and making policy based on that, while the oceans have been absorbing the vast majority of the heat difference. That heat will continue to radiate back to us, committing us to more warming even if we drastically change now. The result is inevitably fewer resources. Fewer livable areas on Earth, plus agricultural upheaval, lead to increased migration, more competition for less land, less food, and, as an obvious outcome, more conflict. For those that seek to maintain control over resources, authoritarian governments are an easier path: a rigidly-controlled population is easier to keep in line. When we could be co-operating and building more equitable societies to deal with the crisis in collaboration with each other, many of the very wealthiest are encouraging the opposite in order to shore up their own positions. You can see it in right-wing governments moving away from renewable energy back to fossil fuels; in erosion of democratic norms; in backlashes to equity and inclusion policies that could lead to more equity and collaboration; in the surprising embrace by politicians of end times rhetoric from religious extremists. And you can see it in some of the very wealthiest buying land in places like New Zealand where they can maintain their own control and safety. We can still say no. There are people on the ground who are fighting for something better. Activists — often from vulnerable communities that have the most to lose — are showing the way. I hope that we can demand the more equitable societies that will bring more of us through the crisis and allow us to get through it together by sharing resources and working on science-based solutions. But there’s a window of opportunity, and it won’t stay open forever. \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/23/earth-being-pushed-beyond-its-limits-as-energy-imbalance-reaches-record-high)\] ### Histomat of F/OSS: We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them URL: https://werd.io/histomat-of-f-oss-we-should-reclaim-llms-not-reject-them/ Last updated: 2026-03-22T15:44:17.000Z \[[Hong Minhee](https://writings.hongminhee.org/2026/01/histomat-foss-llm/)\] This is very close to how I feel: > “I want my code to be used for LLM training. What I don't want is for that training to produce proprietary models that become the exclusive property of AI corporations. The problem isn't the technology or even the training process itself. The problem is the enclosure of the commons, the privatization of collective knowledge, the one-way flow of value from the many to the few. > > \[…\] The question is: who owns the models? Who benefits from the commons that trained them? If millions of F/OSS developers contributed their code to the public domain, should the resulting models be proprietary?” The problem with LLMs, in my mind, isn’t that they exist to begin with. They’re genuinely useful. It’s an issue of power dynamics and consent. Training material shouldn’t be taken from creators without their knowledge or participation; the resulting models should not be owned by a small number of wealthy corporations instead of a collectively by the people who put their work and creativity into them. Rather than pretending that LLMs will go away and we’ll revert to a pre-AI state of being, what would it look like for these things to be built and run equitably and sustainably? I’m inspired by [ETH’s Apertus model](https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/09/press-release-apertus-a-fully-open-transparent-multilingual-language-model.html) — a fully open, multilingual LLM that is built with shared openness and representation in mind. More will likely follow (and I’m beginning to hear similar stories in specific fields like journalism). Can that be part of our future? Possibly, and the first step is not necessarily rejecting AI but rejecting how it’s run today. Software, as we’ve learned, is best built for the people, and open has historically won eventually. Open, consensual models will almost certainly win too. \[[Link](https://writings.hongminhee.org/2026/01/histomat-foss-llm/)\] ### Ageless Linux URL: https://werd.io/ageless-linux/ Last updated: 2026-03-22T13:24:34.000Z \[[Ageless Linux](https://agelesslinux.org/index.html)\] Ageless Linux is an act of open source activism designed to take the issue of age verification to the courts. I love it. As lots of people have noted, while age verification laws are ostensibly being proposed to protect children, they create an authentication layer that deanonymizes the internet. The effect is a surveillance layer that will both chill speech and disproportionately harm vulnerable communities by requiring people who may already be targeted by conservative governments to fully reveal their identities. [As Rindala Alajaji and Molly Buckley wrote in Techdirt recently](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/20/rep-finke-was-right-age-gating-isnt-about-kids-its-about-control/): > “The coalition of organizations that filed amicus briefs in support of Texas’s age verification law tells us everything we need to know about the true intentions behind legislating access to information online: censorship, surveillance, and control. After all, if the race to age-gate the internet was purely about child safety, we would expect its strongest supporters to be child-development experts or privacy advocates. Instead, the loudest advocates are organizations dedicated to policing sexuality, attacking LGBTQ+ folks and reproductive rights, and censoring anything that doesn’t fit within their worldview.” Enter [Ageless Linux](https://agelesslinux.org/index.html), which makes its position clear as it describes [its hardware product](https://agelesslinux.org/hardware.html): > “A physical computing device designed to satisfy every element of the California Digital Age Assurance Act's regulatory scope while deliberately refusing to comply with its requirements. The device costs less than lunch and will be handed to children.“ The site maintains [a list of age verification laws they are violating](https://agelesslinux.org/map.html), as well as states that have proposed laws that they *would* violate. It’s sobering: these aren’t just the usual suspects (although that would be bad enough in itself, of course). *California* has a pending law that *will* take effect in 2027\. New York and Illinois have laws under discussion. The named contact at the bottom of the site, John McCardle, [has an explanatory blog post](https://kn4obl.net/ageless-linux.html), where he concludes: > “Since the California AG can charge me $7,500 per child that uses my OS, I may need to lawyer up. If you'd like to give me some money, I'd appreciate [support on Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/JohnMcCardleSoldersAndHacks).” [Mike Godwin has published a riveting post about the unraveling of the Communications Decency Act in the nineties](https://mikegodwin.substack.com/p/from-the-archive-the-day-the-first). I hope these laws, which are cut from the same ideological cloth, suffer the same fate. Perhaps efforts like Ageless Linux can be part of the road to get there. \[[Link](https://agelesslinux.org/index.html)\] ### AI is changing the style and substance of human writing, study finds URL: https://werd.io/ai-is-changing-the-style-and-substance-of-human-writing-study-finds/ Last updated: 2026-03-21T21:34:51.000Z \[[Jared Perlo at NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-changing-style-substance-human-writing-study-finds-rcna263789)\] Repeat after me: an LLM cannot replace a human’s skill, judgment, or taste. Another exhibit for the jury: > “The research team found that users who heavily relied on large language models (LLMs) produced responses that diverged significantly in meaning from the answers of participants who only partially relied on LLMs or avoided their use altogether, suggesting heavy AI use alters the substance of humans’ arguments in addition to changing writing style.” It might seem easy or fast, or a neat way to push out more content with less effort. But the software really does change the substance of your writing in what I would call objectively bad ways: it makes it less personal and less emotional, and it actively changes its underlying meaning in the process. It’s less human. Sure, ask it to give you feedback, if you want, but don’t actually let it polish your writing itself. For the record, my posts aren’t written or conceived with an LLM, although I know an increasing number of people who use one to write a first draft and then edit. I’m not a fan. The whole point of the web — its beauty — is that it’s unrelentingly human and diverse. There are lots of ways in which AI is eating away at that core (fewer search engine referrals, more automated content, more spam), but this is the most insidious: through people who *believe they are writing the piece themselves* but are actually handing over their creativity to the model. \[[Link](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-changing-style-substance-human-writing-study-finds-rcna263789)\] ### Democratic Backsliding Reaches Western Democracies, with U.S. Decline “Unprecedented” URL: https://werd.io/democratic-backsliding-reaches-western-democracies-with-u-s-decline-unprecedented/ Last updated: 2026-03-21T21:00:49.000Z \[[Varieties of Democracy](https://www.v-dem.net/news/press-release-democratic-backsliding-reaches-western-democracies-with-us-decline-unprecedented/)\] File under “oh, fun”, from [the V-Dem Project at the University of Gothenburg](https://www.v-dem.net/about/v-dem-project/): > “The U.S. democracy is currently in a much faster deterioration process than any other democracy in modern times. Within only one year, the USA’s score on the V-Dem Liberal Democracy index has declined by 24 percent, while its world rank dropped from 20th to 51st place out of 179 nations.” The report compares the USA’s rate of decline to Hungary, Serbia, India, Russia, and Türkiye, and shows that what took Orbán four years and Modi a decade, the current administration accomplished in one. Only six countries have registered larger one-year drops on the LDI since 2000, and five of those were military coups. As the report points out, the midterms will be a litmus test. Will it be a free and fair election — or something else? Time will tell. Election-specific indicators in the report are only reassessed in election years, so the 2025 LDI score is actually *held up* by the quality of the 2024 elections. If the 2026 elections are compromised, our score will plummet. And it’s not just us. > “Nearly a quarter of the world’s nations are going through democratic backsliding, or autocratization, in 2025, and six out of the ten new autocratizing countries identified in the 2026 Democracy Report are in Europe and North America. Among them are large and influential countries like Italy, the United Kingdom, and the USA, according to the report authored by a team led by Professor Staffan I Lindberg at the V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg.” The UK doesn’t get away scot-free. It’s listed as a new autocratizer this year, driven primarily by declines in freedom of expression and media freedom. But as sobering as that fact is, the fall is nowhere near as fast or precipitous as the United States. It’s worth saying that this is the University of Gothenburg, an international university collaborating with other institutions, and not some random organization or mouthpiece. It should be taken seriously, and it's particularly the people who believe American ideals are infallible that need to wake up. \[[Link](https://www.v-dem.net/news/press-release-democratic-backsliding-reaches-western-democracies-with-us-decline-unprecedented/)\] ### Notable links: March 20, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-march-20-2026/ Last updated: 2026-03-20T20:21:05.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Agentic Engineering Patterns](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/) [Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/?ref=werd.io)’s work-in-progress deep dive into agentic engineering is predictably good. From [the introduction](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/what-is-agentic-engineering/?ref=werd.io), distinguishing *agentic engineering* from *vibe coding*: > “Some people extend that definition to cover any time an LLM is used to produce code at all, but I think that's a mistake. Vibe coding is more useful in its original definition - we need a term to describe unreviewed, prototype-quality LLM-generated code that distinguishes it from code that the author has brought up to a production ready standard.” I’ve been using the term *AI-assisted engineering*, but standardizing around *agentic* seems more precise for the kind of activity we’re talking about. And from [the anti-patterns page](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/anti-patterns/?ref=werd.io): > “Don't file pull requests with code you haven't reviewed yourself. > > If you open a PR with hundreds (or thousands) of lines of code that an agent produced for you, and you haven't done the work to ensure that code is functional yourself, you are delegating the actual work to other people. > > They could have prompted an agent themselves. What value are you even providing?” The temptation is to write and push code that you haven’t reviewed personally, but technology leaders need to enforce a human-review process. You are responsible for all code you push, and you are responsible for not wasting your colleagues’ time. From [writing code is cheap now](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/code-is-cheap/?ref=werd.io): > “Delivering new code has dropped in price to almost free... but delivering good code remains significantly more expensive than that.” Simon is building a really great guide to not just the process but the underlying mindsets behind good agentic engineering. [It’s worth reading and following.](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/?ref=werd.io) --- ### [When Using AI Leads to “Brain Fry”](https://hbr.org/2026/03/when-using-ai-leads-to-brain-fry) Interesting research about the interaction between AI use and burnout, studying 1488 (an incidentally unfortunate number) US-based workers. Burnout is real: > “Participants described a “buzzing” feeling or a mental fog with difficulty focusing, slower decision-making, and headaches. This AI-associated mental strain carries significant costs in the form of increased employee errors, decision fatigue, and intention to quit. > > There’s some nuance here, however. We also found when AI is used to replace routine or repetitive tasks, burnout scores—but not mental fatigue scores—are lower. This highlights the subtle-but-important distinction between the types of stress that AI can alleviate, and those that it may worsen.” So the *kind* of AI use matters. The researchers found that AI use cases that required increased oversight (coding is one, using AI with sensitive internal data is another) increased the risk of burnout. This was particularly true because the people who used these tools were more likely to take on more work, pushing their total cognitive load beyond their limits. But using it for more straightforward repetitive tasks reduced the risk of burnout. The high-risk activities cluster around certain teams: > “After marketing, people operations, operations, engineering, finance, and IT were the functions with the highest prevalence of AI brain fry.” Legal teams, who presumably use AI on evidence sets and on contract analysis using tools like [Harvey](https://www.harvey.ai/?ref=werd.io) but not their actual legal analysis, were the least likely to suffer from this problem. This should inform how managers think about AI use and how to set humane norms internally. --- ### [Four things about Yahoo News that may surprise you](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/four-things-about-yahoo-news-that-may-surprise-you/) I still think Yahoo is undervalued: clearly not a tech darling, it’s quietly been chugging along, running one of the most popular news sites in the world alongside a raft of other services. None of it is pushing the envelope, particularly, but it does seem to be executing very well, and the team behind it is on an explicit mission to revitalize the brand. This is the right approach, in my opinion — and clearly it’s working: > “Lanzone says Yahoo, owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management since 2021, has billions in revenue. “It is very profitable,” he told Decoder’s Nilay Patel. > > “Having direct deals with publishers to have their content aggregated with us has actually been part of the history of the company going back two-plus decades,” Lanzone says at one point. “We send them traffic and, in many cases, share revenue.”” It’s more recently made that strategy cleaner: it’s not trying to do its own reporting, but instead is surfacing other peoples’ and providing reach. The underlying ethos seems to be to point to great content on the web rather than being the originator of it. In a world where other platforms, Google included, are trying to be the all-encompassing destination, it’s a web-first way to look at the world. That revitalization is right on time. --- ### [BuzzFeed Nearing Bankruptcy After Disastrous Turn Toward AI](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/buzzfeed-disastrous-earnings-ai) This looks like a cut and dry story about a media company turning from producing content using writers to using AI and suffering the consequences: > “Peretti said BuzzFeed would be using the software to enhance the company’s infamous quizzes by generating personalized responses. > > \[…\] Now, three years after its AI pivot, the writing is on the wall. The company reported a net loss of $57.3 million in 2025 in an earnings report released on Thursday. In an official statement, the company glumly hinted at the possibility of going under sooner rather than later, writing that “there is substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”” The content was underwhelming, and this shift coincided with Buzzfeed shutting down its award-winning news division. There’s a lot AI can do, but it can’t replace the judgment and taste of human beings. It can’t be a great writer or a great creative. It can take on drudge-work and be a good copilot, like a grammar checker or other supportive tools can be good copilots, but it’s not a replacement for a skilled workforce. (I would also argue that there’s no such thing as unskilled labor: almost every job you can think of benefits from human nuance and judgment.) But there are a lot of people who see dollar signs and hope that replacing people with predictive engines will help them scale and increase their margins. All that means is that there will be a lot more Buzzfeeds. --- ### [Businesses rush to rehire staff after regretted AI-driven cuts](https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/hr-technology/businesses-rush-to-rehire-staff-after-regretted-ai-driven-cuts/568292) Not a surprise. Careerminds polled 600 HR professionals from organizations that had made layoffs in the last year. > “It found that 32.7% of organisations that conducted AI-led layoffs had already rehired between 25% to 50% of the roles they initially let go. > > Another 35.6% said they had already rehired more than half of the roles that they cut.” Say it with me: *AI can’t replace the skill, judgment, creativity, and taste of real people.* Replace the word “AI” with “spreadsheet” and the nonsense behind AI-led layoffs becomes even clearer. AI is a potentially very powerful tool, but it’s just a tool, and it works better when more highly-skilled people are using it. Which organizations are beginning to find out: > “According to the findings, more than half of HR leaders said AI required more human insight than anticipated.” It’s worth saying that around 21% of respondents *did* report that their layoffs went okay. It’s possible that they’re lying. They could also have been employing people to do very manual, repetitive data work without any degree of insight, which seems like a poor use of a workforce. But generally speaking, the study found hundreds of orgs that saw the potential to save costs and were so blinded by dollar signs that they didn’t go beyond the marketing claims about what AI could actually do: > “What ties all these findings together is that the organisations that struggled the most were making significant, irreversible decisions without the full picture of AI capabilities and what a reduction would do to their workforce.” These organizations treated people poorly. The real tragedy is that they seem not to have understood the skills and value of their own employees. There’s a deeper problem there than just AI. --- ### [Trump is using immigration policy to suppress speech, lawsuit claims](https://www.npr.org/2026/03/09/nx-s1-5741213/trump-censorship-visas-deportation-lawsuit) This lawsuit, filed by [The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and Protect Democracy on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR)](https://knightcolumbia.org/content/technology-researchers-challenge-trump-policy-threatening-deportation-for-work-on-social-media-platforms-and-online-harms?ref=werd.io), is important: > “The suit accuses the administration of violating the First Amendment with an official policy to deny visas to or deport noncitizens who work on or study social media platforms, fact-checking or other activities the government deems "censorship" of Americans' speech. It argues that amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.” The work conducted by researchers into social media is vital: it helps us build safer communities that allow democratic discourse to take place. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has decided that this safety work is a radical act — and in particular that research into Trump ally Elon Musk’s X is verboten. I would assume that Ellison’s American TikTok will receive the same preferential treatment. My friend Dr J. Nathan Matias, who runs the amazing [Citizens and Technology Lab](https://citizensandtech.org/?ref=werd.io), is a named declarant. [His experiences are laid out in the suit](https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/hpsetihu54?ref=werd.io): > “\[…\] the Censorship Policy has deprived Dr. Matias of significant contributions from his noncitizen collaborators in the United States. Because of the fear that they will be denied reentry to the United States under the Policy, some of Dr. Matias’s U.S.-based noncitizen collaborators have decided not to travel abroad, including to attend meetings with new community partners who have important experiences related to online safety and freedom of expression. As a result, Dr. Matias has been unable to pursue collaborations with those partners, who would have added significant value to his research. Because of the same fear, one of Dr. Matias’s noncitizen collaborators felt compelled to make extensive contingency plans in connection with international travel, requiring more flexibility in their work and less visibility on their projects, which has significantly delayed progress on those projects. Additionally, because of the fear that they will be targeted for detention or deportation under the Policy based on their work, at least one of Dr. Matias’s noncitizen collaborators has decided not to speak to journalists or answer questions from policymakers on topics related to their work. As a result of these chilling effects, Dr. Matias has lost important opportunities to develop new research, obtain expert feedback on research, and bring visibility to his work and the work of his lab.” This is unacceptable. We should all hope that the lawsuit is successful. --- ### [The Last Quiet Thing](https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing) This is a useful reframe of our relationship to technology, presented in an arresting way: > “What if the exhaustion everybody feels isn't a moral failure but the completely rational response to being made responsible for an ecosystem of objects that never stop asking?” I’m less enamored with the author’s reframe of the work to be done to maintain these devices as shifting from an IT department. *That’s* not the point, and it distracts from a stronger argument about finished products vs continuously-updated devices that want to have a codependent relationship with us. Whether it’s with an end user or an IT department, it’s still dysfunctional. It reminds me of Amber Case’s [Calm Tech Institute](https://www.calmtech.institute/?ref=werd.io), which aims to promote these kinds of values. The quote it features on its homepage — “What matters is not technology itself, but its relationship to us.” from Xerox PARC technician [Mark Weiser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark%5FWeiser?ref=werd.io) — is completely on-point. I hope we have more of these sorts of conversations. ### Four things about Yahoo News that may surprise you URL: https://werd.io/four-things-about-yahoo-news-that-may-surprise-you/ Last updated: 2026-03-18T13:41:14.000Z \[[Sarah Scire in NiemanLab](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/four-things-about-yahoo-news-that-may-surprise-you/)\] I still think Yahoo is undervalued: clearly not a tech darling, it’s quietly been chugging along, running one of the most popular news sites in the world alongside a raft of other services. None of it is pushing the envelope, particularly, but it does seem to be executing very well, and the team behind it is on an explicit mission to revitalize the brand. This is the right approach, in my opinion — and clearly it’s working: > “Lanzone says Yahoo, owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management since 2021, has billions in revenue. “It is very profitable,” he told Decoder’s Nilay Patel. > > “Having direct deals with publishers to have their content aggregated with us has actually been part of the history of the company going back two-plus decades,” Lanzone says at one point. “We send them traffic and, in many cases, share revenue.”” It’s more recently made that strategy cleaner: it’s not trying to do its own reporting, but instead is surfacing other peoples’ and providing reach. The underlying ethos seems to be to point to great content on the web rather than being the originator of it. In a world where other platforms, Google included, are trying to be the all-encompassing destination, it’s a web-first way to look at the world. That revitalization is right on time. \[[Link](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/four-things-about-yahoo-news-that-may-surprise-you/)\] ### The Last Quiet Thing URL: https://werd.io/the-last-quiet-thing/ Last updated: 2026-03-18T13:18:49.000Z \[[Terry Godier](https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing)\] This is a useful reframe of our relationship to technology, presented in an arresting way: > “What if the exhaustion everybody feels isn't a moral failure but the completely rational response to being made responsible for an ecosystem of objects that never stop asking?” I’m less enamored with the author’s reframe of the work to be done to maintain these devices as shifting from an IT department. *That’s* not the point, and it distracts from a stronger argument about finished products vs continuously-updated devices that want to have a codependent relationship with us. Whether it’s with an end user or an IT department, it’s still dysfunctional. It reminds me of Amber Case’s [Calm Tech Institute](https://www.calmtech.institute/), which aims to promote these kinds of values. The quote it features on its homepage — “What matters is not technology itself, but its relationship to us.” from Xerox PARC technician [Mark Weiser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark%5FWeiser) — is completely on-point. I hope we have more of these sorts of conversations. \[[Link](https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing)\] ### Agentic Engineering Patterns URL: https://werd.io/agentic-engineering-patterns/ Last updated: 2026-03-16T13:45:42.000Z \[[Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/)\] [Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net)’s work-in-progress deep dive into agentic engineering is predictably good. From [the introduction](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/what-is-agentic-engineering/), distinguishing *agentic engineering* from *vibe coding*: > “Some people extend that definition to cover any time an LLM is used to produce code at all, but I think that's a mistake. Vibe coding is more useful in its original definition - we need a term to describe unreviewed, prototype-quality LLM-generated code that distinguishes it from code that the author has brought up to a production ready standard.” I’ve been using the term *AI-assisted engineering*, but standardizing around *agentic* seems more precise for the kind of activity we’re talking about. And from [the anti-patterns page](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/anti-patterns/): > “Don't file pull requests with code you haven't reviewed yourself. > > If you open a PR with hundreds (or thousands) of lines of code that an agent produced for you, and you haven't done the work to ensure that code is functional yourself, you are delegating the actual work to other people. > > They could have prompted an agent themselves. What value are you even providing?” The temptation is to write and push code that you haven’t reviewed personally, but technology leaders need to enforce a human-review process. You are responsible for all code you push, and you are responsible for not wasting your colleagues’ time. From [writing code is cheap now](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/code-is-cheap/): > “Delivering new code has dropped in price to almost free... but delivering good code remains significantly more expensive than that.” Simon is building a really great guide to not just the process but the underlying mindsets behind good agentic engineering. [It’s worth reading and following.](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/) \[[Link](https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/)\] ### Businesses rush to rehire staff after regretted AI-driven cuts URL: https://werd.io/businesses-rush-to-rehire-staff-after-regretted-ai-driven-cuts/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T18:06:35.000Z \[[Dexter Tilo in Human Resources Director](https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/hr-technology/businesses-rush-to-rehire-staff-after-regretted-ai-driven-cuts/568292)\] Not a surprise. Careerminds polled 600 HR professionals from organizations that had made layoffs in the last year. > “It found that 32.7% of organisations that conducted AI-led layoffs had already rehired between 25% to 50% of the roles they initially let go. > > Another 35.6% said they had already rehired more than half of the roles that they cut.” Say it with me: *AI can’t replace the skill, judgment, creativity, and taste of real people.* Replace the word “AI” with “spreadsheet” and the nonsense behind AI-led layoffs becomes even clearer. AI is a potentially very powerful tool, but it’s just a tool, and it works better when more highly-skilled people are using it. Which organizations are beginning to find out: > “According to the findings, more than half of HR leaders said AI required more human insight than anticipated.” It’s worth saying that around 21% of respondents *did* report that their layoffs went okay. It’s possible that they’re lying. They could also have been employing people to do very manual, repetitive data work without any degree of insight, which seems like a poor use of a workforce. But generally speaking, the study found hundreds of orgs that saw the potential to save costs and were so blinded by dollar signs that they didn’t go beyond the marketing claims about what AI could actually do: > “What ties all these findings together is that the organisations that struggled the most were making significant, irreversible decisions without the full picture of AI capabilities and what a reduction would do to their workforce.” These organizations treated people poorly. The real tragedy is that they seem not to have understood the skills and value of their own employees. There’s a deeper problem there than just AI. \[[Link](https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/hr-technology/businesses-rush-to-rehire-staff-after-regretted-ai-driven-cuts/568292)\] ### FCC Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over Iran War Coverage URL: https://werd.io/fcc-chair-threatens-to-revoke-broadcasters-licenses-over-iran-war-coverage/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T17:28:15.000Z \[[Ashley Ahn in The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/world/middleeast/fcc-broadcasters-iran-war.html)\] Seems bad: > “Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts.” The irony is that it was the FCC under Reagan in 1987 that withdrew the [fairness doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness%5Fdoctrine), a policy that had required broadcasters to reflect different viewpoints on controversial matters of public interest since 1949\. If the current FCC felt like there was a persistent liberal bias, they could reinstate it. Regardless, painting US broadcast media as overwhelmingly liberal is a stretch in a post-Bari Weiss CBS era; perhaps Carr sees a problem with there being *any* liberal-leaning media. Only free-to-air channels require broadcast licenses, so in practice this affects a minority of news consumers. Most people get their news via the internet or cable news these days. But there’s clearly an intended chilling effect here, and obviously there are other routes to get to newsrooms beyond broadcast TV: merger approvals, adverse regulations, and so on. It’s a threat to the entire US news media in a country that claims to treasure free speech. \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/world/middleeast/fcc-broadcasters-iran-war.html)\] ### Trump is using immigration policy to suppress speech, lawsuit claims URL: https://werd.io/trump-is-using-immigration-policy-to-suppress-speech-lawsuit-claims/ Last updated: 2026-03-14T15:16:54.000Z \[[Shannon Bond at NPR](https://www.npr.org/2026/03/09/nx-s1-5741213/trump-censorship-visas-deportation-lawsuit)\] This lawsuit, filed by [The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and Protect Democracy on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR)](https://knightcolumbia.org/content/technology-researchers-challenge-trump-policy-threatening-deportation-for-work-on-social-media-platforms-and-online-harms), is important: > “The suit accuses the administration of violating the First Amendment with an official policy to deny visas to or deport noncitizens who work on or study social media platforms, fact-checking or other activities the government deems "censorship" of Americans' speech. It argues that amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.” The work conducted by researchers into social media is vital: it helps us build safer communities that allow democratic discourse to take place. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has decided that this safety work is a radical act — and in particular that research into Trump ally Elon Musk’s X is verboten. I would assume that Ellison’s American TikTok will receive the same preferential treatment. My friend Dr J. Nathan Matias, who runs the amazing [Citizens and Technology Lab](https://citizensandtech.org/), is a named declarant. [His experiences are laid out in the suit](https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/hpsetihu54): > “\[…\] the Censorship Policy has deprived Dr. Matias of significant contributions from his noncitizen collaborators in the United States. Because of the fear that they will be denied reentry to the United States under the Policy, some of Dr. Matias’s U.S.-based noncitizen collaborators have decided not to travel abroad, including to attend meetings with new community partners who have important experiences related to online safety and freedom of expression. As a result, Dr. Matias has been unable to pursue collaborations with those partners, who would have added significant value to his research. Because of the same fear, one of Dr. Matias’s noncitizen collaborators felt compelled to make extensive contingency plans in connection with international travel, requiring more flexibility in their work and less visibility on their projects, which has significantly delayed progress on those projects. Additionally, because of the fear that they will be targeted for detention or deportation under the Policy based on their work, at least one of Dr. Matias’s noncitizen collaborators has decided not to speak to journalists or answer questions from policymakers on topics related to their work. As a result of these chilling effects, Dr. Matias has lost important opportunities to develop new research, obtain expert feedback on research, and bring visibility to his work and the work of his lab.” This is unacceptable. We should all hope that the lawsuit is successful. \[[Link](https://www.npr.org/2026/03/09/nx-s1-5741213/trump-censorship-visas-deportation-lawsuit)\] ### When Using AI Leads to “Brain Fry” URL: https://werd.io/when-using-ai-leads-to-brain-fry/ Last updated: 2026-03-14T15:01:20.000Z \[[Julie Bedard, Matthew Kropp, Megan Hsu, Olivia T. Karaman, Jason Hawes and Gabriella Rosen Kellerman in Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/2026/03/when-using-ai-leads-to-brain-fry)\] Interesting research about the interaction between AI use and burnout, studying 1488 (an incidentally unfortunate number) US-based workers. Burnout is real: > “Participants described a “buzzing” feeling or a mental fog with difficulty focusing, slower decision-making, and headaches. This AI-associated mental strain carries significant costs in the form of increased employee errors, decision fatigue, and intention to quit. > > There’s some nuance here, however. We also found when AI is used to replace routine or repetitive tasks, burnout scores—but not mental fatigue scores—are lower. This highlights the subtle-but-important distinction between the types of stress that AI can alleviate, and those that it may worsen.” So the *kind* of AI use matters. The researchers found that AI use cases that required increased oversight (coding is one, using AI with sensitive internal data is another) increased the risk of burnout. This was particularly true because the people who used these tools were more likely to take on more work, pushing their total cognitive load beyond their limits. But using it for more straightforward repetitive tasks reduced the risk of burnout. The high-risk activities cluster around certain teams: > “After marketing, people operations, operations, engineering, finance, and IT were the functions with the highest prevalence of AI brain fry.” Legal teams, who presumably use AI on evidence sets and on contract analysis using tools like [Harvey](https://www.harvey.ai/) but not their actual legal analysis, were the least likely to suffer from this problem. This should inform how managers think about AI use and how to set humane norms internally. \[[Link](https://hbr.org/2026/03/when-using-ai-leads-to-brain-fry)\] ### BuzzFeed Nearing Bankruptcy After Disastrous Turn Toward AI URL: https://werd.io/buzzfeed-nearing-bankruptcy-after-disastrous-turn-toward-ai/ Last updated: 2026-03-14T14:37:48.000Z \[[Victor Tangermann at Futurism](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/buzzfeed-disastrous-earnings-ai)\] This looks like a cut and dry story about a media company turning from producing content using writers to using AI and suffering the consequences: > “Peretti said BuzzFeed would be using the software to enhance the company’s infamous quizzes by generating personalized responses. > > \[…\] Now, three years after its AI pivot, the writing is on the wall. The company reported a net loss of $57.3 million in 2025 in an earnings report released on Thursday. In an official statement, the company glumly hinted at the possibility of going under sooner rather than later, writing that “there is substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”” The content was underwhelming, and this shift coincided with Buzzfeed shutting down its award-winning news division. There’s a lot AI can do, but it can’t replace the judgment and taste of human beings. It can’t be a great writer or a great creative. It can take on drudge-work and be a good copilot, like a grammar checker or other supportive tools can be good copilots, but it’s not a replacement for a skilled workforce. (I would also argue that there’s no such thing as unskilled labor: almost every job you can think of benefits from human nuance and judgment.) But there are a lot of people who see dollar signs and hope that replacing people with predictive engines will help them scale and increase their margins. All that means is that there will be a lot more Buzzfeeds. \[[Link](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/buzzfeed-disastrous-earnings-ai)\] ### Notable links: March 13, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-march-13-2026/ Last updated: 2026-03-13T13:30:23.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Coming Off the Bench for Bluesky](https://toni.org/2026/03/09/coming-off-the-bench-for-bluesky/) I’m mostly pretty excited about Bluesky’s CEO change. [Toni Schneider](https://toni.org/?ref=werd.io) was the CEO of Automattic for a very long time, and was arguably the grownup in the room. I’ve never met him, but he seems to understand open source and the principles that Bluesky is trying to uphold. [Jay Graber](https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team?ref=werd.io), of course, did an amazing thing. She first wrangled the community that was established to figure out what Bluesky even was, then was the keeper of the argument that it should be an independent entity rather than part of Twitter, and finally marshaled it into a real startup that raised millions of dollars to bring the platform to life. When Jack Dorsey became upset that Bluesky was embracing community safety over laissez-faire decentralization, she weathered that too, and he left the board. These things are *hard*. I’m glad she’s sticking around as Chief Innovation Officer; my sense is that she’s going to kick ass in tech for a long time. Toni explains the miracle here: > “I’ll be honest: I was skeptical about decentralized social. The vision was always compelling. A social web that no single company controls, where users own their identity and their relationships, where anyone can build on top of the protocol. But I’d seen enough promising decentralized projects fade or fragment that I had stopped expecting one to get to scale. > > Bluesky changed that. Hearing their vision and, more importantly, learning about the architecture they’d built (the [AT Protocol](https://atproto.com/?ref=werd.io)) I became a believer. This was a real, scalable foundation for a different kind of internet.” Over 40 million people use Bluesky. Toni’s job is to add a zero, or find the right person who will — and wrestle with all of the organizational, financial, engineering, and product decisions that lead to that growth. The result will be a significant decentralized platform in social media, a realm where the underlying power dynamics of centralization have led to thrown elections, genocides, wars, and a global rise of fascism. So no pressure! The world needs a change, and I want Bluesky to succeed. --- ### [Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester](https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/) Worth knowing if you think of Proton Mail as being a blanket security solution: in this case it was compelled to provide payment information for an account to the Swiss authorities, who then, via [a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty](https://www.congress.gov/treaty-document/94th-congress/17?ref=werd.io#:~:text=Formal%20Title.%20The%20Treaty%20between%20the%20United,of%20interpretative%20letters%20dated%20December%2023%2C%201975.), handed it over to the FBI. As a result, the FBI were able to determine the identity of the account owner, an activist who does not appear to have been charged with a crime. This is also kind of a weasely statement: > “Edward Shone, head of communications for Proton AG, the company behind Proton Mail, told 404 Media in an email: “We want to first clarify that Proton did not provide any information to the FBI, the information was obtained from the Swiss justice department via MLAT. Proton only provides the limited information that we have when issued with a legally binding order from Swiss authorities, which can only happen after all Swiss legal checks are passed. This is an important distinction because Proton operates exclusively under Swiss law.” Functionally, though, the material was provided to the FBI.” Not every Proton Mail account is paid. But adding payment information can effectively de-anonymize a user. Proton [does allow cash payments](https://proton.me/support/payment-options#cash), which are effectively anonymous; this is in line with tools like the Mullvad VPN, [which also allows payments to be made fully anonymously](https://mullvad.net/en/pricing?ref=werd.io). --- ### [BBC says ‘irreversible’ trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/mar/05/bbc-charter-renewal-tv-licence-major-overhaul?ref=werd.io) I hold three potentially-conflicting opinions about the BBC at once: - The license fee is a regressive tax that is punitive for lower-income people and needs to be overhauled - While it’s supposed to be independent and representative, its news coverage has sometimes fallen short of this standard - It is a treasure and must be protected at all costs Every British household that watches live content is supposed to pay £169.50 (around $225) a year. That’s more than many streaming services — although you arguably get a lot more for your money, considering the plethora of local coverage, stations, and other programs that the BBC supports. It doesn’t represent *all* of its income, but it accounts for most of it. > “In its opening response to government talks over its future, the corporation said 94% of people in the UK continued to use the BBC each month, but fewer than 80% of households contributed to the license fee.” Because more households are moving to on-demand instead of live — except, perhaps, for sports and some rare but high-profile events — license fee revenue has fallen. It’s interesting to think about what it would take to reform this funding structure to preserve public service broadcasting in the UK. There’s also an elephant in the room, which is the intentional gutting of public service broadcasting here in the US. How could the British ecosystem be inoculated — or at least strengthened — against that kind of threat from a future government? I’m not sure that turning it into a “Netflix for British TV” is the right answer. What might it look like to take a more open approach and turn the BBC into something that doesn’t copy any private company’s business model but is something truly new that meets public service media needs in the 21st century? Could it be more of an operating system that supports new experimentation and different kinds of media? How might it be more radically collaborative and representative in ways that private broadcasters aren’t able to achieve? There’s a lot to talk about. --- ### [The Safety Levers](https://pointc.co/the-safety-levers/) Another really good framework from [Corey](https://pointc.co/?ref=werd.io). Leading with vulnerability gives the people on your team permission to be vulnerable too. > “When leaders frame work as execution, they imply the answer is already known. When they frame it as learning, they acknowledge uncertainty is part of the work. > > \[…\] When leaders project certainty, dissent feels risky. When leaders acknowledge fallibility, speaking up becomes contribution, not challenge.” Modeling uncertainty, learning, and humility allows everyone to be in growth mode vs approaching their work with a fixed mindset. But it has to be done with intention: uncertainty that doesn’t also come with norms around experimentation, feedback, and accountability just feels like instability. I’m still growing here myself: in my world, everything is a prototype that can be challenged, experimented with, and iterated on. But providing the clear, structured lanes for people to experiment is crucial — and that intentional structure can be one of the first things to go when things get busy or fraught. Structures and norms only matter if they guide us through every situation and if they’re for everyone. --- ### [Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs](https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs) The results of this study into corporate BS isn’t going to surprise anyone who’s spent much time in an office. The researchers generated meaningless corporate gobbledegook and tested how workers rated its business-savviness. > “Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence. Those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making. > > \[…\] Essentially, the employees most excited and inspired by “visionary” corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions for their companies.” The Cornell report labels this as a paradox, I guess because these people disproportionately liked their supervisors but were also bad at their jobs. I don’t see that as a paradox at all: my bias is that people who think for themselves and are more distrustful of hierarchy are, to be honest, smarter. I love this sentence: > “Researching BS also points out the importance of critical thinking for everyone, inside the workplace and out. “ Well, yes. --- ### [Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress](https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/announcing-my-wordpress/) This is absolutely bonkers. If you’re on a desktop browser, [it’s worth trying now](https://my.wordpress.net/?ref=werd.io). > “With my.WordPress.net, WordPress runs entirely and persistently in your browser. There’s no sign-up, no hosting plan, and no domain decision standing between you and getting started. Built on [WordPress Playground](https://wordpress.org/playground/?ref=werd.io), my.WordPress.net takes the same technology that powers instant WordPress demos and turns it into something permanent and personal. This isn’t a temporary environment meant to be discarded. It’s a WordPress that stays with you.” Using WASM and local storage, an entire WordPress setup is installed *in your browser*, private to you. I’m curious about how nicely this plays with browser syncing — I’m a Zen user and use Firefox accounts to sync between devices, but haven’t kicked the tires yet. Because I flip between a few devices every day, that would be meaningful to me. But still: running a web application like WordPress in a browser is a meaningful innovation. Launching it as a product instead of some kind of labs experiment tucked away somewhere also indicates that they’re confident in it. It’s interesting to think about what that might mean for other self-hosted personal applications. To-do lists? CRMs? Source management? Lots of scope for private apps that are entirely based on the web platform. What a neat thing. ### Coming Off the Bench for Bluesky URL: https://werd.io/coming-off-the-bench-for-bluesky/ Last updated: 2026-03-13T13:15:40.000Z \[[Toni Schneider](https://toni.org/2026/03/09/coming-off-the-bench-for-bluesky/)\] I’m mostly pretty excited about Bluesky’s CEO change. [Toni Schneider](https://toni.org/) was the CEO of Automattic for a very long time, and was arguably the grownup in the room. I’ve never met him, but he seems to understand open source and the principles that Bluesky is trying to uphold. [Jay Graber](https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team), of course, did an amazing thing. She first wrangled the community that was established to figure out what Bluesky even was, then was the keeper of the argument that it should be an independent entity rather than part of Twitter, and finally marshaled it into a real startup that raised millions of dollars to bring the platform to life. When Jack Dorsey became upset that Bluesky was embracing community safety over laissez-faire decentralization, she weathered that too, and he left the board. These things are *hard*. I’m glad she’s sticking around as Chief Innovation Officer; my sense is that she’s going to kick ass in tech for a long time. Toni explains the miracle here: > “I’ll be honest: I was skeptical about decentralized social. The vision was always compelling. A social web that no single company controls, where users own their identity and their relationships, where anyone can build on top of the protocol. But I’d seen enough promising decentralized projects fade or fragment that I had stopped expecting one to get to scale. > > Bluesky changed that. Hearing their vision and, more importantly, learning about the architecture they’d built (the [AT Protocol](https://atproto.com/)) I became a believer. This was a real, scalable foundation for a different kind of internet.” Over 40 million people use Bluesky. Toni’s job is to add a zero, or find the right person who will — and wrestle with all of the organizational, financial, engineering, and product decisions that lead to that growth. The result will be a significant decentralized platform in social media, a realm where the underlying power dynamics of centralization have led to thrown elections, genocides, wars, and a global rise of fascism. So no pressure! The world needs a change, and I want Bluesky to succeed. \[[Link](https://toni.org/2026/03/09/coming-off-the-bench-for-bluesky/)\] ### Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress URL: https://werd.io/your-browser-becomes-your-wordpress/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T13:41:01.000Z \[[Brandon Payton at WordPress](https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/announcing-my-wordpress/)\] This is absolutely bonkers. If you’re on a desktop browser, [it’s worth trying now](https://my.wordpress.net/). > “With my.WordPress.net, WordPress runs entirely and persistently in your browser. There’s no sign-up, no hosting plan, and no domain decision standing between you and getting started. Built on [WordPress Playground](https://wordpress.org/playground/), my.WordPress.net takes the same technology that powers instant WordPress demos and turns it into something permanent and personal. This isn’t a temporary environment meant to be discarded. It’s a WordPress that stays with you.” Using WASM and local storage, an entire WordPress setup is installed *in your browser*, private to you. I’m curious about how nicely this plays with browser syncing — I’m a Zen user and use Firefox accounts to sync between devices, but haven’t kicked the tires yet. Because I flip between a few devices every day, that would be meaningful to me. But still: running a web application like WordPress in a browser is a meaningful innovation. Launching it as a product instead of some kind of labs experiment tucked away somewhere also indicates that they’re confident in it. It’s interesting to think about what that might mean for other self-hosted personal applications. To-do lists? CRMs? Source management? Lots of scope for private apps that are entirely based on the web platform. What a neat thing. \[[Link](https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/announcing-my-wordpress/)\] ### Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs URL: https://werd.io/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-at-their-jobs/ Last updated: 2026-03-06T14:24:45.000Z \[[Kate Blackwood in Cornell Chronicle](https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs)\] The results of this study into corporate BS isn’t going to surprise anyone who’s spent much time in an office. The researchers generated meaningless corporate gobbledegook and tested how workers rated its business-savviness. > “Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence. Those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making. > > \[…\] Essentially, the employees most excited and inspired by “visionary” corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions for their companies.” The Cornell report labels this as a paradox, I guess because these people disproportionately liked their supervisors but were also bad at their jobs. I don’t see that as a paradox at all: my bias is that people who think for themselves and are more distrustful of hierarchy are, to be honest, smarter. I love this sentence: > “Researching BS also points out the importance of critical thinking for everyone, inside the workplace and out. “ Well, yes. \[[Link](https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs)\] ### Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester URL: https://werd.io/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protester/ Last updated: 2026-03-06T00:40:52.000Z \[[Joseph Cox at 404 Media](https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/)\] Worth knowing if you think of Proton Mail as being a blanket security solution: in this case it was compelled to provide payment information for an account to the Swiss authorities, who then, via [a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty](https://www.congress.gov/treaty-document/94th-congress/17#:~:text=Formal%20Title.%20The%20Treaty%20between%20the%20United,of%20interpretative%20letters%20dated%20December%2023%2C%201975.), handed it over to the FBI. As a result, the FBI were able to determine the identity of the account owner, an activist who does not appear to have been charged with a crime. This is also kind of a weasely statement: > “Edward Shone, head of communications for Proton AG, the company behind Proton Mail, told 404 Media in an email: “We want to first clarify that Proton did not provide any information to the FBI, the information was obtained from the Swiss justice department via MLAT. Proton only provides the limited information that we have when issued with a legally binding order from Swiss authorities, which can only happen after all Swiss legal checks are passed. This is an important distinction because Proton operates exclusively under Swiss law.” Functionally, though, the material was provided to the FBI.” Not every Proton Mail account is paid. But adding payment information can effectively deanonymize a user. Compare and contrast to, say, Mullvad, [which allows payments to be made fully anonymously](https://mullvad.net/en/pricing). (*Edited to add:* [Proton *does* support cash payments](https://proton.me/support/payment-options#cash), which are a better route for anonymous users.) \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/)\] ### BBC says ‘irreversible’ trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul URL: https://werd.io/bbc-says-irreversible-trends-mean-it-will-not-survive-without-major-overhaul/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T14:24:42.000Z \[[Michael Savage in the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/mar/05/bbc-charter-renewal-tv-licence-major-overhaul?ref=werd.io)\] I hold three potentially-conflicting opinions about the BBC at once: - The license fee is a regressive tax that is punitive for lower-income people and needs to be overhauled - While it’s supposed to be independent and representative, its news coverage has sometimes fallen short of this standard - It is a treasure and must be protected at all costs Every British household that watches live content is supposed to pay £169.50 (around $225) a year. That’s more than many streaming services — although you arguably get a lot more for your money, considering the plethora of local coverage, stations, and other programs that the BBC supports. It doesn’t represent *all* of its income, but it accounts for most of it. > “In its opening response to government talks over its future, the corporation said 94% of people in the UK continued to use the BBC each month, but fewer than 80% of households contributed to the license fee.” Because more households are moving to on-demand instead of live — except, perhaps, for sports and some rare but high-profile events — license fee revenue has fallen. It’s interesting to think about what it would take to reform this funding structure to preserve public service broadcasting in the UK. There’s also an elephant in the room, which is the intentional gutting of public service broadcasting here in the US. How could the British ecosystem be inoculated — or at least strengthened — against that kind of threat from a future government? I’m not sure that turning it into a “Netflix for British TV” is the right answer. What might it look like to take a more open approach and turn the BBC into something that doesn’t copy any private company’s business model but is something truly new that meets public service media needs in the 21st century? Could it be more of an operating system that supports new experimentation and different kinds of media? How might it be more radically collaborative and representative in ways that private broadcasters aren’t able to achieve? There’s a lot to talk about. \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/mar/05/bbc-charter-renewal-tv-licence-major-overhaul)\] ### The Safety Levers URL: https://werd.io/the-safety-levers/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T14:01:16.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/the-safety-levers/)\] Another really good framework from [Corey](https://pointc.co). Leading with vulnerability gives the people on your team permission to be vulnerable too. > “When leaders frame work as execution, they imply the answer is already known. When they frame it as learning, they acknowledge uncertainty is part of the work. > > \[…\] When leaders project certainty, dissent feels risky. When leaders acknowledge fallibility, speaking up becomes contribution, not challenge.” Modeling uncertainty, learning, and humility allows everyone to be in growth mode vs approaching their work with a fixed mindset. But it has to be done with intention: uncertainty that doesn’t also come with norms around experimentation, feedback, and accountability just feels like instability. I’m still growing here myself: in my world, everything is a prototype that can be challenged, experimented with, and iterated on. But providing the clear, structured lanes for people to experiment is crucial — and that intentional structure can be one of the first things to go when things get busy or fraught. Structures and norms only matter if they guide us through every situation and if they’re for everyone. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/the-safety-levers/)\] ### Can we build the dog? URL: https://werd.io/can-we-build-the-dog/ Last updated: 2026-03-04T14:20:55.000Z “Will the dog hunt?” My sneakers squeaked on the concrete floor. Twenty entrepreneurs in black hoodies looked up at me, taking notes. This room had been a working garage once; now, we [ceremonially opened the garage door to let in new cohorts of early-stage media startups](https://matter.vc/meet-matter-seven/) with the potential to [change media for good](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/defining-change-media-for-good-2fdb07b3725b). Outside, the San Francisco traffic honked and screeched. We were midway through the bootcamp: the week-long course at the beginning of the accelerator that aimed to teach startups the fundamentals of human-centered venture design. We’d taken them out of their comfort zone to help them use journalistic skills to understand who they were building for and why. We’d helped them to think about how to effectively tell the story of their business in a way that helped them sharpen their underlying strategy. And now I was trying to explain *feasibility*. I echoed [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co), the Managing Director, who had laid out the groundwork in the days before. Repetition was our friend. *Desirability*, I explained, is your user risk: are you building something that meets a real person’s needs? Will the dog eat the dog food? *Viability*, in turn, is your business risk: if you are successful, can your venture succeed as a profitable, growing business? Will the dog hunt? And now it was time to explore *Feasibility*: can you provide this service with the team, time, and resources reasonably at your disposal? I leaned in conspiratorially and vamped: *can we build the dog?* It was the best job I ever had: using my experience as a founder, an engineer, and a storyteller to support teams that were genuinely trying to make a difference. People who went through Matter have gone on to help countless newsrooms succeed by being more empathetic and product-minded; some have left media and even gone on to build hospitals. I went through Matter as the founder of Known in 2014 and came back to support other founders a few years later. Since then, how I think about feasibility has completely changed. ### The build vs the long, wagging tail The center of gravity for feasibility, at least in my mind, used to be the build stage. How do you build the initial version of a tool or a service that provides [a minimum desirable experience](https://benwerd.medium.com/founding-a-startup-just-one-more-time-37f7a4b9b22e) to meet your user’s need? Startups also need to consider how to make it scale so that you can address a larger potential number of users with the time, team, and resources *potentially* at your disposal. If you can’t get there with the resources you have, could you get there with investment dollars you could realistically raise? In a newsroom or other organization the formula is a little bit different. You’re probably not raising money for a specific tool or a service — although, sometimes, grant funding or funding from a corporate parent *is* available for certain things. But you’re most often asking whether you can provide the service or tool with the time, team, and resources *currently* at your disposal. Often, your time is limited, your team is small, and your resources are meagre. You have to make stark tradeoffs. In both contexts, you don’t want to waste time spinning your wheels building solutions to problems other people have already solved. [I’ve already written about building vs buying for newsrooms](https://werd.io/build-what-makes-you-special-buy-the-rest/): > Newsroom tech teams are like startups in that they’re running with limited resources and constantly trying to assess how they can provide the most value. Back when I was Director of Investments at Matter Ventures, I advised them to spend their time building the things that made them special — their differentiating value — and using the most boring, accepted solution for everything else. > > It's a rule of thumb that works universally: build what makes you special and buy the rest. But the critical difference is that, in newsrooms, what makes you special is the journalism that software enables, not the software itself. The cost of building something new has fallen through the floor over the last decade. Developer tools have become more powerful, numerous, and freely available. Open source has exploded with libraries that can help you get to an initial version much faster. Enter AI. Almost without warning, [AI-enabled tools dramatically expanded what a resource-strapped team can create](https://werd.io/good-vibes-bad-vendors/). It’s a genuine sea change. The more founders and senior engineers I speak to who are actively using these tools, the more stories I hear about accelerated development. People are building smaller tools that would have taken many sprints in less than a day; founders are building entire startups that might have taken six months in less than one. But all code needs to be maintained. There are bugs, libraries need to be upgraded, underlying platform changes introduce security flaws and incompatibilities. Changes in business needs mean that tools and services need to be adjusted. All of those things add up to a maintenance overhead that comes with introducing any new tool or service. If we rapidly build more and more software, that maintenance overhead accumulates at speed. Even if we have the discipline to keep our technical footprint small, we’re not absolved from doing what has to be done to keep everything running. When we consider feasibility, the center of gravity is no longer in building the thing. It’s *supporting* it. ### A shared rubric reduces risk The dynamics may have changed but every team still needs to make a bet about whether we can build and support a project before it takes it on. If something is obviously not feasible, the team shouldn’t do it. On the other hand, if a team doesn’t have a clear, shared understanding of how to assess feasibility, it can become an easy way for someone to subjectively shut down a project for arbitrary reasons. Without a clearly shared understanding of risk, the *idea* of risk can be poison. So that’s what we need: a shared rubric for assessing the feasibility of a project. Our assessments won’t always be right, and we always learn new things about a project in the course of building or supporting it. But while complete certainty is hard to achieve, this will at least provide *directional* information about whether we can do it. There are existing frameworks, but they’re mostly designed for large enterprise environments: instead of giving you a directional gut check, they produce documents used in commissioning vendors, justifying budgets to executives, and satisfying governance processes. [TELOS](https://business.tutsplus.com/articles/can-we-really-do-it-how-to-conduct-a-telos-feasibility-study--cms-21442) — Technical, Economic, Legal, Operational, and Scheduling — feasibility tests are very broad and don’t consider technology alone. [PIECES](https://www.topdevelopers.co/blog/feasibility-study-in-software-development/) examines whether a proposed project will improve the status quo across Performance, Information, Economics, Control, Efficiency, and Services. Both are useful to understand, but also not quite what most time-strapped contexts demand. We need something scrappier. ### A prototype rubric for feasibility Here are some questions a team can ask themselves. Not only are they useful in themselves, but you can use them for alignment: if a product manager ranks a factor with a low score but a senior engineer on the team ranks it with a high one, you know there’s a problem that you need to dig into. Each of these questions can lead to its own targeted discussion. The purpose of the rubric is not to be a thought-ending exercise: it’s to align a team around what’s actually important to consider, and open up conversations about any disagreements so that everyone can come to a consensus. Each person on the team should run through the rubric — perhaps asynchronously — and then share their results with the group in a shared meeting. These questions take our AI engineering context into account: questions about exploring new architectures are weighted lower than they would have been ten years ago. #### 1\. The problem context (25 points) **How much of this project's scope is a black box? (10 points)** *1 = We have built this exact thing before. 10 = This is completely new territory; we don't even know what questions to ask yet.* **How much friction will our existing tech stack, legacy systems, or organizational quirks add to the build? (10 points)** *1 = Greenfield project using our preferred stack; 10 = Navigating a maze of legacy spaghetti code or systems.* **How fundamentally difficult is the core problem we are trying to solve? (5 points)** *1 = A standard CRUD app; 5 = Uncharted algorithmic research.* #### 2\. Execution (15 points) Here, the “development period” is tailored to your unit of project organization time on your product roadmap. On some teams, it’s a quarter; for others, it’s half a year. These questions are *not* meant to be considered at the sprint level. **How much of the team’s total capacity will the initial build consume? (10 points)** *1 = We can spin this up in an afternoon; 10 = Consumes 100% of the engineering team's capacity for the development period.* **How well do the skills required match the people we currently have? (5 points)** *1 = We have deep expertise here; 5 = Requires learning new frameworks from scratch.* #### 3\. The long, wagging tail (60 points) While most of these questions consider up-front issues, this section describes the *ongoing* overhead for a team. This represents risk: time a team spends working on maintaining an existing tool is time it can’t spend building anything new or maintaining other tools. Over time, without careful lifecycle management and brutal decision-making, a team’s bandwidth can disappear into ongoing maintenance. **How long are we committing to keep this system alive? (20 points)** *1 = A disposable prototype or short-term event tool (weeks or months); 20 = A permanent, foundational system we expect to rely on for years.* **How much of our team’s capacity will keeping this system alive consume in a typical month? (30 points)** *1 = Set it and forget it; 30 = Requires daily babysitting, constant bug fixes, and continuous adaptation to upstream changes.* **How heavily does this project rely on teams, platforms, APIs, or vendors that we do not control? (10 points)** *1 = Fully self-contained; 10 = Dependent on unstable APIs, beta AI models, or restrictive third-party vendors.* #### 4\. The blast radius (40 points) Because modern tools let small teams build powerful things quickly, the risk of deploying something dangerous or irreversible is higher. This category is weighted heavily to catch those risks. **How sensitive is the information that this tool handles? (20 points)** *1 = Public, anonymous data; 20 = Handling highly sensitive PII, whistleblower documents, or financial data.* **How catastrophic is it if we ship an imperfect, glitchy version? (10 points)** *1 = We can ship it broken and iterate safely; 10 = Mission-critical; if it’s not perfect on day one, we burn trust or face legal ruin.* **If we realize this was a mistake halfway through, how hard is it to undo? (10 points)** *1 = A two-way door; we can easily turn it off; 10 = A one-way door; involves irreversible data migrations or permanent structural changes.* Once everyone has tallied their numbers, compare your total scores out of 140\. This is nothing more than a temperature check: again, it should be considered a conversation-starter, not the final word. Roughly, here’s how the scores break down: **0–45: Green light.** This project is highly feasible. The initial lift is manageable, the ongoing tax on your team is low, and the blast radius if things go wrong is minimal. Build the dog. **46–95: Yellow light.** This is the danger zone of hidden costs. You can probably build this, but the lifespan, ongoing maintenance, vendor dependencies, or security requirements will create a permanent drag on your team’s velocity. Before proceeding, ask yourselves: what existing project are we willing to sunset to make room for this new maintenance burden? What’s the opportunity cost, and is the lift to the organization worth it? While this rubric only considers feasibility, this is a good time to go back to desirability and make sure the juice is worth the squeeze. **96–140: Red light.** This project is fundamentally infeasible with your current resources. The complexity is too high, the blast radius is too dangerous, or the multi-year maintenance load will simply sink your engineering team. If this project is absolutely vital to the business, you cannot build it scrappily: you need to buy an enterprise solution, hire specialists, or radically reduce the scope by choosing a much smaller problem to solve first. Once again, this isn’t the be-all and end-all. For one thing, the rubric is not a simple average: pattern matters as much as the total. It’s worth checking for category dominance: if your scores are generally low but are much higher for the long, wagging tail, that doesn’t mean you have an unambiguous green light. These categories may also surface other conversations that aren’t cleanly captured by the rubric. But the first step towards shared understanding is building a structure to achieve understanding *about* — and hopefully this gets you some of the way there. And please: talk to people. For more complicated projects, I always think it’s a good idea to speak to experts in order to validate your assumptions about feasibility. For *any* project, speaking to your users to make sure you’ve nailed desirability, and speaking to equivalent businesses to validate your viability assumptions, are crucial. The map is not the territory, and sometimes you need multiple maps. ### Can we build the dog? The beauty of a shared rubric isn’t that it automatically makes decisions for you. It’s that it forces a team to look at the exact same map. If a product manager scores the project a 40, but a senior engineer scores it a 105, you’ve found an area of disagreement that you need to explore. It’s far better to do that early, before you dive into complicated specification work or writing code. In a world where AI and modern tooling make it dangerously easy to spin up new software, our ultimate constraint is no longer our ability to type code. It’s our capacity to care for the things we bring into the world. Saying "no" to a project with a massive, hidden maintenance burden isn't a failure of imagination; it is how you protect your team’s time so they can focus on the journalism, the community, or the core mission that actually makes your organization special. Today, building the dog is the easy part. The real question is whether you have the time, energy, and resources to feed it, walk it, and take it to the vet for the next five years. If you do, then by all means: let’s see if it hunts. ### Good vibes, bad vendors URL: https://werd.io/good-vibes-bad-vendors/ Last updated: 2026-03-04T14:21:03.000Z When I was thirteen or fourteen I had a really comfortable sweatshirt that I wore to school all the time — but it did have a few inherent problems. For one thing, it had a great big target on it, and wearing a literal target to high school was just asking for it. For another, on top of that, in Looney Tunes writing, was the confident phrase: “It’s a good vibe!” I was bullied as mercilessly as one might expect, but I honestly think it might have killed in the AI era. I’d like to think I was just ahead of my time. Andrej Karpathy, an early OpenAI researcher who now works [at his own startup](https://eurekalabs.ai/), coined the phrase *vibe coding* last year. To vibe code is to use an LLM like Claude or ChatGPT to generate source code instead of writing it yourself. He meant it as a way to loosely prototype code or to make progress on a weekend project. LLMs, at least at the time, could not be fully trusted to write well-written, working code. It was an out-there idea. What a difference a year makes. Today, it’s a mainstream conversation that is rapidly reshaping technology strategy — and informing layoffs across industries. AI conversations are always fraught, for good reasons that include the underlying power dynamics and the bad behavior of most of the AI vendors. At the same time, the whole AI landscape is changing incredibly rapidly, and it’s become a cliché to point out that any discussion of what LLMs can and can’t do today will probably be invalid two or three months from now. And, of course, millions of words have been written about it at this point. But even despite all that, I still think it’s worth talking about. If you’re running technology in a small, resource-constrained environment — like a newsroom or a non-profit — how should you think about AI-enhanced software engineering? Come to that, how should *I*? Let’s talk about it. ### First things first: does it work? It didn’t, and then it did. Six months ago, LLMs could generate a certain amount of code, but they would often make inefficient decisions or hallucinate libraries and API endpoints, and you’d need to babysit them a lot. Their use was mostly passive: they would generate code snippets based on immediate user prompts, and engineers would have to spend a bunch of time debugging the output. And in terms of security, it was the Wild West; there were essentially no security considerations. LLMs are famously stochastic (their output is randomly determined, not deterministic) and prone to hallucinations. The result was unreliable code. A lot has changed since then. In particular, the models released in February, 2026 are a sea change in reliability: given the right prompt, they often genuinely can write decent code in one shot. Tools like Claude Code can go off, spawn multiple agents, investigate a problem, build a reasonable plan, and then execute on it, while working in a safely sandboxed environment. It’s not just about improved models, although they obviously have a central part to play. An ecosystem is developing around doing AI-assisted software engineering well. Plugins like [Jesse Vincent](https://blog.fsck.com/)’s [Superpowers](https://github.com/obra/superpowers) encourage good decision-making based on principles of excellent software architecture design and product management. Structured frameworks like [spec-driven development](https://github.blog/ai-and-ml/generative-ai/spec-driven-development-with-ai-get-started-with-a-new-open-source-toolkit/) similarly help lead the agent to sensible outcomes; both are incorporated in all-in-one coding lifecycle toolkits like [Metaswarm](https://github.com/dsifry/metaswarm). A rigorous process is preserved, and throughout, there are far more safety guardrails to prevent security incidents (although it’s easy to overcome them, or they’re sometimes not on by default), and using AI to generate code is much safer than it was. Claude Code absolutely can write the code, build a plan, and document its work. I have been an AI skeptic, but in my experiments I’ve found that it really can feel like magic. You can reasonably object to AI for any number of reasons, but this is no longer one. It works. The thing to understand is that this is a tool for engineers — and senior engineers will get the best results. It takes real engineering skill to craft a prompt that will do the right thing and result in a strong architecture. The process changes the center of gravity from writing source code in a programming language to crafting goals, understanding your user, being crystal clear about the experience and the value you want to convey, and thinking about architectural implications. That probably means talking to people, forming a hypothesis about what they need, testing it with them, and considering the ongoing technical implications of the work. Those are things that senior engineers already spend much of their time doing — indeed, I’d argue that it’s what separates a great senior engineer from a mid-level one. The core question a senior engineer navigates well comes down to: lots of people *can* write code, but *should* they? Why, and for whom? Those questions only become more important in a world where AI is writing the source code. When implementation is faster, problem selection and scoping become the scarce skills. Friction is training: we learn how to engineer software through our terrible experiences. When things go wrong, we learn. When we have to refactor, we learn. When we talk to our peers about our work, we learn. AI removes most of this friction and hides the complexity away from us: it obscures failure, compresses the process of debugging, and automates refactoring. When these hard-earned skills are the reason we can make good software engineering decisions with AI, but the AI doesn’t offer newcomers the ability to build those skills, who will train the AI once we are gone? Opinions on that change in center of gravity will be intensely divided. [I stand by this New Year’s Day thought about Claude Code](https://werd.io/2025-the-year-in-llms/): > It has the potential to transform all of tech. I also think we’re going to see a real split in the tech industry (and everywhere code is written) between people who are outcome-driven and are excited to get to the part where they can test their work with users faster, and people who are process-driven and get their meaning from the engineering itself and are upset about having that taken away. I’m very much an outcome-driven developer, and to me it’s a giant relief. Not everyone will feel the same way. Resource-constrained environments *must* be outcome-driven. They can’t spend their time on the process of software engineering; the best way for them to move forward is to start small, release a valuable core that solves a problem for some set of users as early as possible, and then continually iterate around it, using user feedback as a guide. There’s no alternative to having empathetic, human-centered senior engineers on your team — with or without AI. But AI engineering tools may have an interesting side effect: I can see a world where pushing these product and spec questions to the forefront helps more engineers build those skills more quickly. The first step, after all, is understanding that those answers are needed to begin with. It’s worth saying that there will be many managers who hope that tools like Claude Code will mean they can do away with engineers or dramatically cut their workforces. Of course there will. They may even see engineers as gatekeepers, and there may be resentment that they’re needed at all — and a hope that this work can be done directly by managers or other key employees. In a newsroom, for example, can’t the *journalists* produce tools now? For non-engineers, they can be a useful prototyping tool: for a product manager, for example, it may help assess a user interface or experiment with an idea. But those prototypes are not enduring software; nor are they projects that can be “handed off” to engineers to support. To properly architect a system, there’s a lot you need to consider. This includes performance, scalability, and the ongoing overhead of maintaining a project and keeping it safe: nobody wants to rely on software that proves to be slow, insecure, or impossible to update. You also need to assess the technical implications of a project: are there technical standards that the project should be adhering to, or battle-tested best practices that the design should take into consideration? For all these reasons, an engineer must be involved from the beginning. These tools can’t replace technical staff, and they shouldn’t. Like I said, these tools are *for* engineers, not a replacement for them. ### Okay, but what about those power dynamics? Consider an individual, indie developer. Over the last few decades, they’ve become more and more empowered: developer tools have become cheaper and more of them are open source. Power and control have been devolved to the individual; you can run the tools you want on your own hardware, configure or recode them to your needs, use them for free, and share any of your changes. Engineering has become more and more of an open collective built on radical collaboration. That allows developers with fewer resources to build more easily, widening the pool of people who can build startups, create useful tools, and learn these skills to begin with. AI-assisted engineering centralizes power back in the other direction. Claude Code, Codex, and so on are all centralized, proprietary tools that become harder to move away from the longer they’re relied upon. They’re also expensive: while open source tools are decentralized and free, it’s incredibly easy to spend large amounts on Claude. Based on my own experimentation and anecdotes from friends and peer companies, any engineer that relies on Claude Code as part of their daily work is likely to spend hundreds of dollars a week; these are new costs that didn’t previously exist. Those extra costs could theoretically be offset by significant performance or efficiency gains. The thing is, those gains aren’t as strong as you might expect given the apparent magic of automatically generated code. A study recently published in Harvard Business Review indicated that [adding AI actually intensified the workload, putting engineers at risk of burning out](https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it): > The changes brought about by enthusiastic AI adoption can be unsustainable, causing problems down the line. Once the excitement of experimenting fades, workers can find that their workload has quietly grown and feel stretched from juggling everything that’s suddenly on their plate. That workload creep can in turn lead to cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making. The productivity surge enjoyed at the beginning can give way to lower quality work, turnover, and other problems. These can be mitigated by good work hygiene: enforcing breaks and sensible work hours. But the employers who are most enthusiastic about introducing AI may also be the ones that are least enthusiastic about benefits that center employee well-being over productivity. I’ve already mentioned that some managers may hope that AI can reduce their investment in software engineers. One can easily imagine that the presence of AI — or, rather, the threat of being replaced by it — could be used as a cudgel to depress engineer salaries. It gives managers more leverage beyond money, too: those longer hours and more intense workloads that the HBR study found could burn engineers out might be more likely in a world where engineers fear for their jobs. The long-term implications are even starker. Consider a world where the recentralization of power from individuals to large, centralized companies continues at the current pace. When AI writes most source code, fewer and fewer engineers will be capable of doing this work themselves, which will lead to even more dependence and lock-in. It’s been noted in the past that while generative AI robs artists of the interesting work and leaves them with the mundane bits, for outcome-oriented engineers it robs them of the mundane bits and leaves them with the interesting parts. I’d argue that the real value is in the intersection between coding and the higher-level work; they’re inseparable. By improving the way we code, we improve the way we can solve problems for real people. (How can you solve a problem if you don’t really understand how the solution works?) By improving the way we think about solving problems, we improve the way we code. (How can you code something well if you don’t know who it’s for or why it needs to exist?) They aren’t two separate processes; they’re parts of the same thing. Removing one makes the other less effective. Without concerted effort, an entire industry will be de-skilled and de-valued, their human expertise replaced with software that charges by the token. ### So let’s put in the effort AI isn’t going away, and AI-assisted software engineering is a permanent addition to the way we build software. But that’s not the same thing as saying that the way we use AI *today* won’t change. Any policy for AI-assisted engineering has to take into account risks of various kinds. I’d loosely separate them into the following categories: - **Employee risk:** preventing burnout, staff turnover, and poor morale. - **Security risk:** preventing data leaks and security incidents that compromise customers, sources, employees, or other members of the community. - **Quality risk:** preventing low-quality code that impacts the efficiency, experience, or perceived quality of the organization’s work. - **Supplier risk:** reducing the potential impact of potentially harmful choices made by AI vendors. While I’m not going to go into a full framework here — that’s part of what I do at my day job — let’s talk about how we might think about addressing them together. #### Employee risk In that Harvard Business School report about AI-driven burnout in engineers, the authors suggested some sensible mitigations. These included creating, as team norms, structured time for quiet reflection on the project at hand, and limiting interruptions; intentional processes for limiting the work that can move forward, to prevent engineers from taking on (or being asked to take on) too many tasks just because they think they can; and creating more space for empathetic human connection as a team. Those are all things that every team should do, whether or not they use AI! But they become even more important on an AI-accelerated team. If you don’t have any norms about tightly controlling when work moves forward, for example, adding a tool that accelerates the work will result in a higher volume of work getting processed, but not necessarily any strategic selection about the most *important* work to do. Perhaps most importantly, engineers are worried that they’ll be replaced at the hands of managers who may not understand what they do. They need to have the emotional safety and security that comes from knowing that they won’t. It needs to be communicated to them that the importance of their skills is understood. They are experts in their fields, and they’ve just gained another tool to help them; they are not interchangeable with the tool. #### Security and quality risk It turns out that you go a long way towards addressing a lot of security, quality, and efficiency issues — as well as some of the morale issues that lead to employee risk — by placing engineers at the center of the process. Some AI processes talk about “human in the loop”. That term was borrowed from more traditional machine learning processes; in the case of anything where AI takes an action in the world on behalf of a user, like engineering, I’d prefer to reframe it as a tool that is always directly under human control. In that light, all code must have a human owner who will take responsibility for it. It’s *their* code, just as if they’d written it in an integrated development environment; they just happened to use a different tool. If all generated code must ultimately be owned and reviewed by a human, that person is able to tune the results for safety, efficiency, and quality. Most well-run engineering teams have a peer review process where code written by an engineer must be officially reviewed by a second engineer before it can be merged into the main codebase. If we assume that generated code is owned by Engineer A, that means there must be a human Engineer B to give it a second pair of eyes. They might also be using automated tools to help their review along, but they’re the ones who ultimately take responsibility for a review. This isn’t enough. All projects need to have comprehensive automated testing: tests that must run on code that is about to be merged into the main codebase in order to make sure everything still functions. Tests for efficiency, adherence to style guidelines, and security issues can be run here too. What’s kind of fun is that when these are in place, tools like Claude Code will look at the test output, make corrections when something doesn’t pass, and try again — all automatically. #### Supplier risk The centralization that removes power and agency from engineers also introduces a serious business risk. If a core part of an organization’s value comes from software development, inexorably placing a centralized service in the middle of your process makes you heavily dependent on their decision-making. They can increase their prices, make changes to their stack, or change the way they think about keeping your data and source code safe, and there’s very little you can do about it. The good news is that, right now, no AI vendor can lock you into their services, because your source code itself and your infrastructure stack are independent of your AI tools. Your code is managed, stored, and hosted in different places, and you can think of source code itself as being a kind of open protocol: because it’s plain text, you can use virtually any tool with it. Source code still has the devolved, open, decentralized properties of the open source ecosystem that has put power in engineers’ hands for decades. That provides at least some protection against an AI vendor suddenly increasing their prices or changing their privacy stance: you can always vote with your feet. If you’re uncomfortable using one of the major model providers, open source alternatives are available. Tools like [Aider](https://aider.chat/) and [Cline](https://cline.bot/) can provide agentic coding using any model, including local models that could theoretically be run on an organization’s own infrastructure. In practice, though, this requires more powerful hardware than most smaller organizations can afford; this may become less of an issue over time, as new hardware emerges, but it certainly is one now. Still, local models could help prevent lock-in — and may prevent some security issues, too. This inherent openness could change as AI vendors look for ways to increase their revenue and reduce churn. We may see AI-specific alternatives to git and GitHub; I can even imagine programming languages that are “optimized for AI” but that just happen to be proprietary and locked in to a vendor. Every company that builds software should watch for these forms of lock-in and reject them. We should also be wary of marketing that tells us to just let the AI write code autonomously. These are ideas that cement vendors as a full replacement for the software development process, moving a center of expertise that was previously owned by an organization into a centralized technology owned by someone else. It’s a trap: that world is one where the source code can’t be moved between agents and your products are fully locked into their services without a credible exit. ### Do we want to invite these companies into our workplaces? A *ton* has been written on the issues surrounding AI. [Last summer, I wrote a broader guide to navigating AI that I think still holds up.](https://werd.io/evaluating-ai/) In it, I noted: > A lot of money has been spent to encourage businesses to adopt AI — which means deeply embed services provided by these vendors into their processes. The intention is to make their services integral as quickly as possible. That’s why there’s heavy sponsorship at conferences for various industries, programs to sponsor adoption, and so on. Managers and board members see all this messaging and start asking, “what are we doing with AI?” specifically because this FOMO message has reached them. My approach to evaluating AI remains through two main lenses: the technology itself and the vendors who make it, many of whom are intentionally furthering harms and participating in authoritarianism. [The further reading section of that earlier piece is a good place to start.](https://werd.io/evaluating-ai/#further-reading) The thing that I didn’t mention then, but is worth calling out now, is the sheer precarity of these vendors. AI vendors [are offering their services for below cost](https://www.wheresyoured.at/why-everybody-is-losing-money-on-ai/#:~:text=Generative%20AI%20companies%20%E2%80%94%20OpenAI%20and%20Anthropic,%28EG:%20OpenAI%20and%20Anthropic%29%20is%20losing%20money.) and have struggled to articulate value in a way that could credibly lead to profitability. Apparently feeling this gap, OpenAI is experimenting with [ads](https://searchengineland.com/chatgpt-ads-spotted-and-they-are-quite-aggressive-469651) and [porn](https://gizmodo.com/chatgpts-adult-mode-is-coming-in-2026-2000698677), while finding itself under scrutiny for [putting teen wellbeing at risk](https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/us/openai-chatgpt-suicide-lawsuit-invs-vis) through choices it made to boost engagement. Anthropic [was sued by Reddit last year](https://technologymagazine.com/articles/why-reddit-sues-anthropic-the-dangers-of-ai-data-privacy) for scraping Reddit data for training without authorization, and [had to settle a high-profile lawsuit](https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-settles-copyright-lawsuit-authors/) brought by book authors whose work it stole for training data. I’ve mentioned Claude Code a bunch in this piece, because it works really well, but it was trained using stolen work. Meanwhile, from a technical standpoint, there has been some research that [there are diminishing returns to new LLM development](https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/the-ai-bubble-and-the-u-s-economy-how-long-do-hallucinations-last) and we’re already past the peak. There’s no guarantee these companies will make it. If an organization has invested in agentic coding processes that don’t substantially keep humans in the loop and the vendors that power them disappear, they will be left in a bind, with no in-house expertise, and company strategies that depend on AI. That makes it a dangerous gamble. We will have lost internal skill while increasing our dependence on very fragile external suppliers. ### So how should you think about it? AI coding works. It shifts the center of gravity from implementation to judgment, which increases the value of senior engineering skills. It also introduces significant power, labor, and supplier risks. That means that solid guardrails and cultural norms are non-optional. Even if you haven’t rolled it out yet, your engineers are almost certainly using it. In conversations with my peers, I’ve heard countless stories of organizations that banned it but discovered that its workforce had just taken matters into their own hands. While there are many engineers who refuse to touch it, many more are eager to have it. You could ban it, but it’d likely be fruitless: those engineers who use their own accounts will probably keep doing so. It’s better to have the tools in a place that’s under your control and observable than used in the shadows in a way that might put your data at risk. Given that, it’s better to roll it out than to not. But you need to do it with your eyes wide open and with a sense of intentionality. Be aware of the risks, and mitigate them in advance with common sense cultural norms like the ones I discussed earlier: pay attention to your employee and supplier risks in particular. Don’t let AI push to production without oversight. And keep humans not just in the loop but fully in control. I don’t think it’s productive to *mandate* the use of AI-assisted engineering, which runs the risk of alienating some engineers — the split between AI skeptics and those who are excited about the technology is real — and preventing nuanced discussions about how the technology can be used inside your workplace. What happens in practice when you just let it roll out to anyone who wants to try it is that people *do* try it; they find that it’s useful for some tasks, and then quickly find its limitations. That’s a healthy exploration. How should *I* think about it? I’m still figuring it out. Jesse Vincent compares the process of hating “agentic” development and pushing through it to discover that code was never the most important part of building software [to the process of being a manager and asking your team to build things instead of coding them yourself](https://primeradiant.com/blog/2026/what-we-are-working-on.html). I agree that these experiences rhyme — but of course, when you lead a team, you’re investing in human beings, working alongside them, and helping them to grow in the process. That’s exponentially more rewarding than leading software agents built to provide value for a megacorporation. But it doesn’t need to be that way. You can do both. If you treat the technology as a tool, albeit one that has been made by genuinely problematic companies, you can roll it out to a real, human team and continue to build things together. You can invest in and support them while you navigate new kinds of software problems; together, you can figure out how to shape the culture of an engineering team that is undergoing a paradigm shift. You can train the next generation of software engineers, both keeping the long history of software development in mind, and taking into account these new skills. And you can look for the next thing that properly devolves power down the stack to the individual, for the benefit of everyone. Software development is still human. You can work together towards a shared mission, pick and choose the pieces of this new technology that make sense according to your strategy and values, and build community in the process. *That’s* a good vibe. ### Notable links: February 20, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-february-20-2026/ Last updated: 2026-02-20T10:00:37.000Z *Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *This week: the trouble with innovation and revenue in news, and some of the societal forces (political manipulation, exploitation) that mean figuring those things out are vital.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Journalism lost its culture of sharing](https://source.opennews.org/articles/journalism-lost-sharing-culture/) I agree, strongly, with this piece about (re)building an open source culture in news by [Scott Klein](https://bsky.app/profile/kleinmatic.bsky.social?ref=werd.io) and [Ben Welsh](https://palewi.re/who-is-ben-welsh/?ref=werd.io). But then, I would: I spent over a decade working to build open source communities, and then another decade and change working alongside and then inside newsrooms. So it’s to my chagrin that the newsroom where I currently serve as Senior Director of Technology is one of the places listed here where open source contributions have significantly dropped off: > “At ProPublica, teams published detailed white papers alongside major investigations, explaining their quantitative methodologies with scientific rigor, allowing other researchers to verify and learn from their work. Major news organizations ran active blogs where they shared techniques and lessons learned. Conference presentations at NICAR and elsewhere became venues for passing along hard-won knowledge.” The effect of this work didn’t just lift the work of journalism, it attracted new people to it: > “This culture made newsrooms more attractive places to work for civic-minded technologists. If you had programming skills and wanted to use them to make a difference, journalism offered you the chance to build things that mattered and share them with the world.” I think there’s a lot to be gained by collaborating on an open source basis. We typically run small, resource-constrained teams where building new software is contextually hard. And we have problems that, if they’re not identical, are at least significantly overlapping; by *not* collaborating on them, we further an ecosystem where low-resource organizations are all solving the same sorts of things with very few people and very little money in parallel. I was present at the News Product Alliance Summit session described in this piece, and I think the analysis of both the causes of this decline and some of the solutions are spot on. I was particularly enamored by the idea of an Open Source Editor (or director — does everything in news need to be an editor?) and public recognition for great open technical work in the field of journalism. I think it’s also worth saying that open source, done well, is about much more than just releasing your code. A good open source project is a community, not a package. So there’s a lot of ecosystem development and community management involved to foster the kind of real collaboration that is required for this to succeed — even after newsrooms have overcome the institutional hurdles to releasing their work in the first place. I’m really grateful that Scott and Ben have been championing this cause. I’m right there with them, and I’ll do what I can to help. It’s a concrete way we can build a more successful, efficient news ecosystem with stronger technology capabilities, and that’s something we should all want. --- ### [Stop calling optimization "innovation."](https://www.backstoryandstrategy.com/p/the-nimble-and-aggressive-lie?publication%5Fid=5020273&post%5Fid=188452724&isFreemail=true&r=5xqp&triedRedirect=true) I appreciate this distillation of the twin needs of optimizing the Engine — getting as much value as you can out of your existing business model — and the Explorer, which is all about actual innovation that seeks out *new* products, markets, and models. > “If your staff meetings are all about how to hit next month’s KPIs, you don’t have an Explorer. You have a very well-oiled engine. True resilience means insulating your Explorer team from the Engine. It means giving a team room to spend 6 months on a project that could totally flop without punishing them if it does.” I think this is clearly true. At the same time, I think it’s very optimistic about where many organizations actually are: they very often don’t have those goals or KPIs to hit. The result is a kind of vibes-based strategy. Because nothing is measured, or the right things aren’t measured, it’s impossible to run an informed experiment. In those organizations, what feels like innovation is just getting to baseline competence. Before they can optimize, they need to define a concrete strategy, with attendant metrics that you can measure as the basis for performing experiments. Buying a neat new product can be a way to absolve the team from doing the hard work of strategy-building: “look,” they can tell their boards, “we’re innovative!” Creating a concrete strategy and deploying technology that can help serve it are vital. But they, in themselves, aren’t innovation: creating a real culture of innovative experimentation where you can try new things and fail fast is how you de-risk your business for the future. That means understanding your readers incredibly well, so you can anchor your experiments around their needs; it means giving your team the permission to fail; it means creating cross-functional teams who can be radically collaborative and draw conclusions from their experiments quickly; and it means being clear-eyed about where your business actually stands. --- ### [The political effects of X’s feed algorithm](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2) Users who moved from a reverse-chronological social media algorithm to X’s: > “\[…\] were 4.7 percentage points more likely to prioritize policy issues considered important by Republicans, such as inflation, immigration and crime. They were also 5.5 percentage points more likely to believe that the investigations into Trump are unacceptable, describing them as contrary to the rule of law, undermining democracy, an attempt to stop the campaign and an attack on people like themselves.” And even more surprisingly, once the algorithm was switched *off*, their views did not change again. The effect of the algorithm lingered, in part because it led users to follow more conservative influencers. We intuitively knew that the algorithm mattered, but this is a key finding that puts numbers to it. If that number seems small to you, consider that 4.7% is more than enough to swing an election. It’s also interesting that findings for other algorithms were different; if this result holds up, it suggests that X’s algorithm may be particularly predisposed for political manipulation, even above Facebook and Instagram. This should be a wakeup call for politically-engaged funders and anyone who cares about civil society. It’s not that we need to have less conservative algorithms; it’s that whoever controls the algorithms has a disproportionate say over the electorate’s view of the world. We need more funding into open protocols that decentralize algorithmic ownership; open platforms that give users a choice of algorithm and platform provider; and algorithmic transparency across our information ecosystem. --- ### [Palantir vs. the "Republik": US analytics firm takes magazine to court](https://www.heise.de/en/news/Palantir-vs-the-Republik-US-analytics-firm-takes-magazine-to-court-11176508.html) A series of articles by Switzerland’s *Republik* magazine highlighted Palantir's rejection by Swiss authorities as a potential security risk: it appears to have determined that there weren’t sufficient protections against Swiss data falling into American hands. This reporting, in turn, led [other governments to question use of the firm for the same reason](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/22/mps-question-uk-palantir-contracts-security-concerns-investigation?ref=werd.io). Now Palantir is taking them to court to force them to make a “counterstatement” that would correct the record. Of course, this has brought more international attention to *Republik*’s stories than they would otherwise have received: > “With the step to court, Palantir has generated more attention for the "Republik" reporting than the objected articles themselves could have caused – 23 years after Barbra Streisand triggered the effect named after her. And yet, there are reasons why Palantir is acting this way.” A Swiss counterstatement doesn’t actually hinge on the correctness of the original statement: it’s apparently sufficient for another version of events to be possible. So this is more of a way for Palantir to get its own PR line out than it is to sue *Republik* for inaccurate reporting. That’s important because Palantir is trying to make headway into European markets and finding it tougher than they’d like. Understandably, there’s a lot of resistance to the firm that provides surveillance powers to the likes of ICE, and whose CEO [has justified “anti-woke” strategies that bolster an increasingly authoritarian regime](https://fortune.com/2025/11/04/palantir-ceo-anti-woke-investment-trump-government-technology-ai-worker-rich/?ref=werd.io) over the last few years. --- ### [In Graphic Detail: Subscriptions are rising at big news publishers – even as traffic shrinks](https://digiday.com/media/in-graphic-detail-subscriptions-are-rising-at-big-news-publishers-even-as-traffic-shrinks/) This is exactly why micropayments — a model akin to Spotify’s streaming payments where each pageview receives a share from a reader’s monthly budget for all articles — are not the right solution for news. > “For a bunch, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, growth isn’t just continuing, it’s speeding up, and likewise so is The Guardian’s paid reader contribution model. Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s subscription business shows signs of normalization after a 2024 spike, and Daily Mail is still ramping up its relatively new subscription business, which launched in 2024 in the U.K. and expanded to the U.S. and Canada in February 2025.” In news, value is not necessarily tethered to popular traffic. There’s a specific demographic (typically older, wealthier, and more highly educated – see the next link) that is more likely to pay for it, and there’s a lot to be gained by news organizations if they optimize for gaining that audience. The news organizations that have doubled down on paywalls, and things like them, are often doing better than the ones that aren’t. That can be a tough pill to swallow for the folks — like me — who believe that news should be available to all for the good of democracy. Of course, other models are available: specifically, non-profit newsrooms that operate with a philanthropic model. Like other public goods like Wikipedia and the Internet Archive, it turns out that a specific set of wealthier individuals and foundations are willing to pay to ensure that a resource can be made available for everyone. Unlike paywalls, though, that tends to put newsrooms at the mercy of large foundations and high net worth individuals. Non-profit newsrooms have done a good job of trying to prevent funding coming with strings that might affect their decision-making (The 19th’s [endowment campaign](https://19thnews.org/endowment/?ref=werd.io) is particularly inspiring), but it inevitably must still happen. Paywalls force the issue by ensuring every reader pays, distributing the load: they democratize funding even while restricting access. On the other hand, that makes the newsroom more subject to market forces. But none of this is about traffic. If you tether your payment model to the number of public pageviews you receive, you incentivize your newsroom to create clickbait. You’re ensuring that you have to compete for views for every single article, instead of building a direct relationship with a recurring member who is buying your product because they think it’s worth it overall. --- ### [Most Americans don’t pay for news and don’t think they need to](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/most-americans-dont-pay-for-news-and-dont-think-they-need-to/) Only 8% of participants in [a new Pew survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2026/02/11/americans-complicated-relationship-with-news/?ref=werd.io) say that individual Americans have a responsibility to pay for news. Some of the quotes here made me pause: > “I don’t pay to go to church, to get a spiritual message, you know? And if you’re true, and your mission is to relay facts that are fundamentally important for people’s well-being, do I need to pay you for that?” It’s hard to know how to even begin to answer that: the comparison chafes for me, but it amounts to putting both church and news into a “public good” bucket. That people see news in that way is probably good. Providing it for free is hard, but you can see how they got there. A newspaper is a physical object that you can imagine handing over dollars for; digital news feels like it’s in the ether. It perhaps points to a philanthropic model as the best fit. So depending on wealthy donors and foundations to allow everyone to have free access to it makes some sense. This also puts paid (so to speak) to micropayments solutions, which I’m generally skeptical of anyway. If nobody sees the need to pay for news, convincing them to fund a wallet feels like an uphill battle. Meanwhile, the people most likely to pay directly for news are older, wealthier, liberal Democrats. Again, not a surprise, but useful to have it laid out like this; many newsrooms I’ve spoken to are trying to figure out how to move away from a base of older, wealthier, left-leaning people, and, well, it’s not just them. Maybe it’s worth leaning into that for funding and concentrating on finding a broader audience for the news itself. --- ### [Everyone is stealing TV](https://www.theverge.com/streaming/873416/piracy-streaming-boxes) It makes sense that people don't want to be limited by regional geoblocks to get their content – but I don’t think these devices should be trusted. > “It’s called the SuperBox, and it’s being demoed by Jason, who also has homemade banana bread, okra, and canned goods for sale. “People are sick and tired of giving Dish Network $200 a month for trash service,” Jason says. His pitch to rural would-be cord-cutters: Buy a SuperBox for $300 to $400 instead, and you’ll never have to shell out money for cable or streaming subscriptions again.” From a user perspective, I see the appeal: I certainly have subscription fatigue. Beyond that, geoblocks are intensely irritating to me; I’d give anything to be able to watch the UK’s *Channel 4 News*, or *Doctor Who* spinoff *The War Between the Land and the Sea*, which are both unavailable to me unless I want to dive into VPNs and breaking terms of service. A box that gives me what I want to watch, no questions asked, seems too good to be true. It’s not fully clear who is manufacturing these devices, what’s on them, or who runs the services that allow people to access all this television without paying for it. We already know that some streaming boxes have been fronts for residential botnets that have been used for illicit activities that run the gamut from avoiding scraper detection to real organized crime. If I wanted to run malware inside the networks of thousands of homes and businesses, this wouldn’t be a bad way to go about it. Which is a shame, because the allure is real. I’d pay for all that unavailable television. Just, please, let me. --- ### [Hiring in an era of fake candidates, real scams and AI slop](https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2026/01/24/fake-candidates-recruiter-scams-ai-slop) [Andrew Losowsky](https://losowsky.com/?ref=werd.io) discusses the impact of AI on his hiring process: > “Within 12 hours of posting the role, we received more than 400 applications. At first, most of these candidates seemed to be genuine. However, as the person who had to read them all, I quickly saw some red flags, which were all clear indicators of inauthenticity.” These jibe with what I’ve seen lately too. I’ve had the privilege of hiring for a few technical roles over the last year, and every single time, *almost* everything Andrew mentions has come up. The good news, as he points out, is that right now there are some really strong tells. One of the most important parts of any application I run is the “why are you excited about this job?” question, which is really a question about mission fit. The AI-generated answers are extremely generic, heavily reference the job description itself, and start looking very samey in a sample size of hundreds. Here’s the thing I *don’t* believe I’ve encountered before: > “Someone made a fake email address similar to ours, then sent generic technical “tests” containing our logo to jobseekers, while linking to our job ad. Completing these tests led to a fake contract signed by someone claiming to be our CEO – it was at this point that the scammers requested financial information, saying they needed it to issue payments.” The thing is, without someone telling me about it, how would I know? This is where we need stronger tools – the anti-spam protections of yore don’t work very well against AI-powered scams. Centralized repositories of scammers and stronger anti-spam filters *may* work, but I suspect we’re going to need to find other approaches. Impersonating to make some quick money is one thing (and bad enough), but when you consider that for both Andrew and I we’re talking about impersonating newsrooms, this could get very bad very quickly. ### Stop calling optimization "innovation." URL: https://werd.io/stop-calling-optimization-innovation/ Last updated: 2026-02-19T14:53:58.000Z \[[Yoni Greenbaum](https://www.backstoryandstrategy.com/p/the-nimble-and-aggressive-lie?utm%5Fsource=post-email-title&publication%5Fid=5020273&post%5Fid=188452724&utm%5Fcampaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=5xqp&triedRedirect=true&utm%5Fmedium=email)\] I really appreciate this distillation of the twin needs of optimizing the Engine — getting as much value as you can out of your existing business model — and the Explorer, which is all about actual innovation that seeks out *new* products, markets, and models. > “If your staff meetings are all about how to hit next month’s KPIs, you don’t have an Explorer. You have a very well-oiled engine. True resilience means insulating your Explorer team from the Engine. It means giving a team room to spend 6 months on a project that could totally flop without punishing them if it does.” I think this is clearly true. At the same time, I think it’s very optimistic about where many organizations actually are: they very often don’t have those goals or KPIs to hit. The result is a kind of vibes-based strategy. Because nothing is measured, or the right things aren’t measured, it’s impossible to run an informed experiment. In those organizations, what feels like innovation is just getting to baseline competence. Before they can optimize, they need to define a concrete strategy, with attendant metrics that you can measure as the basis for performing experiments. Buying a neat new product can be a way to absolve the team from doing the hard work of strategy-building: “look,” they can tell their boards, “we’re innovative!” Creating a concrete strategy and deploying technology that can help serve it are vital. But they, in themselves, aren’t innovation: creating a real culture of innovative experimentation where you can try new things and fail fast is how you de-risk your business for the future. That means understanding your readers incredibly well, so you can anchor your experiments around their needs; it means giving your team the permission to fail; it means creating cross-functional teams who can be radically collaborative and draw conclusions from their experiments quickly; and it means being clear-eyed about where your business actually stands. \[[Link](https://www.backstoryandstrategy.com/p/the-nimble-and-aggressive-lie?utm%5Fsource=post-email-title&publication%5Fid=5020273&post%5Fid=188452724&utm%5Fcampaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=5xqp&triedRedirect=true&utm%5Fmedium=email)\] ### The political effects of X’s feed algorithm URL: https://werd.io/the-political-effects-of-xs-feed-algorithm/ Last updated: 2026-02-18T20:08:47.000Z \[[Germain Gauthier, Roland Hodler, Philine Widmer and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya in Nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2)\] This is a very significant finding. Users who moved from a reverse-chronological social media algorithm to X’s: > “\[…\] were 4.7 percentage points more likely to prioritize policy issues considered important by Republicans, such as inflation, immigration and crime. They were also 5.5 percentage points more likely to believe that the investigations into Trump are unacceptable, describing them as contrary to the rule of law, undermining democracy, an attempt to stop the campaign and an attack on people like themselves.” And even more surprisingly, once the algorithm was switched *off*, their views did not change again. The effect of the algorithm lingered, in part because it led users to follow more conservative influencers. We intuitively knew that the algorithm mattered, but this is a key finding that puts numbers to it. If that number seems small to you, consider that 4.7% is more than enough to swing an election. It’s also interesting that findings for other algorithms were different; if this result holds up, it suggests that X’s algorithm may be particularly predisposed for political manipulation, even above Facebook and Instagram. This should be a wakeup call for politically-engaged funders and anyone who cares about civil society. It’s not that we need to have less conservative algorithms; it’s that whoever controls the algorithms has a disproportionate say over the electorate’s view of the world. We need more funding into open protocols that decentralize algorithmic ownership; open platforms that give users a choice of algorithm and platform provider; and algorithmic transparency across our information ecosystem. \[[Link](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2)\] ### In Graphic Detail: Subscriptions are rising at big news publishers – even as traffic shrinks URL: https://werd.io/in-graphic-detail-subscriptions-are-rising-at-big-news-publishers-even-as-traffic-shrinks/ Last updated: 2026-02-18T14:38:26.000Z \[[Sara Guaglione at Digiday](https://digiday.com/media/in-graphic-detail-subscriptions-are-rising-at-big-news-publishers-even-as-traffic-shrinks/?utm%5Fcampaign=digidaydis&utm%5Fsource=daily&utm%5Fcontent=260217)\] This is exactly why micropayments — a model akin to Spotify’s streaming payments where each pageview receives a share from a reader’s monthly budget for all articles — are not the right solution for news. > “For a bunch, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, growth isn’t just continuing, it’s speeding up, and likewise so is The Guardian’s paid reader contribution model. Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s subscription business shows signs of normalization after a 2024 spike, and Daily Mail is still ramping up its relatively new subscription business, which launched in 2024 in the U.K. and expanded to the U.S. and Canada in February 2025.” In news, value is not necessarily tethered to popular traffic. There’s a specific demographic (typically older, wealthier, and more highly educated) that is more likely to pay for it, and there’s a lot to be gained by news organizations if they optimize for gaining that audience. The news organizations that have doubled down on paywalls, and things like them, are often doing better than the ones that aren’t. That can be a tough pill to swallow for the folks — like me — who believe that news should be available to all for the good of democracy. Of course, other models are available: specifically, non-profit newsrooms that operate with a philanthropic model. Like other public goods like Wikipedia and the Internet Archive, it turns out that a specific set of wealthier individuals and foundations are willing to pay to ensure that a resource can be made available for everyone. Unlike paywalls, though, that tends to put newsrooms at the mercy of large foundations and high net worth individuals. Non-profit newsrooms have done a good job of trying to prevent funding coming with strings that might affect their decision-making (The 19th’s [endowment campaign](https://19thnews.org/endowment/) is particularly inspiring), but it inevitably must still happen. Paywalls force the issue by ensuring every reader pays, distributing the load: they democratize funding even while restricting access. On the other hand, that makes the newsroom more subject to market forces. But none of this is about traffic. If you tether your payment model to the number of public pageviews you receive, you incentivize your newsroom to create clickbait. You’re ensuring that you have to compete for views for every single article, instead of building a direct relationship with a recurring member who is buying your product because they think it’s worth it overall. \[[Link](https://digiday.com/media/in-graphic-detail-subscriptions-are-rising-at-big-news-publishers-even-as-traffic-shrinks/?utm%5Fcampaign=digidaydis&utm%5Fsource=daily&utm%5Fcontent=260217)\] ### An increasingly dangerous world URL: https://werd.io/an-increasingly-dangerous-world/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T15:17:18.000Z I’ve got a pretty bleak, albeit reductive, theory of global politics that I’m working from right now. The key driver is climate change. We’re living in a world that will have fewer livable places and fewer resources. This will happen quickly. Rather than co-operate to slow climate change and distribute resources intelligently to preserve life and ecosystems, there are a set of powerful people who see this as an opportunity to consolidate their power and influence. Around those people are a set of other, relatively powerful people, who are either on board with consolidation or can be manipulated into supporting it. Consolidation means acquiring land and resources. It also means manipulating people into believing that only some humans are worthy of having access to them. The others can be sacrificed or put to work. Hence, we get more war (land and resource acquisition), more nationalism / fascism (dehumanization of everyone but a defined in-group), and less democracy (disenfranchisement for all but a few groups). The people who are most resistant to consolidation and manipulation are the young people who will have to live through the fallout from it. They are more likely to protest and organize for an inclusive, co-operative world. The people who are most liable to go along with it are the people who always were on the side of dehumanization, those who want to take the opportunity to preserve a better life for themselves at the expense of others, and people who are not paying attention. They are not necessarily equally morally culpable, but they are participants nonetheless. Those of us who are in opposition need to support the young people. We need to give them platforms, put our full support behind them, and more than anything else, listen to them, take their lead, and do what the activists and leaders among them ask us to do. It’s not theoretical and it’s not purely in the land of the ideological. People will die at the hands of fascism, war, and climate change itself. Peace is worth struggling for. An inclusive world is worth putting ourselves on the line for. We need to be watchful for the power dynamics that seek to strip agency, power, resources, and importance from out-groups and consolidate them into a tiny few. It will become genuinely life or death. Thank you for your attention to this matter. ### Building trust in the open URL: https://werd.io/building-trust-in-the-open/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T14:37:58.000Z Earlier this month I had the privilege of being the MC for [the second Protocols for Publishers event](https://protocolsforpublishers.com/event-recap-london-2026/), which took place at [Newspeak House](https://newspeak.house/), an independent college for political technology at the top of [London’s Brick Lane](https://www.baldhiker.com/london-a-walk-down-brick-lane/). London itself has been under attack in some circles. Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson wrote a screed last year, which I won’t link to, in which he talked about the city falling to what he called “demographic replacement” — a statement so blatant that it barely even qualifies as a racist dog whistle. There have been many similar allegations, mostly from the American right wing, who I suspect hate that London [has a Muslim mayor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadiq%5FKhan). It was my first time back in eight years. What I found was a beautiful, well-run city, utterly vibrant in its diversity and notably inclusive in its demeanor. The food, once the butt of jokes the world over, was superb, having gained immensely from its internationalism. Compared to what I’ve become used to, the city was spectacular. It was surreal, in a way, to be in a place that was the backdrop to so much of my younger life; more surreal still that it has been so maligned while I’ve been away, but in reality has become *even better*. Newspeak House is a venue tucked into the middle of all of it: [a residential, full-time college](https://newspeak.house/study-with-us) and [event hall](https://newspeak.house/#events) all in one, all designed to be hyper-connected to the society evolving around it. This is relevant, I promise. I’ll come back to it. ![Newspeak House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/02/IMG_4370-2.jpg) ### Journalism and the open web need each other Here’s how I framed the conversation on the first day. My intention was to pull no punches and make it clear why open social protocols matter in the real world: --- Running technology in a newsroom in this era has been fascinating. Journalism, when it’s done well, is how we become informed citizens, and how, in turn, we make informed democratic decisions. That’s always important, but I’ve just flown in from a country that is very quickly descending into authoritarianism. Children are being kidnapped. People are being killed. I would argue that journalism is even more important than it has been in a very long time. Journalism is also under threat. Certainly, at least where I live, from the government, which has decimated funding for public media, among other things. But search engine and social media referrals are down, trust has long been declining, and their relationships with their followers have been intermediated. Lots of newsrooms have found refuge in email newsletters, which they see as the last place they can directly own their relationships with their communities — but, guess what, AI intermediated inboxes are coming. It sure seems bleak. But. But! All is not lost. Around the world, there are communities of mission-driven technologists who want to make sure publishers and community owners can own their relationships with their members and participants, and create their own community cultures rather than accepting some corporation’s version of how people should interact. They have been working for years, sometimes for decades, to build an alternative to the prevailing Big Tech view of the world. ![Some relevant protocols](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/02/image.png) Those communities eventually evolved into what we call the open social web: a fabric of protocols that provide all the functionality of social media, and more, but with the open ownership of the web. The fediverse (projects like Mastodon) and the atmosphere (Bluesky to its friends) are movements at heart, powered by open protocols. The indieweb community encourages everyone to own their own publishing surfaces. They’re like the web itself: no-one owns them, and no-one can co-opt them. They have the potential to allow publishers to build first-party relationships with their communities without intermediation, entirely on their own terms. Publishers tend to look inwards to other publishers for their answers; people in tech tend to look to other technologists. But there’s so much to be gained by talking to each other. By working with each other to build the platforms we all wish we had. Publishers could really use the sovereign properties of protocols. And the people building protocols really want to understand how they can be useful to publishers. Which brings us to this room. --- ### The first step is to talk to each other One of the key points I make at every news event I speak at is that the journalism industry tends to treat technology as something that happens *to it*, like an asteroid. But it doesn’t need to. It can build its own technology, and it can work in collaboration and co-ownership with existing open source communities. That collaboration, in particular, is what I hope will arise from the relationships built at the event. We hosted four conversations on the opening night. I moderated a Q&A with Siddhartha Kurapati from [the Bristol Cable](https://thebristolcable.org/) and Saskia Welch from [the Newsmast Foundation](https://www.newsmastfoundation.org/). The Cable is a reader-owned local newspaper that has partnered with Newsmast to build an app that includes a full, Mastodon-powered community for paid members. It’s a very slick, consumer-grade experience, as you’d hope; a well-run community layer in a local news app provides a gathering point for people to discuss local issues, meet up, and share resources that matter to them. What’s particularly cool is that because it’s fediverse-compatible, the community can expand to include members from other local newsrooms and beyond, who can participate from the apps that matter for them. Over time, that creates a social substrate of engaged members — something that’s hard to get from existing social media. We then heard from [Ændra Rininsland](https://www.aendra.com/), who gave what she called “a brief history of algorithmic fuckery” — a *précis* of every time centralized social platforms have pulled the rug out from under the communities they were theoretically supporting. With that frame in mind, she demoed the work she’s done to create [algorithmic feeds for News in the Bluesky ecosystem](https://www.aendra.com/thoughts-on-the-news-feed/) that highlight publishers and help ensure that real journalism makes its way to social readers. Her point was that news can create its own algorithms and technology, too, rather than simply being subject to other people’s. Again: journalism can *build*. [Jeremiah Lee](https://www.jeremiahlee.com/) from the [Interledger Foundation](https://interledger.org/) delivered a provocation about micropayments. Noting that putting journalism behind a paywall allows authoritarianism to thrive (because most people don’t have access to the facts that would help them make good democratic decisions), he pointed out that Spotify-like streaming payments turned the fortunes of the music industry around. His argument was that it could do the same for journalism: something the Interledger Foundation is excited to experiment with. Finally, Nick Bennett from [Mozilla Data Collective](https://datacollective.mozillafoundation.org/) talked about AI scraping. Most publishers have had to deal with the issue at this point, making policy about whether to allow it or not, sometimes suing the AI vendors and sometimes making deals. But it turns out that all of this data only amounts to around 1% of the data that *could* be ingested. Mozilla wants to help AI vendors get access to some of the rest while doing it on the data owners’ terms: creating what it sees as more equitable ways for models to acquire training data. Most of the protocol builders *and* publishers came in with a fairly anti-AI stance, so this was a brave provocation in itself. The second day was all about conversations. Laurens Hof from [Connected Places](https://connectedplaces.online/) gave an overview of the protocol landscape, discussing recent developments in the context of the rest of the technology landscape, including AI and societal changes. This set us up to have some useful connected discussions. Small groups of technologists listened to the newsrooms describe their challenges across Discovery & AI; Monetization & Sustainability; and Audience & Community. Finally, we turned the tables and opened the floor for protocol builders to talk about how their work might help to address those challenges and how they might work together. The point was not to get to a conclusion. You can’t solve these problems in a day, but you *can* build relationships and create the conditions for collaborations where none existed before. ![Protocols for Publishers at Newspeak House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/02/IMG_4394.jpg) ### Community is the antidote to an AI-driven web In her writeup of the event, [Mia Biberović](https://mediaindustryshift.substack.com/), Editor-in-Chief of Balkan tech outlets [Netokracija](https://www.netokracija.com/) and [ShiftMag](https://shiftmag.dev/), [noted that smaller publishers have more to lose — and therefore more to gain from open protocols](https://mediaindustryshift.substack.com/p/open-protocols-and-why-size-matters): > All publishers operate within the same distribution environment - search, social media, and increasingly AI-mediated discovery. However, the effects of that environment are not the same, nor are the risks distributed evenly, particularly once the ability to maintain a direct relationship with audiences begins to erode. \[…\] For smaller publishers, this often also means losing what little direct relationship with their audience they still have. \[…\] Open protocols currently offer more tangible value to smaller publishers than to larger ones. Larger publishers tend to be older and wealthier: they’ve had more time to build a relationship with their communities and they typically have more money to enforce it with marketing. In my local community, [the Philadelphia Inquirer](https://www.inquirer.com/) often runs wide marketing campaigns; [the Kensington Voice](https://www.kensingtonvoice.com/), which is a much-needed startup newsroom that covers an underserved part of Philadelphia, cannot. There is a difference between news and journalism. The first is information, and the second is context. News has become heavily commoditized: recently, the Pew Research Center found that [only 8% of Americans feel the need to pay for it](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/most-americans-dont-pay-for-news-and-dont-think-they-need-to/). Journalism, on the other hand, has not been as commoditized. That’s where relationships become important, because we all care where we get our context from. We want to get it from people we think won’t manipulate or mislead us, who have accumulated enough [social proof](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%5Fproof) for us to trust them. Ideally, they should be people we know, but sometimes those are [parasocial relationships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial%5Finteraction). Titles like *The New Yorker* and people like [Seymour Hersh](https://seymourhersh.substack.com/) and [Ronan Farrow](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/ronan-farrow) have had time, space, and money to build that social proof; newcomers have not. AI can deliver commoditized news, but it can’t build the trust relationships that make journalism valuable. The way newcomers can fight their lack of social proof is by building tight communities that nurture and support their audiences. You might not trust a newspaper you haven’t encountered before, but you *might* trust the humans behind it if you can be in conversation with them. By using open protocols to build those communities, these conversations act as a discovery engine: - You can discover a conversation about your local area (or topic that’s important to you) on your existing social platforms. - It’s easy to follow the conversation thread to discover the publication that hosts them. - You can then make the jump and experience those conversations through the publication’s site or apps, signing up in the process. - When you do, you gain access to more features and greater depth, growing your relationship with the publication itself. It isn’t *all* about these conversations. It matters that the open social web doesn’t suppress links to journalism, unlike every commercial social network. But this access to the humans behind a newsroom, and the other humans in its community, is what builds trust. [People are wired to trust other people, not brands.](https://www.props.co/post/people-trust-people-more-thanbrands) I have a relationship with London. When I walk Brick Lane, I remember being in my twenties, getting a salt beef beigel at [the Beigel Bake](https://www.beigelbake.co.uk/) or drinking a Red Stripe in a cafe with my friends. Those human connections are what keeps it alive for me; it can be maligned by some right wing talking head thousands of miles away, but nobody can take away those experiences, or the connections I have with people who still live there and can report first-hand on what *they* experience. It’s a city that’s predisposed to make me smile — and it did that in abundance. The social proof outweighs any argument a racist screed could make. Stronger communities could be built on traditional social media platforms, too. But those have proven themselves to be unreliable partners: remember that referrals are down, links are being suppressed, and trusting a tech company means letting tech happen to you, like an asteroid. Open protocols are permissionless; building on them means building real ownership, as long as the protocols are built with publishers in mind. If only the publishers and protocol builders could talk to each other! ![Chad Kohalyk, the organizer of Protocols for Publishers](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2026/02/image-1.png) ### Thank you I was very grateful to [Chad Kohalyk](https://chadkohalyk.com/) for inviting me to MC, and to everyone who attended. I’m also indebted to the sponsors that made it possible, which included: - [Newsmast Foundation](https://www.newsmastfoundation.org/) - [Mozilla Foundation](https://www.mozillafoundation.org/) - [Bluesky](https://bsky.social/about) - [AT Protocol Community Fund](https://atprotocol.dev/community-fund/) - [Interledger Foundation](https://interledger.org/) Not to mention the incredible [Newspeak House](https://newspeak.house), which I wish I could live in full-time. More Protocols for Publishers events are on the horizon. If you want to stay in the loop, [go sign up for the Protocols for Publishers newsletter](https://protocolsforpublishers.com/), subscribe via RSS, or follow them on [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/protocolsforpublishers.com) or [Mastodon](https://indieweb.social/@team@protocolsforpublishers.com). ### Growing the open social web URL: https://werd.io/growing-the-open-social-web-2/ Last updated: 2026-02-16T14:01:05.000Z *This short position statement was prepared for* [*the FediForum Growing the Open Social Web Un-Workshop*](https://fediforum.org/2026-03-growing-open-social-web/)*, which is held online on March 2, 2026.* The question is: *why* do we want to grow the open social web, and for *whom*? Presumably we don't want to become just another in a long line of gatekeepers. If the open social web is an alternative social network — Twitter but without the corporate structure — then why will it succeed this time when we have multiple decades of failed attempts behind us? Is it because Elon Musk owns Twitter now and American technology companies are increasingly allied with Trump? That seems like a failure of imagination: not only does it define the open social web in terms of what it’s not — it’s *not* Twitter, *not* Trump, *not* American big tech — there will come a time when neither Musk nor Trump are as dominant as they are today and those oppositions matter far less. We’ve seen a lot of projects along the lines of “Twitter but European”, “Twitter but Canadian”, and so on, but these are very brittle provocations. While they do address risks posed by an America-centric internet, they don’t at all speak to why this is actually valuable to real communities, real people, real movements. They take the same power dynamics and transplant them across borders. Nothing fundamentally changes except the nationality of those involved. That’s not without value, but so much more is possible. The real value is in the protocols themselves — but only if we can share ownership of them. There are billions of people who are not well served by the existing social web, particularly in global majority countries. Open social web protocols have the potential to allow them to not just build communities that better address their needs, with features and cultural assumptions that veer far from US and European norms, but to *own* them. These aren’t communities that need to be spoken down to or harvested by American projects and non-profits; they haven’t been spoken to at all, except as communities to strip-mine by companies like Meta. They need to be first-party participants in the communities that are building the open social web. Palestinians should be building ActivityPub. People of African nations should not just be running PDS servers but defining the protocols that rule them. The Kalaallit in Greenland are dominated by Facebook, their online communications templated to American norms even as America seeks to acquire their land. We don’t just need Mastodon; we need thousands of Mastodons, open source projects built in their own ways by their own communities, supporting a plurality of cultures and assumptions. There are plenty of communities building technology in all corners of the globe. They are the future of the social web. Are our standards bodies, communities, documentation, libraries, events, and conversations accessible to them? They need to be. Do the assumptions built into our protocols support their cultural needs? They must. The only way to achieve that is to not just co-design with them but distribute equity. They must be full co-owners of the open social web. That also means there’s a role for funders. Undeniably, the US has been the center because that’s where the money is. Building a more global open social web creates a world where communications, memes, and the flow of news and information are not dominated by the interests of one country. The most important place to start is the people who have been served the least well. Grant-makers need to understand this and need to provide funding to communities in the global majority, who in turn need to build their own networks and make their own decisions. We should take a position of being of service to them, and be honored if we can help. ### Palantir vs. the "Republik": US analytics firm takes magazine to court URL: https://werd.io/palantir-vs-the-republik-us-analytics-firm-takes-magazine-to-court/ Last updated: 2026-02-15T19:11:21.000Z \[[Falk Steiner in Heise Online](https://www.heise.de/en/news/Palantir-vs-the-Republik-US-analytics-firm-takes-magazine-to-court-11176508.html)\] A series of articles by Switzerland’s *Republik* magazine highlighted Palantir's rejection by Swiss authorities as a potential security risk: it appears to have determined that there weren’t sufficient protections against Swiss data falling into American hands. This reporting, in turn, led [other governments to question use of the firm for the same reason](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/22/mps-question-uk-palantir-contracts-security-concerns-investigation). Now Palantir is taking them to court to force them to make a “counterstatement” that would correct the record. Of course, this has brought more international attention to *Republik*’s stories than they would otherwise have received: > “With the step to court, Palantir has generated more attention for the "Republik" reporting than the objected articles themselves could have caused – 23 years after Barbra Streisand triggered the effect named after her. And yet, there are reasons why Palantir is acting this way.” A Swiss counterstatement doesn’t actually hinge on the correctness of the original statement: it’s apparently sufficient for another version of events to be possible. So this is more of a way for Palantir to get its own PR line out than it is to sue *Republik* for inaccurate reporting. That’s important because Palantir is trying to make headway into European markets and finding it tougher than they’d like. Understandably, there’s a lot of resistance to the firm that provides surveillance powers to the likes of ICE, and whose CEO [has justified “anti-woke” strategies that bolster an increasingly authoritarian regime](https://fortune.com/2025/11/04/palantir-ceo-anti-woke-investment-trump-government-technology-ai-worker-rich/) over the last few years. \[[Link](https://www.heise.de/en/news/Palantir-vs-the-Republik-US-analytics-firm-takes-magazine-to-court-11176508.html)\] ### Most Americans don’t pay for news and don’t think they need to URL: https://werd.io/most-americans-dont-pay-for-news-and-dont-think-they-need-to/ Last updated: 2026-02-11T23:07:16.000Z \[[Hanaa' Tameez at NiemanLab](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/most-americans-dont-pay-for-news-and-dont-think-they-need-to/)\] Disquieting findings for the news industry, although not really a surprise: only 8% of participants in [a new Pew survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2026/02/11/americans-complicated-relationship-with-news/) say that individual Americans have a responsibility to pay for news. Some of the quotes here made me pause: > “I don’t pay to go to church, to get a spiritual message, you know? And if you’re true, and your mission is to relay facts that are fundamentally important for people’s well-being, do I need to pay you for that?” It’s hard to know how to even begin to answer that: the comparison chafes for me, but it amounts to putting both church and news into a “public good” bucket. That people see news in that way is probably good. Providing it for free is hard, but you can see how they got there. A newspaper is a physical object that you can imagine handing over dollars for; digital news feels like it’s in the ether. It perhaps points to a philanthropic model as the best fit. So depending on wealthy donors and foundations to allow everyone to have free access to it makes some sense. This also puts paid (so to speak) to micropayments solutions, which I’m generally skeptical of anyway. If nobody sees the need to pay for news, convincing them to fund a wallet feels like an uphill battle. Meanwhile, the people most likely to pay directly for news are older, wealthier, liberal Democrats. Again, not a surprise, but useful to have it laid out like this; many newsrooms I’ve spoken to are trying to figure out how to move away from a base of older, wealthier, left-leaning people, and, well, it’s not just them. Maybe it’s worth leaning into that for funding and concentrating on finding a broader audience for the news itself. \[[Link](https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/most-americans-dont-pay-for-news-and-dont-think-they-need-to/)\] ### Everyone is stealing TV URL: https://werd.io/everyone-is-stealing-tv/ Last updated: 2026-02-11T16:45:04.000Z \[[Janko Roettgers at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/streaming/873416/piracy-streaming-boxes?src=longreads)\] Maybe this goes without saying, but I don’t think these devices should be trusted. > “It’s called the SuperBox, and it’s being demoed by Jason, who also has homemade banana bread, okra, and canned goods for sale. “People are sick and tired of giving Dish Network $200 a month for trash service,” Jason says. His pitch to rural would-be cord-cutters: Buy a SuperBox for $300 to $400 instead, and you’ll never have to shell out money for cable or streaming subscriptions again.” From a user perspective, I see the appeal: I certainly have subscription fatigue. Beyond that, geoblocks are intensely irritating to me; I’d give anything to be able to watch the UK’s *Channel 4 News*, or *Doctor Who* spinoff *The War Between the Land and the Sea*, which are both unavailable to me unless I want to dive into VPNs and breaking terms of service. A box that gives me what I want to watch, no questions asked, seems too good to be true. It’s not fully clear who is manufacturing these devices, what’s on them, or who runs the services that allow people to access all this television without paying for it. We already know that some streaming boxes have been fronts for residential botnets that have been used for illicit activities that run the gamut from avoiding scraper detection to real organized crime. If I wanted to run malware inside the networks of thousands of homes and businesses, this wouldn’t be a bad way to go about it. Which is a shame, because the allure is real. I’d pay for all that unavailable television. Just, please, let me. \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/streaming/873416/piracy-streaming-boxes?src=longreads)\] ### A note about personal security URL: https://werd.io/a-note-abo/ Last updated: 2026-02-11T14:49:09.000Z I made a mistake last month that hopefully others can learn from. There are rumors that ICE is turning its attention to the Philadelphia area, where I live. I’m a natural-born American citizen, but based on accounts from Minneapolis, I’m not excited to run into them, and I’m worried about the health and well-being of my child. So I briefly joined a local Signal group that reports ICE sightings. I have been using my full name on Signal — and I’m the only Ben Werdmuller in the world. In the less than 24 hours that I was a part of the group, the entire group’s membership was downloaded and investigated by a right-wing community. They ultimately released details about my location (not specific, but specific enough to let me know they know where I live) as well as some vague threats about personal harm. They also linked my name to [ProPublica reporting about the Alex Pretti killers](https://www.propublica.org/article/alex-pretti-shooting-cbp-agents-identified-jesus-ochoa-raymundo-gutierrez). Journalism is a vital part of democracy and no journalist should ever receive these sorts of threats. For the record, I have no involvement with actual reporting at ProPublica: I’m not a journalist and I’m not part of the news team. I support IT, security, and product engineering. I didn’t know the story was coming out until it was published. But again: I think it would be unacceptable for journalists who *were* involved in this (or any) reporting to receive these sorts of threats. The lesson is: there are co-ordinated groups of right-wing activists (or potentially more than activists) looking to intimidate people who might protest or report on ICE. Be aware of where you have posted identifying information, and be wary of joining groups about sensitive topics. What starts online doesn’t necessarily stay online. I should have been more aware of the threats. Joining that group created a risk for me and my family, and I should have been more aware of my Signal profile. The stakes are very high. I have a high risk tolerance for myself, but security and privacy are a group inoculation: nobody around me asked for this. Therefore there’s a responsibility to be careful. ### Journalism lost its culture of sharing URL: https://werd.io/journalism-lost-its-culture-of-sharing/ Last updated: 2026-01-27T16:36:40.000Z \[[Scott Klein and Ben Welsh in Source](https://source.opennews.org/articles/journalism-lost-sharing-culture/)\] I agree, strongly, with this piece about (re)building an open source culture in news by [Scott Klein](https://bsky.app/profile/kleinmatic.bsky.social) and [Ben Welsh](https://palewi.re/who-is-ben-welsh/). But then, I would: I spent over a decade working to build open source communities, and then another decade and change working alongside and then inside newsrooms. So it’s to my chagrin that the newsroom where I currently serve as Senior Director of Technology is one of the places listed here where open source contributions have significantly dropped off: > “At ProPublica, teams published detailed white papers alongside major investigations, explaining their quantitative methodologies with scientific rigor, allowing other researchers to verify and learn from their work. Major news organizations ran active blogs where they shared techniques and lessons learned. Conference presentations at NICAR and elsewhere became venues for passing along hard-won knowledge.” The effect of this work didn’t just lift the work of journalism, it attracted new people to it: > “This culture made newsrooms more attractive places to work for civic-minded technologists. If you had programming skills and wanted to use them to make a difference, journalism offered you the chance to build things that mattered and share them with the world.” I think there’s a lot to be gained by collaborating on an open source basis. We typically run small, resource-constrained teams where building new software is contextually hard. And we have problems that, if they’re not identical, are at least significantly overlapping; by *not* collaborating on them, we further an ecosystem where low-resource organizations are all solving the same sorts of things with very few people and very little money in parallel. I was present at the News Product Alliance Summit session described in this piece, and I think the analysis of both the causes of this decline and some of the solutions are spot on. I was particularly enamored by the idea of an Open Source Editor (or director — does everything in news need to be an editor?) and public recognition for great open technical work in the field of journalism. I think it’s also worth saying that open source, done well, is about much more than just releasing your code. A good open source project is a community, not a package. So there’s a lot of ecosystem development and community management involved to foster the kind of real collaboration that is required for this to succeed — even after newsrooms have overcome the institutional hurdles to releasing their work in the first place. I’m really grateful that Scott and Ben have been championing this cause. I’m right there with them, and I’ll do what I can to help. It’s a concrete way we can build a more successful, efficient news ecosystem with stronger technology capabilities, and that’s something we should all want. \[[Link](https://source.opennews.org/articles/journalism-lost-sharing-culture/)\] ### Hiring in an era of fake candidates, real scams and AI slop URL: https://werd.io/hiring-in-an-era-of-fake-candidates-real-scams-and-ai-slop/ Last updated: 2026-01-25T13:59:57.000Z \[[Andrew Losowsky at The Markup](https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2026/01/24/fake-candidates-recruiter-scams-ai-slop)\] [Andrew Losowsky](https://losowsky.com/) discusses the impact of AI on his hiring process: > “Within 12 hours of posting the role, we received more than 400 applications. At first, most of these candidates seemed to be genuine. However, as the person who had to read them all, I quickly saw some red flags, which were all clear indicators of inauthenticity.” These jibe with what I’ve seen lately too. I’ve had the privilege of hiring for a few technical roles over the last year, and every single time, *almost* everything Andrew mentions has come up. The good news, as he points out, is that right now there are some really strong tells. One of the most important parts of any application I run is the “why are you excited about this job?” question, which is really a question about mission fit. The AI-generated answers are extremely generic, heavily reference the job description itself, and start looking very samey in a sample size of hundreds. Here’s the thing I *don’t* believe I’ve encountered before: > “Someone made a fake email address similar to ours, then sent generic technical “tests” containing our logo to jobseekers, while linking to our job ad. Completing these tests led to a fake contract signed by someone claiming to be our CEO – it was at this point that the scammers requested financial information, saying they needed it to issue payments.” The thing is, without someone telling me about it, how would I know? This is where we need stronger tools – the anti-spam protections of yore don’t work very well against AI-powered scams. Centralized repositories of scammers and stronger anti-spam filters *may* work, but I suspect we’re going to need to find other approaches. Impersonating to make some quick money is one thing (and bad enough), but when you consider that for both Andrew and I we’re talking about impersonating newsrooms, this could get very bad very quickly. \[[Link](https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2026/01/24/fake-candidates-recruiter-scams-ai-slop)\] ### Notable links: Jan 24, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-jan-24-2026/ Last updated: 2026-01-24T13:49:05.000Z *Every Friday, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society. This week's edition is late!* *This week's links discuss the future of software development, how the EU's attempts to build sovereign tech must involve helping people to create businesses around it, the complex issues surrounding trust and safety on Bluesky and similar platforms, and a concrete protocol for making professional connections between people well.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [The Five Levels: from Spicy Autocomplete to the Software Factory](https://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2026/01/the-five-levels-from-spicy-autocomplete-to-the-software-factory/) Software development is transforming incredibly quickly. This guide, although it looks a bit silly at first glance, is very aligned with what I’ve heard from friends and seen first-hand. > “I’ve now seen dozens of companies struggling to put AI to work writing code, and each one has moved through five clear tiers of automation. That felt familiar, and I realized that the federal government had been there first – but for cars. > > In 2013, the NHTSA created the five levels of driving automation. This was helpful, because while the highest level at the time was only level 22, it let everyone have a common language for both where things were, and where things were going.” What follows is instructive; some of the interim steps are waypoints, but 4 and 5 seems to be where a lot of mainstream software development is going. We can thank [Claude Code](https://claude.com/product/claude-code?ref=werd.io) for this; many of these changes took place *last year*, with some pre-work laid down by the AI vendors and various startups beforehand. My guess is that everything will have changed again by the end of the year. In the hands of senior engineers who are getting their heads around how these tools work, AI coding is starting to work as advertised. There’s a reason why engineers who have been coding for decades rave about it. But we’ll also see some really bad code (particularly in enterprise organizations) and some high-profile failures. There’s something I’ve called *The Mythical Claude Code Agent Month* (I need to find a pithier name), where in response to process and culture failures that are hampering its software development, an organization just decides that it needs to add more AI. And hallucinations, bias, and model poisoning are all real things. In response to this, and because a lot of engineers are ideologically or otherwise opposed to AI, I think we’ll begin to see explicitly artisanal software companies emerge. In some industries, particularly highly-regulated ones, we’ll also see new kinds of trust certificates emerge to prove that (regardless of how it was built) software performs well and doesn’t leak private information. Anyway, those are all knock-on effects. As of now, this is where mainstream software development is likely going. This isn’t an endorsement, necessarily — but it *is* a good-faith observation. --- ### [Funding Open Source for Digital Sovereignty](https://dri.es/funding-open-source-for-digital-sovereignty) Vital thoughts from Drupal founder [Dries Buytaert](https://dr.ies/?ref=werd.io) on how, if Europeans and others are going to rely on open source software as a way to decouple from US services, funding the people and communities that *build* open source software must be part of the conversation: > “Open Source is the most credible path to digital sovereignty. It's the only software you can run without permission. You can audit, host, modify, and migrate it yourself. No vendor, no government, and no sanctions regime can ever take it away. > > But there is a catch. When governments buy Open Source services, the money rarely reaches the people who actually build and maintain it. Procurement rules favor large system integrators, not the maintainers of the software itself. As a result, public money flows to companies that package and resell Open Source, not to the ones who do the hard work of writing and sustaining it.” Dries’s solution involves evaluating a company’s open source contributions as part of a procurement process. If governments and other organizations are willing to do this in practice, that would work, at least for certain kinds of maintainers and communities. It would favor the companies that give back to an open source project over the ones that just repackage someone else’s work, and in doing so, make it more attractive for companies to give back in the first place. But I think there’s another way to look at the problem: provide the tools, infrastructure, and platforms for maintainers to start companies around their work. Rather than encouraging existing companies to become open source participants, this would encourage open source participants to become companies. It might even incentivize new kinds of companies to be drawn up as co-operatives of open source maintainers. When a company obtains software, it’s looking for more than the code: it needs a solution to a problem. Services address organizational problems more directly than codebases alone. There’s a reason why Dries’s Acquia and Matt Mullenweg’s Automattic have become so successful. There is nothing unethical about creating services businesses (or non-profits with service missions) that are aligned with the open source nature of their underlying products — and, indeed, that direct connection with customers will make those products better. But I’d say that most open source maintainers either aren’t thinking that way or are daunted by the prospect. So perhaps they could use a little help? An open source services in a box solution for these maintainers — including business fundamentals, sales and marketing, and a kind of operating system for running a small company around open source — could be an interesting way to *both* make open source software more palatable for institutional buyers *and* bring more money into their ecosystems. Code, generally speaking, is not a solution in itself, but it can be part of one. This would fill in the rest. --- ### [On ICE, Verification, and Presence As Harm](https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr150-on-ice-verification-and-presence-as-harm/) This post by [Laurens Hof](https://laurenshof.online/?ref=werd.io) speaks to a bunch of issues at the intersection of our current moment in history (I haven’t yet found the words to refer to it that don’t sound like a euphemism) and the open social web. ICE joined Bluesky as part of a wave of Trump Administration accounts that were created last November, as an apparent intimidation tactic against a network that was perceived to be largely left-wing. It never posted and the account seemed abandoned, but Bluesky officially verified it this week. Subsequently, [it made a post](https://bsky.app/profile/icegov.bsky.social/post/3md4do3y4y22p?ref=werd.io) to further its narrative about Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old whose local public schools superintendent says [was used by ICE as bait](https://apnews.com/article/immigration-minnesota-boy-father-detained-342f319fafb766d13afe07f5bcc1f112?ref=werd.io). As Laurens points out, what happened next on the two main pillars of the open social web was interesting: > “The decision by Bluesky PBC to verify the ICE account, two months after registration and without the account being active, lead to quite different responses for the fediverse and for the ATmosphere. On the fediverse, the choice by Bluesky PBC to lend legitimacy to ICE was a final nail in the coffin, with loud declarations to disconnect from Bluesky and block the bridge between these two networking protocols. Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko was the most notable account, who publicly declared to disconnect from the bridge. > > Within the ATmosphere, the response focused on two parts, both a frustration with Bluesky PBC verifying the ICE account, as well as a call to block the account en-masse, which led to the ICE account quickly becoming one of the most-blocked accounts on the network.” For Mastodon, this is in some ways an endorsement of the fediverse model. Both communities and individuals can choose not to connect with other communities and accounts that they find harmful. This is in contrast with the AT Protocol model, which is not made of archipelagos of smaller communities; it’s a wide town square at scale, much like Twitter was. For Bluesky, this is indicative of the tension between being an open protocol and a prominent consumer social media platform. On one hand, the protocol allows anyone to be a verifier: in this model, the government itself could have verified the ICE account, and any client that trusts the government to verify would have displayed a badge. This arrangement would avoid the appearance of Bluesky endorsing ICE. On the other hand, Bluesky the platform has its own verification service, because you need that on a commercial social network to prevent imposters and other abuse. The timeline between verification and ICE’s first post is a little odd. But it’s also true that ICE is a government agency. If ICE is going to be on the platform to begin with, sticking a badge on its account to ensure everyone knows that, yes, this is the real ICE, is not a bad idea. I’m going to pause here and state, for the record, that not only am I not a fan of ICE, I believe they are committing crimes and following a terrifyingly fascist playbook. People are being both kidnapped and murdered on the streets. That’s important context for this next discussion: > “Bluesky’s Community Guidelines lists the two major principles as ‘Safety First’ and ‘Respect Others’. It is somewhat unclear how the presence of a fascist police force that is actively working to instigate civil war aligns with the principles of safety and respect that Bluesky supposedly champions. > > When it comes to actual rules in the guidelines, it is all about user behaviour and the content on Bluesky. The problem is that it is the presence of ICE itself that is already causing the harm. The intimidation of ‘we are here, you cannot escape us’ is the point, and the accounts by the regime are deliberately trying to provoke an outrage.” These things are true, in my mind. But it’s also really complicated. If you were Bluesky, what would you do? Which precedent would you set? Imagine if it were to ban ICE on the grounds that it is causing harm both in the world and through its presence on the platform. (It *is* causing harm.) ICE remains a government agency, and doing so would therefore be a political act. Its actions are claimed to be legal by the government. Banning it *could* set a precedent that Bluesky can ban accounts whose politics it disagrees with. At the very least, it would be contentious and cement its reputation as a left-wing network. If it *doesn’t* ban ICE, we get the situation we have today. People are upset that ICE has a presence on the network. Some users on Mastodon, which is largely seen as a place for people to connect safely in smaller groups, disconnect from the Bluesky bridge. Some users on Bluesky are upset that it appears to be endorsing ICE by verifying the account; it becomes one of the most-blocked accounts within a matter of hours. And then ICE uses it to spread its message. Not banning it *could* be seen as an endorsement, or as Bluesky not taking what ICE is doing and represents seriously enough. That’s particularly true when banning the account would *only* ban them on the official Bluesky apps, not on the AT Protocol ecosystem as a whole. It’s not a problem that Bluesky-the-protocol would have, but the fact is that it’s primarily a consumer platform. And if any consumer social platform makes trust and safety rulings that are, in effect, arbitrary, it sets a precedent that it can turf people off its platform on a whim, which undermines both trust and safety. But it’s also extremely hard, because ICE *is* terrifying, they *are* kidnapping and killing people on the streets, and most people don’t want them in their space. Users likely moved to Bluesky to get away from the hard right wing discourse happening over on X/Twitter; the community self-selected largely based on that fact, which made it feel safer, but the platform itself doesn’t necessarily share those values. A social media app that aims to be town square is different to a social networking app that aims to provide a smaller, safe community. The latter has a far easier time banning accounts from entities like ICE, because it can set a tighter set of community rules. So one lesson is perhaps that we need — or at least, many people need — a pluralistic open social web, where we can choose communities based on our values. That’s closer to the fediverse than to the ATmosphere model: the fediverse is smaller communities, while the social media ecosystem being built on AT Protocol is closer to an open version of Twitter. Bluesky is in a tough position. It’s building an open protocol but most of the users of its flagship app don’t give two hoots about that. They’re looking for a safe place to discuss and share, and Bluesky’s core value for them is that it’s not X/Twitter and doesn’t have the toxicity of that network. It’s considered to be easier to use than Mastodon because there’s one place to sign up and one official app. AT Protocol wouldn’t be as successful as it’s becoming without that dynamic. So it has to continue to foster that community while also maintaining its protocol, and it can’t fork itself to create multiple app experiences for different audiences. It also can’t indicate that its flagship app is just for people who hate ICE. My conclusion is that Bluesky is doing the only thing it can — and this is the only path that leads to AT Protocol becoming a successful open social web protocol. You need to have a vibrant community, and most people who join one don’t care about the underlying technology. There’s a world, later on, where other providers create viable alternative microblogging experiences with different takes on trust and safety — which is beginning to happen with Blacksky and Eurosky — but the ecosystem is not there yet. Protocol success and community safety have conflicting requirements, and Bluesky has to continue navigating that ambiguity for now; later on it may be able to focus on the protocol. Meanwhile, ICE is doing a lot of harm, and its presence may be a real risk to many of Bluesky’s users. They may find that the fediverse, after all, is a better place for them to call home. --- ### [The Forwardable Email](https://pointc.co/the-forwardable-email/) I know I share posts from [Corey](https://pointc.co/?ref=werd.io) very regularly, but it’s because I’ve been working with him in various ways for over a decade, and the things he suggests are often techniques I’ve used productively for a long time. This is another great one. I insist on double opt-in introductions if I’m making a connection. That means I check in with the connectee first: do they actually want this connection? It’s a little slower, but it means connections are always consensual. To be able do that really well, a forwardable email is the perfect tool. Here, the person who wants to be connected drafts an email designed to allow me to forward it to the connectee with a little bit of added context. It gives them what they need to make an informed decision. Corey’s template is actionable and really works: it’s what I’ve done for a decade now. It’s simple, but the underlying structure is not what most people are doing. Honestly, I’m also just very happy that this is in a post on Corey’s site, because now when I tell people to write me a forwardable email, I can just point them to this. Please, if you’re asking me for a connection, this is the template I would like you to follow. ### On ICE, Verification, and Presence As Harm URL: https://werd.io/on-ice-verification-and-presence-as-harm/ Last updated: 2026-01-24T13:35:18.000Z \[[Laurens Hof at Connected Places](https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr150-on-ice-verification-and-presence-as-harm/#)\] This post by [Laurens Hof](https://laurenshof.online/) speaks to a bunch of issues at the intersection of our current moment in history (I haven’t yet found the words to refer to it that don’t sound like a euphemism) and the open social web. ICE joined Bluesky as part of a wave of Trump Administration accounts that were created last November, as an apparent intimidation tactic against a network that was perceived to be largely left-wing. It never posted and the account seemed abandoned, but Bluesky officially verified it this week. Subsequently, [it made a post](https://bsky.app/profile/icegov.bsky.social/post/3md4do3y4y22p) to further its narrative about Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old whose local public schools superintendent says [was used by ICE as bait](https://apnews.com/article/immigration-minnesota-boy-father-detained-342f319fafb766d13afe07f5bcc1f112). As Laurens points out, what happened next on the two main pillars of the open social web was interesting: > “The decision by Bluesky PBC to verify the ICE account, two months after registration and without the account being active, lead to quite different responses for the fediverse and for the ATmosphere. On the fediverse, the choice by Bluesky PBC to lend legitimacy to ICE was a final nail in the coffin, with loud declarations to disconnect from Bluesky and block the bridge between these two networking protocols. Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko was the most notable account, who publicly declared to disconnect from the bridge. > > Within the ATmosphere, the response focused on two parts, both a frustration with Bluesky PBC verifying the ICE account, as well as a call to block the account en-masse, which led to the ICE account quickly becoming one of the most-blocked accounts on the network.” For Mastodon, this is in some ways an endorsement of the fediverse model. Both communities and individuals can choose not to connect with other communities and accounts that they find harmful. This is in contrast with the AT Protocol model, which is not made of archipelagos of smaller communities; it’s a wide town square at scale, much like Twitter was. For Bluesky, this is indicative of the tension between being an open protocol and a prominent consumer social media platform. On one hand, the protocol allows anyone to be a verifier: in this model, the government itself could have verified the ICE account, and any client that trusts the government to verify would have displayed a badge. This arrangement would avoid the appearance of Bluesky endorsing ICE. On the other hand, Bluesky the platform has its own verification service, because you need that on a commercial social network to prevent imposters and other abuse. The timeline between verification and ICE’s first post is a little odd. But it’s also true that ICE is a government agency. If ICE is going to be on the platform to begin with, sticking a badge on its account to ensure everyone knows that, yes, this is the real ICE, is not a bad idea. I’m going to pause here and state, for the record, that not only am I not a fan of ICE, I believe they are committing crimes and following a terrifyingly fascist playbook. People are being both kidnapped and murdered on the streets. That’s important context for this next discussion: > “Bluesky’s Community Guidelines lists the two major principles as ‘Safety First’ and ‘Respect Others’. It is somewhat unclear how the presence of a fascist police force that is actively working to instigate civil war aligns with the principles of safety and respect that Bluesky supposedly champions. > > When it comes to actual rules in the guidelines, it is all about user behaviour and the content on Bluesky. The problem is that it is the presence of ICE itself that is already causing the harm. The intimidation of ‘we are here, you cannot escape us’ is the point, and the accounts by the regime are deliberately trying to provoke an outrage.” These things are true, in my mind. But it’s also really complicated. If you were Bluesky, what would you do? Which precedent would you set? Imagine if it were to ban ICE on the grounds that it is causing harm both in the world and through its presence on the platform. (It *is* causing harm.) ICE remains a government agency, and doing so would therefore be a political act. Its actions are claimed to be legal by the government. Banning it *could* set a precedent that Bluesky can ban accounts whose politics it disagrees with. At the very least, it would be contentious and cement its reputation as a left-wing network. If it *doesn’t* ban ICE, we get the situation we have today. People are upset that ICE has a presence on the network. Some users on Mastodon, which is largely seen as a place for people to connect safely in smaller groups, disconnect from the Bluesky bridge. Some users on Bluesky are upset that it appears to be endorsing ICE by verifying the account; it becomes one of the most-blocked accounts within a matter of hours. And then ICE uses it to spread its message. Not banning it *could* be seen as an endorsement, or as Bluesky not taking what ICE is doing and represents seriously enough. That’s particularly true when banning the account would *only* ban them on the official Bluesky apps, not on the AT Protocol ecosystem as a whole. It’s not a problem that Bluesky-the-protocol would have, but the fact is that it’s primarily a consumer platform. And if any consumer social platform makes trust and safety rulings that are, in effect, arbitrary, it sets a precedent that it can turf people off its platform on a whim, which undermines both trust and safety. But it’s also extremely hard, because ICE *is* terrifying, they *are* kidnapping and killing people on the streets, and most people don’t want them in their space. Users likely moved to Bluesky to get away from the hard right wing discourse happening over on X/Twitter; the community self-selected largely based on that fact, which made it feel safer, but the platform itself doesn’t necessarily share those values. A social media app that aims to be town square is different to a social networking app that aims to provide a smaller, safe community. The latter has a far easier time banning accounts from entities like ICE, because it can set a tighter set of community rules. So one lesson is perhaps that we need — or at least, many people need — a pluralistic open social web, where we can choose communities based on our values. That’s closer to the fediverse than to the ATmosphere model: the fediverse is smaller communities, while the social media ecosystem being built on AT Protocol is closer to an open version of Twitter. Bluesky is in a tough position. It’s building an open protocol but most of the users of its flagship app don’t give two hoots about that. They’re looking for a safe place to discuss and share, and Bluesky’s core value for them is that it’s not X/Twitter and doesn’t have the toxicity of that network. It’s considered to be easier to use than Mastodon because there’s one place to sign up and one official app. AT Protocol wouldn’t be as successful as it’s becoming without that dynamic. So it has to continue to foster that community while also maintaining its protocol, and it can’t fork itself to create multiple app experiences for different audiences. It also can’t indicate that its flagship app is just for people who hate ICE. My conclusion is that Bluesky is doing the only thing it can — and this is the only path that leads to AT Protocol becoming a successful open social web protocol. You need to have a vibrant community, and most people who join one don’t care about the underlying technology. There’s a world, later on, where other providers create viable alternative microblogging experiences with different takes on trust and safety — which is beginning to happen with Blacksky and Eurosky — but the ecosystem is not there yet. Protocol success and community safety have conflicting requirements, and Bluesky has to continue navigating that ambiguity for now; later on it may be able to focus on the protocol. Meanwhile, ICE is doing a lot of harm, and its presence may be a real risk to many of Bluesky’s users. They may find that the fediverse, after all, is a better place for them to call home. \[[Link](https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr150-on-ice-verification-and-presence-as-harm/#)\] ### The Five Levels: from Spicy Autocomplete to the Software Factory URL: https://werd.io/the-five-levels-from-spicy-autocomplete-to-the-software-factory/ Last updated: 2026-01-23T22:51:48.000Z \[[Dan Shapiro](https://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2026/01/the-five-levels-from-spicy-autocomplete-to-the-software-factory/)\] Software development is transforming incredibly quickly. This guide, although it looks a bit silly at first glance, is very aligned with what I’ve heard from friends and seen first-hand. > “I’ve now seen dozens of companies struggling to put AI to work writing code, and each one has moved through five clear tiers of automation. That felt familiar, and I realized that the federal government had been there first – but for cars. > > In 2013, the NHTSA created the five levels of driving automation. This was helpful, because while the highest level at the time was only level 22, it let everyone have a common language for both where things were, and where things were going.” What follows is instructive; some of the interim steps are waypoints, but 4 and 5 seems to be where a lot of mainstream software development is going. We can thank [Claude Code](https://claude.com/product/claude-code) for this; many of these changes took place *last year*, with some pre-work laid down by the AI vendors and various startups beforehand. My guess is that everything will have changed again by the end of the year. In the hands of senior engineers who are getting their heads around how these tools work, AI coding is starting to work as advertised. There’s a reason why engineers who have been coding for decades rave about it. But we’ll also see some really bad code (particularly in enterprise organizations) and some high-profile failures. There’s something I’ve called *The Mythical Claude Code Agent Month* (I need to find a pithier name), where in response to process and culture failures that are hampering its software development, an organization just decides that it needs to add more AI. And hallucinations, bias, and model poisoning are all real things. In response to this, and because a lot of engineers are ideologically or otherwise opposed to AI, I think we’ll begin to see explicitly artisanal software companies emerge. In some industries, particularly highly-regulated ones, we’ll also see new kinds of trust certificates emerge to prove that (regardless of how it was built) software performs well and doesn’t leak private information. Anyway, those are all knock-on effects. As of now, this is where mainstream software development is likely going. This isn’t an endorsement, necessarily — but it *is* a good-faith observation. \[[Link](https://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2026/01/the-five-levels-from-spicy-autocomplete-to-the-software-factory/)\] ### The Forwardable Email URL: https://werd.io/the-forwardable-email/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T14:11:50.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/the-forwardable-email/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] I know I share posts from [Corey](https://pointc.co) very regularly, but it’s because I’ve been working with him in various ways for over a decade, and the things he suggests are often techniques I’ve used productively for a long time. This is another great one. I insist on double opt-in introductions if I’m making a connection. That means I check in with the connectee first: do they actually want this connection? It’s a little slower, but it means connections are always consensual. To be able do that really well, a forwardable email is the perfect tool. Here, the person who wants to be connected drafts an email designed to allow me to forward it to the connectee with a little bit of added context. It gives them what they need to make an informed decision. Corey’s template is actionable and really works: it’s what I’ve done for a decade now. It’s simple, but the underlying structure is not what most people are doing. Honestly, I’m also just very happy that this is in a post on Corey’s site, because now when I tell people to write me a forwardable email, I can just point them to this. Please, if you’re asking me for a connection, this is the template I would like you to follow. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/the-forwardable-email/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] ### Funding Open Source for Digital Sovereignty URL: https://werd.io/funding-open-source-for-digital-sovereignty/ Last updated: 2026-01-21T17:00:34.000Z \[[Dries Buytaert](https://dri.es/funding-open-source-for-digital-sovereignty)\] Vital thoughts from Drupal founder [Dries Buytaert](https://dr.ies) on how, if Europeans and others are going to rely on open source software as a way to decouple from US services, funding the people and communities that *build* open source software must be part of the conversation: > “Open Source is the most credible path to digital sovereignty. It's the only software you can run without permission. You can audit, host, modify, and migrate it yourself. No vendor, no government, and no sanctions regime can ever take it away. > > But there is a catch. When governments buy Open Source services, the money rarely reaches the people who actually build and maintain it. Procurement rules favor large system integrators, not the maintainers of the software itself. As a result, public money flows to companies that package and resell Open Source, not to the ones who do the hard work of writing and sustaining it.” Dries’s solution involves evaluating a company’s open source contributions as part of a procurement process. If governments and other organizations are willing to do this in practice, that would work, at least for certain kinds of maintainers and communities. It would favor the companies that give back to an open source project over the ones that just repackage someone else’s work, and in doing so, make it more attractive for companies to give back in the first place. But I think there’s another way to look at the problem: provide the tools, infrastructure, and platforms for maintainers to start companies around their work. Rather than encouraging existing companies to become open source participants, this would encourage open source participants to become companies. It might even incentivize new kinds of companies to be drawn up as co-operatives of open source maintainers. When a company obtains software, it’s looking for more than the code: it needs a solution to a problem. Services address organizational problems more directly than codebases alone. There’s a reason why Dries’s Acquia and Matt Mullenweg’s Automattic have become so successful. There is nothing unethical about creating services businesses (or non-profits with service missions) that are aligned with the open source nature of their underlying products — and, indeed, that direct connection with customers will make those products better. But I’d say that most open source maintainers either aren’t thinking that way or are daunted by the prospect. So perhaps they could use a little help? An open source services in a box solution for these maintainers — including business fundamentals, sales and marketing, and a kind of operating system for running a small company around open source — could be an interesting way to *both* make open source software more palatable for institutional buyers *and* bring more money into their ecosystems. Code, generally speaking, is not a solution in itself, but it can be part of one. This would fill in the rest. \[[Link](https://dri.es/funding-open-source-for-digital-sovereignty)\] ### Who owns your data? URL: https://werd.io/who-owns-your-data/ Last updated: 2026-01-20T14:26:08.000Z *A note before we begin: I’m not a lawyer, and you shouldn’t consider anything I write or say to be legal advice. As always, this post is solely my own, and does not necessarily represent anyone I’ve worked for or with, or any community I’ve been a part of in any capacity. Okay? Okay.* ### To catch a thief, the police turn to Google It’s May 20, 2019, a year before the pandemic. Midlothian is an old, unincorporated coal-mining town outside Richmond, VA that now serves as one of its suburbs. A man enters the Call Federal Credit Union, forces a worker to open the safe using a threatening note that implied he had taken hostages, and walks out with $195,000. A few weeks after the robbery, the police have no strong leads. Finally, they go back and examine the security footage, and notice that in the minutes before the robbery, the perpetrator holds a smartphone to his ear — which gives them an idea. When Android smartphones have Location History turned on, they save detailed location information on Google’s servers. Because it’s centralized and indexed by Google, it can be searched by the company, as well as subpoenaed by third parties — and obtained by law enforcement. The police in the Midlothian case get a warrant for Google’s location data for every cellphone in the area of the Credit Union — a so-called geofence warrant — for an hour around the time of the robbery. Each of the 19 cellphone owners returned to them by Google becomes a suspect; they investigate each one in turn, having conversations and methodically ruling them out. [And that’s how they find Okello Chatrie.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-used-google-location-data-find-accused-bank-robber-he-n1086836) --- Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea in 2019\. It wasn’t cut and dried. [The Fourth Amendment protects people from arbitrary searches and seizures.](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/) His lawyers argued that a blanket geofence warrant that revealed everyone who happened to be within the vicinity of the Credit Union was a violation of those rights. The judge presiding over his case acknowledged that the warrant *did* likely violate his rights, but allowed the evidence to be included anyway. Chatrie was ultimately sentenced to twelve years in prison. His legal team brought the Fourth Amendment complaint to an appeals court — and lost. Contesting that result, they petitioned the Supreme Court, which [has now agreed to hear the case](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/us/politics/supreme-court-warrants-location-data.html). ### Surveillance capitalism is just surveillance The implications of the Supreme Court’s eventual decision will go far beyond Chatrie’s freedom. [Google is issued tens of thousands of these geofence warrants every year](https://www.bjcl.org/blog/the-constitutionality-of-geofence-warrants), handing over detailed information about cellphone users without them ever knowing. Google isn’t the only potential recipient for such a warrant. Much of the internet economy depends on gathering data and selling characteristics about individual people to others; Google is just one of many companies that store and trade on this data. Without protections, all of it can be used to target and identify individuals. Data brokers buy information from third-party apps across device types (including iPhones) and sell bulk access to it. Those apps are sometimes surprising: weather apps, for example, need to understand your location to give you a useful forecast, but they often then sell that location data through brokers. As well as advertising networks and sales teams, customers include the police, ICE, and intelligence services around the world. This data is often “anonymized” or “de-identified”, but in practice can be made identifiable again relatively easily when datasets are combined. They sell this information even without a warrant, and many security services buy subscriptions in order to circumvent legal restrictions that would ordinarily require them to get one. This information — whether retrieved via warrant or otherwise — is often specific and directly identifiable. Anyone with the ability to access it about a person gains the ability to track their activities at a highly granular level. That’s made possible by massive, centralized data collection at scale, and an assumption that users don’t have significant rights over it. The implication of Chatrie’s petition to the Supreme Court is that it must answer the question: when you consent to share location data with a cloud provider like Google, do you forfeit constitutional protection against government searches of that information? But there’s another question that should be asked alongside it: given that this information can often just be bought on the open market, what might protect people from having their personal and identifying information searched without their permission? [The court surfaced an email from a Google employee](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/22-4489/22-4489-2025-04-30.html) that said Google’s interface “feels like it is designed to make things possible, yet difficult enough that people won't figure out” how to disable tracking. This implies a third question: if a service uses [dark patterns](https://www.deceptive.design/) to bury the implications of a consent decision, as Google and many other internet services arguably do, is it [informed consent](https://www.emergentmind.com/topics/informed-consent-in-privacy-law) at all? ### Is personal data property? Two cases in the late 1970s (*Smith v. Maryland* and *United States v. Miller*) established something called the *third-party doctrine*, which holds that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy over information they have voluntarily shared with third parties. These cases were decided decades before the cloud, smart devices, and ubiquitous mobile computing: specifically, they determined that bank slips and records of outgoing calls could be accessed without a warrant. In both cases, the argument was that the person involved knows that they’re giving this information to the bank and phone company respectively. That doesn’t apply cleanly to how data is created and collected in the internet era, where data is often created and collected seamlessly, without our direct involvement. Regardless, the doctrine has long been used to argue that Fourth Amendment protections don’t apply when retrieving cloud data about a person. Those differences do matter. Much more recently, in 2018, the Supreme Court found (in [*Carpenter v. United States*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402%5Fh315.pdf)) that location information drawn from cell tower records *was* protected under the Fourth Amendment, recognizing that the “detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled” nature of this data was different to that considered under the third-party doctrine. Clearly, data automatically saved from geolocation on a smartphone is much more comparable to this cell tower information. This data, too, is detailed and encyclopedic, and is gathered without any input from the user. Both are buried deep in the terms and conditions of their respective underlying services, where users are probably unaware they’ve consented to them; they only really differ in the mechanical details of how they’re gathered. If cell tower location information maintains Fourth Amendment protections, there is no reason why Google’s (or anyone else’s) geolocation data should not. But the implications of the case may be larger. My attention was drawn to [a dissent in *Carpenter* by Justice Gorsuch](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402%5Fh315.pdf), who agreed with the conclusion (that cell site data was protected) but disagreed with how the Court got there. He said: > He did not invoke the law of property or any analogies to the common law, either there or in his petition for certiorari. Even in his merits brief before this Court, Mr. Carpenter’s discussion of his positive law rights in cell-site data was cursory. \[…\] In these circumstances, I cannot help but conclude—reluctantly—that Mr. Carpenter forfeited perhaps his most promising line of argument. In other words, he was disappointed that Carpenter’s lawyers chose to argue that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy, and not that his personal data was *his property*. Gorsuch’s opinion in the Carpenter case was, in a way, an invitation for plaintiffs to use this property argument in future cases: a signal letting them know that he would be receptive to it. That’s exactly what the *Chatrie* team has done: Gorsuch’s property argument is a core part of their petition. ### Google the bailee The *Chatrie* team argued that Google’s custody over a person’s personal data is a *bailment*, and that because Google users can control their location data (including deleting it), it’s their property, not Google’s. > Unlike the \[Cell Site Location Information\] at issue in Carpenter, Location History is in no sense a business record: users (not Google) have control over whether it is stored and can unilaterally delete it. Although the records were stored on Google’s servers, Google was acting as a bailee rather than an owner. A *bailment* is when you give your property to someone else for safekeeping or a specific purpose, but you retain ownership and agency over it. The best analogy is a coat check or valet parking. The bailee takes possession of your stuff, but it never becomes *their* stuff. You get your coat back from the coat check; the valet returns your car. There’s an assumption that they’ve treated them well in the meantime; their owners retain Fourth Amendment rights over them throughout. Google itself filed an amicus brief in the original *Chatrie* case, indicating that those rights were also preserved for location data under its custody. [As Lawfare summarized it last year](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-google-s-location-history-program-could-upend-digital-surveillance-law): > Google ultimately asserted in its Chatrie amicus brief that its users retain Fourth Amendment rights in their Location History data. Moreover, four days after the oral arguments in the Chatrie case, Google [issued this announcement](https://blog.google/products/maps/updates-to-location-history-and-new-controls-coming-soon-to-maps/) that after a year or so it would no longer store Location History data except on users’ own devices, essentially ending Google’s participation in geofence warrants. Being seen as a source of ubiquitous surveillance is bad for business; it stands to reason that Google would want to hold the practice. But of course, data is a little bit more complicated than a coat or a car. Unlike a paper record — or any other sort of property — data is infinitely replicable. Google might hold a copy of your data, but that doesn’t necessarily preclude anyone *else* from having a copy, too. That essential characteristic has powered the entire internet revolution: the core concept of scalability doesn’t work without infinite replication. This infinite replicability also has the potential to be a complication for that bailee argument. In a data universe, there may be multiple custodians for different copies of the same piece of information. It’s not what’s called [*rivalrous*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry%5F%28economics%29): while my possession of my coat or my car mean that nobody else can have them, if I give Google my data, I’m not necessarily withholding it from anyone else. In a data world, the same coat can be stored in infinite coat checks. Property rights evolved around rivalrous goods; for something to be considered property, it usually needs to have scarcity. The exception is *intellectual* property, which is something you create: IP covers creations that *can be* infinitely replicable. The thing is, intellectual property hinges on a copyrightable work being created; sometimes data is this (this article is data and also a copyrightable work), but sometimes it’s just a set of facts. Facts aren’t copyrightable; IP doesn’t cleanly cover them. A set of facts of the form “Ben was in this location at this time” is therefore not covered by IP. For us to consider data as being property, then, we probably have to consider it as something new. At the very least, we need to expand how we think about property to incorporate the concept of infinite replication. ### What is property? If something is your property, [you typically have certain rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle%5Fof%5Frights): - The right to use (“enjoy”) it - The right to exclude others from using it - The right to transfer it - The right to destroy it These all make sense in a data context too — it just doesn’t cover everything you can do with data. I would add: - The right to copy it - The right to transform it - The right to examine it For data to be property, the owner needs to have these rights over it. Whether a user really *does* have each of these rights over the location information stored by Location History is up for debate. Do they have true title to this information, which would mean they have sole power to exercise these rights? Or have they just been granted some control over it? ### What is personal data? It’s worth considering who generates personal data, and how. Take this analogy: in the famous scene in *Titanic*, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio’s character) draws a still life of Rose (Kate Winslet’s character). Jack has recorded an observation of Rose. It contains Rose’s personal information: her face, her whereabouts, what she’s wearing. But who owns that drawing? Is it Jack’s or Rose’s? Jack has made the drawing: while Rose modeled for it, it’s his work. The drawing is intrinsically his. Rose probably has some *moral* rights over it — for example, over her likeness — but the piece of paper with the drawing on it is not her property. Of course, a point of location data isn’t a drawing. It’s not a copyrightable work. It’s a set of facts that list where we were at a particular time. If I sit across from you and notice that you’re wearing a red sweater, you don’t own that observation or have any rights over it, even if it’s about you. I can tell anyone I want, including the police, that you were wearing it. But there are key differences. In that scenario, I’m independent of you; Google, on the other hand, is tracking your location through your phone, which is your property. You’re a key actor: you’ve set up the phone, kept it charged, bought cell service, and so on. And you’ve chosen to use the services that capture your location. Google is acting on your behalf, recording data that you create by moving around with it in your pocket. The originator of the action — the *instigator* — seems to matter. Is Google akin to Jack, observing us and drawing us in its database? Or are location records things we make ourselves by moving around with a phone in our pocket? Is location data something Google creates by observing us, or something we create by living? Is personal data the result of something we *do* or something that’s *done about us*? In a world where personal data *is* property, we gain the property rights I listed above by default, and in turn, we gain much more power and control over the information that’s stored about us. This would change our rights online, and every organization — software companies, ad networks, publishers, governments — that captures first-party data about a person would need to adapt. In a world where it *isn’t*, we either make *some* gains through the lens of a reasonable expectation of privacy, or we’re left with fewer rights. The status quo would remain largely intact. Whether *Chatrie* finds that there was a Fourth Amendment violation is important, because privacy is important. *How* it finds it has the potential to change the internet forever. Because it’s not clear that the surveillance data that is stored about us is ours, and because of the serious ramifications, I would be very surprised if the Supreme Court ruled that location data stored about us was personal property. There’s also a danger: if location data *was* personal property, there’s a real chance that Fourth Amendment rights would actually be *restricted* overall. If it can only apply to things that look a lot like property, that may prevent it from being applied to technology and data that diverge from that standard. To put it another way, it sounds protective, but it could ultimately narrow Fourth Amendment coverage by requiring plaintiffs to establish property interests that may not exist in modern data arrangements. That’s not at all to say that the Court won’t find there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, or that location records aren’t protected by the Fourth Amendment. If your face is caught on CCTV, nobody would argue that you own that footage, but there are reasonable protections on how you can be recorded and what can be done with it. If your phone is wiretapped, you probably don’t own the audio, but there are reasonable protections on whether someone can record it in the first place. ### Legislation is needed This is a thorny discussion — in the US. Strong data protection rights are here; they’re just not evenly distributed yet. In most of the US, rights over data are largely still up for debate. The third-party doctrine has acted as a shield for service providers, who consequently don’t need to build the extra features and protections that would be necessary if data was property. The [CLOUD Act](https://www.justice.gov/criminal/cloud-act-resources) works *against* privacy rights by requiring American service providers to relinquish data to the authorities. But privacy should be a human right. Even if the legal arrangements are under debate, the *moral* right to privacy exists and is clear. In the EU, the [General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)](https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/) makes your rights around data much clearer. It establishes a bundle of data rights that include: - The right to understand which data is being collected about you and how it’s processed - The right to correct inaccurate data about you - The right to delete data about you — but only when it has outlived its usefulness for the purpose it was collected - The right to limit how data about you is processed — in some circumstances — and object to it being processed - The right to download your data - The right to share your downloaded data with another provider - The right to not be subject to decisions solely made using automatic systems using your data There’s no right to prevent processing altogether, and there’s no right to sell your data. These stop short of full property rights — in fact, they’re explicitly defined as rights that relate to *personhood*, not property — but there’s significant overlap. Most importantly, they remove ambiguity about what rights a user has over data that is stored about them. It covers both my *Titanic* and my sweater examples by directly encoding rights. This has inspired other legislation. For example, [California’s privacy laws](https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are an enormous step forward in the US — but with significant limits. They treat data rights as consumer protection legislation, but only for data captured by certain organizations: non-profits and companies under certain revenue limits are exempt. It also has an explicit carveout for legal processes, leaving users relatively unprotected against government access. Unlike the GDPR, the CCPA doesn’t provide *universal* rights over data. As I mentioned, I find it unlikely that the Supreme Court will find that data is property as a finding of its *Chatrie* decision. But that doesn’t mean data as property is a bad or undesirable outcome (except for the stakeholders who would need to comply with it). To get there, we need lawmakers to create new legislation that encodes those rights. In his *Carpenter* dissent, Justice Gorsuch pointed out that the third-party doctrine effectively means that nobody ever has a reasonable expectation of privacy. In a world where we all carry a smartphone in our pockets that stores all kinds of information about us, it condemns us to living with ubiquitous surveillance. Property rights — or something that approximates the bundle of rights normally associated with property — would free us of that. In order to prevent ongoing arguments about what rights we have over the data that is stored about us, we need clarity — and that’s what legislation is for. For now, all we can really do is hope that the Court decides, in some, limited situations, that we have a reasonable expectation of privacy. But we need to push for more. ### Remembering Beyond Vietnam on MLK Day URL: https://werd.io/remembering-beyond-vietnam-on-mlk-day/ Last updated: 2026-01-19T14:11:43.000Z A good friend introduced me to Martin Luther King Jr's *Beyond Vietnam* speech some time ago. It was not well-received by the mainstream press at the time (more about that in a moment) but I think it's prescient and, unfortunately, timely. At the Riverside Church in New York City, he delivered [a blistering response](https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm) to America's war in Vietnam that went beyond the war itself to discuss the values of the nation and its impact at home and abroad: > We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. > > \[...\] A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. It is [a brilliant speech](https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm). And at the time, it was condemned. [As The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University notes](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam): > To King, the Vietnam War was only the most pressing symptom of American colonialism worldwide. King claimed that America made “peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments”. King urged instead “a radical revolution of values” emphasizing love and justice rather than economic nationalism. > > The immediate response to King’s speech was largely negative. Both the *Washington Post* and *New York Times* published editorials criticizing the speech, with the *Post* noting that King’s speech had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people” through a simplistic and flawed view of the situation (“A Tragedy,” 6 April 1967). Similarly, both the [**National Association for the Advancement of Colored People**](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/national-association-advancement-colored-people-naacp) and Ralph [**Bunche**](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/bunche-ralph-johnson)[ ](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/bunche-ralph-johnson)accused King of linking two disparate issues, Vietnam and civil rights. Despite public criticism, King continued to attack the Vietnam War on both moral and economic grounds. Today, we tend to remember MLK in a sanitized, vague way. That's because what he was really calling for was parity in a way that is still unfortunately controversial, even today. At the time, [75% of Americans disapproved of him](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-martin-luther-king-had-75-percent-disapproval-rating-year-he-died-180968664/). But these ideas are even more obviously relevant today than they were at the time. He was prescient, and we need more leaders like him. And, of course, [he was assassinated for it](https://thekingcenter.org/statement-from-the-king-center-regarding-the-declassification/) – something that we still have to truly reckon with. As his daughter, Dr Bernice A King, said: > “The reality is that it is not *who* killed Martin Luther King, Jr…but *what* killed Martin Luther King, Jr. Because whenever we get to what killed Martin Luther King, Jr., then we will deal with the various injustices that we face as a nation and ultimately as a nation that leads this world.” [Yesterday, Dr Stacey Patton wrote](https://drstaceypatton1865.substack.com/p/they-love-him-dead): > Tomorrow, they will invoke Martin Luther King Jr. while doing the very things he warned against. Because America has a necrophilic relationship with Dr. King. It loves the King that forgives its sins and washes its feet. > > \[...\] It loves him dead because dead men don’t organize. Dead men don’t shut down streets. Dead men don’t boycott, don’t strike, don’t disrupt, and don’t demand redistribution of wealth. Dead men don’t call out Empire and don’t name white supremacy. Dead men don’t link racism to capitalism and militarism in the same damn breath. > > \[...\] Naw, they don’t love *our* Dr. King. They love the silence that comes after the bullet. ### Notable links: January 16, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-january-16-2026/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T16:10:51.000Z *Every Friday, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *I don't have a pithy summary this week. It's been a heavy week. These links – about documenting atrocities and finding values-aligned work – reflect that.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Remarks on the Federal Government’s Ongoing Presence in Minnesota](https://mn.gov/governor/newsroom/press-releases/?id=719765&ref=werd.io) **Update:** [*Seth Larson*](https://sethmlarson.dev/) *let me know that the Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, established* [*a portal for sending in evidence of ICE activity*](https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Federal-Action/)*.* Minnesota is experiencing unprecedented ICE action — which is a kind of punch-pulling euphemism for what has felt like an all-out fascist invasion that has included murder, kidnappings, toxic chlorine gas set off in city streets, and ICE officers staking out stores and businesses, sometimes arresting the staff at restaurants they’ve just been eating at. In the midst of this, Governor Tim Walz made an address where he accurately described it as an occupation. Remarkably, he also asked his constituents this: > “Tonight, I want to share another way you can help: Witness. > > Help us establish a record of exactly what’s happening in our communities. > > You have an absolute right to peacefully film ICE agents as they conduct their activities. > > So carry your phone with you at all times. > > And if you see ICE in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record. > > Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans – not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.” We’ve seen crowdsourced footage and citizen journalism before — most pervasively during the Black Lives Matter protests five years ago — but I can’t think of a time when the Governor of a State, or anyone in a similar position, has asked citizens to record and save footage so that it can be used to prosecute the authorities for its atrocities. If we look beyond the obvious shock that *this is where we are now*, there’s an interesting infrastructure problem here. It’s worth asking: if *you* were designing a system to gather footage of ICE brutality from Minnesotans, while protecting their safety and ensuring the sanctity of the dataset, how would you do it? Knowing that there will be people who want to make the database unusable, or prevent people from submitting, either directly or through intimidation? It’s essentially a whistleblower (or journalism tips) use case. Rinse and repeat for the whole country. Some newsrooms have built their own forms, and Letitia James released [a portal for submitting ICE footage in New York](https://ag.ny.gov/federal-actions-form?ref=werd.io), but there’s a strong case to be made for a central repository for *all* ICE abuse, for which *sifting through* all that video is a problem in itself. There will be a lot of it. And what if there doesn’t remain a strong government entity at the State level to bring about a case? There’s a strong argument for sharing to a central repository that can be used and browsed by multiple entities, including governments, advocacy organizations, civil rights lawyers, and newsrooms. When this information is distributed across States, newsrooms, personal Instagram accounts, and more, it doesn’t form a body of evidence that can help bring about more impactful cases and determine patterns of activity. So someone should consider centralizing it — but then mirroring it, [Zurich protocol](https://werd.io/the-zurich-protocol/) style, so that nobody can hide the evidence and cover the tracks of their abuse. --- ### [‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid](https://www.404media.co/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-find-neighborhoods-to-raid/?ref=werd.io) This is racial profiling on a grand scale: > “Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.” It apparently looks a lot like Google Maps, but designed to show the richness of an area for “targets”, populated in part by density of immigrants. And then you can dig in: > “Once a person is selected on the map interface, ELITE then shows a dossier on that particular person, according to the user guide. That includes their name, a photo, their Alien Number (the unique code given by the U.S. government to each immigrant), their date of birth, and their full address.” The Nazis could only dream of having such a capability. Imagine working for this company, on this product. Every day, you go into work, in what I assume is a beautiful office with pine furniture and a well-stocked kitchen, and you build software that will help to deport people using what you know are extrajudicial means without due process. You probably have OKRs. There are customer calls with ICE. Every two-week sprint, you take on tasks that help make this engine better. What do you tell yourself? What do you tell your family? Are you on board with this agenda, or do you tell yourself you need the job to pay rent? To get healthcare? You receive stock as part of your pay package. It’s going up! You can use it to buy a home, or to build a comfortable retirement, or some combination of the two. Your co-workers are values aligned and work hard. They’re talented and smart. *Man,* you might think to yourself, *I love working with this team.* Or, you might think, *man, I’ve got to find another job.* Either way, you’re proud of your product work. You’re happy to take the salary, the free lunches, the espresso. And regardless of how you feel about it, the thing you do every day is powering an armed force that is kidnapping people on the street and shooting civilians, that shot a mother in the face, that is targeting people to disappear using a beautiful, modern map interface. --- ### [Bari Weiss Is The Symptom](https://defector.com/bari-weiss-is-the-symptom?ref=werd.io) I wish this essay wasn’t good and necessary, but it is. > “I worry some of my colleagues in the industry are getting the Bari Weiss phenomenon exactly wrong. She isn't a saboteur brought in to destroy one of the last remaining citadels of high journalism. She is one of high journalism's purest products, a perfect symptom of its old, unresolved contradictions. Her disingenuousness about motive is the industry's in miniature.” The author is correct: Bari Weiss is not an exception to a glorious industry, but one of many. These are people who, although they would not put it that way themselves, seek to make journalism toothless; to turn it into an instrument of power rather than something that interrogates it. They’re the people who see themselves, more than anything else, as an *institution*, rather than the people institutions worry about when they go to sleep at night. And they are everywhere. I’m not a journalist, but I signed up to support them. After my hard left turn from tech, I run technology for newsrooms, which includes the technologies that publish their work and keep them safe. And here I have to clarify: I didn’t sign up to do this for all of them. I signed up to do it for the people who want to make the world safer, fairer, more equal. There’s a reason why my two newsrooms have been [The 19th](https://19thnews.org/?ref=werd.io) and [ProPublica](https://propublica.org/?ref=werd.io). The only journalism I care about aims to hold a bright light to power and established power structures, and truly hold them to account. The Bari Weisses believe it’s in the national interest to support whatever war the current administration has chosen to wage. They endorse official narratives in the name of covering “both sides”, even when they are obvious lies. They produce journalism about trans people without consulting trans people. They avoid the appearance of activism. They believe in upholding the status quo in the name of stability. And in doing so, they enable atrocities, big and small, foreign and domestic, to the point of collaboration. --- ### [How to know if that job will crush your soul](https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/12/will-that-job-crush-your-soul/?ref=werd.io) A good list of questions that will help you determine whether a job will be values-aligned or crush your soul from [Anil Dash](https://anildash.com/?ref=werd.io). They also inform how to ask questions during an interview process. For example, Anil asks: > “What’s the lived experience of the workers there whom you trust? Do you have evidence of leaders in the organization making hard choices to do the right thing?” If you don’t know — and if it’s not a big company, you probably don’t — the question becomes: how will you find out? The result will be a deeper and more meaningful hiring process. But in addition to the values questions, Anil also asks about compensation and forward trajectory. These are important too. There’s no sense in taking a job that isn’t going to be sustainable for you, or won’t allow you to grow with it. In those situations, there’s barely a relationship; you’re ultimately just a resource. --- ### [The Curiosity Tour](https://pointc.co/the-curiosity-tour/?ref=werd.io) This resonated: > “I had always been a linchpin and had chafed under cog-like conditions. I uncovered a key insight: > > The process for finding a cog job and the process for finding a linchpin job are completely different. > > I had been following a cog path. Reacting to job postings that were easily classifiable on LinkedIn and had a hiring process run by middle management who had no idea what to do with a linchpin when they saw one.” What follows is — characteristically for [Corey](https://pointc.co/?ref=werd.io) — a clear-eyed, easy-to-follow framework for finding linchpin-shaped jobs. These *are* very different kinds of jobs: they often can’t be described cleanly, and although I’d argue strongly that all jobs should be hired through an open process, they might not even be positions that have been defined yet. At any rate, there are only good things to be gained by meeting with leaders and learning about their needs from a position of genuine curiosity. When I was reading this piece, I realized I’d suggested that a friend do something similar in the publishing industry a long time ago. She wanted to break into publishing and had a core set of skills that operated at the intersection of a few things. More than anything else, she was a doer. So I suggested that she make a list of publishers she’d like to talk to — perhaps by looking at books that she loved and checking who ran the imprint — and reach out to them cold to have a conversation. It worked, and within a few months she had a linchpin job at a publishing company in London. She wound up empowering an entire range of books to be published, writing some of her own, and transforming the way the publishing company ran. So, you know, try it. You just might find you get your dream job. One that is values-aligned to you, where you don't need to hold your nose every day when you go to work. ### Remarks on the Federal Government’s Ongoing Presence in Minnesota URL: https://werd.io/remarks-on-the-federal-governments-ongoing-presence-in-minnesota/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T16:10:59.000Z \[[Minnesota Governor Tim Walz](https://mn.gov/governor/newsroom/press-releases/?id=719765)\] **Update:** [*Seth Larson*](https://sethmlarson.dev/) *let me know that the Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, established* [*a portal for sending in evidence of ICE activity*](https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Federal-Action/)*.* Minnesota is experiencing unprecedented ICE action — which is a kind of punch-pulling euphemism for what has felt like an all-out fascist invasion that has included murder, kidnappings, toxic chlorine gas set off in city streets, and ICE officers staking out stores and businesses, sometimes arresting the staff at restaurants they’ve just been eating at. In the midst of this, Governor Tim Walz made an address where he accurately described it as an occupation. Remarkably, he also asked his constituents this: > “Tonight, I want to share another way you can help: Witness. > > Help us establish a record of exactly what’s happening in our communities. > > You have an absolute right to peacefully film ICE agents as they conduct their activities. > > So carry your phone with you at all times. > > And if you see ICE in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record. > > Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans – not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.” We’ve seen crowdsourced footage and citizen journalism before — most pervasively during the Black Lives Matter protests five years ago — but I can’t think of a time when the Governor of a State, or anyone in a similar position, has asked citizens to record and save footage so that it can be used to prosecute the authorities for its atrocities. If we look beyond the obvious shock that *this is where we are now*, there’s an interesting infrastructure problem here. It’s worth asking: if *you* were designing a system to gather footage of ICE brutality from Minnesotans, while protecting their safety and ensuring the sanctity of the dataset, how would you do it? Knowing that there will be people who want to make the database unusable, or prevent people from submitting, either directly or through intimidation? It’s essentially a whistleblower (or journalism tips) use case. Rinse and repeat for the whole country. Some newsrooms have built their own forms, and Letitia James released [a portal for submitting ICE footage in New York](https://ag.ny.gov/federal-actions-form), but there’s a strong case to be made for a central repository for *all* ICE abuse, for which *sifting through* all that video is a problem in itself. There will be a lot of it. And what if there doesn’t remain a strong government entity at the State level to bring about a case? There’s a strong argument for sharing to a central repository that can be used and browsed by multiple entities, including governments, advocacy organizations, civil rights lawyers, and newsrooms. When this information is distributed across States, newsrooms, personal Instagram accounts, and more, it doesn’t form a body of evidence that can help bring about more impactful cases and determine patterns of activity. So someone should consider centralizing it — but then mirroring it, [Zurich protocol](https://werd.io/the-zurich-protocol/) style, so that nobody can hide the evidence and cover the tracks of their abuse. \[[Link](https://mn.gov/governor/newsroom/press-releases/?id=719765)\] ### The Curiosity Tour URL: https://werd.io/the-curiosity-tour/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T02:12:27.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/the-curiosity-tour/)\] This resonated: > “I had always been a linchpin and had chafed under cog-like conditions. I uncovered a key insight: > > The process for finding a cog job and the process for finding a linchpin job are completely different. > > I had been following a cog path. Reacting to job postings that were easily classifiable on LinkedIn and had a hiring process run by middle management who had no idea what to do with a linchpin when they saw one.” What follows is — characteristically for [Corey](https://pointc.co) — a clear-eyed, easy-to-follow framework for finding linchpin-shaped jobs. These *are* very different kinds of jobs: they often can’t be described cleanly, and although I’d argue strongly that all jobs should be hired through an open process, they might not even be positions that have been defined yet. At any rate, there are only good things to be gained by meeting with leaders and learning about their needs from a position of genuine curiosity. When I was reading this piece, I realized I’d suggested that a friend do something similar in the publishing industry a long time ago. She wanted to break into publishing and had a core set of skills that operated at the intersection of a few things. More than anything else, she was a doer. So I suggested that she make a list of publishers she’d like to talk to — perhaps by looking at books that she loved and checking who ran the imprint — and reach out to them cold to have a conversation. It worked, and within a few months she had a linchpin job at a publishing company in London. She wound up empowering an entire range of books to be published, writing some of her own, and transforming the way the publishing company ran. So, you know, try it. You just might find you get your dream job. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/the-curiosity-tour/)\] ### ‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid URL: https://werd.io/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-find-neighborhoods-to-raid/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T14:52:21.000Z \[[Joseph Cox at 404 Media](https://www.404media.co/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-find-neighborhoods-to-raid/)\] This is racial profiling on a grand scale: > “Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.” It apparently looks a lot like Google Maps, but designed to show the richness of an area for “targets”, populated in part by density of immigrants. And then you can dig in: > “Once a person is selected on the map interface, ELITE then shows a dossier on that particular person, according to the user guide. That includes their name, a photo, their Alien Number (the unique code given by the U.S. government to each immigrant), their date of birth, and their full address.” The Nazis could only dream of having such a capability. Imagine working for this company, on this product. Every day, you go into work, in what I assume is a beautiful office with pine furniture and a well-stocked kitchen, and you build software that will help to deport people using what you know are extrajudicial means without due process. You probably have OKRs. There are customer calls with ICE. Every two-week sprint, you take on tasks that help make this engine better. What do you tell yourself? What do you tell your family? Are you on board with this agenda, or do you tell yourself you need the job to pay rent? To get healthcare? You receive stock as part of your pay package. It’s going up! You can use it to buy a home, or to build a comfortable retirement, or some combination of the two. Your co-workers are values aligned and work hard. They’re talented and smart. *Man,* you might think to yourself, *I love working with this team.* Or, you might think, *man, I’ve got to find another job.* Either way, you’re proud of your product work. You’re happy to take the salary, the free lunches, the espresso. And regardless of how you feel about it, the thing you do every day is powering an armed force that is kidnapping people on the street and shooting civilians, that shot a mother in the face, that is targeting people to disappear using a beautiful, modern map interface. \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-find-neighborhoods-to-raid/)\] ### The Zurich protocol URL: https://werd.io/the-zurich-protocol/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T21:58:10.000Z There was little warning. Officers tumbled into the newsroom all at once, guns drawn, shouting into the common spaces. In the kitchen, someone was in the middle of drawing an espresso; overflowing coffee and steam began to drip onto the floor. Then, there was silence as the men took tactical positions in corridors and cubicles, opening closed doors and forcing the occupants of privacy rooms onto the main floor. They lined up the editors first, zip tying their hands together and leading them into vans downstairs. Then they began to gather the rest of the journalists. Laptops were gathered from desks. The server room, such as it was in the wake of zero trust and enterprise cloud services, had its door kicked in, switches and rack servers ripped out of their frames. One IT support engineer objected and found a gun in his face, the safety off, its owner ready to make them into an example. The people of color were led into one van; the white journalists into another. All were driven away. The newsroom’s infrastructure was decommissioned that same day. The website was taken offline. Email accounts and cloud storage were trespassed, their contents downloaded for rapid analysis by the authorities using some central AI system; maybe Palantir, maybe something else. Ostensibly, there would be a trial. In reality, everyone knew, the point was the intimidation, the unpublishing, the detainment of the people responsible for criticism. There was no time for due process, the administration argued. Across newsrooms, universities, activist organizations, there were too many people. As the newsroom sat chained to their seats, being driven to some incarceration center somewhere, they wondered how long it would be before their families knew. How long before the remote journalists were picked up in similar ways, perhaps in front of their children, their homes trashed. It didn’t take long for the authorities to gain access to the devices they had taken. They forced journalists to open their phones and laptops at gunpoint; they’d all been trained not to use biometric IDs, that nobody could force them to provide their passwords and PINs, but none of that matters when you have a weapon in your face. The hard drives, though encrypted, were unlocked and accessed, the data on them cloned. They expected to find source information: the identities of people within the government who had leaked information about detainment sites and immigration enforcement activities. They found nothing. The files were all gone. The emails were all redacted. The devices were as good as empty. And no matter what they did, no matter who they threatened, nobody could restore them. Not a single member of the newsroom gave up their private information. They couldn’t. And for all they did to bring the website down, they couldn’t stop the journalism. There was no way to take it offline. Within moments, other newsrooms seemed to have become aware of the raid, and were pointing to the articles. Interest had *increased*, not decreased. The newsroom had planned for this. For months, all its journalism had been mirrored elsewhere. It had always been available under a Creative Commons license for anyone to republish for free — a model pioneered by [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) and then followed by [The 19th](https://19thnews.org), [Grist](https://grist.org/), [The Marshall Project](https://www.themarshallproject.org/) and more, which this newsroom had used for years. But in that model, another outlet needed to *choose* to republish an individual article. In contrast, this new active mirroring left nothing to chance. An independent group in Switzerland intentionally syndicated all non-profit journalism onto its servers, located in Switzerland and subject to Swiss law, out of reach by the US administration. The pieces were also, after a time delay to account for post-publishing edits, syndicated to [IPFS](https://ipfs.tech/), the censorship-resistant peer-to-peer content delivery network. Together, these measures meant that it was impossible to fully redact American non-profit journalism in the public interest. The website was gone, but the articles lived on. The group had another purpose. Beyond mirroring the newsroom’s articles, it had access to its cloud storage, its email accounts, its databases, its infrastructure. It maintained independent offsite backups of the site and every custom application, all in Switzerland. And most importantly, it had a kill switch. When the newsroom was raided, monitoring systems in Switzerland noticed an anomaly and automatically shut down the newsroom’s systems within seconds. Email accounts and cloud storage were drained, information was locked down. Now, it was fully under their control: no-one in the US could compel them to restore it all. Instead, two people in Switzerland, employed by a Swiss organization, needed to independently determine that it was safe to restore data. They sat in two separate clean, glass offices. To restore the data and systems, they would need to speak to the employees in the US, monitor the sensors and the security footage from the US offices, and make their own decision. If they did determine that it was safe, they would do so quickly, but it was their choice. They had full, independent authority to keep data from the newsroom until they could make that determination. And in this case, they could not. Because the newsroom used cloud services with zero trust, with data shared using the principle of least privilege, the seized laptops and servers contained very little usable information. Where they did contain local data, it was encrypted using keys that were kept in Switzerland and withheld with the rest of the cloud-hosted data. There was almost nothing that the authorities could use. There were collaborators: people on the inside who provided information. Some did it because they truly believed in the administration’s cause; some simply wished to ingratiate themselves to power. Even they could not provide more access to the data; they could not lead authorities to sources or compromise the investigations of other newsrooms. In the event, they were not spared. They, too, rode in the van. Word spread quickly. Details of the intrusion were saved to an indelible ledger of newsroom raids, violence against journalists, and other threats that was peered with newsrooms worldwide. Notifications were sent to leaders at partner newsrooms within seconds. Those partner newsrooms — protected by similar remote kill switch with other, similar Swiss groups — were able to access source information that had been set aside in advance so that stories in progress could continue to be reported. Some of those newsrooms were in the US; some were in other countries, so that if *every* newsroom in the US was compromised, others would still be able to pick up the stories elsewhere. The people in the van did not disappear. Their names, identities, and job titles were all recorded and broadcast to other newsrooms. There would be pressure for their release. Some of them were dual nationals or foreign citizens, and their respective governments would add to the pressure. It wasn’t going to be an easy road, but the truth would endure. Their sources remained safe. Their work could continue. And it would not be in vain. ### Bari Weiss Is The Symptom URL: https://werd.io/bari-weiss-is-the-symptom/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T13:15:20.000Z \[[Tommy Craggs at Defector](https://defector.com/bari-weiss-is-the-symptom)\] I wish this essay wasn’t good and necessary, but it is. > “I worry some of my colleagues in the industry are getting the Bari Weiss phenomenon exactly wrong. She isn't a saboteur brought in to destroy one of the last remaining citadels of high journalism. She is one of high journalism's purest products, a perfect symptom of its old, unresolved contradictions. Her disingenuousness about motive is the industry's in miniature.” The author is correct: Bari Weiss is not an exception to a glorious industry, but one of many. These are people who, although they would not put it that way themselves, seek to make journalism toothless; to turn it into an instrument of power rather than something that interrogates it. They’re the people who see themselves, more than anything else, as an *institution*, rather than the people institutions worry about when they go to sleep at night. And they are everywhere. I’m not a journalist, but I signed up to support them. After my hard left turn from tech, I run technology for newsrooms, which includes the technologies that publish their work and keep them safe. And here I have to clarify: I didn’t sign up to do this for all of them. I signed up to do it for the people who want to make the world safer, fairer, more equal. There’s a reason why my two newsrooms have been [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) and [ProPublica](https://propublica.org). The only journalism I care about aims to hold a bright light to power and established power structures, and truly hold them to account. The Bari Weisses believe it’s in the national interest to support whatever war the current administration has chosen to wage. They endorse official narratives in the name of covering “both sides”, even when they are obvious lies. They produce journalism about trans people without consulting trans people. They avoid the appearance of activism. They believe in upholding the status quo in the name of stability. And in doing so, they enable atrocities, big and small, foreign and domestic, to the point of collaboration. \[[Link](https://defector.com/bari-weiss-is-the-symptom)\] ### How to know if that job will crush your soul URL: https://werd.io/how-to-know-if-that-job-will-crush-your-soul/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T01:24:16.000Z \[[Anil Dash](https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/12/will-that-job-crush-your-soul/)\] A good list of questions that will help you determine whether a job will be values-aligned or crush your soul from [Anil Dash](https://anildash.com). They also inform how to ask questions during an interview process. For example, Anil asks: > “What’s the lived experience of the workers there whom you trust? Do you have evidence of leaders in the organization making hard choices to do the right thing?” If you don’t know — and if it’s not a big company, you probably don’t — the question becomes: how will you find out? The result will be a deeper and more meaningful hiring process. But in addition to the values questions, Anil also asks about compensation and forward trajectory. These are important too. There’s no sense in taking a job that isn’t going to be sustainable for you, or won’t allow you to grow with it. In those situations, there’s barely a relationship; you’re ultimately just a resource. \[[Link](https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/12/will-that-job-crush-your-soul/)\] ### 47 lessons URL: https://werd.io/47-lessons/ Last updated: 2026-03-04T14:21:39.000Z Every year, for my birthday, I collect my thoughts. This year I want to share some things I’ve learned: one lesson for each year I've been around. You might agree or disagree with them; maybe a bit of both. But they’re ideas I’ve picked up that, at the very least, are insights into how I think. Maybe they’ll be useful to you, too. *Previous birthday posts:* [*46 books*](https://werd.io/46-books/)*,* [*45 wishes*](https://werd.io/2024/45-wishes)*,* [*44 thoughts about the future*](https://werd.io/2023/44-thoughts-about-the-future)*,* [*43 things*](https://werd.io/2022/43-things)*,* [*42*](https://werd.io/2021/42) */* [*42 admissions*](https://werd.io/2021/42-admissions)*,* [*41 things*](https://werd.io/2020/41-things)*.* --- ### If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing slowly. Every project, every major task, is worth taking your time over, both to plan and to do. Most food cooks better if you do it with care, treating the ingredients, your tools, and the people who will eat what you’re making with respect. Most projects come together better that way too. When I’ve rushed something together, I’ve almost always come to regret it. --- ### You’ve got to make fucking up part of the process … Aiming for perfection is a trap. Even if you take things slowly, you’ll get stuff wrong. It’s part of doing *anything* meaningful. So rather than planning your project within an inch of its life, the best thing to do is start small, build in tests so you can figure out if you’re on the right track, learn from them, build incrementally, and keep going. The earlier you can get outside feedback, or some kind of signal from the outside world about whether you’re doing the right thing, the better. I have this slightly reductive metaphor I use for both writing code and English, and I think it probably works for any project of substance: Think of your project as a corridor. You have a bouncy ball and you need to get it to the end. You *could* spend a long time trying to get a steady shot that hits the wall at the end of the corridor dead on. But you could also bounce the ball off the walls all the way down. It’s maybe less elegant, it’s maybe messier, but you still hit the wall at the end. And you probably get there a lot faster, with a lot less stress. Another way to put it is this: if you accept that you’ll be wrong, you’ll approach your problem differently to how you would if you assumed you were right. You’ll talk to people earlier, you’ll get outside feedback, you’ll run tests. Even if you were right, those aren’t bad things to do. Conversely, if you assume you’re right, you probably won’t do anything to de-risk your idea, *and you could still be wrong*. And then you’ll have burned a bunch of time on something that doesn’t hit the mark, which might not have happened if you’d approached it with humility instead of hubris. --- ### … Because fucking up is part of life. *Life* is a project. You can assume you’ll do everything right or that you’re really smart, but that probably won’t get you very far. We all need feedback. We all need to learn and then course correct and then do it all over again. All we can do is iterate on ourselves. --- ### Saying “I don’t know” is a superpower. It’s weird to me how many people *don’t*: they’ll try and give you directions even if they don’t know the way to a place, or they’ll spin their wheels forever instead of suffering the indignity of going out and asking someone. The cool thing about admitting you don’t know, and just asking someone if you need to find something out, is that it leads to a different kind of conversation. If someone asks me something and I don’t know the answer, particularly if there’s a vulnerability to not having that particular piece of knowledge, telling them lets them know that I’ll be real with them. But more than that, it just gets me to where I need to be faster. I’m not wasting time on face-saving bullshit. And there’s precious little time to waste. --- ### What you pay attention to defines you. You are what you tolerate. But you are also what you notice, what you spend time with, and what you choose to dismiss. If you allow your attention to be shaped and manipulated by someone else, you are what they are trying to make you to be. Pay attention to your attention. --- ### When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. I originally thought this famous advice was maybe unfair: didn’t it prioritize knee-jerk assessments? But it’s not about snap judgments; it’s not *your* first reaction to someone. It's about paying attention when someone actively reveals their values to you. If someone *shows* you who they are, believe them the first time. And I’ve come to understand that [Maya Angelou is right](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-believe-them-quote/). Even the smallest red flags matter. The person who tells you the world would be better if men and women played to their gender’s strengths. The person who, on being inconvenienced by local rail drivers striking for better pay, exclaims that they can’t wait until they’re all replaced by robots. The person who is needlessly rude to a waiter or the person behind the desk at a coat check. These are the kinds of small exchanges that are indicators of a mindset that dictates how they show up in the world. It might seem kind to overlook them, but it’s wiser not to. There’s always something more. --- ### You are what you tolerate. What I mean by this is: if you allow something to continue, you help normalize it. That goes big and small. People often say this about management: if you tolerate mediocre work, your team becomes mediocre. And, sure, that’s important in a work environment. But it’s also true in life. If you allow someone to regularly belittle you, you become belittled. If you allow someone to cause harm, you cause harm. --- ### Every cry is a message. When my son was a baby, I quickly learned that while babies can’t talk through words, they have a full spectrum of communication that, generally speaking, gets their point across. I’d assumed that babies were a little bit like that old app *Yo*, where the only notification you could send or receive was a one-note “yo”. That was so far from being true. There’s no such thing as a cry that doesn’t have an underlying meaning, from the practical — I’m hungry, I’m uncomfortable — to the existential — I’m lonely, I need a hug. We learn words, we pick up the cultural dressing of the society around us, but we don’t stop crying. Those underlying signals perhaps become more complicated as we age, but they’re still there, all around us as subtext behind what everyone says and does. There are the words, and there’s the message behind the words. --- ### Communication is a muscle. There’s a thing I learned from [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co), which I think may have been inspired by some of the work [Carole Robin](https://connectandrelate.com/) did on interpersonal relationships at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Open, 360-degree feedback is vital on any high-performing team (or functional community). If you let friction between people linger, it tends to grow, and can sink the culture of a team; it’s the kind of thing that kills startups and leads to people leaving companies. You need to be able to bring things up and talk about it in a non-accusatory way. That doesn’t come naturally. So you have to practice. He’s got a great process that I’ve used for over a decade called [the one-on-one gift exchange](https://pointc.co/the-one-on-one-gift-exchange/). The details of it aren’t important here, although it’s worth checking out. He advises that you do it on a regular schedule, whether you have something specific to bring up or not. In doing so, you make giving and receiving feedback just a thing that you do regularly, and it makes it easier to give the hard feedback when it inevitably comes up. All communication is like this. You’ve got to practice. And you’ve got to *keep* practicing, otherwise your communication skills atrophy. And it turns out that open, honest, bidirectional communication is essential to every kind of relationship, from business to families to romantic to friendships. Otherwise things build up and build up, and, if you leave them unaddressed, they snap. --- ### Be careful about who you put on blast. I came from a context that didn’t matter: some guy writing code in Edinburgh, way outside of the centers of tech or media power. I got used to being critical about products and teams. Some of those criticisms were meaningful; some were not. The first time this bit me was when I worked at Medium. At some company happy hour (there were a lot of those during the era I was there), I talked about how silly a *very* famous product design was. “I built that,” someone said. Over time, my voice became more influential, as I took bigger roles. Despite this increased attention, I sometimes continued to run my mouth over stuff that didn’t matter, offending people for no reason. Some things *do* matter. If you’re colluding with fascists, destroying the environment, or causing active, obvious harm, you deserve to be called out. On the other hand, a design decision or a voice that you don’t quite agree with deserves a little more care. Every single thing is made by real people with real lives and complicated contexts. There’s a difference between speaking truth to power and dunking on someone’s work. Choose your targets carefully. --- ### Most dinner plates can hold over a pint of water. Ask me how I know. --- ### Plato’s cave is real. If you’re not familiar with it, [Plato’s allegory of the cave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory%5Fof%5Fthe%5Fcave) goes something like this: *Imagine prisoners who have spent their entire lives chained inside a cave facing a wall. Behind them is a fire; their captors cast shadows from various objects and puppets. Because those shadows are the only things they’ve ever known, they’re reality for the prisoners.* *Imagine, then, that a prisoner is freed and compelled to leave. They see the fire; because they’ve never seen light so bright before, they’re temporarily blinded. Then they’re dragged outside and the sun is brighter still. Eventually, as their eyes adjust, the world outside is clearer and more detailed than the shadows ever were.* *So the prisoner goes back into the cave to free the others. It’s dark in there, so they’re blinded again. The prisoners infer that whatever’s outside must have hurt the freed prisoner. So the freed prisoner must have been corrupted and whatever’s outside must be dangerous. They’ll defend themselves from being freed and dragged outside themselves, potentially to the death.* Here’s where I’ve come to differ with the common understanding of the parable: Each of us is in our *own* cave. We don’t have a shared reality; we all get our own shadows. The dangerous bit of the story isn’t being in the cave or being freed. It’s going *back*, or never having been a part of that particular cave to begin with and wandering in to provide perspective. There are so many people who believe their context is the right one, that the shadows they’re seeing aren’t just reality, but comfortable and right. Take it from a Third Culture Kid who’s moved around a bit. The more caves you’ve seen and the more times you’ve been forced into the light by the gift — or shock — of another perspective, the clearer you can see the limits of any one view of the world. But that's scary as hell for the people who won't adjust themselves to the light, who want their version of the cave to be *everybody's*. If you've only ever lived in one town, one state, or one country, you're seeing narrow shadows of how the world works. We all know the people in the cozy town who see the arrival of outsiders as a threat to their “way of life”. Geography, culture, and the assumptions of the people we connect with shape what seems natural, what seems possible, what seems inevitable, and it can make a new perspective — which, too often, is a new person — feel like a threat. --- ### Following someone else’s template is fine, but there’s more out there to see. One of my favorite things is [psychogeography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography): a way to explore built environments by taking arbitrary routes or following interpersonal, human-driven connections to places rather than taking a direct, logical route. If you explore Venice, you’ll probably find the same tourist destinations as everybody else. That’s not nothing: they’re beautiful. But if you go and find, for example, the narrowest alleyway in Venice, you’ll leave the crowds, walk through neighborhoods where people actually live, and see more about the culture and nature of the city than if you’d stuck to the tour. I would have earned a lot more money if I’d dedicated myself to engineering and just focused on software and product inside the tech industry. But it would have been a hell of a lot less interesting, and a hell of a lot less fulfilling. Meandering means going somewhere new. --- ### The templates defend themselves. I’ve found that the more someone adheres to a template for living, the more affronted they are by people who *don’t* adhere to one. There’s a kind of xenophobia that’s at the root of conservatism. If you feel like being “normal” is a moral good, then it follows that someone who isn’t normal is immoral. They’re to be feared — and, potentially, converted. Most overtly, we see that in peoples’ reactions to trans people, to marriage equality, or to immigrants coming from other cultures or with minority skin colors. But it also manifests in smaller intolerances: the microaggressions that many people have to deal with every day. It’s not just MAGA; it’s the libertarian, predominantly male norms of the software industry, or New York City’s implicit dress codes. I’ve sometimes wondered if these templates provide some stability for people who struggle with empathy, who find it difficult to imagine another human being’s interior life. If you don’t know how other people work, established patterns can be reassuring. Conversely, people who don’t fit into them are unsettling. For some reason, I give off a kind of conventional vibe, which means people feel safe sharing these fears with me. The British accent, “safe” haircut, and slightly self-deprecating demeanor don’t scream “part-Indonesian multinational third culture kid who cares about undermining centralized systems of power”. But that’s what I am. So I’ve had those encounters. The guy who, over a drip coffee in San Mateo, told me that the problem with the world is that women don’t know their place anymore. The one who, at a pub in North Oxford, said that, you know, he doesn’t know what’s wrong with Europeans. The manager with the pristine haircut who complained that people who want inclusion “want so many other things”. And why doesn’t everyone speak English? Spoiler alert: I am not a safe person to have those conversations with. I tend to feel sorry for people who feel like they have to abide by a template, but that ebbs away as soon as they advocate for someone else’s subjugation. The templates defend themselves. But everyone deserves to live on their own terms. --- ### There’s a fine line between knowing your limitations and living your life with a fixed mindset. It’s really easy to say things like, “I don’t do heights” or “I’m a bad public speaker” in the same register as “I can’t reach high shelves” or “I’m allergic to peanuts”. But they’re different kinds of things. The first are surmountable. You might not be a good public speaker *now*, but most great public speakers had practice. The question isn’t, “*can* you be a good public speaker”, but “do you *want* to be?” Because if you do, and you put your mind to it, you probably can. I started out by wanting to write for a career. I’ve been a software engineer. I’ve founded two startups. I was a *venture capitalist*, somehow. I was also a film reviewer and a barista. I’ve sworn blind that I couldn’t draw and have also drawn well. Everyone changes. We’re all in flux. We can all grow. --- ### You can never go back. The only way out is through. That’s true for industries and countries. We can wax nostalgic all we want about how it used to be, but (1) it probably never actually was exactly as we remember, (2) we can never go back there. Time doesn’t work that way. Even if we had a fully-kitted-out Delorean with a functional flux capacitor, our presence would change that reality. It cannot exist. I sometimes find myself nurturing a kind of homesickness for different eras of my life. Some of them make me so sad that my chest aches. I miss people, I miss places, I miss the rhythms and values of my life back then. But I can’t go back. There’s no email I can send, no journey I can take, that will return me there. It’s more important to figure out what was so special about them, understand how important those values are to me, and make decisions about my future with them in mind. And so much else. Rather than worrying about how the news industry used to be, we need to invent how it will be in the future. Instead of yearning for the glory days of the open web, we need to build something new. Instead of wistfully dreaming about a time before Donald Trump, we must prepare for the time after him. We all have to move forwards. --- ### The original *Thomas the Tank Engine* theme will dislodge any earworm. Of course, [then you’ve got another problem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-YRZHutDRk). --- ### Every system should be designed to ensure that the right things happen in the hands of the wrong person. Most of the time, our work is in the hands of the right people. We make good decisions hiring, we bring new people we trust into our communities, and everything works well. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. Maybe someone’s had a bad day, or they’re sick, or someone who doesn’t understand the context has to fill in for some other reason. Suddenly it becomes apparent that we don’t have systems of control: the most sensitive tasks don’t have safeguards that ensure the right thing happens. Our process has been based on norms and traditions rather than enforced checks. These days, modern code is written using the Pull Request, a feature that was streamlined and therefore popularized by GitHub. Instead of an engineer just writing software into the codebase, they submit it as a change; another engineer checks it over and either requests changes or gives it the okay. Usually, an automated system also runs tests against it to make sure the code fits into the standards and guidelines of the codebase. The result is a system of control that has at least two levels of check: the human reviewer and the automated tests. Damaging mistakes can still happen, but far fewer than if you were writing code without oversight and uploading it directly to a production server. Writing a rule, law, or process to contain a system of control isn’t a vote against the trustworthiness of whoever is responsible when it’s written. It’s a way of ensuring that whoever the *next* person is can’t abuse it. There’s a lot that I could say about the second Trump administration. One way of looking at it is as a [penetration test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration%5Ftest) for American democracy: finding the parts of the American system of government that were held together with norms and traditions instead of well-defined systems of control. That’s been the worst-case scenario. But the effect of every bad manager, every disgruntled employee, and every bad actor, big and small, can be mitigated by the same principle. --- ### People trust people, not brands. It stands to reason. A brand is a business entity’s marketing identity, which inherently is designed to manipulate you into having a reaction to it. Why would you trust that? One of the remarkable things I’ve observed in journalism is that a lot of people in the industry assume that the general public *should* love them. Journalism provides a lot of societal value, so the fact that trust in it is at an all-time low means the public needs to be educated about it. The reason they don’t trust it is they don’t know enough about it! I want to play the *Family Feud* buzzer sound here. *Ehhh ehhh*. The reason people don’t trust journalism is that it’s talking past them, not to them, and it’s certainly not *listening* to them. They see the logos and the wordmarks, rather than a real human being taking the time to be real with them. The lesson of young people turning to YouTube and TikTok is not that young people love vertical streaming video, it’s that they’re tired of corporate bullshit and want to see a real human face meeting them where they’re at. It’s a scary prospect for a newsroom, or for any organization. A brand is an identity for the full collection of people. In contrast, a real human face is someone who might not always be employed at that company. If a community has built up a relationship with a *person*, they may leave when the person finds a new job. The brand owners want to invest in relationships they can keep for themselves. But the public doesn’t care about that. They just want to have an actual conversation with a person. They’re looking for human authenticity and a personality that doesn’t try to authoritatively dictate the truth to them. We all just want to connect with people, not be marketed at. It’s about relationships and humanity. Community doesn’t care about your ligatures. It wants to be seen. --- ### Public gratitude is a reflection of who you think is important. If only managers receive public gratitude from leadership for a team’s accomplishments, then the culture prioritizes hierarchy and devalues the contributions of the individual contributors who actually do the work. If only certain roles receive gratitude from leadership, then the culture only really values those roles, and sees other positions as subordinate. Over time, if people are doing hard but thankless work, they’re unlikely to stick around, and the work will suffer. Everyone who shows up to work is making a contribution. What you’re doing couldn’t happen without them. They’re three-dimensional people who care about their place in the community and want to be respected. So treat them like they are — and thank them. --- ### Everything you add is overhead. If you’re on a team that writes code, every codebase you write from scratch is something new that you have to maintain. Write enough of those without increasing the size of the team and you’ll find that everybody is in maintenance mode all of the time. (Self-hosting someone else’s code has a similar maintenance overhead.) If you’re in a company that buys services, every new service you buy is something new that you have to pay for. Subscribe to enough of these and you’ll find that you’re financially underwater and it’s harder to weather downturns or find profitability. If you add complications to your life, the emotional and administrative overhead adds up in similar ways. You might think you can take it on, and you probably can, but as the complications and responsibilities grow, so does the overhead of living. And suddenly you might find that you’re tired and stressed all the time. The trick is, it sometimes happens without you really meaning it to. Life accumulates. The trick is knowing which kinds of overheads you can manage, and when. --- ### If you’re making something, you need to understand if you’re making art or building a business. I’ve written a lot over the years about how if you’re making a product, you need to know who it’s for, and make sure it actually solves someone’s problem. “Scratching your own itch” is something that open source developers in particular do a lot of, but if you do that, you may spend a long time, and potentially a lot of money, working on something and find out at the end that it doesn’t quite solve a problem for anyone but you. But that doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with scratching your own itch. I think it’s the wrong way to go about starting a business (be it a startup, small business, or non-profit). In those situations, you need to know who your customers are, you *do* need to understand if what you’re making is useful, and you do need to understand if anyone will buy or support what you’re building in the context of the model you’ve created for it. But not everything has to be a business. Not everything has to be sustainable. There’s a word for a creative act that is self-led in this way, regardless of whether the medium is code or words or paint or anything else: *art*. It’s always okay to make art. We need more art, all the time. Art is one of the core things that makes us human; it’s one of the core substrates that holds society together. But you’ve got to know whether you’re making art or building a business: whether your center of gravity, your great adjudicator, is your customers or your heart. By understanding this, you’ve set up your own expectations, and you know which tools to deploy. With art, you can follow your heart more ambitiously. With customers, you can obsessively serve them. In both cases, you can cut the ambiguity. It’s not that one is more valuable than the other. They’re just different things. --- ### Funding isn’t a *values* judgment, but it is a *value* judgment. Back when I worked for Matter Ventures, we would have intense recruitment periods for our accelerator. For a few weeks, I’d work twelve hour days, sitting on a hard wooden stool at a homemade wooden table made out of a door, and listen to pitches from early-stage startups that hoped to obtain our funding. It ran the gamut from incredibly smart applications that I’d never seen before, through barely-there ventures fueled by magical thinking, to outright grifts. A lot of first-time entrepreneurs were adamant that we should fund them because of their *values*. They were good people doing something ideologically wonderful in the world. They saw our investment like a magical grant. But it *wasn’t* a grant. We were a mission-driven accelerator, investing in ventures with the potential to help create a more informed, empathetic, and inclusive society. But we were still a for-profit venture firm. We needed to invest in startups that had the potential to provide an exponential financial return. There were plenty of lovely people whose projects had lots of value — but we couldn’t fund them using our model. When I was building Known, we couldn’t get investors to the point where they had conviction we would give them that return. They were very nice to us, and we had some good coffee conversations - but that’s where it ended. We couldn’t tell that story. The best founders pivot their startups until they’ve caught onto something that looks like it will grow quickly. That requires killing your darlings, as writers call it; letting go of the things you love that just aren’t working. That’s not what we chose to do. Every venture fund is working for their limited partners (the people who put money into them). That’s most likely to be a *financial* return — ideally a startup will return a substantial multiple of the money that was invested into it — but it might also be a *strategic* return. (Consider why NVIDIA might invest in AI startups, or why the CIA might invest in social media - which, by the way, is a thing they do.) Every limited partner has a different agenda; every venture firm has its own investment hypothesis. The same is true of non-profit grants, as it happens: donors put money into *them*, too, and they *also* have their own agendas. None of it is a gift. If you’re not raising money with the needs of the venture partners / non-profit funders and the agendas of the limited partners or donors in mind, you’re not taking it seriously. It’s not magic. It’s a financial transaction. You don’t get it because you deserve it; you get it because the funder thinks you’ll give them the return they need. And of course, this is how power centralizes. --- ### Turning it off and turning it on again works. Nine times out of ten, it’ll fix your computer problem. Really. Try it before you ask someone else. I’m begging you. --- ### Don’t stay up too late. You need sleep. You really do. You only think you don’t because you don’t physically drop dead or stop talking when you’re underslept. But you’re basically another person. Go to bed. --- ### You can’t show up for others if you don’t show up for yourself. I’m not sure where it came from, but over time I developed a kind of shame just for being me: an underlying sense that there was something fundamentally wrong with me, but nobody would tell me what it was. It arrived one day when I was a teenager and never left. I imagined that there was a magic incantation that I didn’t know, but I could never be good enough. I’d never be worthy of the adulation I placed in other people; if I wanted to be liked, I needed to mask to be more like them. I desperately wanted someone to really see me and — despite that — know that I was okay. The thing about feeling like you just need an ally, or someone who will tell you at last that you’re okay, is that it puts you in an incredibly vulnerable position. You don’t need someone who will tell you you’re okay; you don’t need a superficial ally. You need people who you can be in community with, who you can build relationships with over your life. It creates vulnerability in another way, too. If you don’t like yourself, if you feel like you don’t matter, you can trick yourself into thinking that nothing you *do* matters, either. And there probably *are* people who care a great deal about you; consequently, what you do *does* matter. So you can make decisions that inadvertently hurt people you care about a great deal. You can fail to fight for relationships that have the potential to transform the entire fabric of your life. You can be passive about the stuff that really matters in life. You can find yourself in a place where you ignore your goals, values, and ideals. So I’ve learned that you need to find ways to feel good about yourself; to respect yourself; to care for yourself. It’s not a selfish act. It allows you to show up in the way the people you care about need you to, which in turn allows you to build better relationships, better community with them. It allows you to take bets on yourself and build the life you really want to live. It allows you to be *you*, on a really fundamental level. But if you don’t do that? The spiral is hard to escape from. The people you care about will tire of your disrespect. And those relationships may take years to repair. Ask me how I know. --- ### Mid-life aging is more about how your life changes than your body. Yes, my metabolism is slower than it ever used to be. I’m definitely more tired. My back is a little more tense. I find it harder to shift into a creative mode. But let’s look at how my life has changed. I have a much more demanding job and my time is less my own. In my twenties I was the founder of a bootstrapped startup and could set my own parameters, including when I worked and when I didn’t. Nobody was checking my work except our customers: I had remarkable creative freedom. I didn’t have a kid, so I could walk seven or eight miles a day (and did). I hung out with friends more often, saw live music more often, went to the movies, and spent more of my life being active and having fun as a percentage. I’m pretty sure that if I returned to that level of activity, my metabolism would increase. If I made more of a commitment to fun and had fewer parameters in my work, I would find it easier to shift into a creative flow state. If I was less stressed about money, I would sleep better at night. In fact, before my mother died, I was running 5K every day, and my body, my mind, and my *soul*, frankly, were all improving. Let’s be clear: every body is different. Biology is real. But not *every* mid-life physical decline is inevitable. It’s that the demands on your time, your energy, your brain increase. There’s more overhead. And it takes a toll. --- ### Grief lives in the body and flows like tides. For a long time after she died, I could hear the gentle click of my mother breathing through her cannulas. It followed me home to her house in Santa Rosa, and across coasts to my new home in Elkins Park. Sometimes I could hear the wheels of her feeding tube stand rolling across the floor. These sounds lived in me. I couldn’t let them go. Not with all they represented. We washed her, my sister and I, right at the end. A final act of care. But not one of goodbye. My cousin warned me that the grief could sneak up and grab you, unsuspecting, and it did: I found that I had to pull off the road or hide myself in a public bathroom and let it out. I don’t know what other people made of the sound of my sobbing, if they heard it. It didn’t matter. It had been a long journey. I’ve written about it from time to time, partially to explain myself, and partially to exorcise it. It doesn’t represent my mother, and shouldn’t, except in that she fought with so much life-force, and maintained so much good humor and kindness until the very end. I want to remember her smiling at a joke or angry about the world, not her prone fragility in a hospital bed. Grief is just this: the loss of her, the loss of the family with her in it, the loss of her life and our lives and how everything was before we knew she was going to die. Some days, moving forwards is easy. Some days, the sadness ambushes you, and it’s all you can do to keep breathing. Every day, I feel it in my limbs, in a new heaviness to every day. If you cut me open like a tree I’m sure you’ll see it in my rings. --- ### Trauma comes in layers. Grief is not the same thing as trauma. The trauma is of seeing my mother in that bed, knowing she didn’t want to die in a hospital after that decade-long struggle, and not being able to do anything about it because the doctors she needed 20 liters of oxygen and she would have suffocated if we’d moved her. It’s of learning what palliative care means, first-hand, and understanding that they would pump her with drugs and starve her until the end came. It’s of seeing her at the bottom of the stairs and staying with her until the ambulance came. It’s of yelling at her to wake up after the surgeon scraped off the crust around her lungs, her lips blue, her breathing shallow, and thinking this was really the end this time. It’s of moving thousands of miles to be with her, sure she was about to die, sure that I would get the same sickness, and losing the person I thought I would spend my life with, not knowing if I had time left. It’s of my cousins, and my aunt, and my Grandma. Everyone we have lost to this horrible disease. It’s of, even now, not being able to dream about my mother, not hearing her voice except for the videos I took of her, except for that one time I heard her say, “oh my *God*, you guys,” clear as day in the dead of night. It’s layered like rock, a thick crust of fight or flight burying layers of sadness and images that make me sit upright with my heart pounding. I’ve only recently made peace with disrupting those layers and mining to its core. Losing the trauma is not the same thing as losing her. It’s not saying that she doesn’t matter; it’s not saying that any of the people we’ve lost don’t matter. Quite the opposite. It just says, it’s time to keep living. For them and for me. --- ### Vulnerability needs a beat. Oversharing is real. Sometimes it can be too much. If you’ve found you’ve done that, you might need to retreat for a moment or two; reassure the person you’re talking to that everything is okay. That you’re *normal*, you know? You can follow the template too. You’re safe. Not forever. Just for a beat. Masking is overhead, after all. And then on we go. --- ### Those little paper condiment cups unfold to four times their size. You know those little white cups from In-N-Out? You pull on their edges and they unfold and unfold. They’re surprisingly large! So much room for ketchup! Do you *need* that much ketchup? Maybe! (You know about [the secret menu](https://www.seriouseats.com/the-in-n-out-survival-guide-we-ate-every-single-item-on-the-secret-menu), right?) --- ### You will (almost) never regret being there for your family when things are hard. I stood in Doctors, a real ale pub in Edinburgh that was never my favorite but was a short walk from the university buildings. I’d just presented at a tech meetup at the Appleton Tower, explaining to folks what Known did and why I thought the indieweb was important. I’d been back for a few days; I just planned to be in Edinburgh for a week. Someone who I’d known for years — not well, just an acquaintance, but someone who I thought was generally smart and knew what they were talking about, more or less — was saying that she didn’t know why I’d left. “When they moved to California, they left *you*,” she said. “I would have said, ‘sorry, Mum, it’s your own fault.’” I’ve played that conversation back in my head for years. At the time, I was so stunned that I didn’t have a real response. It was so far outside of my spectrum of values that I didn’t see it coming. Why would you say that to someone who had ripped their whole life up to be closer to their terminally ill mother? Why would you even *think* it? I did do those things. When I was thirty-two years old, I moved to California for what I thought was a temporary visit. I ripped my life apart in the process. When I was twenty-three years old, nine years earlier, my parents moved to California to be closer to my Oma. It seemed like a no-brainer. Of course you’ll be there for your family. We’re close. We love each other. We’ll support each other. My move was a decision point: I didn’t know, exactly, where my life in Edinburgh was going. It could have gone to amazing places — and it also might not have. I knew that if I had chosen not to be with my mother during her illness, I would probably have regretted it. It was going to be seismic, but I needed to go. But that person’s voice. I do think about it. If I’m honest with myself, it dovetails with my own middle-of-the-night anxieties. Should I have stayed? I lost the person I was with at the time, who I hoped I’d spend my life with. That loss was devastating; the move itself was devastating. I loved my old life. But in comparison to not being there when Ma was struggling? So, no. I did the right thing, even if I suffered a loss in the process. I’m grateful I was able to spend that time with my family. I was able to take Ma for walks and sit around the dining room table and give her hugs at the end of the day and help her brush her teeth when she was too weak to get out of bed. I was there. I am glad I was there. --- ### Put the kids first. If you arrange your parenting for your convenience rather than their well-being, they’ll feel it. For example, I’ve found that if I get up as soon as he falls asleep, and he wakes up twenty minutes later to find himself in a dark room by himself, he’s scared in the moment, but trust has been eroded over time. Yes, eventually he needs to sleep by himself, but also, he’s three years old. There’s time. And I did it enough times that he now asks me, plaintively: “do you promise you’ll stay with me?” The first time he asked broke my heart. I used to love traveling for work: when I was based in the Bay Area I’d go to New York City for long trips and love exploring in the cracks between commitments. I’d walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and find little shops in small corners; psychogeography the shit out of that place. And there would be all kinds of conversations I’d get to have as a result: meeting people for a coffee here, for a beer there. But now I have a little guy who doesn’t understand why I’m going away, and who misses his daddy. It makes him nervous. He doesn’t FaceTime for long, but I’ve been told he’s obviously depressed when I’m not around. I still love traveling, and as he gets older I’ll find ways to bring him with me. But until then, I need to minimize the trips. I need to stay in bed and give him a hug. I need to spend the time. --- ### Strict parenting is bad parenting. When you set up high expectations and rigid rules, you’re not creating the conditions for a child to grow up into their own person. You’re effectively setting up a template and punishing them when they meander from it. Worse, you’re taking a still-developing human, who doesn’t understand their own emotions yet and hasn’t developed strong communication skills, and you’re ignoring the underlying needs and feelings that form the subtext of their behaviors. In a real way, you’re ignoring their humanity. Having a child has taught me to look for the signs of sadness, of quiet worries, of not feeling well behind what a strict parent might call “acting out”. Every time he throws something or ignores something I ask him to do, if I remember to pause and really ask him about it, I’ll find that there’s something he isn’t saying — or at least, not saying with words. We can usually have a good conversation about it, and then a hug. It builds trust. He knows I’m looking out for him. I see him. And then, of course, there are the parents who hit their children. That’s the version that’s unambiguous abuse. It’s a caveman approach to nurturing a human being that I think says a lot more about the emotional intelligence and capabilities of the parent than it does the child. They’ll often justify it in weird ways, by saying things like, “I was smacked and it never hurt me.” There often seems to be a kind of defiance to it. But guess what? *Not* being smacked would have hurt you *less*. I bet pausing for a beat and digging into how they feel would be revealing, too. Parenting is hard. It can try your patience. But I can’t imagine hitting my child and wanting him to be anything less than his own person, free from everybody’s templates and expectations. Part of keeping him safe is keeping him safe from anyone who would seek to subjugate his spirit. And if anyone ever tries to hit my kid, I’m calling the police. --- ### Walking fixes more than you’d think. When I’m stressed, or feeling under the weather, or having trouble thinking my way around a problem, I’ve found that going for a walk is the best thing I can possibly do. It takes me out of my context, it allows me to blow off steam, and it puts me in a relatively isolated state where I have fewer distractions or inputs. It’s its own form of attention, in a way; its own way of being in the world. It’s also really good exercise, particularly if you do it briskly: a 15 or 16 minute mile is a decent walking pace. As a bonus, it’s even *better* for blowing off steam at that speed. My opinion: if you don’t live somewhere where you can walk outside easily, move. --- ### Get that milkshake. My trauma therapist and I have a shorthand: she tells me to *get that milkshake*. What it means is this: sometimes it’s important to go do something nice for yourself. You don’t need to ask permission; you can just do it. Life can be a lot. And I happen to like milkshakes. So sometimes, quietly, when I need a treat, I go and get one, guilt-free. --- ### Cows are benign philosophers. I think they have a lot more going on than they let on, is all I’m saying. Don’t believe me? Talk to one. It’ll listen. There used to be a cow field between my home and the center of town. I’d walk through it twice a day, stepping over the cattlegrid and dodging the cyclists who zoomed past. The cows were curious and friendly; they would come and investigate what you were up to. There was another field that lay far below the Marston Ferry Road, back in Oxford, where I grew up. You could stand against the fence at the road and the cows would look up to see you. If you stayed there for long enough, they would congregate around you, as if you were the Pope. Perhaps they were hoping I’d feed them. I’d like to think they thought I might have something to say. --- ### Optimize for community. I’ve made two major moves in my adult life: once to California, and once, after my mother died, *away* from California, to the area outside of Philadelphia. It was lonely. To have a friendship — a real one, not a warmed-up acquaintanceship — is to have built a non-romantic relationship where you really see each other. Neither wants anything from the other; there are no romantic or sexual expectations, or really expectations of any kind except that you’ll be there. It’s a relationship of shared support, values, and community. Without it, you wither. People who don’t have friends [die earlier](https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/19/health/loneliness-social-isolation-early-death-risk-wellness). And while the internet can help you keep in touch with people you have moved away from, there’s no real alternative to having that mutual support *there*, with you, in the flesh. But everybody moves. It’s not realistic to stay in the same place your whole life. People get jobs, family members get sick, people get priced out of their communities, there’s a Brexit. All kinds of things happen. So staying in one place is not a foolproof solution. The thing, then, is to look for new places with community in mind. Where are you going to find like-minded people? Who are the people who see you now, and what kinds of places do they hang out in? Where are the comparable places in your new geography? Where are your people? For me, that means finding the bookstores; the community spaces; the outsider arts events; the live music and the weird between-the-cracks culture. Find the people who don’t want to live to someone else’s template but do want to be kind. That’s where the good stuff is. And given the choice between choosing a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere and a lackluster apartment in a place where you have community, I’d pick the place with community. It’s going to make your life better. It’s going to make *everything* better. Community cuts to the core of what life *is*; a house is just a house. --- ### Culture is about the intersections between people. My Oma taught me to cook. She *loved* to make food; often she’d be thinking about the evening meal throughout the entire day, regardless of whatever else was going on. In her nineties, she moved in with my parents, and although her love of cooking hadn’t diminished, her ability to stand over a stove had. So I helped her. She was part-Indonesian, so the first dishes I put together started with spice mixes of turmeric, coriander, ginger, garlic, onion, and chillies. Indonesians call this the *bumbu*: a spice paste that can form the basis of many dishes. You’re meant to make them with shallots, not onions. There’s supposed to be galangal rather than ginger; candlenuts are common. But those things weren’t easy to get in the San Joaquin Valley back then, so she made do. Sometimes she used milk instead of coconut milk; sometimes she couldn’t find *ketcap manis*. And it was always fantastic anyway. You can improvise. You can use available ingredients. You can work with what you have and make the result your own, instead of trying for an unchanging perfect ideal. That’s how culture changes and ebbs and flows. I still make Indonesian meals, but they’re different to how my Oma did it, and the way I teach my son will be slightly different to how I learned. And so it goes, forever. The important thing was the making and the eating, the gift of food and the sharing of it, not the verbatim copying of a version of a dish. There’s skill and craftsmanship in doing that, but that’s not where the *life* is. --- ### Revisiting homemade food from your childhood is usually amazing; revisiting restaurant food from your childhood rarely holds up. One was made with love, which still shines through the recipe; by following the same path, even if you substitute some ingredients you’re making it with love *again*. The other is just a product. The ingredients have changed over time; the portions are slightly different *for business reasons*; it’s missing the context and the smells. It’s generally better to let those memories sit. --- ### If you have a fear of flying, playing *The Muppet Show* theme on takeoff really takes the edge off. And post about it on the internet. Then, if something happens, people can point at your post, nod to themselves sagely, and say, “he died as he lived.” I like [the OK Go cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiMZa8flyYY), for what it’s worth. --- ### Show your working. I remember taking my high school exams in the gym, individual chairs placed in rows atop wooden floors that smelled faintly of feet. You could hear breathing; the occasional cough; the squeak of rubber on hardwood as the invigilator roamed the aisles. Showing your working was vital. Your answer to a math question could ultimately be wrong, but if your *thinking* was along the right lines, you’d pick up some points. They didn’t want to teach us by rote; they wanted to teach us how to navigate problems. All of my best professional experiences have been derived from showing my working. When I started Elgg, every success was because we blogged how we were thinking about it; before we’d written a single line of code, before we *knew* we’d write any code, we’d talked about why it was important. People were attracted to the product, sure, but more than that, they were attracted to the ideas behind the project. And when we were wrong, they let us know — kindly. It helped us learn and grow. That principle has continued to this day: to, in fact, you reading these words right now. Every time I share how I think, I make connections that I might not have otherwise. It’s helped me build community, land jobs I never would have landed, and find myself in rooms that would otherwise have been closed off to me. The more you share of who you are, how you think, what you care about, and what your skills are, the easier it is for other people to find you, and for you to build connections and relationships. That doesn’t mean put yourself at risk: I’m not about to publish my home address here or reveal precise details about my kid. But there’s a lot you can say about yourself if you work in the open. --- ### People join movements for different reasons. Not all of them are good. In the early 2000s, a bunch of early web users, including me, wanted to tear down traditional gatekeepers: publishers who dictated whose voices could and couldn’t be heard, politicians who didn’t listen inclusively to communities, the traditional structures of power that maintained their own dominance, only including people who didn’t come from those hierarchies if they were deemed to be useful or compliant. So much of the early web movement was about creating a more participative world. And then it turned out that some of those people saw an opportunity to insert *themselves* as gatekeepers. People like Mark Zuckerberg created vast companies that, in time, came to intermediate and charge rent for more than those old gatekeepers ever had. They sought to own aspects of our lives, like talking to our friends, that previously had been free from intermediation. The way for their companies to grow was to encroach upon the cultural commons. The gates they built became more and more powerful over time. As they calcified, some of them became templates that came to govern the rhythms and tenor of everybody’s lives. Some did not. Others built the indieweb, and the free software movement, and found ways to undermine the control of these new gatekeepers. They stayed true to the values of the movement. I tried to be one of them. Early in my career, I saw that ed-tech companies were milking giant contracts from tax-funded universities, while delivering software that didn’t do much to help people learn. Elgg was a direct response to this; it was fueled by a deep anger at the people who would seek to strip-mine a public good. Known, my second open source platform, was aimed directly at people like Zuckerberg. They were both attempts to undermine centralized wealth and power. That’s what drove me, and I have no regrets. I have learned to look for the people who tear down gates for good, who try and foster new co-operative, participative movements in their place. They’re always there, even if they are not the most prominent voices in the room. And together, there’s a lot we can still do to make the world better. Someone joining the movement for the wrong reasons doesn’t invalidate the movement. It just makes the work even more important. --- ### To write, read with impunity. Yeah, sure, read the “good” stuff. I love literary fiction. *The Color Purple* is my idea of a perfect novel. I just finished *I Who Have Never Known Men*, which is an astonishing novel that plumbs the depths of what it means to be human, written with poetry. But you can read whatever you want. All inputs are worthwhile. Pulpy airport thrillers have brought me through some hard times. Fan fiction has struck a nerve that I never knew existed. Some of the most well-crafted writing I’ve ever read was published on a style-free website, tumbling onto the page in 12-point Times New Roman. It’s all good. All of it. If you want to write, the only imperative is to read. That’s certainly true for my long-form writing, and that might be advice you’ve read before. But it’s true for my short-form writing, too. If I haven’t dug into a book lately, my blogging suffers. Even my writing at work — emails and process documentation are hardly the bastion of literary prowess at the best of times — is less inspired. Read voraciously. It’s fuel. --- ### Fight for the relationships that matter. “There are other fish in the sea,” the aphorism goes. But when you’re in a relationship where things aren’t going perfectly, I think it’s better to assume there aren’t. I don’t mean that you should stay in an abusive or untenable situation. If you are being harmed and there’s no chance of living in harmony, then, absolutely, you need to get out of there. But if it’s just not quite right, or if circumstances have become obstacles, I think there’s a lot to be gained by fighting for it. At least until you’ve determined that there’s no possible way forward. This is where, in my life, not showing up for myself has sometimes allowed me to fall into a defeatism that has caused me to give up early. “Of *course* this won’t work,” I think to myself. I’m the through line to the failure. I shouldn’t assume that someone would want to be with me. They’ll be better off without me. The result is giving up on people who really care and situations that could last a lifetime. It’s not a given; nothing is. But there’s a real scarcity to people that are really compatible with you. (Or, I should say, there’s a real scarcity to people that are really compatible with *me*.) So, while it’s worked out for me in the end, I have sometimes wished I would have fought harder, and *not* assumed that eventually everyone will want someone better. I don’t think you can show up well in a relationship without assuming it’s the only relationship on earth that will ever be important to you. It’s got to have fire. It’s got to have *stakes*. It’s got to matter. And if you give up without fighting for it, it doesn’t. --- ### Make the dumbest jokes imaginable. *Q: Why did Pierre-Joseph Proudhon only drink camomile tea?* *A: Because all proper tea is theft.* C’mon! --- ### You contain multitudes. [Walt Whitman](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version): > Do I contradict myself? > Very well then I contradict myself, > (I am large, I contain multitudes.) A single person holds many conflicting identities, roles, beliefs, and experiences; our selves are complex and ever-changing. There is no singular, static definition that we can use to capture any person. We’re not making art or building a business, because there’s no way to separate the self cleanly into those categories. We’re not our professional titles and our personal contexts, because those things are inseparable. We have no way of surgically extracting pieces of ourselves, or freezing them and framing them, unchanged. We’re always learning, always growing, always making connections between the things we know, the things we’ve felt, our flaws, our traumas, our successes, our pride, the things we’ve done and haven’t done. In everything we do and everywhere we are, we are all of ourselves. When we build walls, we build overhead, and we keep building overhead until it’s impossible to maintain and it all comes tumbling down. A single cave’s shadows can’t capture a whole person. Better, then, to understand that we are our whole selves, and to respect that in ourselves and in the people around us. We are smart and brave and silly and stupid. We are strategic and impulsive. We must be allies for each other. In a world where we are asked to refine ourselves down into digestible metadata for the benefit of machines and algorithms, we must celebrate our full humanity. Bring your full self to work. Bring your full self home. Only when we’re allowed to be intact, with a community built on mutual sight and support, can we live sustainably: our overheads manageable, our wounds tended to, our victories celebrated. And we all deserve to live sustainably. We all deserve to be supported. We all deserve to be well. We all deserve to live with our full, changing, contradictory identities out in the open, unmasked. So let’s. --- ### How I hire engineers URL: https://werd.io/how-i-hire-engineers/ Last updated: 2026-01-06T14:38:20.000Z I once helped out a startup where the departed CTO had come up with what he thought was a clever way to hire engineers. He’d find people who performed very well on coding challenges — he used something like [LeetCode](https://leetcode.com/) — but suffered when they were evaluated for their communication skills. He didn’t need great communicators, he reasoned; he needed people who could program really well. What a disaster. The result was an engineering team that could program *reasonably* well, but were utterly disconnected from the needs of the business. They had a hard time both understanding customer needs, because they weren’t having those conversations, and advocating for themselves when something that was being asked of them was going to be infeasible. The rest of the business treated them as a back office that was handed tasks that they were required to implement rather than a technical partner that could help them figure out elegant solutions. The engineers were miserable. And the rest of the business thought they were incompetent. When I arrived, what they asked me for was an excellent product management team. There’s a fallacy, which I’ve encountered in a few places, that if an organization has amazing product managers, *they* will determine exactly what it is the engineers should be doing, will prioritize tasks, and just tell them what to do. Their dream was that they could just get on with coding — their core skill — and outsource the needs of the business to someone else. It never, ever works like that. And it shouldn’t. While it’s true that product managers are there to be the stewards of the product’s vision, strategy, and roadmap, they are *stewards*, not dictators. They get there in collaboration with engineering and design, as well as other stakeholders. At no point do they just dictate what other people will do and absolve engineers from doing that work. The engineers need to be the technical experts across infrastructure, back-end, front-end, and technical architecture; the designers need to be experts in research, experience, interface, and information architecture. It makes sense that an engineer who finds communication and collaboration hard would just want to be told what to do, but a company that worked that way would be squandering its experts. Sometimes, very large companies — I’m talking about the Googles and Microsofts of the world — get to hire very deep technical experts in a rare skill. Those people often *will* go very deep on one thing and act as either a technical consultant or a deep-tech academic researcher for the rest of the company. The rest of us need to hire people with great communication skills who can be strong collaborators and figure out product problems as part of a group of people with different skills and competencies. So let’s talk about how I do that. ### Hiring principles I think of every team as a community: it’s a group of people who are setting out to achieve a common goal. Granted, it’s not an *organic* community — everyone’s being paid, for one thing — but the dynamics of any functional community apply. I think communities work best when: **Everyone is invested in the same mission.** Even if their individual goals and values diverge, they’re here to achieve the same thing. It’s not (just) about the paycheck; the work itself has meaning for them. This is particularly important in startups and mission-driven environments where there can be speed bumps in the work itself. **Communication is open and kind.** Most startups fail because of preventable human dynamics; that’s also true of teams in other kinds of organizations, like newsrooms. You can’t let friction linger. That means giving and receiving feedback openly. It also means *thoughtful* communication: speaking inclusively and making sure that conflicts are productive instead of aggressive. Nobody needs to work with shouters, or people who belittle their lived experiences or identities. I’m a big believer in [the no asshole rule](https://hbr.org/2007/03/why-i-wrote-the-no-asshole-rule). **Everyone is treated fairly.** If you don’t have an inherent sense of fairness in a community, resentment will build. That means making decisions based on systems rather than whims, so that they’re predictable and observably free of favoritism or bias. It also means making sure that people are compensated fairly for their skills: if someone’s core engineering skills are underdeveloped compared to someone else who’s being paid the same, that will clearly build resentment. When we *grow* these communities, I think it’s important that every single person we add brings an underrepresented perspective and an underrepresented skill. As an individual, they should add to the whole. And then those skills and perspectives need to be respected in the course of the work. If someone comes from a particular community and has an opinion about why the business is not going to land for them, or, worse, is harming them — the business needs to listen. ### The test I’ve made an explicit choice not to use LeetCode-style tests *or* do live coding interviews. I don’t believe that either is representative of the real work. In both cases, what you’re testing is someone’s ability to recall algorithms and data structures in a high-stress, live setting. It’s closer to a university exam than anything that might happen on a real-world engineering team. In reality, the work — when it’s done well — is contemplative and reflective. While it’s very important to determine what someone’s core technical skills actually *are*, I’m much more interested in learning how they perform in that more reflective context. So I’ve arrived at a take-home test. These are controversial, too: they’re often time-consuming in a way that’s unfair to the participant. At their worst, they ask you to do real work that the business needs, on an unpaid basis. Some organizations have pivoted to actually bringing the person in for a day and paying them for it, but I don’t think that’s a great test either: everybody is deep in onboarding at the start of a new job, so you’re expecting them to leapfrog over the weeks-long stage when they’re in learning mode. It also rules out people who have an existing job or other commitments that make a random day-long engagement impossible. My take-home tests give the participant seven calendar days to return them, and ask the participant (on the honor system) to spend no more than two hours on them. The goal isn’t to get something with finish and polish; it’s to spend a little time demonstrating the way they think. It’s always a relevant problem to the business but never something we would actually use in production. One test I’ve used a few times at ProPublica (and I guess now won’t again!) is to ask an engineer to build an unsettled, HTML-only version of the site, using its RSS feed as a de-facto API. Getting to a prototype here is not hard: you use an RSS parser library, you build an interface around it. But it turns out that the choices people make in such a simple project are highly indicative of how they think. The way they handle pages, the way they structure their code internally, whether they comment or not, how they write instructions so reviewers can test. All of those choices are meaningful and inherent to their own internal process, and, as it turns out, bear out in how they do the work once they join the team. You then review based on a rubric. Intention matters: you want someone with the thoughtfulness to mark their code up so it’s easily reviewable for others. You want someone who organizes their code well instead of writes a series of sprawling scripts. You want someone who provides the right detail for someone to run and test the project effectively. I always ask a series of 3-4 questions about why they made the choices they did and what they would have liked to have done if they’d had more time. These days, I’ve started to ask if they used AI, and if so, how. (It’s not *necessarily* a disqualifier, if they did it thoughtfully, and if they’re honest about it.) Those are to be left in the README file. And again, they tell me a lot about how that person thinks. Are they curious? Do they care about the people who will use their work? What’s their *mindset*? I don’t need to sit in the room and watch this person over their shoulder while they write their code. Every project I’ve ever received has been meaningfully different. And we’ll talk about their choices later. ### The conversation I try and front-load the take-home. There’s a short screener call first, to make sure expectations are shared: the salary (which I like to be non-negotiable), whether we can hire them at all (different companies have different visa capabilities), what the role actually entails, whether the candidate is an asshole over the phone. (Yes, some are.) Some candidates will never return the take-home; some won’t pass it. But the ones that do are forwarded to two sets of panel conversations. It’s a huge time commitment for the team, so I try and limit this stage to 4-6 strong candidates. **An engineering panel** who will talk about the nature of the work, real technical problems that show up during it, and choices the candidate made in their take-home. **A product panel** made up of people who will work closely with the engineer but aren’t engineers themselves. This panel will talk about the non-engineering challenges the team faces, and ask questions that speak to how the engineer collaborates across disciplines. In both cases, the questions the candidate asks are almost more important than the questions the panel asks. They, once again, speak to how the candidate thinks; what they’re curious about; what’s important to them. Every individual on the panel evaluates the candidate based on a rubric and leaves their own qualitative notes. The strongest 2-3 are forwarded to a final executive interview. That’s me! I may also have conducted the screener, or have taken a call to talk about the role informally, so in some cases it’s a loop back; in other cases, it’ll be the first time I’ve met the candidate. Either way, I like to ask them if there’s anything they heard in the previous panels that they’re curious about or want to talk about more, and I like to dig into anything those panels highlighted as questions or concerns in their notes. Once again, the candidate’s questions are probably more important than my own. I’ll always check references personally, and then make an offer over the phone, answering any final logistical questions in the process. ### The work It’s important that the work itself lives up to these values. There’s no use building a process around fairness if the work itself is whim-based; it’s not reasonable to hire for communication if we don’t value it internally. We can hire for collaborators, but if we treat engineers as back-room workers who just accept tasks, it’s tantamount to a bait and switch. We build the culture of community in part by being careful about who we bring into it, but we have to also do the work ourselves to maintain those standards. When someone joins a community I’ve helped to build, I’m clear that their first couple of months are learning mode: it’s great if they commit code, but there’s no expectation that they will in the first stages. Instead, I want them to meet all the people they’ll work with, both inside and outside the team, and get to a holistic understanding of the organization, its goals, its flaws, and where the biggest opportunities are. That mostly looks like a lot of conversations, which can be exhausting for an introvert, for example, so there’s plenty of time. I’ve been proud to hire and work with the people I have. Some of them have, very kindly, told me that they appreciate the emphasis I make on relationships and community-building. That’s important to me: we build technology, but we do it as humans, in service of humans. Whether you’re doing it in a startup, a tech company, or a non-tech organization like a newsroom, it’s important to stay centered on the people. That’s how you build a great team. And that, in turn, is how you do the work well. ### Afterword: a quick note These posts are personal and not affiliated with ProPublica, my current employer. It does not necessarily represent how anyone else hires at any organization I’ve been employed by. But also: if this mindset appeals to you, I’m hiring! [ProPublica is looking for a Director of Product Engineering](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/propublica/jobs/4623874006). You’ll work with a small team of product engineers — and me — to provide mentorship, engineering standards, and hands-on architectural and engineering support. If that sounds good to you, the vacancy is open until January 16\. If you’re based in the US and have experience working with small, scrappy engineering teams, please consider joining our community! ### Notable links: January 2, 2026 URL: https://werd.io/notable-links-january-2-2026/ Last updated: 2026-01-02T14:55:28.000Z *Every Friday, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *We're mostly looking ahead this week: human intuition and creativity are predicted to once again become front and center in tech, and Meta looks like it's betting on being the arbiter of what is real. What could go wrong? Also, in completely unrelated news, some thoughts on what happens when news and information organizations capitulate to power.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [The next big thing in 2026 will be...](https://open.substack.com/pub/nbt/p/nextbigthing2026?utm%5Fcampaign=post-expanded-share&utm%5Fmedium=web) There’s a lot of interesting food for thought in this roundup of predictions for 2026 from investors, founders, and technology leaders. AI is dominant here — most people predict it will continue to be transformative at all levels of tech, which feels like a safe bet — but there’s another theme that I think is worth drawing out. ClassDojo CEO [Sam Chaudhary](https://x.com/samchaudhary%5F?ref=werd.io) suggests: > “The atomic unit of execution inside companies collapses to a one-person squad; a ‘full-stack operator.’ As AI reduces the cost of execution to near zero, the right person can out-build a 50-person org. The bottleneck becomes finding full-stack operators with curiosity, taste, and judgment.” To emphasize: the important thing in this prediction is finding people who can operate across the stack; their curiosity, taste, and judgment become pivotal. [Rebecca Kaden](https://www.usv.com/people/rebecca-kaden/?ref=werd.io), General Partner at USV, suggests: > “The next big thing in 2026 will be a fresh boom of consumer platforms. Boredom with older platforms + curiosity at what new tools can create + continued desire for connection and the new will usher this in. After a long stretch of it being too hard to interrupt incumbents, the cracks are showing and the newer, the weirder the better as we crave new consumer digital experiences and connection.” And I think most importantly, Homebrew Partner [Hunter Walk](https://hunterwalk.com/?ref=werd.io) adds: > “The next big thing in 2026 will be Kindness. Apolitical, nondenominational, online and offline kindness. Mainstream tech population is exhausted by the escalations of the last decade. Begins investing time and energy in more community, civics, and charity. Leaves the most toxic social spaces to trolls and bots.” In other words, it’s going to be the squishy human stuff that is going to become central to tech. In many ways it really always has — tech has always been a people business at its heart — but putting it at the center of the *discourse* is a change. And in a world where AI is becoming more and more prevalent, particularly in transforming how code is written and deployed, it makes sense that it would be. I do want to add a note about “taste”: I’ve always hated that term for cultural judgments. Taste is subjective, not just from person to person but from culture to culture. When we talk about it, and particularly when we evaluate it, I think there’s a real danger that we do so from one (culturally dominant) demographic and context. I’d like to argue that the only sense of taste that really matters is if you make something that resonates for someone else. If we try and make someone’s work fit into a broader, shared “taste” aesthetic, we run the risk of making it bland at best, and whitewashed at worst. But I’m pro-human. To the extent that these predictions put human experience, communities, and values first and foremost, I’m excited for the future they describe. --- ### [2025: The year in LLMs](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/the-year-in-llms/) [Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/) has become an expert in LLMs, their technical capabilities, and how they’re transforming software development in particular. So his end-of-year roundup is a must-read if you want to understand the space. For what it’s worth, I agree with him here: > “The most impactful event of 2025 happened in February, with the quiet release of Claude Code.” It has the potential to transform all of tech. I also think we’re going to see a real split in the tech industry (and everywhere code is written) between people who are *outcome-driven* and are excited to get to the part where they can test their work with users faster, and people who are *process-driven* and get their meaning from the engineering itself and are upset about having that taken away. (This is not to say that there aren’t many issues with AI aside from these things, of course.) It wouldn’t surprise me to see more *artisanal* teams, startups, and small businesses spring up to give that second set a home. But I think we’ll also see more startups and projects created by the first set, too. It really is a different way of writing software: > “Claude Code for web is what I call an asynchronous coding agent—a system you can prompt and forget, and it will work away on the problem and file a Pull Request once it’s done. > > \[…\] I love the asynchronous coding agent category. They’re a great answer to the security challenges of running arbitrary code execution on a personal laptop and it’s really fun being able to fire off multiple tasks at once—often from my phone—and get decent results a few minutes later.” There’s a lot more here besides. If you want to get up to speed, or see what you missed, it’s a great place to start. --- ### [What is Instagram’s Adam Mosseri really saying in his year-end memo?](https://om.co/2026/01/01/what-is-instagrams-adam-mosseri-really-saying-in-his-year-end-memo/) [Om Malik](https://om.co/2026/01/01/what-is-instagrams-adam-mosseri-really-saying-in-his-year-end-memo/) has some smart observations about Instagram’s messaging at the end of a year that was dominated by AI-generated content: > “AI is flooding the system, and feeds are filling with fakes. Visual cues are no longer reliable. Platforms will verify identities, trace media provenance, and rank by credibility and originality, not just engagement. > > It starts by verifying who is behind an account, embedding provenance in media, and rewarding trust signals. Over time, Meta may tighten control and aim to be an identity broker for everyone. Instagrams want you to be prepared for this new era of tighter control over identity, authenticity, and content provenance.“ This isn’t just about AI and advisers preferring to be associated with real content: we’re starting to see age verification laws take hold in various jurisdictions, and there are likely more to come. By preparing users for more identity verification and tying it up with a “this way we know who’s real” bow, they’re able to get ahead of these rules. And being the primary identity broker in the social space during this new era will provide some business security. I don’t think a move to verified identities is good. [Real names don’t improve online community health](https://coralproject.net/blog/the-real-name-fallacy/?ref=werd.io), and attaching identities to the things people post will have a chilling effect on activists and people from vulnerable communities in particular. It’s also not true that social media is bad for younger teenagers, contrary to popular perception of the research. It’s a trend that leads to more surveillance and less open speech. But if it’s going to happen, Meta, I’m sure, will be delighted to turn it into a moat and a profit center if it can. --- ### [Watching Bari Weiss Murder Investigative Journalism at CBS](https://www.forever-wars.com/watching-bari-weiss-murder-investigative-journalism-at-cbs/) [Spencer Ackerman](https://www.forever-wars.com/?ref=werd.io) has had a *60 Minutes* piece spiked and has withstood White House demands to stop a story. And he has some thoughts about [Bari Weiss spiking the *60 Minutes* story about CECOT](https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g-s1-103282/cbs-chief-bari-weiss-pulls-60-minutes-story?ref=werd.io). > “That's where my mind goes when I read about Weiss "delaying" the 60 Minutes CECOT piece. To what it would have meant for The Guardian leadership to cave on the Snowden stories. What it meant for the Times leadership to have self-censored its reporting on NSA bulk surveillance and CIA torture. The lesson to any journalist attempting to reveal the highest-stakes stories is that you must fight your outlet if you're going to do the work your audience needs to understand the situation it's in.” Ackerman takes great pains to indicate that CBS was never the bastion of independent journalism that commentators with rose-tinted glasses might have suggested: it had a cozy relationship with the CIA and was indisputably an instrument of power. Still, what Bari Weiss is doing with it rises to some other level: a mouthpiece for right-wing talking points. It’s also worth saying that this matters less and less. Broadcast news has been slowly diminishing for a generation. CBS, in other words, is not where most people are getting their news. That’s not to say that it couldn’t be again, if it transformed itself into an authentic, trustworthy voice that meets audiences where they’re at today. Which is the opposite of that’s happening; and regardless, it doesn’t make what’s happening any less egregious. ### What is Instagram’s Adam Mosseri really saying in his year-end memo? URL: https://werd.io/what-is-instagrams-adam-mosseri-really-saying-in-his-year-end-memo/ Last updated: 2026-01-01T21:44:32.000Z \[[Om Malik](https://om.co/2026/01/01/what-is-instagrams-adam-mosseri-really-saying-in-his-year-end-memo/)\] Om has some smart observations about Instagram’s messaging at the end of a year that was dominated by AI-generated content: > “AI is flooding the system, and feeds are filling with fakes. Visual cues are no longer reliable. Platforms will verify identities, trace media provenance, and rank by credibility and originality, not just engagement. > > It starts by verifying who is behind an account, embedding provenance in media, and rewarding trust signals. Over time, Meta may tighten control and aim to be an identity broker for everyone. Instagrams want you to be prepared for this new era of tighter control over identity, authenticity, and content provenance.“ This isn’t just about AI and advisers preferring to be associated with real content: we’re starting to see age verification laws take hold in various jurisdictions, and there are likely more to come. By preparing users for more identity verification and tying it up with a “this way we know who’s real” bow, they’re able to get ahead of these rules. And being the primary identity broker in the social space during this new era will provide some business security. I don’t think a move to verified identities is good. [Real names don’t improve online community health](https://coralproject.net/blog/the-real-name-fallacy/), and attaching identities to the things people post will have a chilling effect on activists and people from vulnerable communities in particular. It’s also not true that social media is bad for younger teenagers, contrary to popular perception of the research. It’s a trend that leads to more surveillance and less open speech. But if it’s going to happen, Meta, I’m sure, will be delighted to turn it into a moat and a profit center if it can. \[[Link](https://om.co/2026/01/01/what-is-instagrams-adam-mosseri-really-saying-in-his-year-end-memo/)\] ### 2025: The year in LLMs URL: https://werd.io/2025-the-year-in-llms/ Last updated: 2026-01-01T15:38:15.000Z \[[Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/the-year-in-llms/)\] Simon Willison has become an expert in LLMs, their technical capabilities, and how they’re transforming software development in particular. So his end-of-year roundup is a must-read if you want to understand the space. For what it’s worth, I agree with him here: > “The most impactful event of 2025 happened in February, with the quiet release of Claude Code.” It has the potential to transform all of tech. I also think we’re going to see a real split in the tech industry (and everywhere code is written) between people who are *outcome-driven* and are excited to get to the part where they can test their work with users faster, and people who are *process-driven* and get their meaning from the engineering itself and are upset about having that taken away. (This is not to say that there aren’t many issues with AI aside from these things, of course.) It wouldn’t surprise me to see more *artisanal* teams, startups, and small businesses spring up to give that second set a home. But I think we’ll also see more startups and projects created by the first set, too. It really is a different way of writing software: > “Claude Code for web is what I call an asynchronous coding agent—a system you can prompt and forget, and it will work away on the problem and file a Pull Request once it’s done. > > \[…\] I love the asynchronous coding agent category. They’re a great answer to the security challenges of running arbitrary code execution on a personal laptop and it’s really fun being able to fire off multiple tasks at once—often from my phone—and get decent results a few minutes later.” There’s a lot more here besides. If you want to get up to speed, or see what you missed, it’s a great place to start. \[[Link](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/the-year-in-llms/)\] ### The next big thing in 2026 will be... URL: https://werd.io/the-next-big-thing-in-2026-will-be/ Last updated: 2026-01-01T15:28:54.000Z \[[Nikhil Basu Trivedi at Next Big Thing](https://nbt.substack.com/p/nextbigthing2026?utm%5Fcampaign=post-expanded-share&utm%5Fmedium=web&fbclid=IwY2xjawPDbsdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFiREc5Y2hrYzNIMGppeVlWc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHuhN-BMUTnzV8JBZFSPScRVABH4kAWjbqI5dTcG2zuPipXCwmQdzKTivAQ6D%5Faem%5F%5Fa2UDLseCSWETletNazIHQ&triedRedirect=true)\] There’s a lot of interesting food for thought in this roundup of predictions for 2026 from investors, founders, and technology leaders. AI is dominant here — most people predict it will continue to be transformative at all levels of tech, which feels like a safe bet — but there’s another theme that I think is worth drawing out. ClassDojo CEO [Sam Chaudhary](https://x.com/samchaudhary%5F) suggests: > “The atomic unit of execution inside companies collapses to a one-person squad; a ‘full-stack operator.’ As AI reduces the cost of execution to near zero, the right person can out-build a 50-person org. The bottleneck becomes finding full-stack operators with curiosity, taste, and judgment.” To emphasize: the important thing in this prediction is finding people who can operate across the stack; their curiosity, taste, and judgment become pivotal. [Rebecca Kaden](https://www.usv.com/people/rebecca-kaden/), General Partner at USV, suggests: > “The next big thing in 2026 will be a fresh boom of consumer platforms. Boredom with older platforms + curiosity at what new tools can create + continued desire for connection and the new will usher this in. After a long stretch of it being too hard to interrupt incumbents, the cracks are showing and the newer, the weirder the better as we crave new consumer digital experiences and connection.” And I think most importantly, Homebrew Partner [Hunter Walk](https://hunterwalk.com/) adds: > “The next big thing in 2026 will be Kindness. Apolitical, nondenominational, online and offline kindness. Mainstream tech population is exhausted by the escalations of the last decade. Begins investing time and energy in more community, civics, and charity. Leaves the most toxic social spaces to trolls and bots.” In other words, it’s going to be the squishy human stuff that is going to become central to tech. In many ways it really always has — tech has always been a people business at its heart — but putting it at the center of the *discourse* is a change. And in a world where AI is becoming more and more prevalent, particularly in transforming how code is written and deployed, it makes sense that it would be. I do want to add a note about “taste”: I’ve always hated that term for cultural judgments. Taste is subjective, not just from person to person but from culture to culture. When we talk about it, and particularly when we evaluate it, I think there’s a real danger that we do so from one (culturally dominant) demographic and context. I’d like to argue that the only sense of taste that really matters is if you make something that resonates for someone else. If we try and make someone’s work fit into a broader, shared “taste” aesthetic, we run the risk of making it bland at best, and whitewashed at worst. But I’m pro-human. To the extent that these predictions put human experience, communities, and values first and foremost, I’m excited for the future they describe. \[[Link](https://nbt.substack.com/p/nextbigthing2026?utm%5Fcampaign=post-expanded-share&utm%5Fmedium=web&fbclid=IwY2xjawPDbsdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFiREc5Y2hrYzNIMGppeVlWc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHuhN-BMUTnzV8JBZFSPScRVABH4kAWjbqI5dTcG2zuPipXCwmQdzKTivAQ6D%5Faem%5F%5Fa2UDLseCSWETletNazIHQ&triedRedirect=true)\] ### Watching Bari Weiss Murder Investigative Journalism at CBS URL: https://werd.io/watching-bari-weiss-murder-investigative-journalism-at-cbs/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T16:51:59.000Z \[[Spencer Ackerman at Forever Wars](https://www.forever-wars.com/watching-bari-weiss-murder-investigative-journalism-at-cbs/)\] [Spencer Ackerman](https://www.forever-wars.com/) has had a *60 Minutes* piece spiked and has withstood White House demands to stop a story. And he has some thoughts about [Bari Weiss spiking the *60 Minutes* story about CECOT](https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g-s1-103282/cbs-chief-bari-weiss-pulls-60-minutes-story). > “That's where my mind goes when I read about Weiss "delaying" the 60 Minutes CECOT piece. To what it would have meant for The Guardian leadership to cave on the Snowden stories. What it meant for the Times leadership to have self-censored its reporting on NSA bulk surveillance and CIA torture. The lesson to any journalist attempting to reveal the highest-stakes stories is that you must fight your outlet if you're going to do the work your audience needs to understand the situation it's in.” Ackerman takes great pains to indicate that CBS was never the bastion of independent journalism that commentators with rose-tinted glasses might have suggested: it had a cozy relationship with the CIA and was indisputably an instrument of power. Still, what Bari Weiss is doing with it rises to some other level: a mouthpiece for right-wing talking points. It’s also worth saying that this matters less and less. Broadcast news has been slowly diminishing for a generation. CBS, in other words, is not where most people are getting their news. That’s not to say that it couldn’t be again, if it transformed itself into an authentic, trustworthy voice that meets audiences where they’re at today. Which is the opposite of that’s happening; and regardless, it doesn’t make what’s happening any less egregious. \[[Link](https://www.forever-wars.com/watching-bari-weiss-murder-investigative-journalism-at-cbs/)\] ### A 2026 checklist URL: https://werd.io/a-2026-checklist/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T14:46:33.000Z I'm not sure I believe in New Year's *resolutions* as such: too easy to break. But there's something powerful about a checklist, so I've been thinking about what it might look like to build one for every single day next year. Here's what I have. ### Every day Close my Apple Fitness rings. Go for a walk, even if it's just a mile. Eat nutritious, plant-heavy food, if possible. Read a book, even if it's just one page. Write creatively, even if it's just one sentence. Communicate with a friend, even if it's just a one-line text. Tell the people I love that I love them. Write down at least one thing I'm grateful for. Write down at least one self-affirmation. ### If I'm at home Use the rowing machine, even if just for 10 mins. This does not need a checkbox, but give my buddy the biggest hug. Get to bed before 11pm. Nothing bad will happen if I don't do these things. But they're a north star: a way to remind myself of what is important. I'd like them to stick. If you have something similar, I'd like to read yours. ### 2025: a personal year in review URL: https://werd.io/2025-a-personal-year-in-review/ Last updated: 2026-03-04T14:22:04.000Z After [last week’s downer of a global year in review](https://werd.io/2025-in-review-an-interesting-year/), I decided I’d like to go back and do a more personal review, as well as share a few hopes for the new year. ## Highlights from 2025 ### Working While I don’t intend to share the internal workings of [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) in these pages, the [events of the year](https://werd.io/2025-in-review-an-interesting-year/) certainly had an effect. Members of the government described the newsroom in ways that I won’t repeat here; it’s a surreal feeling to work for an organization [that finds itself in the crosshairs](https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-reaching-out-reporting-obstacles). People often support ProPublica because they feel like it’s making a difference at a time when people feel powerless. It’s a huge responsibility. Doing the work to support these journalists feels meaningful. It’s far more than keeping a website online: it’s a working newsroom with very unique technical and security needs across reporting, source management, and publishing. It’s demanding. Unlike jobs where I’ve been hired for a specific individual skill, here I bring my whole self to work every day, even if I sometimes find myself thinking, “I was a web developer — how did I get *here*?!” And I get to do it in community with incredibly smart, values-aligned people who care. I love it. I also care deeply about the open social web. At the same time as my ProPublica work, I’ve had the privilege of serving on the board of [A New Social](https://anew.social) and being present in communities trying to create a more pro-social future for connecting online. Again: it’s been a privilege. ### Speaking and travel #### Speaking I facilitated [a Designing for Equity workshop with Roxann Stafford](https://werd.io/designing-for-equity/) as part of a Product Immersion for Small Newsrooms bootcamp in February 2020, which in retrospect was just moments before the pandemic. And then I didn’t speak again for almost five years. Last November, I broke this streak by taking part in a panel at [Yale Law School’s Access & Accountability conference](https://law.yale.edu/isp/initiatives/floyd-abrams-institute-freedom-expression/access-accountability-conferences/access-accountability-2024). We were asked to discuss how AI tools can help make transparency-oriented processes like FOIA requests more efficient and effective — and where the pitfalls are. I trust some of the best investigative journalists in the world to be able to navigate hallucinations and bias — it’s the power dynamics that really worry me. This includes worries about data shared with cloud services being available via subpoena, despite their encouraging us to share more and more sensitive information. Based on my experiences in the tech industry, and particularly in the investor ecosystem, I raised concerns about the business models and priorities of large AI companies and what the impact of importing them into a mission-driven environment might be. How do those dynamics play into FOIA requests and government transparency without putting a newsroom at risk — or worse, a source? I continued this conversation at events in 2025\. My core is always that we should own the technology we use, rather than the other way around. After every appearance, I received thank you messages from people who attended, who found that message refreshing. Other people have these worries, but in the push for AI adoption, they haven’t always felt safe to voice them. At UC Berkeley’s [Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting](https://events.journalism.berkeley.edu/logan-symposium/), I had the privilege of being interviewed by [Garance Burke](https://events.journalism.berkeley.edu/logan-symposium/speaker/garance-burke/), who leads investigative journalism projects at the intersection of technology and society for the Associated Press. We talked about the conflict between the values of AI vendors and the values of investigative journalists who want to spur reform through their work. At [the International Journalism Festival](https://www.journalismfestival.com/) in Perugia, Italy, the conversation continued. I joined [Upasna Gautam](https://www.threads.com/@upasnagautam) and [Damon Kiesow](https://kiesow.net/) in discussing [building newsroom technology using a community-first lens](https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2025/developing-a-community-focused-ethic-of-news-technology). We made it clear that we can all own the technology we use, but it requires a change of mindset. A holistic understanding of systems of power is the most important skill to navigate products and newsrooms with their own systems of power, incentives, and hierarchies. At [FediForum](https://fediforum.org/), an online conference, I tackled this intersection from the other side. FediForum is a community of values-led technologists who are building the open social web: [my keynote encouraged them to seek concrete uses and communities](https://werd.io/why-the-open-social-web-matters-now/) rather than live in ideology-land, particularly because there are so many vulnerable communities that need their work. At [the first in-person News Product Alliance Summit](https://newsproduct.org/npasummit2025) in Chicago, Damon, Upasna, and I reprised our talk about a community-focused ethic of news technology. [I also ran a hands-on workshop](https://werd.io/theres-no-such-thing-as-neutral-technology/) to help newsroom product leaders think about how to create a rubric for assessing technology in a values-aligned way. Finally, I spoke on a panel at [the AI and Journalism Summit for News and Technology Leaders](https://brown.columbia.edu/ai-summit/) at Hearst Tower in New York City, to talk about assessing the risks and benefits of AI. #### Traveling Beyond speaking, work engagements brought me to Seattle and San Francisco. I particularly loved coming back to the Bay Area twice (once for the Logan Symposium, once for another non-conference reason); I hadn’t been back since I moved away, and it felt like coming home in a way I hadn’t been prepared for. Going to Chicago for the NPA Summit, too, felt like a reunion with so many good friends. And then there was Italy, which made me realize how much the pandemic had blown a hole in my life. I hadn’t left the United States since 2018\. It was very good for my mental health. While work took me to a bunch of places, I traveled to just two locations for fun. I spent a week in Massachusetts hanging out with my sister and extended family, who all live on Cape Cod, and two weeks in Oregon to hang out with my partner’s. Cape Cod in particular has a ton of emotional resonance for me: growing up in Britain, it was the only part of the US we kept coming back for (my great grandparents built a house on the upper Cape over a hundred years ago, and it’s where my mother’s side of my family all congregates). With the exception of a year in North Carolina when I was 11 year old, it was what I knew of the US until I was 18 or so. But I haven’t spent enough time there, and particularly with my sister and extended family, since my mother died. My son adores his aunt, who is a meaningful force for good in his life. They need more of each other. ### Books I read voraciously in the first half of the year, and as the emotional turmoil of the year accumulated, I slowed down. As ever, I get my most consistent reading done on my [Kobo Libra Colour](https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-libra-colour) while my son snoozes next to me; it’s made reading with a toddler possible (particularly now that I’ve PIN-protected it so he can’t lose my place). Reading is important to me. I feel significantly better on days when I’ve spent time with a book than when I haven’t. Concentrated, dedicated time with long-form writing is both meditative and nurturing. The novel, in particular, is my favorite thing: somehow the last commercial space that feels true and intimate, and in preserving that, a little transgressive. I loved just about everything I read this year, but here are what I’d consider to be my top six across non-fiction and fiction. You can, as always, follow all my book reviews via [my Bookwyrm account](https://bookwyrm.social/user/benwerd). #### Fiction **‌**[**Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor**](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780063391147) A reflection on storytelling, the self, and the interaction between the two. It’s science fiction, for sure, but it doesn’t fit neatly within that boundary. I won’t spoil the final line, but it encapsulates the form, the medium, and the story perfectly — and sheds light on a subtext that hadn’t revealed itself to me but is a rich seam throughout the book. **‌**[**The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, in translation by Stephen Snyder**](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781101911815) I appreciated the resonances in Ogawa’s 2020 novel – of loss and death, of censorship and control, of the rigidity life takes on as you grow old. The themes of inevitable loss in particular spoke to me and made me realize truths about people I’ve lost and people I know I will lose soon because time is out of my control. You can accept it, you can frantically try to hold on, but it will happen anyway. **‌**[**Automatic Noodle, by Annalee Newitz**](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781250357465) I'm not normally much of a cozy fiction reader, but this was lovely: smart, funny, and pointed in highly relevant ways. The story is a simple, warm hug in so many ways, but there's a lot going on underneath to inform the world that Newitz builds; a very dark, involved tale sits just out of frame. #### Non-fiction [**Empire of AI by Karen Hao**](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780593657508) If you only read one book about AI, make it this one: it’s *the* definitive chronicle of OpenAI’s internal machinations, and by extension, Anthropic’s and Google’s too. If you want to understand the power dynamics of this kind of Silicon Valley company, and of AI in general, it’s a must-read. Meticulously researched, incredibly detailed, and damning as hell. I wish all tech journalism was done this well: the tech industry and the world would be in a very different place. **‌**[**One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad**](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780593804148) Written with absolute moral clarity, the argument here is searing, precise, and visceral. While I don't know how to make people care, the immediacy of the author's writing goes a long way towards bringing this genocide, these atrocities and abuses of human life at the hands of empire, home. He makes the unimaginable imaginable, but does not dilute the horror in the process. **‌**[**Nobody's Girl, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre**](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780593493120) This memoir goes far beyond the author’s entanglements with Jeffrey Epstein: it contextualizes them in a lifetime of abuse that also reveals shortcomings in the society that should have protected her. Her story is obviously a tragedy, but it’s contextualized by her ghostwriter in the introduction, who explains that her husband — described glowingly throughout — was also an abuser. There are so many moments that made me sit up (it’s worth looking into the “well-known Prime Minister” she references choking her), but the institutional failures that protected the powerful remain the most striking, haunting thing. ### TV and movies #### Movies The pandemic scared me away from movie theaters for a while, and having a toddler means I have seen exactly two movies in one since 2020\. The first was *Barbie*; the second was *‌*[*A Complete Unknown*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11563598/), which I managed to catch at the beginning of the year. It’s well put-together; for me, Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger was a standout performance. I grew up on Dylan, Seeger, Guthrie, and those generations of political American folksingers, and I appreciated the texture. Like many people, I was enamored with *‌*[*Sinners*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31193180/), Ryan Coogler’s vampire film that has a lot to say about cultural power, appropriation, subjugation, and how these factors are intertwined with the history of America. Even the mix of genres themselves are part of the commentary. It’s brilliant on many simultaneous levels and invites rewatching. But the standout movie for me was 2020’s [*Nowhere Special*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286640/). It’s a simple film about a terminally ill single father trying to find a perfect family for his three-year-old son. Maybe it’s because Michael Lamont’s incredible child performance reminded me so much of my own three-year-old, or maybe it’s because I’m still grieving for my mother’s loss to her terminal illness, but it hit me right in the heart. I think about it every day. The final shot alone is brutal. #### Television I don’t have a ton of time for TV. Obviously I devoured *‌*[*Doctor Who*](https://www.doctorwho.tv/), which is still the best TV show ever made but unfortunately didn’t stick the finale. I’m intrigued to see *‌*[*The War Between the Land and the Sea*](https://www.doctorwho.tv/shows/the-war-between-the-land-and-the-sea), the UNIT / Sea Devils spin-off, but early reviews have suggested it’s not the tonal sequel to *‌*[*Torchwood: Children of Earth*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood:%5FChildren%5Fof%5FEarth) I was hoping for. *‌*[*Slow Horses*](https://tv.apple.com/us/show/slow-horses/umc.cmc.2szz3fdt71tl1ulnbp8utgq5o) is a miracle: consistently fun TV, although I wished this latest season had dialed down the comedy. *‌*[*Pluribus*](https://tv.apple.com/us/show/pluribus/umc.cmc.37axgovs2yozlyh3c2cmwzlza) is at least as good as everybody says it is. It works as social parable and as direct science fiction, the urgency growing episode on episode. It’s a lovely treat. I’ve grown to hate TV that’s obviously designed to be watched while you browse on another screen; that’s not a thing I like to do. This is not that. *Pluribus* is immersive, smart television that demands your full attention. And I feel a sense of obligation to complete *‌*[*Stranger Things*](https://www.netflix.com/title/80057281), even if I feel like it exists to be a brand juggernaut rather than tell a story at this point. The high point has been seeing episodes directed by Frank Darabont; he’s a master and seeing anything new from him is a treat. ### Health This was the year that I began to really come to terms with the decade leading up to my mother’s death. A [genetic telomere dysfunction](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32315675/) led to her getting pulmonary fibrosis and needing a double lung transplant in 2013 (the first version of Known was written while she slept in recovery from her operation). Decades earlier, this was also how my grandmother died, my first encounter with losing a loved one as a child. We lost my mother in 2021\. To the end, she told us she wasn’t ready to go. For years, because the science didn’t yet know what the cause was, I thought my sister and I would also get it. It’s still a very welcome statistical surprise that *neither* of us have the genetic trait, but we also lost my aunt and her two sons to the condition, so this was bittersweet at best. At times the unfairness of it all has been unbearable. These are all wonderful people. It’s cruel. I was diagnosed with PTSD and struggled with weight gain through this journey, particularly after we lost my mother. Having a three-year-old comes with an inherent loss of sleep: I’m lucky to get six hours each night. And the background stresses of this year have been enormous. I cannot say I’ve been anxiety-free. But this year I’ve managed to hit my exercise goals every single day (so far). Both seeing a PTSD therapist and moving more have noticeably improved my energy, even despite the all the headwinds. I still don’t measure my weight, but plan to begin to do so next year: more than anything else, I want to be around for my child for a long time to come. ## Hopes for 2026 ### Travel I haven’t been back to the UK, where I grew up, for eight years. I’m booked to go back to MC the London [Protocols for Publishers](https://protocolsforpublishers.com/london-2026/) event in February, but while I hope to see some friends while I’m there, that’s a solo, work-adjacent trip. The bigger deal is later in the year: I’m hoping to bring my partner and my son to Oxford, my hometown. It’ll help my partner understand me more deeply, and give my son a sense of where I come from. Maybe it’ll settle some of my homesickness. Either way, I want them to see it. I want to spend more time with my sister and extended family, too. It’s important: for me, for my son, for strengthening relationships that cut to the core of what and who is important to me. But I’m less excited to travel for work than I used to be. I have a three-year-old who doesn’t really understand; he’s sad when I leave and tells me he missed me when I return. I want to be judicious about when I say goodbye. ### Health I need to get healthier, both improving my fitness and lowering my weight. Ideally, I’d like to bring myself back to my weight before I moved to America to be with my mother, but I’m much older now, so I accept that this might not be possible. The most important thing for me is to be around for my son for as long as possible. I want to live. In order to get there, I’ve learned that the trick for me is to build simple habits that I can easily follow. I’ve done a good job of hitting my reasonable fitness goals *this* year, so increasing those goals next year feels possible. In terms of my mental health, I want to continue working on the PTSD, and in particular the self-blame that has come with it. I couldn’t save my mother’s life. I was living with constant stress. My decision-making suffered. I have to learn to live with those things, and sometimes, correct for them. That’s not a platitude: the learning part is hard. ### Work I see the work that needs to be done at the intersection of news and technology as an ecosystem problem. I want to continue supporting journalism that matters while finding ways to help more newsrooms think critically about the technology they adopt. My speaking has shown me there's appetite for this conversation, and I want to keep having it. This has been my first ever middle-management job, and I’ve sometimes found that hard to navigate. I lead product engineering, IT, and security, but my leadership is more consultative and in collaboration than in my previous comparable experiences, when I’ve been a member of C-suite. This year I want to continue to build my navigation skills and find ways to work autonomously. That autonomy is important to me: once a startup founder, always a startup founder. I’ve been advising the News Product Alliance in its open standards work, and I’m excited to continue doing that. I’m also looking for other ways to broaden my impact and support newsrooms and mission-driven organizations. I have experience at a ton of intersections, having been a startup founder, open source community builder, software engineer, VC investor, newsroom technology leader, and C-suite executive, and I think I can help. By doing this, I will strengthen ProPublica’s newsroom technology, which remains my anchor. ### The book I’ve written a novel. If you’ve followed my writing for a while — or even this piece — its underlying themes won’t be a surprise: it’s all about power dynamics, technology, subjugation and empowerment. This year, my big goal is to find a *traditional* publisher for it: a real publishing house that will back it and partner with me in order to make it as good as it can be. I would like to publish it, but not before it’s ready. It’s a big, scary step. As I said earlier, I think the novel is one of the last remaining really honest spaces. That’s what I want to achieve here too. ### Thank you I’m grateful that you’ve been here with me. Thank you for reading: I don’t take that for granted. I’m excited to spend the next year with you, whatever it may bring. ### Friday links: December 26, 2025 URL: https://werd.io/friday-links-december-26-2025/ Last updated: 2025-12-26T14:18:47.000Z *Every Friday, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *This is a sort of holiday edition: looking forward and looking back. Whatever you celebrate, whoever you're with, I hope you've had a lovely week, and I hope the next year brings good things.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Alternative Christmas message](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqTPV6Fr7xg) Every year in Britain, the ruling monarch broadcasts a Christmas message. For the last few years, that's been King Charles III, [who used his to advocate for diversity](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/25/king-charles-reconciliation-unity-christmas-message); for most of my life it was Queen Elizabeth II. But Britain is not exactly deferential to the Crown – irreverence is one of its defining characteristics, and one that I treasure dearly – so for the last 32 years, Channel 4 has maintained a tradition of counter-broadcasting an alternative message. [Previous editions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative%5FChristmas%5Fmessage) have included [Edward Snowden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqkpxMrxWkI), [a deepfake of the Queen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvY-Abd2FfM), and [the father of Alan Kurdi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbJCNmuPsfc), the three year old Syrian refugee who tragically drowned during a boat crossing from Turkey to Greece. [This year's is Jimmy Kimmel.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqTPV6Fr7xg) The jokes didn't hold up for me (although I appreciate the inclusion of Jammy Dodgers in the set dressing), but the message does: this has been a good year for fascism, and freedom of expression is under threat. --- ### [Lies we tell ourselves](https://kiesow.net/lies-we-tell-ourselves/) What struck me about [Damon Kiesow’s](https://kiesow.net/?ref=werd.io) summary of the myths journalism tells itself is how similar it is to the myths open source software projects tell *themselves*. > “Yes, our own claims are rhetorical (not technological) determinism. But the logic is the same: we know what is best for our communities, and “best” reliably aligns with our existing professional practices, interests, and profit motives. By doing so, we try to reframe long-term economic and cultural changes as questions of individual behavior. "Things would be better if only readers would act correctly.”” *Things would be better if only readers would act correctly.* Substitute *users* for *readers* and that would sound like so many open social web projects. > “What we really need is to teach high school students to be more discerning consumers of information.” *”We just need to educate users.”* No, we don’t. We need to educate *ourselves* about the people we hope to help: what do their lives look like, what are their needs, and what is actually important to them? If we’re in the business of being of service, we need to adjust ourselves to *them*, not the other way around. But of course, that means getting to know them, and worse than that, putting our own assumptions to the test. When we have lofty ideals, learning that they don’t match what’s actually needed doesn’t feel good. It hurts our egos. But if we care about service, that’s what we need to do. --- ### [Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud](https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/airbus%5Fsovereign%5Fcloud/) Airbus wants to move its data outside US jurisdiction: > “I need a sovereign cloud because part of the information is extremely sensitive from a national and European perspective,” Catherine Jestin, Airbus's executive vice president of digital, told The Register. “We want to ensure this information remains under European control.” The contract is worth upwards of €50 million, but the company doesn’t necessarily think it’ll actually find a provider. US cloud providers are susceptible to the US CLOUD Act that allows authorities to obtain data held on their infrastructure even if it’s physically located in the EU. EU-only providers, meanwhile, haven’t necessarily hit the scale or sophistication that a customer like Airbus demands. That creates a really interesting opportunity: Airbus is doubtless not the only large European company with similar needs. There’s [a proposal](https://eurostack.eu/?ref=werd.io) to bankroll the creation of this kind of infrastructure in the EU, with an estimated price of €300 billion. It probably won’t be ready in time for Airbus, but they’ve at least proven that the need is real rather than ideological. Who’s going to pick up the baton? --- ### [2026 open social web predictions](https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/12/23/my-open-social-web-predictions.html) [Dewey Digital](https://www.deweysquare.com/team/tim-chambers/?ref=werd.io) founder [Tim Chambers](https://www.timothychambers.net/?ref=werd.io) has spent a lot of time studying and digging into the open social web, including by creating [the Twitter Migration Report](https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-migration-shows-no-signs-of-slowing-following-musks-takeover?ref=werd.io). So his predictions are well-informed and worth paying attention to. He’s split them up into safe, plausible, and risky bets. Each category checks out and makes sense. We’ll be able to follow along: Tim creates a scorecard at the end of the year ([he just published the one for his 2025 predictions](https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/12/20/my-open-social-web-prediction.html?ref=werd.io)). But I think a lot of these are pretty bankable. For example, I strongly agree with this: > “[Fedify](https://fedify.dev/?ref=werd.io) will power the federation layer for at least one mid-sized social platform (500K+ users) that adds ActivityPub support in 2026\. The “build vs. buy” calculation for federation shifts decisively toward “just use Fedify.”” And while this one is in the “risky” category, I still have high hopes that it will happen. (I previously would have put it in the *safe* category, but now agree with the placement; things change.) > “A well-known digital-native media publication (10M+ monthly visitors) will federate via ActivityPub in 2026 and publicly share positive results. Whether through Ghost, WordPress, or custom implementation, this outlet will report that federated followers drove meaningful engagement — making the business case for federation legible to other publishers for the first time. By year end, at least two additional publications will announce federation plans, citing this pioneer as proof of concept.” I appreciate the scrutiny and detail: if nothing else, this is a pretty great map of where to look for emerging development on the open social web. I’m excited to see where the movement goes over the next year. ### My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions URL: https://werd.io/my-2026-open-social-web-predictions/ Last updated: 2025-12-24T17:34:05.000Z \[[Tim Chambers](https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/12/23/my-open-social-web-predictions.html)\] [Dewey Digital](https://www.deweysquare.com/team/tim-chambers/) founder [Tim Chambers](https://www.timothychambers.net/) has spent a lot of time studying and digging into the open social web, including by creating [the Twitter Migration Report](https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-migration-shows-no-signs-of-slowing-following-musks-takeover). So his predictions are well-informed and worth paying attention to. He’s split them up into safe, plausible, and risky bets. Each category checks out and makes sense. We’ll be able to follow along: Tim creates a scorecard at the end of the year ([he just published the one for his 2025 predictions](https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/12/20/my-open-social-web-prediction.html)). But I think a lot of these are pretty bankable. For example, I strongly agree with this: > “[Fedify](https://fedify.dev/) will power the federation layer for at least one mid-sized social platform (500K+ users) that adds ActivityPub support in 2026\. The “build vs. buy” calculation for federation shifts decisively toward “just use Fedify.”” And while this one is in the “risky” category, I still have high hopes that it will happen. (I previously would have put it in the *safe* category, but now agree with the placement; things change.) > “A well-known digital-native media publication (10M+ monthly visitors) will federate via ActivityPub in 2026 and publicly share positive results. Whether through Ghost, WordPress, or custom implementation, this outlet will report that federated followers drove meaningful engagement — making the business case for federation legible to other publishers for the first time. By year end, at least two additional publications will announce federation plans, citing this pioneer as proof of concept.” I appreciate the scrutiny and detail: if nothing else, this is a pretty great map of where to look for emerging development on the open social web. I’m excited to see where the movement goes over the next year. \[[Link](https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/12/23/my-open-social-web-predictions.html)\] ### An ... interesting year URL: https://werd.io/2025-in-review-an-interesting-year/ Last updated: 2026-01-10T18:42:51.000Z “It’s an interesting year,” is a line I’ve used many times over the last twelve months, at conferences and in conversations. It’s a useful euphemism, sometimes delivered with a wry smile: we all know what I mean. But it’s also a cop-out. It lets me hide. If I say it’s been “interesting,” I don’t have to say that it’s been frightening, or exhausting, or quietly disillusioning. I don’t have to admit how often I’ve felt off-balance, or how much energy it takes just to keep moving forward as if this were all normal. We all know this hasn’t just been *interesting*. It’s been a year of normalized chaos, of permanent emergency masquerading as background noise. Calling it interesting is a way of smoothing the edges. It lets us keep functioning inside systems that have been descending into nightmare territory faster than we might have imagined. It’s also a cop-out because it’s non-confrontational. It’s open to interpretation. If you don’t share the same nightmares, if your limbic system isn’t in the same state of permanent activation that mine is, it gives us both an out. We don't have to talk about it. But that gap, where it emerges, is important: the people who haven’t laid awake at 3am with their heart racing have lived a different year. When I say “interesting” and we share a knowing nod, we’re agreeing to skim over the discomfort and ignore the detail. The detail is important. What's happening is important. Many bloggers publish personal end-of-year reviews. This is mine. But it can’t be a normal one. It’s been an interesting year. ### January 20 Some of us have spent our entire lives hearing stories of concentration camps, of pogroms, of war, and of political persecution. For some, those stories were close enough that they never felt historical. I will always remember the sound my Oma made, echoing through the walls, as the nightmares took her back to those events each night. My Dad spent the first years of his life in a camp. Many other people carry those memories at least as close. So when an administration came to power that intentionally used the ideas, rhetoric, and increasingly, action of twentieth century European fascism, it set off emotional emergency alarms we’d spent a lifetime being prepared for. When it became clear that some people thought the threats were exaggerated, the alarms intensified: for some communities, this is real enough for uniformed men to be ripping their families apart and seizing them on the streets. This is how fascism creeps into everyday life: through tolerance, through normalization, through people dismissing those who see it coming. Although this post is published in my personal space, I work in a newsroom that investigates abuses of power in the public interest. My job there is to lead technology: the security, infrastructure, and publishing systems that allow the journalists to do their best work, safely. I read every story. I pay attention to the discussions on Slack and in story status meetings. I can’t look away. So much is happening all the time. This resurgence of American fascism brings new threats — to individuals, to communities, to the newsroom where I work, to countless other companies, agencies, and organizations — and the temptation is to react to all of them at once. Everyone comes to work carrying fears inherited from their own histories. If we react to every version of those fears, we’ll be paralyzed. This is the backdrop to everything else that has happened this year. Every other event, big and small, has happened while [USAID was being dismantled, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths](https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-food-program-starvation-children-deaths), or [500,000 Venezuelans were stripped of their immigration status](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKSzBwTatm8), their [children zip-tied to each other in midnight raids](https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-venezuela-immigration-ice-fbi-raids-no-criminal-charges). We all need a threat model: a shared set of well-defined, concrete threats that are most likely and most severe. By building a shared understanding of what might actually happen, we give ourselves the ability to build a coherent strategy to counter it, and then to execute on it. My role includes responsibility for newsroom security, which means building threat models: systematic assessments of which dangers are most likely and most severe. By identifying concrete threats rather than reacting to every fear, we can build coherent strategies to counter them, and then execute on them. But this isn’t just a newsroom problem. This new fascist movement touches every aspect of American life, and an effective counter-movement will need to address each of them. The same principles apply: what are the real threats? How might we reduce the risk of them happening? How can we make plans for mitigating the impact if they do? My work has touched several fronts of the tension between movement and counter-movement. Each of them — AI companies, journalism, and the open social web — reveals a different failure mode, and a different opportunity to push back. ### Feel the AGI Fascism creeps in through normalization. AI does something similar: it arrives framed as inevitability, progress, and efficiency, discouraging scrutiny until resistance feels naïve. This is the year that generative AI truly became part of the mainstream discourse. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are everywhere, and a long tail of other models and services have spread into every field, from software engineering to contract law and municipal architecture. Ubiquity doesn’t just normalize a technology. It also normalizes the way it was built, and in particular, the values and assumptions of the team that built it: the features, design, ethical considerations, and guardrails they thought were important and unimportant. These models were trained by ingesting the work of millions of people without permission; in many cases, the work of independent artists and writers has been strip-mined to build a product worth billions of dollars. Creative work was pirated. But the vendors have largely been given a pass, because their enormously valuable companies matter more than the rights of the people whose work became training data. Generalized models like ChatGPT and Claude work better the more data you pour into them. They also depend on vast data centers filled with expensive GPUs and custom hardware. That means, in their current state, that only a handful of companies can effectively run them. As we share more intimate detail with them — our personal lives, the inner workings of our companies and organizations, anything else you can think of — we’re delivering our most private and sensitive information to those companies. And because their use is framed as inevitable, opting out increasingly feels impractical, unprofessional, or even irresponsible. Once systems are treated as unavoidable, they become available to power without consent. When Elon Musk’s DOGE, empowered by the Trump administration, set out to remake government institutions, it gathered information from each of them and connected them to generative AI models. In doing so, it dropped technical and administrative separations between datasets that have protected the privacy of Americans for generations, for example [by copying the Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information of 300 million people](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/26/nx-s1-5517977/social-security-doge-privacy). Flock has created [a nationwide AI-powered surveillance network](https://www.404media.co/flock-exposed-its-ai-powered-cameras-to-the-internet-we-tracked-ourselves/) used [by ICE](https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/reported-ice-accessing-flock-automated-license-plate-reader-cameras-via-local-law-enforcement/) and law enforcement. Palantir has built ImmigrationOS, [an AI-based system to speed up extrajudicial deportations](https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-immigrationos-palantir-ai-track-immigrants/). None of this means the technology lacks value or that individuals using these tools are complicit. The problem is structural: when useful tools require dependence on centralized corporate infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes available for authoritarian exploitation regardless of users’ intentions. If something is made possible, we should assume that authoritarians will make use of it. The alternative exists, but it requires rejecting the framing of inevitability. Small, local language models can be trained on specific, consented datasets for specific purposes: a newsroom analyzing its own archives, a research institution working with its own corpus. They run on local infrastructure, which means the data never leaves the organization that owns it. No centralized company intermediary; no pathway for government surveillance; no pirated training data. This approach requires treating AI as a tool rather than infrastructure: something you deploy when you need it, with data you control, rather than a utility you depend on that controls your data. It’s harder than just using ChatGPT or Claude. It might cost more upfront (although likely not in the longer term). It won’t get you the same breadth of capability, even if it excels at the specific tasks it’s designed for. But, most importantly, it keeps consent and accountability in the system. This year, centralized AI became part of the backdrop. They have enormous momentum: capital, talent, network effects, and now government partnerships. They’ve normalized dependence. But dependence on a technology that centralizes the capture of our most private data is not inevitable; a choice has been made to make it look that way. Recognizing that is the first step toward choosing differently. ### Truth to power, truth from power This year, it became clearer than ever before that while some journalists and newsrooms seek to speak truth to power, others seek to speak truth *on behalf of* power. Most glaringly, Bari Weiss, founder of The Free Press, has become the editor-in-chief of CBS News [after the network’s acquisition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merger%5Fof%5FSkydance%5FMedia%5Fand%5FParamount%5FGlobal) by David Ellison’s Skydance Media. Ellison is the brother of Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who [has been described as a “shadow President”](https://www.wired.com/story/larry-ellison-is-a-shadow-president-in-donald-trumps-america/) in the Trump administration. Recently, [she chose to spike a *60 Minutes* segment about CECOT](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/business/60-minutes-trump-bari-weiss.html), the brutal prison in El Salvador that [has been the recipient of extrajudicial Trump deportees](https://www.propublica.org/article/venezuelans-cecot-el-salvador-trump-families-video). The correspondent who reported the piece [accused her of being politically motivated](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-12-21/cbs-correspondent-accuses-bari-weiss-of-political-move-in-pulling-60-minutes-piece). At the same time, Warner Bros is up for sale, and the President has been vocal that CNN, which it wholly owns, should be [either sold with it or broken off and sold separately](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-12-21/cbs-correspondent-accuses-bari-weiss-of-political-move-in-pulling-60-minutes-piece). Skydance has made a bid for it, too, which includes [an irrevocable personal guarantee from Larry Ellison](https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/paramount-skydance-larry-ellison-irrevocable-personal-guarantee-warner-bros-discovery-1236614728/). If successful, the Ellisons would control both CBS and CNN. Meanwhile, Twitter, which is both where many people receive their news and the place online where journalists historically hung out, was acquired by Elon Musk and rapidly reshaped into a Trump-aligned network. Another place where people learn about the events of the day is late night talk shows; [Colbert was canceled by CBS](https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/stephen-colberts-late-night-show-canceled-sparking-accusations-of-political-censorship-jimmy-kimmel-incident-adds-fuel-to-the-fire/) (its last show [will air next May](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/business/stephen-colbert-late-show-ending.html)), while ABC temporarily pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show until a public outcry forced their hand. Trump killed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which immediately undermined funding for NPR and PBS stations across the country. [Hundreds of local stations are at risk of closure.](https://www.freepress.net/blog/defunding-public-media-hitting-local-stations-hardest) In some cases, these stations are vital public infrastructure: the only way residents learn about safety announcements. Beyond that, in locations with no local news coverage, we know that [local government and police corruption skyrockets](https://www.gmu.edu/news/2024-11/are-us-news-deserts-hothouses-corruption). The news industry was already vulnerable: financially weakened by the web, editorially compromised by long-standing failures to challenge power. There have always been newspapers that reliably took the government line on foreign wars, for example: speaking truth *from* power isn’t a new idea. Over the last year alone, reporters Without Borders described [a media blackout on the war in Gaza](https://rsf.org/en/one-year-gaza-how-israel-orchestrated-media-blackout-region-war); The New York Times [failed to include trans voices in a majority of stories about trans issues](https://glaad.org/the-new-york-times-fails-to-include-trans-voices-in-majority-of-articles-about-trans-issues/). Although Israel certainly had an enormous, intentional hand in the blackout, many newsrooms were complicit in the ensuing silence. These were self-inflicted failures. But this is different: Trump-aligned oligarchs are in the process of systematically acquiring editorial control over the ways we learn about the world, with the administration openly signaling which outlets should be sold and to whom. Stories, entire shows, and public media networks are already being pulled. If they’re successful, a significant chunk of how America learns about the world will be under the control — directly and indirectly — of the administration. The capture isn’t total yet, and it’s not uncontested. It’s bleak out there, but there *are* points of light, if you know where to look. News startups — small newsrooms that are often run by women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, which are more likely to be worker-run co-operatives — continue to speak truth to power. In the spirit of [disruption theory](https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/disruptive-innovation/), they are likely to be overlooked by the larger networks until they’re too big to ignore. [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), too, is making good on its mission to spur real-world change using investigative journalism as an instigating force. ### Look for the helpers As I write this, my three year old is sleeping in the next room. I worry about what kind of world he’ll grow up into: was the relative peace and freedom of the post Cold War decades an aberration, or will we bounce back into a democratic openness where everyone has the opportunity to lead a good life? The idea that we might be descending into a permanent authoritarianism terrifies me. That we were led here in part by the kinds of connective technology I used to love is deeply unsettling. When I wake up at 3am with my heart pounding, it’s not for me; it’s for him. We need to find our way back. But how? Fred Rogers, who memorably [stood in front of the US Senate in 1969](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred%5FRogers's%5F1969%5FUnited%5FStates%5FSenate%5Ftestimony) to defend public media funding, [had some famous advice](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fred-rogers-post-goes-viral) about what to do when things seem bad: > “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” Sure, there are people who haven’t felt the fear, who even now don’t see the depth of the troubles we find ourselves in. But there are also helpers; people who care. I mentioned news startups. They help eradicate news deserts, represent underheard voices, and offer a meaningful alternative to larger media outlets that might be more susceptible to oligarchic capture. In part because they have less to lose, they do a far better job of getting to know their communities and being real with them. Their small size makes them more nimble and more accountable to the communities they serve. Organizations like [Tiny News Collective](https://www.tinynewsco.org/) do a good job of supporting them. News is undergoing a kind of forced transformation, which I think is largely positive. [News Product Alliance](https://newsproduct.org) is instigating product thinking in newsrooms that might never otherwise have considered who their readers actually are. It’s also bringing together builders in news in meaningful ways, including helping newsrooms to think about how technology choices are importing someone else’s values into their ecosystems. And there’s the open social web movement. At its worst, its developers and tinkerers are just scratching their own itches. The movement doesn’t always understand its place in the current context, and why this work really matters. But at its best, the people involved deeply understand that the change they have the potential to bring about goes far beyond the internet. Projects like Mastodon and Bluesky — and a long tail that includes Bonfire, Nostr, Pixelfed, and more — provide viable alternatives to corporate-owned networks. In the same way that nobody can own the web, nobody can own the Fediverse: that means there’s no single point of failure, and no corporate strategy that can capitulate to an authoritarian. These platforms have friction, for sure, and there’s work to be done to make them more usable, but in my opinion friction isn’t all bad. It’s what makes these networks so hard to own, and what prevents them from being the subject of the kinds of influence campaigns that led to the current authoritarianism in the first place. At [FediForum](https://fediforum.org/), the open social web conference, I delivered a keynote that [tried to galvanize the community into solving real problems](https://werd.io/why-the-open-social-web-matters-now/) and stepping up to tackle the dark place we find ourselves in societally. I hope that these platforms can be used to amplify the kinds of organizing and mutual aid that offline activists are already engaging in every day. Each of these efforts has an *implicit* threat model, but could use an explicit one: a shared encapsulation of the threats that allow organizations, projects, and movements to work together to provide real solutions. These ideas — alternatives for journalism, AI, the social web — might seem disconnected, but they are all part of a pushback on the kinds of centralized wealth and power that led us here. With a little bit more organizing effort, I believe they can be coordinated and effective. With a little luck, we might even win. I’m scared for my kid and I’m scared for all of us. It’s been an interesting year. Now what? ### Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud URL: https://werd.io/airbus-to-migrate-critical-apps-to-a-sovereign-euro-cloud/ Last updated: 2025-12-20T14:28:47.000Z \[[Paul Kunert at The Register](https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/airbus%5Fsovereign%5Fcloud/)\] Airbus wants to move its data outside US jurisdiction: > “I need a sovereign cloud because part of the information is extremely sensitive from a national and European perspective,” Catherine Jestin, Airbus's executive vice president of digital, told The Register. “We want to ensure this information remains under European control.” The contract is worth upwards of €50 million, but the company doesn’t necessarily think it’ll actually find a provider. US cloud providers are susceptible to the US CLOUD Act that allows authorities to obtain data held on their infrastructure even if it’s physically located in the EU. EU-only providers, meanwhile, haven’t necessarily hit the scale or sophistication that a customer like Airbus demands. That creates a really interesting opportunity: Airbus is doubtless not the only large European company with similar needs. There’s [a proposal](https://eurostack.eu/) to bankroll the creation of this kind of infrastructure in the EU, with an estimated price of €300 billion. It probably won’t be ready in time for Airbus, but they’ve at least proven that the need is real rather than ideological. Who’s going to pick up the baton? \[[Link](https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/airbus%5Fsovereign%5Fcloud/)\] ### Lies we tell ourselves URL: https://werd.io/lies-we-tell-ourselves/ Last updated: 2025-12-19T18:42:11.000Z \[[Damon Kiesow](https://kiesow.net/lies-we-tell-ourselves/)\] What struck me about [Damon Kiesow’s](https://kiesow.net/) summary of the myths journalism tells itself is how similar it is to the myths open source software projects tell *themselves*. > “Yes, our own claims are rhetorical (not technological) determinism. But the logic is the same: we know what is best for our communities, and “best” reliably aligns with our existing professional practices, interests, and profit motives. By doing so, we try to reframe long-term economic and cultural changes as questions of individual behavior. "Things would be better if only readers would act correctly.”” *Things would be better if only readers would act correctly.* Substitute *users* for *readers* and that would sound like so many open social web projects. > “What we really need is to teach high school students to be more discerning consumers of information.” *”We just need to educate users.”* No, we don’t. We need to educate *ourselves* about the people we hope to help: what do their lives look like, what are their needs, and what is actually important to them? If we’re in the business of being of service, we need to adjust ourselves to *them*, not the other way around. But of course, that means getting to know them, and worse than that, putting our own assumptions to the test. When we have lofty ideals, learning that they don’t match what’s actually needed doesn’t feel good. It hurts our egos. But if we care about service, that’s what we need to do. \[[Link](https://kiesow.net/lies-we-tell-ourselves/)\] ### Friday links: December 19, 2025 URL: https://werd.io/friday-links-december-19-2025/ Last updated: 2025-12-19T11:00:47.000Z *Every Friday, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *This week's links are all about change: a journalism industry in flux, the very sharp decline of mass market paperbacks, and a simple framework for navigating risk in your own work.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Nieman Lab's Predictions for Journalism 2026](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/) The annual [Nieman Journalism Lab Predictions for Journalism](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/?ref=werd.io) is always interesting. They’re often not so much predictions as either warnings or wishcasting; a finger on the pulse of what people are actually thinking inside newsrooms. It’s well-curated, and even the design of the site is always interesting year-on-year. Here are some pieces that caught my eye, although you should go check out [the full set](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/?ref=werd.io). In [my piece about personalization](https://werd.io/is-the-article-dead/), I already highlighted [a segment from Gina Chua](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/pressured-by-chatbots-newsrooms-push-past-the-one-story-fits-all-model/?ref=werd.io), who I think is one of the sharpest thinkers in news: > “Chatbots are coming to news — strike that; they’re here already — and we’re going to have to find a way to work in that world, despite all their well-documented limitations. This isn’t an argument that chatbots are a good source of news, but it’s a prediction that more and more people will turn to them because they provide something legacy newsrooms don’t: personalized information that’s more useful for each user.” [The Pivot Fund](https://thepivotfund.org/?ref=werd.io) CEO Tracie Powell has a strong point to make that is ostensibly about the current obsession with using influencers in news, [but is far bigger and deeper than that](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/journalisms-influencer-obsession-will-age-poorly/?ref=werd.io): > “The Prediction: In 2026, the collapse of “big social” and mass youth abandonment of mainstream platforms will force journalism and philanthropy to rebuild civic information systems around something social media no longer provides: trust, safety, and community control. > > Influencers won’t save journalism. Algorithms won’t save journalism. Corporate platforms won’t save journalism. > > Communities will. But only if we pivot — fast.” [Tedium’s](https://tedium.co/?ref=werd.io) Ernie Smith points out [the inevitability of building walls around our content to keep it safe from AI vendors](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/ai-will-probably-force-you-to-gate-your-content/?ref=werd.io): > “Memetic metaphors aside — I didn’t expect the leopards to eat *my* face — I think it highlights the challenges that small or niche publishers face in this new environment. Old-school new media folks might prefer to avoid paywalling everything to within an inch of its life. (Some may even do crazy things like offer full-fat RSS feeds, heaven forbid.) But it’s becoming increasingly clear that if you don’t gate at least some of your content, you may be putting yourself at risk of just letting a tool like Grok or Perplexity eat your lunch.” [The Continent](https://www.thecontinent.org/?ref=werd.io) publisher Sipho Kings [has some bleak words about the future of local news](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/we-guarantee-the-death-of-most-remaining-newsrooms/?ref=werd.io): > “But we’re not learning from the past. Instead, we’re approaching this new era of generative AI much like we did platforms. Big Western newsrooms are signing secret deals to make some money. Our luminaries talk of the opportunities that come with becoming a feedstock to genAI companies (no doubt prompted by media events being sponsored by AI companies). The rest, notable exceptions noted, are already on the verge of collapse, and are using AI to replace journalists, then hoping the algorithms can get gamed.” But it’s not all doom and gloom. [PRX](https://prx.org/?ref=werd.io) CEO Kerri Hoffman [published a call to action that I strongly agree with](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/public-media-sees-infrastructure-as-its-next-act-of-service/?ref=werd.io): > “Right now, many of those underlying systems are controlled by a small number of commercial platforms, ad tech companies, or vendors whose incentives don’t always align with public service. The risk is that public media becomes just another content supplier in someone else’s ecosystem, subject to someone else’s rules. > > Building shared, mission-driven infrastructure is a way of clearing the path.” And Knight Chair in Journalism Innovation [Damon Kiesow](https://bsky.app/profile/damon.kiesow.net?ref=werd.io) thinks [there’s a big opportunity for us to build our own, discrete small language models](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/publishers-fight-big-tech-with-small-local-language-models/?ref=werd.io) that are potentially more useful than the LLMs provided by big tech companies: > “If publishers embrace small language models and open standards, they may regain some control over how local knowledge is collected, delivered, and valued. For decades, news organizations have tried to win while playing by Big Tech’s rules, but MCP and SLMs give them something new in the digital era: a home field advantage. The platforms own the pipes, but publishers can own the intelligence that matters most to our communities.” [Question Everything](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything/id1765799296?ref=werd.io) host Brian Reed thinks the news industry [will re-examine its relationship with the tech industry and understand how abusive it has been](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/journalists-finally-break-big-techs-free-speech-spell/?ref=werd.io): > “I think 2026 is the year journalists will widely reframe our understanding of tech platforms: to see them as more akin to cars than to newspapers. We will realize that tech companies have exploited journalists’ greatest weakness: our love of the First Amendment. And that will finally free us to push for serious accountability from some of the biggest companies the world has ever seen.” And the always brilliant [Jenn Brandel](https://jennyeverything.com/?ref=werd.io) makes a remarkable prediction that speaks to [how the relationship between AI companies and news might evolve](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/ai-will-reinvent-local-news/?ref=werd.io): > As AI companies move to secure journalism as an input, journalists move to reclaim journalism as a public act. > > One shift is structural, the other is philosophical. Together, I predict they will redefine the profession’s future. And that brings me to [my own prediction](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/the-year-journalism-stops-outsourcing-its-independence/?ref=werd.io), where I call for the news industry to collaborate together to build new technology that genuinely serves the news ecosystem: > “The solution isn’t to retreat from technology. Journalism needs better tools, built for their needs and values. But they also shouldn’t be in the business of building it themselves. The main business of a newsroom is producing journalism; rightly, their cultures, incentives, and goals are centered around the work of telling the truth about the world. > > Software built inside newsrooms often fails, not because the teams aren’t talented, but because the incentives, culture, and resources of journalism simply don’t match the operational demands of running products sustainably. But after years of extraction, journalism’s relationship with the tech industry has become abusive. Something else is needed.” Again: [the complete set](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/) is worth reading. What stood out to you? --- ### [Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/99293-last-call-for-mass-market-paperbacks.html) This is not the death of mass-market *books*, but it’s still pretty striking that mass-market paperbacks are about to disappear in a real way. ReaderLink, the largest book distributor in America, is going to stop carrying them — and we’ll notice the effect immediately. (Or, at least, we’ll notice the effect if we frequent places where books are sold, which we all still do, right?) > “According to Circana BookScan, mass market unit sales plunged from 131 million in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, a drop of about 84%, and sales this year through October were about 15 million units. But for many years, the mass market paperback was “the most popular reading format,” notes Stuart Applebaum, former Penguin Random House EVP of corporate communications.” I was a paper-only reader holdout for years. I love the feeling of paper in my hands, and the cognitive switch of not looking at a screen when I spend all day in front of one. Then I had a kid. The best time I had to read was in bed while he slept beside me, but he kept stealing my reading light as a toy and removing my bookmarks so I lost my place. I finally caved and bought a [Kobo Libra Colour](https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-libra-colour?ref=werd.io), which has a built-in backlight and a PIN that means no-one can mess with my books. I didn’t expect to love it, but I immediately did, and virtually every book I’ve read since then has been on it. So, I guess what I’m saying is: I guess I get it. I do think it’s a loss though. Both my grandparents and my great grandparents kept houses filled with old books, many of which were paperbacks. Those stories have lasted for generations in those bookshelves, throughout many cycles of technical obsolescence. My Kobo won’t, and when he’s old enough, I won’t be able to pass many of the books I’m reading down to my son. That’s a real generational / cultural loss. When he’s old enough that I can read paper books again without fear of losing my light or place, I can switch to hardback editions, but at over twice the price, there’s a higher bar to buying one. And not every book ever *makes* it to hardback. They’re the vinyl records of books: beautiful to look at and owned by enthusiasts, but not a mandatory stop for each new release. And while I can buy these books to *intentionally* hand them down, it’s the unintentional accumulation that’s more interesting: the ability for him to pick out what *he* thinks is worth reading from my bookshelves. Of course, libraries exist, and that’s maybe the solution here. Libraries are obviously wonderful, but they’re also under threat. We’ve needed to protect them with our lives for some time, but that’s even more true in a world where our home bookshelves are dwindling and the books we read are succumbing to technology capture. Of course, that’s the story of the web, too. The Internet Archive — itself a library — is one answer to that on a cultural preservation level. But it’s the loss of that intergenerational and intra-community hand-me-down facet of writing-as-objects that really bothers me. I don’t know what the answer is. --- ### [The Go/No Go Date](https://pointc.co/the-go-no-go-date/) It’s no secret that I’m a fan of [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co/coreyford/?ref=werd.io) and his approach. It’s not an arms-length relationship: he invested in [Known](https://withknown.com/?ref=werd.io), I came to work for him as west coast Director of Investments at [Matter Ventures](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/meet-matter-seven-d07f02683108?ref=werd.io), and I get a lot of value out of his ongoing coaching at [Point C](https://pointc.co/?ref=werd.io). Given that relationship, the ideas he’s been publishing on his website aren’t new to me, but I appreciate his condensing them down into resources I can point other people to. They’re very good ideas, articulated into repeatable frameworks that are easy to understand. The Go / No-Go Date is a really important tool for anyone building a startup or innovation project. > “Feeling fear goes hand-in-hand with being ambitious. Imposter syndrome is real and normal. In fact, if you aren't feeling fear in what you do, I'd argue that you aren't being ambitious enough. > > The goal isn’t to avoid fear. The goal is to feel the fear, name it, and act anyway. Your job as an ambitious person is to practice standing in fear, becoming comfortable in that spot, and doing what you set out to do. > > \[…\] The Go / No Go Date is an exercise that you can do early on in a journey of ambition that helps you manage that fear in order to maximize your energy and utilize the precious runway that you have.” Imposter syndrome? Moi? The Go / No-Go Date is all about giving yourself permission to do something risky, because there’s a defined date when you’ll evaluate if you should keep doing it. For me, the power is in allowing yourself to face the fear that something might not succeed and build it into the process. In doing so, you’re not constantly struggling with that fear, watering down your ambition in the process. You’re also not *ignoring* the fear, which some founders erroneously think is a sign of strength. Being clear-eyed about what the worst thing that can happen actually is allows you to plan for it and establish frameworks that allow you to innovate anyway. Anything less than realism about the pitfalls is magical thinking — but this simple idea allows you to be brave and try something new anyway. ### The Go/No Go Date URL: https://werd.io/the-go-no-go-date/ Last updated: 2025-12-18T13:38:49.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/the-go-no-go-date/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] It’s no secret that I’m a fan of [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co/coreyford/) and his approach. It’s not an arms-length relationship: he invested in [Known](https://withknown.com), I came to work for him as west coast Director of Investments at [Matter Ventures](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/meet-matter-seven-d07f02683108), and I get a lot of value out of his ongoing coaching at [Point C](https://pointc.co). Given that relationship, the ideas he’s been publishing on his website aren’t new to me, but I appreciate his condensing them down into resources I can point other people to. They’re very good ideas, articulated into repeatable frameworks that are easy to understand. The Go / No-Go Date is a really important tool for anyone building a startup or innovation project. > “Feeling fear goes hand-in-hand with being ambitious. Imposter syndrome is real and normal. In fact, if you aren't feeling fear in what you do, I'd argue that you aren't being ambitious enough. > > The goal isn’t to avoid fear. The goal is to feel the fear, name it, and act anyway. Your job as an ambitious person is to practice standing in fear, becoming comfortable in that spot, and doing what you set out to do. > > \[…\] The Go / No Go Date is an exercise that you can do early on in a journey of ambition that helps you manage that fear in order to maximize your energy and utilize the precious runway that you have.” Imposter syndrome? Moi? The Go / No-Go Date is all about giving yourself permission to do something risky, because there’s a defined date when you’ll evaluate if you should keep doing it. For me, the power is in allowing yourself to face the fear that something might not succeed and build it into the process. In doing so, you’re not constantly struggling with that fear, watering down your ambition in the process. You’re also not *ignoring* the fear, which some founders erroneously think is a sign of strength. Being clear-eyed about what the worst thing that can happen actually is allows you to plan for it and establish frameworks that allow you to innovate anyway. Anything less than realism about the pitfalls is magical thinking — but this simple idea allows you to be brave and try something new anyway. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/the-go-no-go-date/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] ### Nieman Lab's Predictions for Journalism 2026 URL: https://werd.io/nieman-labs-predictions-for-journalism-2026/ Last updated: 2025-12-18T04:36:37.000Z \[[Nieman Lab](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/)\] The annual [Nieman Journalism Lab Predictions for Journalism](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/) is always interesting. They’re often not so much predictions as either warnings or wishcasting; a finger on the pulse of what people are actually thinking inside newsrooms. It’s well-curated, and even the design of the site is always interesting year-on-year. Here are some pieces that caught my eye, although you should go check out [the full set](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/). In [my piece about personalization](https://werd.io/is-the-article-dead/), I already highlighted [a segment from Gina Chua](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/pressured-by-chatbots-newsrooms-push-past-the-one-story-fits-all-model/), who I think is one of the sharpest thinkers in news: > “Chatbots are coming to news — strike that; they’re here already — and we’re going to have to find a way to work in that world, despite all their well-documented limitations. This isn’t an argument that chatbots are a good source of news, but it’s a prediction that more and more people will turn to them because they provide something legacy newsrooms don’t: personalized information that’s more useful for each user.” [The Pivot Fund](https://thepivotfund.org/) CEO Tracie Powell has a strong point to make that is ostensibly about the current obsession with using influencers in news, [but is far bigger and deeper than that](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/journalisms-influencer-obsession-will-age-poorly/): > “The Prediction: In 2026, the collapse of “big social” and mass youth abandonment of mainstream platforms will force journalism and philanthropy to rebuild civic information systems around something social media no longer provides: trust, safety, and community control. > > Influencers won’t save journalism. Algorithms won’t save journalism. Corporate platforms won’t save journalism. > > Communities will. But only if we pivot — fast.” [Tedium’s](https://tedium.co/) Ernie Smith points out [the inevitability of building walls around our content to keep it safe from AI vendors](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/ai-will-probably-force-you-to-gate-your-content/): > “Memetic metaphors aside — I didn’t expect the leopards to eat *my* face — I think it highlights the challenges that small or niche publishers face in this new environment. Old-school new media folks might prefer to avoid paywalling everything to within an inch of its life. (Some may even do crazy things like offer full-fat RSS feeds, heaven forbid.) But it’s becoming increasingly clear that if you don’t gate at least some of your content, you may be putting yourself at risk of just letting a tool like Grok or Perplexity eat your lunch.” [The Continent](https://www.thecontinent.org/) publisher Sipho Kings [has some bleak words about the future of local news](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/we-guarantee-the-death-of-most-remaining-newsrooms/): > “But we’re not learning from the past. Instead, we’re approaching this new era of generative AI much like we did platforms. Big Western newsrooms are signing secret deals to make some money. Our luminaries talk of the opportunities that come with becoming a feedstock to genAI companies (no doubt prompted by media events being sponsored by AI companies). The rest, notable exceptions noted, are already on the verge of collapse, and are using AI to replace journalists, then hoping the algorithms can get gamed.” But it’s not all doom and gloom. [PRX](https://prx.org) CEO Kerri Hoffman [published a call to action that I strongly agree with](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/public-media-sees-infrastructure-as-its-next-act-of-service/): > “Right now, many of those underlying systems are controlled by a small number of commercial platforms, ad tech companies, or vendors whose incentives don’t always align with public service. The risk is that public media becomes just another content supplier in someone else’s ecosystem, subject to someone else’s rules. > > Building shared, mission-driven infrastructure is a way of clearing the path.” And Knight Chair in Journalism Innovation [Damon Kiesow](https://bsky.app/profile/damon.kiesow.net) thinks [there’s a big opportunity for us to build our own, discrete small language models](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/publishers-fight-big-tech-with-small-local-language-models/) that are potentially more useful than the LLMs provided by big tech companies: > “If publishers embrace small language models and open standards, they may regain some control over how local knowledge is collected, delivered, and valued. For decades, news organizations have tried to win while playing by Big Tech’s rules, but MCP and SLMs give them something new in the digital era: a home field advantage. The platforms own the pipes, but publishers can own the intelligence that matters most to our communities.” [Question Everything](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything/id1765799296) host Brian Reed thinks the news industry [will re-examine its relationship with the tech industry and understand how abusive it has been](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/journalists-finally-break-big-techs-free-speech-spell/): > “I think 2026 is the year journalists will widely reframe our understanding of tech platforms: to see them as more akin to cars than to newspapers. We will realize that tech companies have exploited journalists’ greatest weakness: our love of the First Amendment. And that will finally free us to push for serious accountability from some of the biggest companies the world has ever seen.” And the always brilliant [Jenn Brandel](https://jennyeverything.com/) makes a remarkable prediction that speaks to [how the relationship between AI companies and news might evolve](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/ai-will-reinvent-local-news/): > As AI companies move to secure journalism as an input, journalists move to reclaim journalism as a public act. > > One shift is structural, the other is philosophical. Together, I predict they will redefine the profession’s future. And that brings me to [my own prediction](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/the-year-journalism-stops-outsourcing-its-independence/), where I call for the news industry to collaborate together to build new technology that genuinely serves the news ecosystem: > “The solution isn’t to retreat from technology. Journalism needs better tools, built for their needs and values. But they also shouldn’t be in the business of building it themselves. The main business of a newsroom is producing journalism; rightly, their cultures, incentives, and goals are centered around the work of telling the truth about the world. > > Software built inside newsrooms often fails, not because the teams aren’t talented, but because the incentives, culture, and resources of journalism simply don’t match the operational demands of running products sustainably. But after years of extraction, journalism’s relationship with the tech industry has become abusive. Something else is needed.” Again: the complete set is worth reading. What stood out to you? \[[Link](https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2026/)\] ### Is the article dead? URL: https://werd.io/is-the-article-dead/ Last updated: 2025-12-17T14:31:02.000Z No. (Thanks, [Betteridge’s Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's%5Flaw%5Fof%5Fheadlines)!) But the real question isn’t whether the article survives. It’s whether it remains the primary way people encounter journalism. The written article — linear, static, and designed for a broad audience — was optimized for a world of scarce publishing space and shared attention. That world is disappearing. Referral traffic is collapsing. Homepages matter less than they once did. Increasingly, people encounter journalism through feeds, summaries, notifications, and recommendations shaped to their individual context. That doesn’t mean the article is obsolete. But it does mean we shouldn’t assume it will stay the same forever. Although the article has been with us for thousands of years, publishing is continually evolving. Just as the invention of the web changed who could publish and find an audience (from a small group of people privileged by an even smaller group of publishers to, well, everyone with an internet connection), the software and services available today can enable new features like personalization and new kinds of interactivity. This isn’t technological determinism. If these features succeed, it won’t be because of the technology itself, but because that technology served an existing need that was previously harder to meet. If new tools help us to create a new iteration of the article that resonates with readers, it won’t be because they themselves bring success; it will be because they helped us create something to serve readers in a way that was previously unreachable. Personalization is one clear example: it’s a feature newsrooms are beginning to talk more about, particularly in the context of LLMs and how they might make new capabilities possible. As [Gina Chua](https://restructurednews.substack.com/), executive editor at [Semafor](https://www.semafor.com/about), framed the inevitability of it [in this year’s NiemanLabs Predictions for Journalism](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/pressured-by-chatbots-newsrooms-push-past-the-one-story-fits-all-model/): > A person reading about a tax proposal in Washington wants to know how it’ll affect their small business in Ohio, and less about political infighting in D.C. or what it’ll mean for the midterms; a young parent in Florida is more interested in the impact of a school board vote on their child’s education than on debates over diversity. This framing deserves scrutiny — not least the claim that a young parent in Florida isn’t or shouldn’t be interested in debates over diversity — but it’s also important to highlight that Gina thinks this isn’t appropriate for every kind of article: > \[…\] To be sure, there will always be a need for high-end, high-quality investigations, analysis, and commentary that isn’t personalized; whose value is in fact in the universality of their narratives and ideas. But most news isn’t that. It’s the day-to-day coverage of school board meetings, fires and floods, city hall votes, and business announcements. This suggests that personalization matters most for what we might think of as “information as infrastructure”. These are articles that provide actionable answers to practical questions: What did the planning commission decide about that development proposal? When does early voting start? What routes are closed for road work? With that caveat in mind, I find it easier to accept that personalization is desirable: I’m interested in whether my city council member voted to collude with ICE, or when the dangerous intersection on the way to daycare is finally getting a stop sign, or which candidates my precinct will see on the ballot, in a way that isn’t necessarily one size fits all. If we accept that this is desirable, we need to ask: who is personalizing the article, and how? It’s worth coming back to Gina’s example generalization about a young parent in Florida. (Gina is one of the smartest thinkers in news, by the way, so this isn't a criticism of her.) We may hold that opinion about that broad category of person, but it doesn’t necessarily match reality; everyone is different. Real personalization means going beyond abstracted *personas* and ensuring that the information any given individual is receiving is tailored to their needs. That, in turn, means we need to know what their needs *are*. We have some choices here, and not all of them are compatible with the values of a service-oriented newsroom. - We can infer their needs through third-party tracking, borrowing techniques from targeted advertising networks - We can infer their needs through their reading activity on our sites, building an understanding through accumulated reading patterns - We can let them consensually tell us what they care about Each of these approaches carries very different implications for privacy, agency, and trust. The first option violates fundamental privacy principles and should be ruled out for public service journalism. Determining a person’s needs and interests via third-party trackers outsources the engine of personalization to opaque surveillance networks that violate reader privacy and likely have their own business priorities. Inferring needs through reader activity has clearer ethical boundaries, but practical challenges remain. For one thing, there may not be enough signal to build an accurate profile. For another, there’s a catch-22 cold-start problem: personalization requires reading activity, but reading activity may never materialize if the content isn’t compelling because it hasn’t been personalized yet. Finally, we’re still profiling the user without their express consent, and those profiles could be revealed via subpoena, putting readers at risk. The third option aligns with journalistic values but creates friction. Letting them tell us what they care about, consensually and overtly, is ideologically clean but in practice may be awkward and interruptive and risks user abandonment. Both viable approaches share a fundamental challenge: they require newsrooms to build, secure, and maintain a detailed, persistent profile for each reader as a part of the publishing stack. That’s not something that most CMS platforms offer today, and is a lot to ask of smaller newsrooms in particular. It’s expensive and technically demanding, and the technology will continue to evolve: LLMs as we know them today are not AI’s final form, and new changes will require ongoing development resources. And even beyond the technical considerations, there are legal requirements that may create significant overhead. For these reasons, I don’t think newsrooms should attempt to build or host personalization engines. But that doesn’t mean personalization won’t happen and isn’t valuable. The problems I’ve identified — cost, technical change, privacy implications — shift considerably if personalization moves from publisher-controlled systems into reader-controlled tools like their browsers and [RSS readers](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters). In this model, the article remains universal, but the experience of encountering it becomes personal. If personalization happens in the browser, a few important things become possible: - A profile can be built out of a person’s reading habits across all the sites they read, with the data stored in a place under the user’s control - They can consensually adjust their profile in their browser’s settings and through UI affordances like “more like this” and “less like this” - The entire profile never needs to be shared with a third party - They can choose not to be profiled at all We can also solve an implied problem with publisher agency. The way we often talk about personalization today, for example in the context of AI agents and chatbots that rewrite or summarize content, requires that publishers lose control over the presentation of their work, and that their relationship with their readers is intermediated. But if we built it as an open standard — with transparent algorithms, user control, and no central data collection — the publisher remains fully in control. Publishers could expose lightweight semantic signals, using HTML tags, that describe what different sections of an article are about: for example, whether a passage concerns local governance, public safety, elections, or education. These signals wouldn’t change the article itself; they would simply make its structure and subject matter legible to readers’ tools. A browser or reader could then use those signals, combined with locally held preferences, to decide how prominently to surface, summarize, or emphasize different sections. Some browsers might use LLMs to interpret semantic signals and generate summaries — Chrome seems likely to take this path, given their AI investments — while privacy-focused browsers like Firefox might use simpler, transparent rules. If a browser doesn’t support personalization or a reader switches it off, all the content would be displayed. Those differences would become part of how readers choose between browsers, and the standard itself would be a progressive enhancement rather than a replacement for how we structure articles today. There’s a long history of developers trying to build semantic signals into HTML. To be clear, I’m not arguing for what we used to call *the semantic web*. Instead, just as RSS succeeded as a standard because you could get something up and running in an afternoon, this new standard needs to be incredibly lightweight and easy to build into both a CMS and a browser. One embodiment might be to use existing [schema.org](https://schema.org) vocabulary to describe content semantically — what places, topics, and government actions are mentioned — without making assumptions about reader demographics. In this version, a section about Oakland’s city council vote on ICE collaboration would be tagged with `areaServed="Oakland, CA"` and `about="immigration enforcement policy"`, not with assumptions about which type of person cares about it. The browser, informed by the reader’s own expressed interests and location, decides what's relevant. You might disagree that [schema.org](https://schema.org) is the right markup, and that’s fine. Those are implementation details. I think the most important facets of personalization markup are: - It’s very simple (a developer can implement it in an afternoon) - It’s progressive enhancement (a browser can render an article even if it doesn’t support personalization) - It happens in-browser, on-site (the publisher retains control over the overall publishing context) Of course, AI agents will continue to summarize and rewrite journalism regardless of the existence of any standards. But for readers who want unmediated access to journalism while still getting personalization, and for publishers who want to maintain direct relationships with those readers, this approach offers a path forward that neither requires publishers to build complex systems nor surrenders control to platforms. It also makes blocking AI agents a clearer choice, because the same personalization can take place in less extractive, publisher-friendly environments. Browsers can also use this as a way to compete with vendors like OpenAI. The web is already compelling, and this proposal brings more of the personalization that AI enables into that more familiar environment. It’s a way for Mozilla and even Google to use their pre-existing web-first stance as an advantage. And because it’s all web-based, it’s easy to create a shim using a browser extension even before browsers themselves choose to adopt it. So, no. The article isn’t dead. But how it lives on is in question. Personalization is coming whether newsrooms build it or not. What's in question is where it lives, and who controls it. Built around surveillance and intermediaries, it erodes trust and weakens journalism’s public role. Built into reader-controlled tools on the open web, it can do the opposite: make journalism more relevant without making it more extractive. At its core, the question isn’t really about AI, browsers, or markup. It’s about agency. Who decides what’s relevant? Who holds the data about what readers care about? And who controls the relationship between journalists and the people they serve? Those choices will shape not just the future of the article, but the future of journalism itself — and with it, how all of us learn about the world. ### Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks URL: https://werd.io/last-call-for-mass-market-paperbacks/ Last updated: 2025-12-15T16:48:34.000Z \[[Jim Milliot with Sophie Stewart in Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/99293-last-call-for-mass-market-paperbacks.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawOtFz9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEel-1liKAma%5FZF0QfsKJxoClercUu0Y9damKXd4ITqsDW8O-ejFPESltgJHwY%5Faem%5FnwBLNtfag3982VCJrUiDyw)\] This is not the death of mass-market *books*, but it’s still pretty striking that mass-market paperbacks are about to disappear in a real way. ReaderLink, the largest book distributor in America, is going to stop carrying them — and we’ll notice the effect immediately. (Or, at least, we’ll notice the effect if we frequent places where books are sold, which we all still do, right?) > “According to Circana BookScan, mass market unit sales plunged from 131 million in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, a drop of about 84%, and sales this year through October were about 15 million units. But for many years, the mass market paperback was “the most popular reading format,” notes Stuart Applebaum, former Penguin Random House EVP of corporate communications.” I was a paper-only reader holdout for years. I love the feeling of paper in my hands, and the cognitive switch of not looking at a screen when I spend all day in front of one. Then I had a kid. The best time I had to read was in bed while he slept beside me, but he kept stealing my reading light as a toy and removing my bookmarks so I lost my place. I finally caved and bought a [Kobo Libra Colour](https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-libra-colour), which has a built-in backlight and a PIN that means no-one can mess with my books. I didn’t expect to love it, but I immediately did, and virtually every book I’ve read since then has been on it. So, I guess what I’m saying is: I guess I get it. I do think it’s a loss though. Both my grandparents and my great grandparents kept houses filled with old books, many of which were paperbacks. Those stories have lasted for generations in those bookshelves, throughout many cycles of technical obsolescence. My Kobo won’t, and when he’s old enough, I won’t be able to pass many of the books I’m reading down to my son. That’s a real generational / cultural loss. When he’s old enough that I can read paper books again without fear of losing my light or place, I can switch to hardback editions, but at over twice the price, there’s a higher bar to buying one. And not every book ever *makes* it to hardback. They’re the vinyl records of books: beautiful to look at and owned by enthusiasts, but not a mandatory stop for each new release. And while I can buy these books to *intentionally* hand them down, it’s the unintentional accumulation that’s more interesting: the ability for him to pick out what *he* thinks is worth reading from my bookshelves. Of course, libraries exist, and that’s maybe the solution here. Libraries are obviously wonderful, but they’re also under threat. We’ve needed to protect them with our lives for some time, but that’s even more true in a world where our home bookshelves are dwindling and the books we read are succumbing to technology capture. Of course, that’s the story of the web, too. The Internet Archive — itself a library — is one answer to that on a cultural preservation level. But it’s the loss of that intergenerational and intra-community hand-me-down facet of writing-as-objects that really bothers me. I don’t know what the answer is. \[[Link](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/99293-last-call-for-mass-market-paperbacks.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawOtFz9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEel-1liKAma%5FZF0QfsKJxoClercUu0Y9damKXd4ITqsDW8O-ejFPESltgJHwY%5Faem%5FnwBLNtfag3982VCJrUiDyw)\] ### T.S.A. Is Providing Air Passenger Data to Immigration Agents for Deportation Effort URL: https://werd.io/t-s-a-is-providing-air-passenger-data-to-immigration-agents-for-deportation-effort/ Last updated: 2025-12-13T14:23:20.000Z \[[Hamed Aleaziz in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-tsa-passenger-data.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)\] The identity of every single domestic air traveler has been sent to ICE since March of this year: > “The Trump administration is providing the names of all air travelers to immigration officials, substantially expanding its use of data sharing to expel people under deportation orders. > > Under the previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration provides a list multiple times a week to Immigration and Customs Enforcement of travelers who will be coming through airports. ICE can then match the list against its own database of people subject to deportation and send agents to the airport to detain those people.” In effect, this is an internal citizenship checkpoint, even if it’s one that’s happening quietly behind the scenes. Because the US doesn’t have much interstate transit infrastructure outside of air travel — Amtrak exists, but is expensive and inconvenient outside of the Northeast Corridor — this amounts to checking in on every traveler who doesn’t drive. And drivers, in turn, are covered by [ICE’s use of Flock’s nationwide license plate cameras](https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/). TSA, which was introduced during the frenzy after the attacks on September 11, 2001, is a security function, not an immigration enforcer. This quietly collapses the distinction between administrative security screening and law enforcement. As a country, we consented to personal identity information being used to keep us safe; this is a new use that arguably has nothing to do with safety. These sorts of surveillance ratchets are rarely rolled back. The creation of TSA itself was considered (including by me) to be an overtly oppressive measure at the time, and we’ve lived with it ever since. It’s likely that we’ll need to live with this too. All surveillance creates a chilling effect. I know that when ICE has been seen in some neighborhoods, [attendance at local schools has dropped](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/immigrant-families-fear-trumps-deportations-children-return-school/story?id=124753982). Knowing that internal travel is being monitored will have the same effect, essentially locking some immigrants into their local areas. This is, I’m sure, part of the point. \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-tsa-passenger-data.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)\] ### Friday links: December 12, 2025 URL: https://werd.io/friday-links-december-12-2025/ Last updated: 2025-12-12T13:53:55.000Z *Every Friday, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.* *This week I was drawn to a focus on centralized government oversight and how to avoid it. Trump banned state-level AI regulation (I wonder what the Supreme Court will make of that) and announced that all non-citizens would need to switch their social media to public and hand over the links for scrutiny before traveling to the US. Mastodon reminded us that, particularly in this current context, the world needs its own sovereign services that cannot be regulated by the President. And meanwhile, Let's Encrypt, Tumblr, and the web itself, three reminders of the power of internet freedom, are still powerhouses of real expression.* *Did I miss something important?* [*Send me an email*](mailto:ben@werd.io) *to let me know.* --- ### [Trump Signs Executive Order To Combat State AI Regulation](https://www.techpolicy.press/trump-signs-executive-order-to-combat-state-ai-regulation/) This is a gift to AI vendors, and more importantly, to the subset of wealthy investors that backed Trump and Vance: > “President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday intended to limit state regulation of artificial intelligence. In a ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump said AI is a strategic priority for the United States, and that there must be “a central source of approval” for regulations.” This comes at a time when a raft of states have passed or are preparing to pass new legislation. [For example, in New York, on the same day](https://deadline.com/2025/12/new-york-ai-law-consumers-film-industry-1236646078/?ref=werd.io): > “The New York bill requires anyone producing or creating an ad to provide a disclosure if it includes AI-generated synthetic performers. A separate but related piece of legislation requires consent from heirs or executors if a person wants to use the name, image, or likeness of an individual for commercial purposes after their death.” An [AI safety bill due to be signed was substantially gutted by the Governor](https://prospect.org/2025/12/11/hochul-caves-big-tech-ai-safety-bill-new-york/?ref=werd.io): > “The bill, known as the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, would in its original form have become the most expansive state-level regulation of AI for the testing and reporting of advanced “frontier” models. Co-authored by Assemblymember Alex Bores and Sen. Andrew Gounardes, the bill would put the onus on frontier model developers to create plans to make their models safer, proactively report “critical safety incidents,” and ban models deemed unsafe through testing from being released. It has been sitting on Hochul’s desk for months.” It’s hard to tell which of these measures are driven by lobbying and donations, and which are simply the result of politicians being substantially AI-pilled, unwilling to be seen holding back what they see as a generational innovation. I’d put money on a little from column A and a little from column B. Either way, it’s not *great* that democratic processes for developing and enforcing regulations are being actively sidelined. It’ll be interesting to see how well all of this has aged in a year or two. Also of note is this bizarre comment from the President: > “I always thought it should be the SI, Supreme Intelligence, but, I guess somewhere along the line they decided to put the word artificial, that’s okay with me, it’s up to them. It’s a massive industry.” Sure, okay. --- ### [US plans to start checking all tourists' social media](https://news.sky.com/story/us-plans-to-start-checking-all-tourists-social-media-13481642) This is a *proposal* by Customs and Border Protection, not an implemented policy, which means there’s time to fight it: > “According to a notice published in America's federal register on Tuesday, foreign tourists would need to provide their social media from the last five years. > > It will be "mandatory" to hand over the information, and other details - including email addresses and telephone numbers used in the last five years, as well as the names, addresses, numbers, and birthdays of family members - will also be required.” As the article points out, this has already been happening sporadically, with some people refused entry due to their social media posts, but the proposal would turn it into systemic policy. This follows a policy earlier this year that forced applicants for student and exchange visas [to switch their social media accounts to public](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/you-shouldnt-have-make-your-social-media-public-get-visa?ref=werd.io): > “The State Department also indicated that if applicants refuse to unlock their accounts or otherwise don’t maintain a social media presence, the government may interpret it as an attempt to evade the requirement or deliberately hide online activity.” Once data is handed over, existing policies allow for the government to keep surveilling accounts — this isn’t a one-time analysis (although that would be invasive enough). This makes everyone less safe, but is particularly harmful for people from vulnerable communities. As the EFF has pointed out, [woman and LGBTQ+ people have more reasons to set their profiles to private](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/you-shouldnt-have-make-your-social-media-public-get-visa?ref=werd.io), as they’re more likely to experience abuse. Not to mention activists, journalists, and so on. The more privileged (or isolated) someone is, the more likely they are to wave concerns about surveillance away because they “have nothing to hide”. It’s [a common fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing%5Fto%5Fhide%5Fargument?ref=werd.io). We all have the right to privacy in our personal lives; it’s why there are locks on our doors. These are extraordinary actions for a country that claims to believe in freedom and democracy to take, but of course, the Trump administration has not stood up for either of those things. It’s easy to imagine a person who might otherwise have considered visiting to the United States choosing to visit somewhere else instead. And, perhaps, investing in other countries and supporting the economies of nations that uphold civil rights rather than choosing to erode them. I would not blame them. --- ## Sign up for Ben Werdmuller Writing at the intersection of technology, journalism, and community. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [The world needs social sovereignty](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/12/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty/) Over the last week, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s X €120 million for providing a blue check “verification system” that doesn’t meaningfully verify users. In response to this regulatory action, [X blocked the European Commission from posting ads on its platform](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0589g0dqq7o?ref=werd.io). “Time to abolish the EU,” Musk posted. These are the kinds of shenanigans that could only happen and would only be meaningful on a monolithic closed platform, which [Mastodon’s Hannah Aubry points out](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/12/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty/?ref=werd.io): > “We’re grateful to Elon Musk for proving once again why the world needs to log off corporate-owned, centrally-controlled social media platforms and log on to a better way of being online. > > \[…\] In any free society, it is the right of every citizen to access and comment on the news, decisions, and reasonings of their government. We believe it is a government’s responsibility to ensure this right for its constituents. Public institutions should communicate with their citizens on open platforms, not ones that require creating an account and sending personal data to a self-serving tech company.” When X reduces the reach of a government entity as an act of retaliation for a regulatory action, it proves how unsuitable closed systems are for any kind of democratic communications. In contrast, open systems are democracy-preserving and resilient to the bad actions of a corporation (or an oligarch): the web itself can’t retaliate against someone (nor does it need to be fined), because it doesn’t have a single owner. Open social web systems like [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/?ref=werd.io) share that important property, as well as making it easier to subscribe via email, [RSS](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters), etc, so you don’t need to be a member. They don’t judge their success on whether people are locked in and spending their time, money, and attention on their platforms. That’s where the European Commission, and other government entities, should be reaching their constituents. --- ### [10 Years of Let's Encrypt Certificates](https://letsencrypt.org/2025/12/09/10-years) Ten years of [Let’s Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/?ref=werd.io) is an enormous achievement: > “Our biggest goal was to make a concrete, measurable security impact on the web by getting HTTPS connection prevalence to increase—and it’s worked. It took five years or so to get the global percentage from below 30% to around 80%, where it’s remained ever since. In the U.S. it has been close to 95% for a while now.” It’s hard to overstate how important this was. Obtaining and installing the security certificates needed to secure a website used to be fairly expensive and a really annoying process. The genius of Let’s Encrypt was to make it completely automatic — and, through that innovation, free. Tools like the EFF’s companion software [certbot](https://certbot.eff.org/?ref=werd.io) effectively make it one-click. In combination, the baseline work of securing a website is reduced to almost nothing, which has truly democratized the encrypted web. A decade ago, only organizations with money, patience, and technical support could reliably encrypt their sites. Everyone else — small nonprofits, bloggers, community groups, activists — were effectively told that their work wasn’t important enough to deserve confidentiality. Let’s Encrypt leveled that playing field. Encryption by default means an activist running a climate-justice community in rural America gets the same protections as a Fortune 500 company. It means dissident organizers can share safely. It means independent journalists and small newsrooms can protect their readers as well as the global giants can. When you make security universal, you empower the people who historically have had the least of it. Beyond privacy, encryption secures the *integrity* of the web itself. Without HTTPS, your ISP can modify pages in transit — and they have. In 2014, Comcast was caught injecting JavaScript warnings into unencrypted webpages. Verizon inserted unique tracking headers into customer traffic. Hotel and airport WiFi networks routinely injected ads into pages users were trying to read. Let’s Encrypt made eavesdropping harder and made the web tamper-proof. When you load a page over HTTPS, you can trust you're seeing what the publisher intended, not what someone along the way decided to insert. Ten years in, Let’s Encrypt has proven that critical internet infrastructure can be free, open, and sustained through community support rather than extraction. Here's to the next decade of that model, and to a more private, safer web. --- ### [The Web Runs On Tolerance](https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/the-web-runs-on-tolerance/) I’m not sure exactly who sparked off [Terence Eden](https://shkspr.mobi/blog?ref=werd.io)’s post, but his remarks are completely on point. > “The beauty of the web as a platform is that it isn't a monoculture. > > That's why it baffles me that some prominent technologists embrace hateful ideologies. I'm not going to give them any SEO-juice by linking to them, but I cannot fathom how someone can look at the beautiful diversity of the web and then declare that only pure-blooded people should live in a particular city.” He makes great points about the fault-tolerant nature of web technology, but I’d also add that the web is inherently inclusive at a conceptual level too: the whole point of the thing is to allow anyone to publish. That means a plurality of publishers from a plurality of backgrounds. “This is for everyone,” [Tim Berners-Lee famously said](https://proftomcrick.com/2012/07/28/tim-berners-lee-at-the-london-2012-opening-ceremony-this-is-for-everyone/?ref=werd.io), and he meant it. As it is for the web, so it should be for the world. We are all better off for being around people whose backgrounds are different to our own. As I write this, I’m sat in New York City, truly one of the greatest cities in the world, which wouldn’t be a fraction of itself without the kaleidoscope of backgrounds, cultures, and contexts that make it home. The same is true of London and so many amazing places. Humans ebb; we flow; we connect. Those are the fundamental building blocks of human society. To build walls is to be anti-human. You can’t effectively work on the web and not be in favor of that vision. To be against that is to be afraid of people, to say that only a few are good enough, or to hide in a monoculture and never venture outside its walls. I don’t think you can be *a decent human being* and take that position, but this is particularly true on the web. It’s made of inclusion. It’s for the whole world. If you can’t embrace that, I don’t know what you’re doing with it. --- ### [2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year](https://2025inreview.tumblr.com/) Tumblr’s year in review feels like a victory lap: > “ This year, we took a closer look at the culture bubbling up through tag data and across your dashboards in 2025—the communities, aesthetics, and micro-moments that shaped the year and show no signs of stopping. (Don't worry—if you’re all about that ships list, keep an eye out for it in the New Year ;)” Unlike some other Web 2.0 era sites, it’s taking pains to point out that 54% of daily active users, and 65% of new users, were Gen-Z. Now, admittedly, that demographic is up to 28 years old these days — where did the time go? — but it’s not the aging userbase that some might have assumed. In other words, new people are signing up for Tumblr, and they’re using it. The roundup is careful not to talk about overall growth, which *is* down this year, but monthly active users still stand at 10x of Bluesky’s, for example. And it’s highly relevant among the people who make internet-first culture. Tumblr’s real success is that relevance: it remained a place for interests before audiences and participation without the constant pressure to perform. Honestly, it’s just nice to see it. ### Trump Signs Executive Order To Combat State AI Regulation URL: https://werd.io/trump-signs-executive-order-to-combat-state-ai-regulation/ Last updated: 2025-12-12T01:49:52.000Z \[[Justin Hendrix at Tech Policy Press](https://www.techpolicy.press/trump-signs-executive-order-to-combat-state-ai-regulation/)\] This is a gift to AI vendors, and more importantly, to the subset of wealthy investors that backed Trump and Vance: > “President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday intended to limit state regulation of artificial intelligence. In a ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump said AI is a strategic priority for the United States, and that there must be “a central source of approval” for regulations.” This comes at a time when a raft of states have passed or are preparing to pass new legislation. [For example, in New York, on the same day](https://deadline.com/2025/12/new-york-ai-law-consumers-film-industry-1236646078/): > “The New York bill requires anyone producing or creating an ad to provide a disclosure if it includes AI-generated synthetic performers. A separate but related piece of legislation requires consent from heirs or executors if a person wants to use the name, image, or likeness of an individual for commercial purposes after their death.” An [AI safety bill due to be signed was substantially gutted by the Governor](https://prospect.org/2025/12/11/hochul-caves-big-tech-ai-safety-bill-new-york/): > “The bill, known as the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, would in its original form have become the most expansive state-level regulation of AI for the testing and reporting of advanced “frontier” models. Co-authored by Assemblymember Alex Bores and Sen. Andrew Gounardes, the bill would put the onus on frontier model developers to create plans to make their models safer, proactively report “critical safety incidents,” and ban models deemed unsafe through testing from being released. It has been sitting on Hochul’s desk for months.” It’s hard to tell which of these measures are driven by lobbying and donations, and which are simply the result of politicians being substantially AI-pilled, unwilling to be seen holding back what they see as a generational innovation. I’d put money on a little from column A and a little from column B. Either way, it’s not *great* that democratic processes for developing and enforcing regulations are being actively sidelined. It’ll be interesting to see how well all of this has aged in a year or two. Also of note is this bizarre comment from the President: > “I always thought it should be the SI, Supreme Intelligence, but, I guess somewhere along the line they decided to put the word artificial, that’s okay with me, it’s up to them. It’s a massive industry.” Sure, okay. \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/trump-signs-executive-order-to-combat-state-ai-regulation/)\] ### 2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year URL: https://werd.io/2025-on-tumblr-trends-that-defined-the-year/ Last updated: 2025-12-12T01:05:51.000Z \[[Tumblr](https://2025inreview.tumblr.com/)\] Tumblr’s year in review feels like a victory lap: > “ This year, we took a closer look at the culture bubbling up through tag data and across your dashboards in 2025—the communities, aesthetics, and micro-moments that shaped the year and show no signs of stopping. (Don't worry—if you’re all about that ships list, keep an eye out for it in the New Year ;)” Unlike some other Web 2.0 era sites, it’s taking pains to point out that 54% of daily active users, and 65% of new users, were Gen-Z. Now, admittedly, that demographic is up to 28 years old these days — where did the time go? — but it’s not the aging userbase that some might have assumed. In other words, new people are signing up for Tumblr, and they’re using it. The roundup is careful not to talk about overall growth, which *is* down this year, but monthly active users still stand at 10x of Bluesky’s, for example. And it’s highly relevant among the people who make internet-first culture. Tumblr’s real success is that relevance: it remained a place for interests before audiences and participation without the constant pressure to perform. Honestly, it’s just nice to see it. \[[Link](https://2025inreview.tumblr.com/)\] ### US plans to start checking all tourists' social media URL: https://werd.io/us-plans-to-start-checking-all-tourists-social-media/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T14:33:38.000Z \[[Sky News](https://news.sky.com/story/us-plans-to-start-checking-all-tourists-social-media-13481642)\] This is a *proposal* by Customs and Border Protection, not an implemented policy, which means there’s time to fight it: > “According to a notice published in America's federal register on Tuesday, foreign tourists would need to provide their social media from the last five years. > > It will be "mandatory" to hand over the information, and other details - including email addresses and telephone numbers used in the last five years, as well as the names, addresses, numbers, and birthdays of family members - will also be required.” You would also need to take a selfie. As the article points out, this has already been happening sporadically, with some people refused entry due to their social media posts, but the proposal would turn it into systemic policy. This follows a policy earlier this year that forced applicants for student and exchange visas [to switch their social media accounts to public](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/you-shouldnt-have-make-your-social-media-public-get-visa): > “The State Department also indicated that if applicants refuse to unlock their accounts or otherwise don’t maintain a social media presence, the government may interpret it as an attempt to evade the requirement or deliberately hide online activity.” Once data is handed over, existing policies allow for the government to keep surveilling accounts — this isn’t a one-time analysis (although that would be invasive enough). This makes everyone less safe, but is particularly harmful for people from vulnerable communities. As the EFF has pointed out, [woman and LGBTQ+ people have more reasons to set their profiles to private](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/you-shouldnt-have-make-your-social-media-public-get-visa), as they’re more likely to experience abuse. Not to mention activists, journalists, and so on. The more privileged (or isolated) someone is, the more likely they are to wave concerns about surveillance away because they “have nothing to hide”. It’s [a common fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing%5Fto%5Fhide%5Fargument). We all have the right to privacy in our personal lives; it’s why there are locks on our doors. These are extraordinary actions for a country that claims to believe in freedom and democracy to take, but of course, the Trump administration has not stood up for either of those things. It’s easy to imagine a person who might otherwise have considered visiting to the United States choosing to visit somewhere else instead. And, perhaps, investing in other countries and supporting the economies of nations that uphold civil rights rather than choosing to erode them. I would not blame them. \[[Link](https://news.sky.com/story/us-plans-to-start-checking-all-tourists-social-media-13481642)\] ### 10 Years of Let's Encrypt Certificates URL: https://werd.io/10-years-of-lets-encrypt-certificates/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T01:47:07.000Z \[[Josh Aas at Let's Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/2025/12/09/10-years)\] Ten years of [Let’s Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/) is an enormous achievement: > “Our biggest goal was to make a concrete, measurable security impact on the web by getting HTTPS connection prevalence to increase—and it’s worked. It took five years or so to get the global percentage from below 30% to around 80%, where it’s remained ever since. In the U.S. it has been close to 95% for a while now.” It’s hard to overstate how important this was. Obtaining and installing the security certificates needed to secure a website used to be fairly expensive and a really annoying process. The genius of Let’s Encrypt was to make it completely automatic — and, through that innovation, free. Tools like the EFF’s companion software [certbot](https://certbot.eff.org/) effectively make it one-click. In combination, the baseline work of securing a website is reduced to almost nothing, which has truly democratized the encrypted web. A decade ago, only organizations with money, patience, and technical support could reliably encrypt their sites. Everyone else — small nonprofits, bloggers, community groups, activists — were effectively told that their work wasn’t important enough to deserve confidentiality. Let’s Encrypt leveled that playing field. Encryption by default means an activist running a climate-justice community in rural America gets the same protections as a Fortune 500 company. It means dissident organizers can share safely. It means independent journalists and small newsrooms can protect their readers as well as the global giants can. When you make security universal, you empower the people who historically have had the least of it. Beyond privacy, encryption secures the *integrity* of the web itself. Without HTTPS, your ISP can modify pages in transit — and they have. In 2014, Comcast was caught injecting JavaScript warnings into unencrypted webpages. Verizon inserted unique tracking headers into customer traffic. Hotel and airport WiFi networks routinely injected ads into pages users were trying to read. Let’s Encrypt made eavesdropping harder and made the web tamper-proof. When you load a page over HTTPS, you can trust you're seeing what the publisher intended, not what someone along the way decided to insert. Ten years in, Let’s Encrypt has proven that critical internet infrastructure can be free, open, and sustained through community support rather than extraction. Here's to the next decade of that model, and to a more private, safer web. \[[Link](https://letsencrypt.org/2025/12/09/10-years)\] ### The world needs social sovereignty URL: https://werd.io/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty/ Last updated: 2025-12-09T14:55:30.000Z \[[Hannah Aubry at Mastodon](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/12/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty/)\] Over the last week, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s X €120 million for providing a blue check “verification system” that doesn’t meaningfully verify users. In response to this regulatory action, [X blocked the European Commission from posting ads on its platform](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0589g0dqq7o). “Time to abolish the EU,” Musk posted. These are the kinds of shenanigans that could only happen and would only be meaningful on a monolithic closed platform, which [Mastodon’s Hannah Aubry points out](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/12/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty/): > “We’re grateful to Elon Musk for proving once again why the world needs to log off corporate-owned, centrally-controlled social media platforms and log on to a better way of being online. > > \[…\] In any free society, it is the right of every citizen to access and comment on the news, decisions, and reasonings of their government. We believe it is a government’s responsibility to ensure this right for its constituents. Public institutions should communicate with their citizens on open platforms, not ones that require creating an account and sending personal data to a self-serving tech company.” When X reduces the reach of a government entity as an act of retaliation for a regulatory action, it proves how unsuitable closed systems are for any kind of democratic communications. In contrast, open systems are democracy-preserving and resilient to the bad actions of a corporation (or an oligarch): the web itself can’t retaliate against someone (nor does it need to be fined), because it doesn’t have a single owner. Open social web systems like [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org) share that important property, as well as making it easier to subscribe via email, [RSS](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters), etc, so you don’t need to be a member. They don’t judge their success on whether people are locked in and spending their time, money, and attention on their platforms. That’s where the European Commission, and other government entities, should be reaching their constituents. \[[Link](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/12/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty/)\] ### Why RSS matters URL: https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/ Last updated: 2025-12-09T14:23:08.000Z Yesterday morning, I woke up and checked my news app while still in bed. The headlines from ProPublica, The New York Times, and The Guardian loaded instantly: a curated stream of stories updated overnight. I scrolled through, tapped on a few pieces, then switched over to my podcast app to queue up something for my morning gym session. I queued up three new episodes: one from [Search Engine](https://www.searchengine.show/), the first episode of [the new ProPublica Narrated podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/propublica-narrated/id1858752858), and an episode of [Revolution.Social](https://revolution.social/). A treadmill run later, I sat down at my laptop. Slack notifications ticked through updates for software we depend on, and [Reeder](https://reeder.app) showed me the latest from the publications and blogs I follow. Throughout my morning, I hadn’t visited a single source website directly. I hadn’t refreshed anything manually. Everything had just appeared, delivered automatically from each source to the app I'd chosen to read it in. My information diet runs on feeds. ### Our friend the RSS feed A single core standard powers all of it. When people think about RSS, they most often associate it with the [long-departed Google Reader](https://www.theverge.com/23778253/google-reader-death-2013-rss-social) — but it’s far from dead. From direct subscriptions to syndication into apps that aggregate and re-present content, RSS remains the standard for feeds. It’s the glue that holds the timely web together. Most people know RSS powers blogs and podcasts. But it powers popular news apps too, from aggregated headlines on [MSN](https://www.msn.com/) or in [SmartNews](https://www.smartnews.com/en) to up-to-date headlines in business services like [Lexis Nexis](https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us) or [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/terminal-overview/). It’s also widely used to keep track of status updates of all kinds: weather, software updates, infrastructure uptime, and so on. Most of this activity happens behind the scenes. Publishers often think of feeds as an afterthought, but entire industries rely on them. It’s a workhorse that's become essential infrastructure for the web. Even for something as simple as consuming news, RSS beats the alternatives. [As Molly White wrote earlier this year](https://www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-rss/): > What if you could take all your favorite newsletters, ditch the data collection, and curate your own newspaper? It could include independent journalists, bloggers, mainstream media, worker-owned media collectives, and just about anyone else who publishes online. Even podcast episodes, videos from your favorite YouTube channels, and online forum posts could slot in, too. Only the stuff you want to see, all in one place, ready to read at your convenience. No email notifications interrupting your peace (unless you want them), no pressure to read articles immediately. Wouldn’t that be nice? Yes, it would. And it is. And yet, despite being everywhere, RSS is somehow invisible. It’s the plumbing of the web: essential, reliable, and routinely underestimated. Most people who consume news this way don't know they're using RSS, and a surprising number of people who work in media don't know they’re dependent on it for much of their reach and many of their partnerships. That invisibility has created a misconception, in some quarters, that RSS is a relic. But the opposite is true: we’ve never relied on it more. And as the social web fractures, as platforms wall off content, and as AI agents begin remixing everything they can ingest, our dependence on neutral, open standards for distributing information is about to become existential. It’s the strongest standard we have for feeds that syndicate content as published, without intermediation by third-party interests who seek to optimize for attention. Every RSS subscription represents a direct relationship between publisher and consumer, whether that consumer is a reader or a business partner. But to be frank, it’s got terrible PR: it *feels* like a part of the old web (Google Reader, Web 2.0, Blogger, *et al*) even though it powers much of the modern one. And standards that enable direct publisher–reader relationships are inconvenient for companies whose business depends on sitting in the middle. Consequently, it’s under threat. The result will be that publishers will lose distribution sovereignty, and readers will lose one of the last tools that puts them, not algorithms, in control. If we want an internet where publishers retain autonomy and readers retain agency, we need to treat RSS not as legacy plumbing but as strategic infrastructure. That means three things: 1. Protect and optimize our existing RSS infrastructure. 2. Build and support better, more sophisticated RSS-powered applications. 3. Consider the intersections between RSS and the wider social web. Let’s discuss those in turn. ### Protect and optimize our existing RSS infrastructure If your publishing platform was built with the open web in mind, it already supports RSS. [WordPress](https://wordpress.org) powers [43% of the web](https://wordpress.com/blog/2025/04/17/wordpress-market-share/) — including the website for my employer, [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), and many other newsrooms — and has well-formed feeds built in. Similarly, platforms like [Ghost](https://ghost.org) were built with great feeds in mind. Even [Medium](https://medium.com), which puts much of its content behind a paywall, does a good job of providing feeds for its articles and publications. That’s important: although there’s been a lot of focus on email newsletters lately, I know that I receive more readers via RSS than email — and *vastly* more once I incorporate news portals that my site is syndicated to. Having a feed — or better, multiple feeds for topics, categories, etc — gives you a much bigger potential audience. But not everything provides them. [Beehiiv](https://beehiiv.com), the newsletter platform, supports the standard but leaves it off by default. [Tracy Durnell has written a template letter to ask authors to turn it on](https://tracydurnell.com/2025/12/05/email-template-to-ask-beehiiv-newsletters-to-enable-rss/). Sites built on services like Squarespace or Webflow often provide only rudimentary or crippled RSS feeds, if they offer them at all. And the newer generation of no-code or “vibe coding” tools frequently omit feeds entirely — not out of hostility, but because they don’t imagine syndication as part of the publishing experience. The result is predictable: content published on these platforms simply cannot travel. It won’t appear in aggregators, apps, readers, or enterprise workflows, and its reach is dramatically limited. Where feeds *are* present, it’s important that they’re performant, and that they’re accessible to aggregators. Some sites provide feeds but accidentally block access through overactive use of bot or scraper prevention, negating the point of having them to begin with. On others, they take minutes to load. If you’re going to provide syndication, your feeds need to be snappy. They need to update as soon as new content is published. And they need to be available to all. It’s also important to prioritize syndication methods that use RSS. For example, many “podcasts” have chosen to partner directly with streaming services rather than provide an open RSS feed. Whether these should even be *called* podcasts is in doubt; what’s not is that they’ve allowed those streaming services to intermediate their audiences. If they change their business priorities, those publishers could fully lose their audiences; it’s also a choice that weakens disintermediated freedom to subscribe for everyone else in the ecosystem. ### Build better RSS-powered apps Feeds have always been powerful for consumption. But the internet is a conversation, and the next generation of RSS-powered applications should unlock its potential for creation and collaboration. They should let publishers work together, readers become curators, and communities form around shared sources rather than platform feeds. The good news is, we’re beginning to see what this could look like. I have a long-standing dream to create an open source newswire made up of non-profit news sources that allow their content to be republished for free. ProPublica is one; [The 19th](https://19thnews.org), [the Markup](https://themarkup.org), [Grist](https://grist.org/), and a few others all allow their content to be syndicated for free on any other website under a Creative Commons license. What if you could read up-to-date content from all of these sources inside your own CMS and — with a click of a button — republish any articles you think your audience would enjoy? That, to me, is a non-obvious but exciting use of RSS feeds that would increase the reach and impact of these newsrooms and allow a thousand curation sites to flourish: local news hubs, topic-specific digests, niche expertise communities, and entirely new kinds of collaborative publications. In a world where platforms increasingly determine what audiences see, tools like this would let newsrooms collaborate on their own terms, without intermediaries. Dave Winer’s [Feedland](https://docs.feedland.com/) is another interesting use of feeds: rather than keeping your subscriptions private, you can discover what your friends are subscribed to and, through them, find new publications and sources. In this world, the act of subscribing becomes the act of promoting sources you care about. It’s a social approach that comes close to following / followed lists on a traditional social media profile. A public subscription graph turns following into a decentralized discovery mechanism, with no algorithm or invisible ranking. We also just need better, more fully-featured, less confusing consumer feed readers. Even apps like [Reeder](https://reeder.app) — my personal favorite — tend to complicate the experience by allowing you to pick multiple back-ends and subscribe to lots of different kinds of source formats. [Feedly](https://feedly.com) is loved by many, but [positioned itself as a way to keep track of strikes and protests against your company](https://www.citationneeded.news/feedly-launches-strikebreaking-as/) a few years ago, marketing features to help companies monitor and respond to labor organizing. Even beyond this distasteful misstep, it has tried to be a corporate signals platform rather than a consumer tool. We need a beautiful, straightforward feed reader designed for consumers who don’t care about the underlying technology but know they don’t want someone else’s algorithm getting between them and the content they want to read. In other words, we need a feed reader designed for the mainstream — not just the power users who remember Google Reader. What these approaches share is a commitment to keeping power distributed. Unlike platform-based solutions, they don't require anyone to sit in the middle. Publishers retain control, readers retain choice, and the infrastructure remains open to anyone who wants to build on it. One of RSS’s biggest strengths is how simple it is. You can build an RSS-powered app in an afternoon. That means it’s easy to pick up, it’s easy to innovate with, and a new ecosystem of apps can build quickly. We just need some tentpole services to organize around. ### Build a more social feed ecosystem RSS doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Over the past few years, a new generation of social web protocols has emerged — ActivityPub, AT Protocol, Nostr, and others — all of which share a basic intuition: the future of online communication should be decentralized, interoperable, and user-controlled. ActivityPub, the protocol that powers Mastodon and much of the fediverse, is built around the idea of following updates from actors you care about. AT Protocol, which underpins Bluesky, lets users move their identity and social graph between services. Nostr focuses on simple, portable events that anyone can publish and anyone can subscribe to. All of these ecosystems are built on the premise that you should be able to read — and move — your social world wherever you like. Sound familiar? In fact, Mastodon and Bluesky both support RSS feeds, and make it relatively easy (if you know the feature exists) to follow peoples’ profiles in a feed reader. That means you don’t need to be a Mastodon or Bluesky member to follow profiles you care about: you can just plug them into your reader of choice. And those platforms don't *need* to be a part of an interaction at all. If you have both inbound feeds and a feed of your own content publishing out, [without heavy requirements for metadata](https://textcasting.org/), [that’s a fairly complete social web in its own right](http://scripting.com/2025/06/28/211301.html). This implies another opportunity, which is still relatively untapped: RSS can serve as a simple layer of connective tissue between today’s social protocols. It’s already universal, already well understood, and already deployed everywhere. Rather than reinventing syndication for each protocol, we could treat RSS as the common denominator. RSS lacks the complexity of ActivityPub or AT Protocol, which is a core strength. It’s a simple, universal transport format that everything can speak. If the social web of the past decade was defined by walled gardens and algorithmic feeds, the next decade could be defined by interoperable layers, where RSS plays the same role for publishing that SMTP plays for email: a basic, universal substrate that everything else can build on. The important thing about the open social web is not which protocol “wins.” It’s whether we build an ecosystem where publishers keep control of their distribution and readers keep control of their attention. RSS remains one of the strongest tools we have to make that possible. RSS has always worked quietly in the background. In a moment when the web is being reshaped by enclosure, consolidation, and algorithmic mediation, its reliability is exactly what we need. It offers a simple, durable way for publishers to keep control of their distribution and for readers to keep control of their attention, without permission, platform lock-in, or hidden agendas. If we treat RSS not as a relic of an earlier web but as the strategic infrastructure it already is, it can continue to anchor a more open, more resilient, and more humane internet for decades to come. ### The Web Runs On Tolerance URL: https://werd.io/the-web-runs-on-tolerance/ Last updated: 2025-12-08T03:37:56.000Z \[[Terence Eden](https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/the-web-runs-on-tolerance/)\] I’m not sure exactly who sparked off [Terence Eden](https://shkspr.mobi/blog)’s post, but his remarks are completely on point. > “The beauty of the web as a platform is that it isn't a monoculture. > > That's why it baffles me that some prominent technologists embrace hateful ideologies. I'm not going to give them any SEO-juice by linking to them, but I cannot fathom how someone can look at the beautiful diversity of the web and then declare that only pure-blooded people should live in a particular city.” He makes great points about the fault-tolerant nature of web technology, but I’d also add that the web is inherently inclusive at a conceptual level too: the whole point of the thing is to allow anyone to publish. That means a plurality of publishers from a plurality of backgrounds. “This is for everyone,” [Tim Berners-Lee famously said](https://proftomcrick.com/2012/07/28/tim-berners-lee-at-the-london-2012-opening-ceremony-this-is-for-everyone/), and he meant it. As it is for the web, so it should be for the world. We are all better off for being around people whose backgrounds are different to our own. As I write this, I’m sat in New York City, truly one of the greatest cities in the world, which wouldn’t be a fraction of itself without the kaleidoscope of backgrounds, cultures, and contexts that make it home. The same is true of London and so many amazing places. Humans ebb; we flow; we connect. Those are the fundamental building blocks of human society. To build walls is to be anti-human. You can’t effectively work on the web and not be in favor of that vision. To be against that is to be afraid of people, to say that only a few are good enough, or to hide in a monoculture and never venture outside its walls. I don’t think you can be *a decent human being* and take that position, but this is particularly true on the web. It’s made of inclusion. It’s for the whole world. If you can’t embrace that, I don’t know what you’re doing with it. \[[Link](https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/the-web-runs-on-tolerance/)\] ### Friday links: December 5, 2025 URL: https://werd.io/friday-links-december-5-2025/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T10:00:24.000Z *This week I'm re-launching my links digest. Every Friday, I'll share a handful of pieces that caught my eye, usually somewhere in the messy, fascinating overlap of technology, media, and society. Occasionally, I'll stray further afield.* *This week: what might come after the AI hype cycle, how new community platforms are trying to rethink participation, why our urban spaces may be pushing kids online, and how the Trump administration is using immigration enforcement to pressure online communities.* *These pieces share a familiar tension: the friction between communities we build for ourselves and systems imposed from above. It's a question that runs through all my work: how do we design technology that strengthens communities rather than extracts from them?* --- ### [What Happens After the Hype? Lessons from Mobile Internet’s Long Road to Success](https://shomila.medium.com/what-happens-after-the-hype-lessons-from-mobile-internets-long-road-to-success-22d0b15e0625) We’re beginning to see the light at the end of the AI hype cycle. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t uses for aspects of the technology, but it does mean that some of the hyperbole will diminish as investors and speculators move on to the next thing. As [Ecrue](https://ecruecard.com/?ref=werd.io) founder Shomila Malik points out here: > “The question isn’t whether the current AI investment cycle will face a reckoning. It’s what form that reckoning takes — and what comes after.” The lessons she draws from the mobile industry’s hype and decline also parallel what happened during the dotcom crash, when a lot of companies went away but a lot of underlying useful infrastructure was left for the next generation of innovations. But a facet of how those two events were different is exactly *how* they imploded: > “The difference between a pop and a deflation often comes down to how adaptable the infrastructure is. 3G networks built for one vision of mobile internet ended up powering something completely different — but they still got used. The investment wasn’t wasted, just redirected. Time will tell if AI will be a deflation like mobile internet or a ear deafening explosion like the dot com crash.” Either way, investment is way ahead of proven capabilities or even business models. Companies like OpenAI are losing money hand over fist. At some point, these endeavors have to touch oxygen, and either they’ll find their way to stunning profitability, or they’ll fizzle into acquisitions at best and leave some interesting ideas behind. My bet? Ten years from now we’ll be looking at a series of smaller, more focused models that perform well-scoped tasks really well, and we’ll look back at the hype around generalized megamodels — and particularly AGI — with rolled eyes and a slight shudder when we remember the environmental and human impacts. --- ### [Introducing Roundabout](https://newpublic.substack.com/p/introducing-roundabout-built-for) Really interesting to see [New\_ Public](https://newpublic.org/?ref=werd.io) announce its first community product from its [Local Lab](https://newpublic.org/local?ref=werd.io): > “The main thing to know, maybe the most important thing, is that this is not just another social media app. Roundabout is a community space, built from the ground up with community leaders and neighbors. > > \[…\] As a project incubated within New\_ Public, a nonprofit, Roundabout will grow incrementally, sustained by a diverse and balanced set of revenue sources. With business incentives aligned towards utility and everyday value, instead of engagement and relentless scale, we’re designing Roundabout to be shielded from the cycle of enshittification. The ultimate goal is to build for social trust — every decision, every design, optimized to build bonds and increase belonging.” There’s a lot to comment on here. It’s *amazing* to see a social product co-designed with communities. For the safety and equity of all involved, this is how it should be done. I really hope New\_ Public shows off more of its methodology in the future. I’d love to dive into the meta-conversation about what they’ve learned about this kind of co-design. The descriptions of participating communities — in Burlington, NC; Richmond, VA; Lincoln County, WI; North Chattanooga, TN; and Lancaster, PA — are already really promising. The technical lead is [Blaine Cook](https://bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.social?ref=werd.io), who you might remember as Twitter’s first employee and first CTO. Since then he’s been a strong, sharp advocate for decentralized social. On Mastodon, New\_ Public [mentioned that it’s building the platform in a way that’s compatible with AT Protocol](https://mastodon.social/@wearenew%5Fpublic/115645643962877064?ref=werd.io), although it’s not the main focus for now. Over on Bluesky, [Blaine said they’re](https://bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.social/post/3m6vbrdgvn22a?ref=werd.io) “building on atproto primitives but off-network because it's currently not possible to push private/scoped data around the wider atproto network.” He also made the important point that it’s not worth building for interop until you know what the user behaviors are actually going to be — so it’s too early to focus on decentralization. That community co-design is key, and it makes sense that this is the first step. Communities are human; they can’t be defined by protocols. The protocols should describe real human behavior, not the other way around. I’m excited to see how the platform develops, and how New\_ Public seeds the ecosystem conversations around it. And: this is only one of its community initiatives. There’s more to come. --- ### [Where Do the Children Play?](https://unpublishablepapers.substack.com/p/where-do-the-children-play) This meaningful discussion touches on the role — and dangers — of online spaces in the lives of children, but has a lot more to say about how our lives and environments are designed overall. > “\[…\] Digital space is the only place left where children can grow up without us. For most of our evolutionary history, childhood wasn’t an adult affair. Independent worlds and peer cultures were the crux of development, as they still are among the BaYaka; kids spent their time together, largely beyond the prying eyes of grown-ups. > > But in the West, the grown-ups have paved over the forests and creeks where children would have once hidden. They have exposed the secret places. So the children seek out a world of their own, as they have for millennia, if not longer. They find a proverbial forest to wander. They don’t know what we know: this forest has eyes and teeth.” There are some really striking statistics here. 45% of American children aged 8-12 have not walked in a different aisle than their parents at a store; 61% have not made plans with friends without adults helping them. That’s so far away from my own childhood to be unrecognizable. It’s also wildly oppressive. Of *course* kids are looking for spaces where their helicopter parents aren’t constantly hovering overhead. The biggest source of underlying fears from parents, as well as feelings of isolation from children themselves? A car-centric culture. Parents are worried about their children being hit by a car, which unfortunately isn’t unreasonable. Children, on the other hand, can’t drive, and often find themselves fully unable to visit friends or have their own lives without the participation of someone with a license. So, yes, online spaces need to be safer for children — but our lived-in spaces also need to be more human. American infrastructure in particular is architected for control; it’s rare to live in a walkable, safe environment. [Jane Jacobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%5FJacobs?ref=werd.io) would have had a lot to say about this analysis, and her own solutions still hold up. We need to stop dividing communities, break the influence of the car, and create spaces that allow humans to roam, live, eat, and play — permissionlessly. --- ### [Trump administration orders enhanced vetting for applicants of H-1B visa](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-orders-enhanced-vetting-applicants-h-1b-visa-2025-12-04/) The US has taken the extraordinary move of blocking H-1B visa recipients who work to keep online spaces safe from abuse: > “The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others. > > If you uncover evidence an applicant was responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States, you should pursue a finding that the applicant is ineligible," under a specific article of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the cable said.” The message here is very clear: the people who make online communities safe are not welcome in the United States. Trust and safety is a very wide field, which encompasses the policies, processes, and technologies online platforms use to protect users from harm, ensure a secure environment, and maintain user trust. Compliance ensures that safety rules are adhered to. None of these activities constitute censorship. These capabilities are required to make online communities livable. Without them, online spaces become toxic very quickly. The ultimate effect of this policy — if spread beyond H-1B visa holders — would be to make US-run online spaces unusable, and drive users elsewhere. If you want the future of social to be defined in other countries, it’s a great path to take. Otherwise, it’s stunningly short-sighted. --- ### [My Life is a Lie: How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America](https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-lie) Simplify Asset Management’s Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager [Michael W Green](https://www.yesigiveafig.com/?ref=werd.io) examined how the US poverty line is determined, and discovered that it has been wildly miscalculated for years. In fact: > “\[…\] if you measured income inadequacy today the way Orshansky measured it in 1963, the threshold for a family of four wouldn’t be $31,200. > > It would be somewhere between $130,000 and $150,000.” The big differentiator is childcare, which in the US averages out at $32,773 a year, but it’s not the *only* differentiator. Our costs are enormous, and a poverty line at $31,200 only really helps legislators avoid having to provide (and therefore pay for) real support. A family of four that genuinely earns $32,773 will receive all kinds of state help. A family that earns $80,000 does not. As Green points out, the difference largely comes from costs that went away during the pandemic: > Childcare ($32k): Suspended. Kids were home. > > Commuting ($15k): Suspended. > > Work Lunches/Clothes ($5k): Suspended. Of course, many incomes *also* went away, depending on the jobs that were keeping these families afloat. Knowledge workers were relatively sitting pretty, while people who worked in retail, etc, were in trouble. There’s a lot more help that we can provide *everyone*. But this is one reason why I cannot stand return to office mandates, particularly when peoples’ salaries are under the $140,000 threshold that Green identifies. (Hint: outside high earning categories like big tech, it’s almost all of them, and inside those categories there are plenty of people who are earning lower.) In future posts, it sounds like Green is moving to show that 401(k)s and similar instruments are also a scam for most ordinary earners — something I tend to agree with (at least compared to more pro-social alternatives). If society is an operating system that allows people to live well, start businesses, be healthy, etc, it’s failing us on every level. I say it’s time for an upgrade. --- ### ["Disagree and Let's See"](https://mollyg.substack.com/p/disagree-and-lets-see) This feels emotionally honest and an idea I can get behind, as an alternative to the popular “disagree and commit”: > ““Disagree and let’s see” allows you to stay aligned with the team without forcing you to pretend you had conviction you didn’t have. It lets you walk into a room with your team and be honest: > > “Here’s the path that was chosen. It wasn’t my first pick, but here’s the experiment we’re running, and here’s what we’re trying to learn.”” Committing to something you disagree with is an emotional contortion that is hard to do in practice. But the work of every team is a series of experiments at its heart, and by changing the onus from “let’s commit to this thing we don’t all agree with” to “let’s try it and see what happens”, we move from steamrollering dissent to mutually agreeing on an experimental hypothesis and testing it. You’re learning based on agreed criteria. That’s much harder to argue with — and at the end, there’s no “I told you so” or winners and losers. There’s just a “here’s what we learned” and an implied set of next steps. Bliss. It's worth saying that this was the original intention when Jeff Bezos coined the phrase [in his 2016 letter to Amazon shareholders](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2016-letter-to-shareholders?ref=werd.io): > Third, use the phrase “disagree and commit.” This phrase will save a lot of time. If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there’s no consensus, it’s helpful to say, “Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?” By the time you’re at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you’ll probably get a quick yes. > > This isn’t one way. If you’re the boss, you should do this too. I disagree and commit all the time. We recently greenlit a particular Amazon Studios original. I told the team my view: debatable whether it would be interesting enough, complicated to produce, the business terms aren’t that good, and we have lots of other opportunities. They had a completely different opinion and wanted to go ahead. I wrote back right away with “I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we’ve ever made.” Consider how much slower this decision cycle would have been if the team had actually had to convince me rather than simply get my commitment. The perception among many people is that it's morphed into a kind of corporate authoritarianism. So in some ways, "disagree and let's see" is just a course correction back to its original intent. --- ### [imperfect notes & my second subconscious](https://winnielim.org/journal/imperfect-notes-my-second-subconscious/) I’ve never been a successful notetaker. [Winnie Lim](https://winnielim.org/?ref=werd.io) enumerates the many reasons why not, which seem to be very close to her thinking too: > “Because of my personality I tend to solve for the whole before wanting to do something. For years I wanted to figure out how I could retrieve the notes in a meaningful manner before I committed to making them. If I cannot remember I had made the note, did the note really exist?” The problem is that you end up trying to come up with a smart taxonomy of notes ahead of time — and that’s always bound to fail, at least for me. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve wiped my Obsidian vault clean because I didn’t like the structure or the maintenance of it all threatened to overtake any utility. Instead, as Winnie points out, the best thing to do is just *write the note*. It’s a bit like throwing the text into a big bucket, and that’s okay. I hate to say it, but this might be a decent use case for some kind of personal LLM (ideally on-device so I’m not sharing my private notes with a third party I don’t trust). If you’re constantly just making notes without structure, being able to ask something about their content feels like it would have a lot of utility — again, at least for me. I’d love to be able to have my notes about a certain topic summarized when I need them. Or even have the summary proactively come up for me depending on my context. Then again, maybe that doesn’t matter at all: > “My brain is constantly holding scattered bits of information so it is just better to offload them somewhere in one place. I think the main difference is I don’t see obsidian as my second brain, I see it as my second subconscious.” I like that. Blogging is a little bit that for me, but blogging has an audience. There’s something useful in being the Harriet the Spy of your own life and putting words to things that otherwise might go unsaid. There’s poetry in it, too, which is very obvious from Winnie’s post. I’ll give notetaking another try. --- ### Trump administration orders enhanced vetting for applicants of H-1B visa URL: https://werd.io/trump-administration-orders-enhanced-vetting-for-applicants-of-h-1b-visa/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T00:19:21.000Z \[[Humeyra Pamuk for Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-orders-enhanced-vetting-applicants-h-1b-visa-2025-12-04/)\] The US has taken the extraordinary move of blocking H-1B visa recipients who work to keep online spaces safe from abuse: > “The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others. > > If you uncover evidence an applicant was responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States, you should pursue a finding that the applicant is ineligible," under a specific article of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the cable said.” The message here is very clear: the people who make online communities safe are not welcome in the United States. Trust and safety is a very wide field, which encompasses the policies, processes, and technologies online platforms use to protect users from harm, ensure a secure environment, and maintain user trust. Compliance ensures that safety rules are adhered to. None of these activities constitute censorship. These capabilities are required to make online communities livable. Without them, online spaces become toxic very quickly. The ultimate effect of this policy — if spread beyond H-1B visa holders — would be to make US-run online spaces unusable, and drive users elsewhere. If you want the future of social to be defined in other countries, it’s a great path to take. Otherwise, it’s stunningly short-sighted. [Via Kate Klonick, who highlighted it over on Bluesky.](https://bsky.app/profile/klonick.bsky.social/post/3m76jfbuwcc2c) \[[Link](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-orders-enhanced-vetting-applicants-h-1b-visa-2025-12-04/)\] ### You can't legislate serendipity URL: https://werd.io/you-cant-legislate-serendipity/ Last updated: 2025-12-02T17:50:30.000Z A decade and change ago, I used to tell a story about three startups I was involved with, as a way of explaining why the Bay Area startup ecosystem was special. It went like this: I founded my first startup in Edinburgh, Scotland. Everyone told me to get a real job and that it would never work. There were no investors. The second startup I was involved with was founded in Austin. Everyone was super-enthusiastic, but the investors didn’t understand how technology was built, and had mismatched expectations about how their money would be spent. The third was founded in San Francisco. Everyone was super-enthusiastic and the investors provided a ton of value because they knew the industry better than we did. It’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears, of course: the San Francisco porridge was just right. But it’s also true — or, at least, it was at the time. Since I founded that first startup in 2004, Edinburgh has developed a small startup scene. The Austin tech scene is significantly more sophisticated than it was. San Francisco, though, is still going strong, and the Bay Area ecosystem continues to dominate the tech industry. But *should* it? This year, the answer is not obviously yes. Major tech companies have made efforts to curry favor with the second Trump administration. Elon Musk held an official government position — and threw a Hitler salute on Inauguration Day — while figures like Larry Ellison have openly celebrated increasingly authoritarian governance models. AI vendors have positioned their services to be surveillance machines at their heart, ingesting huge amounts of sensitive data and training their products on copyrighted work without permission or compensation. Silicon Valley’s embrace of authoritarianism is concerning, but for governments and communities outside America's borders, the risk goes beyond ideology: using American software means submitting to American legal jurisdiction. Legislation like the [CLOUD Act](https://www.justice.gov/criminal/cloud-act-resources) allows data processed by US companies to be accessed by US law enforcement, even if it is gathered in countries with strong privacy rules. Using American software means importing American values and subjecting yourself to American rules. It’s no wonder, then, that jurisdictions like the EU have accelerated their efforts to create alternatives. If Silicon Valley’s values are becoming misaligned with democratic societies, it makes sense for those societies to look for alternatives. The [EuroStack](https://eurostack.eu/) might be the most prominent: a 300 Billion Euro plan for instigating a new European technology ecosystem that reduces dependence on US providers while promoting core values like privacy and transparency. The idea is that the initiative will establish standards, invest in technologies that meet those standards, and then encourage EU governments to default to buying those products. [Eurosky](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/european-project-eurosky-aims-reduce-reliance-us-tech-giants-2025-07-15/), meanwhile, is an effort to create a European alternative to social media, largely on top of Bluesky’s AT Protocol stack. It’s a potential candidate for funding by the EuroStack initiative, although it’s already got support from a range of non-profits. Interestingly, some of those are actually based in the US — most notably New\_ Public and Free Our Feeds. That’s because establishing data sovereignty in one jurisdiction benefits users everywhere: the standards, software, and models for collaboration are portable. If European users have genuine alternatives to US platforms, it creates competitive pressure that could improve privacy protections globally; more concretely, open protocols developed under European privacy standards become tools that users anywhere can deploy. These efforts strike me as being fundamentally top-down. The EuroStack seeks to create a framework of interoperability and support that startups and projects need to compete to be supported by. Eurosky dictates the protocols and methods through which a social media alternative can be built. Power in tech comes from two things at once: infrastructure and community. Europe is trying to rebuild the first, but it won’t succeed without the second. And I’m not seeing a ton of that in any of these new initiatives. In San Francisco, I once had coffee with a founder I’d only recently connected with online. By the afternoon, they’d pointed me in the direction of an expert advisor and an angel investor and talked me through their own failed company so I could learn from it. I was speaking with both of those new contacts within a day or two. That kind of generosity is the Valley’s real competitive advantage. Silicon Valley works because it’s a decentralized ecosystem: participants in the network receive backing from funds that are often powered by founders of previous ventures or other figures from successful tech companies. When they’re successful, they then pay it forward. The biggest defining feature of my own interactions there is that everyone is happy to meet and share their thoughts, advice, and connections. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll find funding, but you’ll certainly find a community of support. Venture capitalist [Brad Feld](https://feld.com/), studying how Boulder, Colorado built a thriving startup community despite being far from Silicon Valley, [identified what he calls the Boulder Thesis](https://feld.com/book/the-startup-community-way-evolving-an-entrepreneurial-ecosystem/): entrepreneurs must lead the community (not government or universities), leaders must commit long-term, the community must be radically inclusive, and there must be continual engagement. At its heart is the idea of offering help without defining what you’ll get in return: once again, a culture of paying it forward. That's the key. The real opportunity for Europe isn’t just to build an alternative tech stack: it’s to build an alternative tech *culture*. It’s far easier to establish a culture at the beginning of something than trying to graft it on to an existing process or community. There are existing tech communities in Europe, of course: lots of open tech in Berlin, e-commerce in Amsterdam, and so on. But these are archipelagos that, while producing interesting projects and successful companies, haven’t yet coalesced into an integrated ecosystem with Silicon Valley’s density and network effects. But culture is not the same as capital, and Europe keeps trying to buy with money and regulatory frameworks what Silicon Valley built with relationships. You can mandate standards, fund research programs, or require governments to prefer domestic vendors. What you can’t do is legislate serendipity: the hallway conversations, the shared failures, the informal mentorship networks, the introductions made because someone believes in someone else’s wild idea. That’s the real infrastructure of an ecosystem, and it’s still largely missing. That's not to say EuroStack's approach is wrong: it’s just missing a crucial piece. The funding and procurement frameworks will provide vital support for the right projects. But they’re means, not ends. Without relational infrastructure, they’re like building highways before anyone owns a car. So how do you establish that infrastructure? I look to [what Corey Ford calls *intentional serendipity*](https://pointc.co/coreyford/): cultivating a culture of curiosity, embracing uncertainty, acting on unexpected opportunities, failing fast, and understanding that the path to success is fundamentally nonlinear. For Europe, intentional serendipity would mean cultivating spaces where openness, privacy, and democratic governance aren’t just compliance requirements but shared values. A place where researchers, policymakers, and startup founders can be in the same room without hierarchy; where civic technologists and commercial technologists cross-pollinate; where people from different nations can build shared norms; where founders are backed for their mindsets, values, and capabilities rather than specific projects. Silicon Valley has social gravity; Europe needs social cohesion. That starts with intentionally connecting the people who want to build a different kind of internet. It also means not just forgiving failure but understanding that it’s part of the process. Silicon Valley’s culture of rapid iteration emerged because people could take risks without being exiled if things didn’t work out; their peers knew that failure was information. Europe’s emerging ecosystem, burdened by a more risk-averse, less failure-friendly culture, will need to intentionally build that same muscle of iteration. The goal isn’t to mimic the Valley, but to create an environment that encourages principled risk-taking, recognizing that failure is a core part of learning. This means creating a safe-to-fail environment where founders are encouraged to share their setbacks as an essential part of learning and community-building. To do so, it needs to build those spaces and invest in those communities. Yes, procurement and funding scenarios are important, but they’re scaffolding that help a cultivated community grow in the right direction. What’s most important is the *relational* infrastructure: non-hierarchical hubs and opportunities for informal mentorship that let relationships form, building trust and allowing ideas to spread at speed. All of these spaces need to be built and supported — ideally in a way that’s accessible to everyone, rather than being the kinds of closed-off members-only spaces that dominate ecosystems like London. These accessible [third places](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third%5Fplace) form the sort of community infrastructure that government is uniquely positioned to provide. It’s not *all* about community. In a world where tech is strongly linked with authoritarianism, the values frameworks those European projects are talking about are vital. In this era of history, we *need* those values to succeed. My point is not that we should copy the Silicon Valley playbook; it’s that those values and frameworks *won’t* succeed without the community culture work. Europe can and should cultivate an ethos of intentional serendipity, but with its own values and identity, supported by the kinds of frameworks, procurement policies, and standards it’s proposing. Instead of importing Silicon Valley’s assumptions, it can build an ecosystem that reflects its political and cultural commitments: openness, privacy, pluralism, and democratic accountability. That would be a fourth kind of story: not Edinburgh’s discouragement, or Austin’s enthusiasm without alignment, or San Francisco’s density of expertise, but something genuinely new. And that, I think, is the one the world needs next. ### Where Do the Children Play? URL: https://werd.io/where-do-the-children-play/ Last updated: 2025-12-02T16:15:14.000Z \[[Eli Stark-Elster in Unpublishable Papers](https://unpublishablepapers.substack.com/p/where-do-the-children-play)\] This meaningful discussion touches on the role — and dangers — of online spaces in the lives of children, but has a lot more to say about how our lives and environments are designed overall. > “\[…\] Digital space is the only place left where children can grow up without us. For most of our evolutionary history, childhood wasn’t an adult affair. Independent worlds and peer cultures were the crux of development, as they still are among the BaYaka; kids spent their time together, largely beyond the prying eyes of grown-ups. > > But in the West, the grown-ups have paved over the forests and creeks where children would have once hidden. They have exposed the secret places. So the children seek out a world of their own, as they have for millennia, if not longer. They find a proverbial forest to wander. They don’t know what we know: this forest has eyes and teeth.” There are some really striking statistics here. 45% of American children aged 8-12 have not walked in a different aisle than their parents at a store; 61% have not made plans with friends without adults helping them. That’s so far away from my own childhood to be unrecognizable. It’s also wildly oppressive. Of *course* kids are looking for spaces where their helicopter parents aren’t constantly hovering overhead. The biggest source of underlying fears from parents, as well as feelings of isolation from children themselves? A car-centric culture. Parents are worried about their children being hit by a car, which unfortunately isn’t unreasonable. Children, on the other hand, can’t drive, and often find themselves fully unable to visit friends or have their own lives without the participation of someone with a license. So, yes, online spaces need to be safer for children — but our lived-in spaces also need to be more human. American infrastructure in particular is architected for control; it’s rare to live in a walkable, safe environment. [Jane Jacobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%5FJacobs) would have had a lot to say about this analysis, and her own solutions still hold up. We need to stop dividing communities, break the influence of the car, and create spaces that allow humans to roam, live, eat, and play — permissionlessly. \[[Link](https://unpublishablepapers.substack.com/p/where-do-the-children-play)\] ### Introducing Roundabout URL: https://werd.io/introducing-roundabout/ Last updated: 2025-12-02T01:11:16.000Z \[[Hays Witt and Josh Kramer at New\_ Public](https://newpublic.substack.com/p/introducing-roundabout-built-for)\] Really interesting to see [New\_ Public](https://newpublic.org/) announce its first community product from its [Local Lab](https://newpublic.org/local): > “The main thing to know, maybe the most important thing, is that this is not just another social media app. Roundabout is a community space, built from the ground up with community leaders and neighbors. > > \[…\] As a project incubated within New\_ Public, a nonprofit, Roundabout will grow incrementally, sustained by a diverse and balanced set of revenue sources. With business incentives aligned towards utility and everyday value, instead of engagement and relentless scale, we’re designing Roundabout to be shielded from the cycle of enshittification. The ultimate goal is to build for social trust — every decision, every design, optimized to build bonds and increase belonging.” There’s a lot to comment on here. It’s *amazing* to see a social product co-designed with communities. For the safety and equity of all involved, this is how it should be done. I really hope New\_ Public shows off more of its methodology in the future. I’d love to dive into the meta-conversation about what they’ve learned about this kind of co-design. The descriptions of participating communities — in Burlington, NC; Richmond, VA; Lincoln County, WI; North Chattanooga, TN; and Lancaster, PA — are already really promising. The technical lead is [Blaine Cook](https://bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.social), who you might remember as Twitter’s first employee and first CTO. Since then he’s been a strong, sharp advocate for decentralized social. On Mastodon, New\_ Public [mentioned that it’s building the platform in a way that’s compatible with AT Protocol](https://mastodon.social/@wearenew%5Fpublic/115645643962877064), although it’s not the main focus for now. Over on Bluesky, [Blaine said they’re](https://bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.social/post/3m6vbrdgvn22a) “building on atproto primitives but off-network because it's currently not possible to push private/scoped data around the wider atproto network.” He also made the important point that it’s not worth building for interop until you know what the user behaviors are actually going to be — so it’s too early to focus on decentralization. That community co-design is key, and it makes sense that this is the first step. Communities are human; they can’t be defined by protocols. The protocols should describe real human behavior, not the other way around. I’m excited to see how the platform develops, and how New\_ Public seeds the ecosystem conversations around it. And: this is only one of its community initiatives. There’s more to come. \[[Link](https://newpublic.substack.com/p/introducing-roundabout-built-for)\] ### What Happens After the Hype? Lessons from Mobile Internet’s Long Road to Success URL: https://werd.io/what-happens-after-the-hype-lessons-from-mobile-internets-long-road-to-success/ Last updated: 2025-12-01T14:34:14.000Z \[[Shomila Malik](https://shomila.medium.com/what-happens-after-the-hype-lessons-from-mobile-internets-long-road-to-success-22d0b15e0625)\] We’re beginning to see the end of the AI hype cycle, and thank goodness. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t uses for aspects of the technology, but it does mean that some of the hyperbole will diminish as investors and speculators move on to the next thing. As [Ecrue](https://ecruecard.com/) founder Shomila Malik points out here: > “The question isn’t whether the current AI investment cycle will face a reckoning. It’s what form that reckoning takes — and what comes after.” The lessons she draws from the mobile industry’s hype and decline also parallel what happened during the dotcom crash, when a lot of companies went away but a lot of underlying useful infrastructure was left for the next generation of innovations. But a facet of how those two events were different is exactly *how* they imploded: > “The difference between a pop and a deflation often comes down to how adaptable the infrastructure is. 3G networks built for one vision of mobile internet ended up powering something completely different — but they still got used. The investment wasn’t wasted, just redirected. Time will tell if AI will be a deflation like mobile internet or a ear deafening explosion like the dot com crash.” Either way, investment is way ahead of proven capabilities or even business models. Companies like OpenAI are losing money hand over fist. At some point, these endeavors have to touch oxygen, and either they’ll find their way to stunning profitability, or they’ll fizzle into acquisitions at best and leave some interesting ideas behind. My bet? Ten years from now we’ll be looking at a series of smaller, more focused models that perform well-scoped tasks really well, and we’ll look back at the hype around generalized megamodels — and particularly AGI — with rolled eyes and a slight shudder when we remember the environmental and human impacts. \[[Link](https://shomila.medium.com/what-happens-after-the-hype-lessons-from-mobile-internets-long-road-to-success-22d0b15e0625)\] ### Knowing when to leave URL: https://werd.io/knowing-when-to-leave/ Last updated: 2025-11-30T17:12:19.000Z *I wrote this in my blog drafts well over a decade ago (exact date unclear). I thought I'd publish it as-is as an aside. I'm sure it was going to be an excellent full post, but clearly this is just the intro. I still agree though: knowing when to go is important!* Some years ago, someone I worked with closely on a project that was failing had a mini-meltdown. He unfriended the rest of the team across social media, including the official accounts, which he took over unilaterally; he refused to even sit at the same table as the rest of the team on company trips, and at events. To this day, I still don't exactly know what triggered the episode. But it was a moment that made me realize the project we were working on together could never succeed. Four months later, I had extracted myself. Years later, I believe this was the wrong decision. Knowing when to leave is an important skill. You've got to balance your loyalty, and your long-term career, against the objective facts in any situation. Leaving a project early is not a good idea: it sends a message that you're ready to flake out when times get tough. (In a startup situation, times *will* get tough.) However, if a project: - genuinely has no long-term prospects, either for you personally or as a whole - and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it - and the situation is not directly of your own making You need to think about going. Anything else is running on a treadmill for no reason. ### imperfect notes & my second subconscious URL: https://werd.io/imperfect-notes-my-second-subconscious/ Last updated: 2025-11-30T14:22:24.000Z \[[Winnie Lim](https://winnielim.org/journal/imperfect-notes-my-second-subconscious/)\] I’ve never been a successful notetaker. [Winnie Lim](https://winnielim.org/) enumerates the many reasons why not, which seem to be very close to her thinking too: > “Because of my personality I tend to solve for the whole before wanting to do something. For years I wanted to figure out how I could retrieve the notes in a meaningful manner before I committed to making them. If I cannot remember I had made the note, did the note really exist?” The problem is that you end up trying to come up with a smart taxonomy of notes ahead of time — and that’s always bound to fail, at least for me. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve wiped my Obsidian vault clean because I didn’t like the structure or the maintenance of it all threatened to overtake any utility. Instead, as Winnie points out, the best thing to do is just *write the note*. It’s a bit like throwing the text into a big bucket, and that’s okay. I hate to say it, but this might be a decent use case for some kind of personal LLM (ideally on-device so I’m not sharing my private notes with a third party I don’t trust). If you’re constantly just making notes without structure, being able to ask something about their content feels like it would have a lot of utility — again, at least for me. I’d love to be able to have my notes about a certain topic summarized when I need them. Or even have the summary proactively come up for me depending on my context. Then again, maybe that doesn’t matter at all: > “My brain is constantly holding scattered bits of information so it is just better to offload them somewhere in one place. I think the main difference is I don’t see obsidian as my second brain, I see it as my second subconscious.” I like that. Blogging is a little bit that for me, but blogging has an audience. There’s something useful in being the Harriet the Spy of your own life and putting words to things that otherwise might go unsaid. There’s poetry in it, too, which is very obvious from Winnie’s post. I’ll give notetaking another try. \[[Link](https://winnielim.org/journal/imperfect-notes-my-second-subconscious/)\] ### "Disagree and Let’s See" URL: https://werd.io/disagree-and-lets-see/ Last updated: 2025-11-30T14:02:39.000Z \[[Molly Graham](https://mollyg.substack.com/p/disagree-and-lets-see)\] This feels emotionally honest and an idea I can get behind, as an alternative to the popular “disagree and commit”: > ““Disagree and let’s see” allows you to stay aligned with the team without forcing you to pretend you had conviction you didn’t have. It lets you walk into a room with your team and be honest: > > “Here’s the path that was chosen. It wasn’t my first pick, but here’s the experiment we’re running, and here’s what we’re trying to learn.”” Committing to something you disagree with is an emotional contortion that is hard to do in practice. But the work of every team is a series of experiments at its heart, and by changing the onus from “let’s commit to this thing we don’t all agree with” to “let’s try it and see what happens”, we move from steamrollering dissent to mutually agreeing on an experimental hypothesis and testing it. You’re learning based on agreed criteria. That’s much harder to argue with — and at the end, there’s no “I told you so” or winners and losers. There’s just a “here’s what we learned” and an implied set of next steps. Bliss. It's worth saying that this was the original intention when Jeff Bezos coined the phrase [in his 2016 letter to Amazon shareholders](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2016-letter-to-shareholders): > Third, use the phrase “disagree and commit.” This phrase will save a lot of time. If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there’s no consensus, it’s helpful to say, “Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?” By the time you’re at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you’ll probably get a quick yes. > > This isn’t one way. If you’re the boss, you should do this too. I disagree and commit all the time. We recently greenlit a particular Amazon Studios original. I told the team my view: debatable whether it would be interesting enough, complicated to produce, the business terms aren’t that good, and we have lots of other opportunities. They had a completely different opinion and wanted to go ahead. I wrote back right away with “I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we’ve ever made.” Consider how much slower this decision cycle would have been if the team had actually had to convince me rather than simply get my commitment. The perception among many people is that it's morphed into a kind of corporate authoritarianism. So in some ways, "disagree and let's see" is just a course correction back to its original intent. \[[Link](https://mollyg.substack.com/p/disagree-and-lets-see)\] ### The Optical Illusion of Prosperity URL: https://werd.io/the-optical-illusion-of-prosperity/ Last updated: 2025-11-29T15:01:04.000Z \[[Michael W. Green](https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-lie?open=false#%C2%A7how-a-broken-benchmark-quietly-broke-america)\] Simplify Asset Management’s Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager [Michael W Green](https://www.yesigiveafig.com/) examined how the US poverty line is calculated, and discovered that it has been wildly miscalculated for years. In fact: > “\[…\] if you measured income inadequacy today the way Orshansky measured it in 1963, the threshold for a family of four wouldn’t be $31,200. > > It would be somewhere between $130,000 and $150,000.” The big differentiator is childcare, which in the US averages out at $32,773 a year, but it’s not the *only* differentiator. Our costs are enormous, and a poverty line at $31,200 only really helps legislators avoid having to provide (and therefore pay for) real support. A family of four that genuinely earns $32,773 will receive all kinds of state help. A family that earns $80,000 does not. As Green points out, the difference largely comes from costs that went away during the pandemic: > Childcare ($32k): Suspended. Kids were home. > > Commuting ($15k): Suspended. > > Work Lunches/Clothes ($5k): Suspended. Of course, many incomes *also* went away, depending on the jobs that were keeping these families afloat. Knowledge workers were relatively sitting pretty, while people who worked in retail, etc, were in trouble. There’s a lot more help that we can provide *everyone*. But this is one reason why I cannot stand return to office mandates, particularly when peoples’ salaries are under the $140,000 threshold that Green identifies. (Hint: outside high earning categories like big tech, it’s almost all of them, and inside those categories there are plenty of people who are earning lower.) It sounds like Green is moving to show that 401(k)s and similar instruments are also a scam for most ordinary earners — something I tend to agree with. If society is an operating system that allows people to live well, start businesses, be healthy, etc, it’s failing us on every level. I say it’s time for an upgrade. \[[Link](https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-lie?open=false#%C2%A7how-a-broken-benchmark-quietly-broke-america)\] ### The EFF we need now URL: https://werd.io/the-eff-we-need-now/ Last updated: 2025-11-25T15:50:56.000Z I used to walk past a nondescript grey office building at the intersection of 2nd and Folsom in San Francisco. It’s the kind of corporate architecture that litters every city but nobody really loves: featureless grey walls stretch to the sky, interrupted by the occasional column of sliding windows. At its feet, a brick courtyard. Trees line the sidewalk but somehow only serve to highlight the lifelessness of the construction. I walked past it every day, making my way through the San Francisco gloom to catch a BART train home. I used to think nothing of it. The [internet backbone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet%5Fbackbone) — the high-speed fiber-optic cables and routers that carry data across countries and continents — is where the internet's heavy lifting happens. Despite the internet’s theoretically decentralized design, this is vital infrastructure, operated by major commercial, governmental, and educational organizations. It's where ISPs plug in to get the connectivity they provide to the rest of us: almost all internet traffic flows along it. In that nondescript grey building, across the street from a liquor store, a device in room 641A was intercepting the traffic from the internet backbone and sending it straight to the NSA. As it turned out, it was just one of many secret rooms set up to spy on global internet traffic. This was a clear civil liberties violation: the NSA and AT&T were actively collaborating on a wide-scale, illegal program to wiretap and mine the communications of American citizens. [The Electronic Frontier Foundation](https://eff.org) filed a class action lawsuit, [Hepting v AT&T](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting%5Fv.%5FAT%26T), on behalf of AT&T customers. Ultimately, it was dismissed after a Bush-era Act of Congress [gave American communications companies retroactive immunity for conducting mass surveillance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FISA%5Fof%5F1978%5FAmendments%5FAct%5Fof%5F2008). But filing the case exposed the scale of warrantless surveillance to the public: a pivotal moment that fundamentally changed how Americans understood the government’s abuse of their trust and privacy. That was back in 2006\. The internet is orders of magnitude larger now, and exponentially more influential. However you feel about him, it’s hard to argue that President Trump’s second administration would be in place without the ways online social media has reshaped our public discourse. And the first few months of that administration were very much of the internet: it hired meme-pilled internet software engineers and inserted them into government institutions, [exposing their databases to proprietary LLMs](https://www.techpolicy.press/doge-is-using-ai-to-centralize-government-power-its-time-to-flip-the-script-/) and threatening the privacy of every American. LLMs themselves have become load-bearing in our economy, while their vendors seek to connect them to data about our businesses, our personal lives, and our civil societies. Technology is now so embedded in daily life, so entangled with power, that digital civil liberties *are* civil liberties. It’s a world where police reports are [written by AI using software designed to avoid public accountability](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/axons-draft-one-designed-defy-transparency); where [networked public safety sensors are being used to surveil activists](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/how-cops-are-using-flock-safetys-alpr-network-surveil-protesters-and-activists); where technology is increasingly used to ratchet up authoritarian agendas. We need the EFF more than ever. So what would it look like for EFF to meet this moment head-on? Understanding that the way technology intersects with society has evolved, and knowing that [its executive director Cindy Cohn is stepping down](https://www.wired.com/story/eff-cindy-cohn-stepping-down/), I thought I’d explore — hypothetically — how I would lead it into its next era. ### A focused mission If I were leading the EFF into its next chapter, the first thing I’d do is narrow its mission to the core civil liberties most under threat today. This isn’t because I believe the organization should do less, but because the threats themselves have evolved. The EFF’s foundational battles were fought against wiretaps, data retention laws, corporate surveillance, and NSA overreach. Those battles still matter. But the nature of power has shifted. In 2006, surveillance required government action and corporate complicity: a secret room, a communications company that could be compelled to cooperate, a classified program. Today, surveillance is a product you can buy off the shelf. It’s no longer a back-room conspiracy; it's a business model. [Axon sells AI-generated police reports designed to evade transparency](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/axons-draft-one-designed-defy-transparency). When asked how to identify which reports were AI-written, the company admitted there's “no filter” for that. [Flock Safety operates nationwide license plate readers used to track protest activity](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/how-cops-are-using-flock-safetys-alpr-network-surveil-protesters-and-activists); more than 50 agencies searched the network hundreds of times targeting activists in 2024\. [Clearview AI scrapes billions of faces](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/clearview-ai-yet-another-example-why-we-need-ban-law-enforcement-use-face). [Palantir automates deportations](https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-immigrationos-palantir-ai-track-immigrants/). The surveillance market is booming, and government agencies are eager customers. Foundation model companies — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta — are positioning themselves as the infrastructure layer beneath all of it, building AI systems into every consequential decision about our lives while the Trump administration experiments with connecting federal databases directly to these proprietary systems. The result is a world where private companies hold the levers of surveillance. The most intrusive forms of data extraction don’t need secret rooms in AT&T buildings anymore; all you need is API access or a subscription to a data broker. The systems that shape public life — from policing to immigration to healthcare to elections — are increasingly governed by software owned by a handful of corporations, which only they can inspect or question. And governments have learned to exploit this privatized surveillance infrastructure to sidestep constitutional protections that would limit them if they built these systems themselves. [EFF's stated mission](https://www.eff.org/about) is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. I don’t think that goes far enough. In this era, much technology has become a tool for the powerful to erode the civil rights of the vulnerable in service of their own wealth and power. To rise to meet this new threat, the EFF’s mission should be dialed up to confront it directly and explain exactly how the organization operates. Perhaps something like: To defend civil liberties in the digital age through law, code, and advocacy. These three strands, in turn, could be explained as follows: - Law: Strategic litigation to establish precedents that constrain how technology can be used against people's rights, from forcing transparency in algorithmic decision-making to protecting encryption from backdoors to defeating mandates that expand surveillance. - Code: Technical infrastructure for accountability and freedom: tools that let people protect themselves (like Privacy Badger and Certbot), systems that let researchers audit AI in government (like investigative frameworks for exposing products like Axon’s Draft One), and support for decentralized protocols that resist centralized control. - Advocacy: Public campaigns, coalition building, and policy development to reshape how technology intersects with power. This can include storytelling about systems designed to be invisible, movement-building as a force multiplier against abuses of technology, and building strong partnerships with adjacent organizations and grassroots communities to make sure the EFF’s work is effective and rooted in real needs. ### A unified threat model To make that mission real, the EFF needs a coherent, modern understanding of how power operates today: a threat model that doesn’t carve the world into separate issues like “privacy,” “free speech,” “innovation,” or “AI,” but sees all of them as manifestations of the same underlying problem. This model should anchor everything the organization does, across law, code, and advocacy. As I’ve tried to describe above, I think the current threat can be summarized as follows: *Technology is increasingly being used as a force multiplier for institutional power, at the expense of the civil rights and freedoms of people around the world.* It needs to be more than just a headline, of course. Translating it into action means articulating a detailed, unified threat model that explains where power is accumulating, how technology is being used to accumulate it, which rights are most at risk, and where these risks are most urgent. It should be continually developed through three core mechanisms: - Analysis: the EFF employs experts across law, code, and activism, each of whom should be expected to stay on top of current threats and articulate how they have changed. - Research: it should be in constant communication with researchers and experts at similar organizations, research centers, and universities, and should draw on that expertise and new research. - Community: it should also be in constant communication with the people who are most affected by oppressive policies and misuse of technology. It’s one thing to have an academic understanding of the current landscape; it’s quite another to know the people most affected, understand their lives holistically, and be able to have insights into the effects that might be invisible if it was operating at a purely analytical level. Qualitative research is vital. This model should be updated at least annually and published in public. It should be clear to any new reader how the organization actively uses it to make decisions. Most importantly, it should tie every strand of EFF’s work back to the same core question: how is technology being used to undermine rights and freedoms, and how can we stop it? By grounding its litigation, technical research, and public advocacy in a shared analytic framework, the EFF can move from a collection of related projects to a strategically unified organization: one that understands the full connected system of repression through technology. This also gives the EFF a mandate to be more selective depending on what the current threats are. Not every tech policy debate requires EFF's voice. Patent reform, while important, doesn't fit today’s threat model as directly as accountability for AI in policing. For example, it’s worth re-evaluating [the EFF’s position on AI training data](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/ai-and-copyright-expanding-copyright-hurts-everyone-heres-what-do-instead) in the light of the current threat model. The organization has argued against licensing requirements for training, framing them as barriers to innovation. But if the threat is centralized AI power, the biggest risk isn’t to other AI companies who might find it harder to compete with licensing restrictions in place. It’s to the people whose data and work is being trained on in service of increasingly centralized power. With a clearer threat model, it becomes more obvious that any policies and activities need to center *them*. ### Unified priorities From the unified threat model, you can derive priorities that cut across law, code, and advocacy. Based on the model I outlined above, one might derive the following strategic priorities: - Building accountability infrastructure for automated systems in government. When AI makes consequential decisions about core elements of civic life like policing, immigration, benefits, or housing, those systems must be transparent and challengeable. The Axon investigation model needs to scale: mandatory disclosure requirements, public registries, standardized audit processes, enforcement with actual consequences. - Preventing centralization of AI capabilities. Foundation models are becoming infrastructure for power. This requires both fighting for decentralized alternatives and imposing constraints on concentrated control, including the data practices and exclusive partnerships that entrench monopolies. - Defending the infrastructure of dissent. Surveillance of organizing attacks the First Amendment directly. When Flock Safety can track activists across 50+ agencies, democratic organizing is under threat. Protect encryption, anonymity, secure communications, and the right to organize without surveillance. (I’ve used *dissent* rather than *speech* deliberately; it ties more directly to the specific threats in the current model and demands a more focused response than broader First Amendment advocacy.) From there, you’d break down each strand into activities across law, code, and advocacy. To make this more concrete, let’s take the infrastructure of dissent as an example, and examine some of the EFF’s existing activities through this lens. - Law: [the EFF and ACLU jointly filed a lawsuit](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/lawsuit-challenges-san-joses-warrantless-alpr-mass-surveillance) to prevent the San Jose Police Department from conducting warrantless searches of “the stored records of millions of drivers’ private habits, movements, and associations”. It has filed amicus briefs defending the right to criticize government on social media, and [helped to defeat a California bill requiring age verification](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/court-california-try-privacy-law-not-online-censorship) (which would create infrastructure for tracking who accesses what content). It also filed a FOIA lawsuit to determine whether “officials crossed the line from communicating with tech companies into unconstitutional coercion” [when websites and apps designed to report on ICE activities were removed](https://www.eff.org/cases/eff-v-doj-dhs-ice-tracking-apps). - Code: The EFF already works on tools like [Privacy Badger](https://privacybadger.org/) and [Certbot](https://certbot.eff.org/), which help prevent web users from being surveilled in two different ways (one by preventing spying in the browser, and the other by making it easier for web services to be encrypted). With a dissent focus, it could build and support tools actively designed to keep protesters safe in the field. - Advocacy: The EFF publishes work like [Surveillance Self-Defense](https://www.eff.org/pages/surveillance-self-defense), a guide to protecting yourself from surveillance using secure software and smart personal digital security practices that already includes [safety information about attending protests](https://ssd.eff.org/module/attending-protest) and a [protest pocket guide](https://ssd.eff.org/files/ssd/wysiwyg/attachments/1345/2024%5Fprotestguide.pdf). A dissent focus could lead it to providing more information about how to keep attendees safe when you’re organizing a protest, or about publishing dissenting material online in a way that keeps you safe and is resistant to censorship. I could walk through similar breakdowns for the other priorities, showing how building accountability for automated systems requires litigation forcing disclosure, investigative frameworks for auditing, and campaigns for transparency laws; or how preventing AI centralization requires challenging monopolistic practices, supporting open alternatives, and advocating for interoperability. But the pattern should be clear: each priority integrates law, code, and advocacy, all anchored in the same threat model. Of course, each of those should be shaped through the analysis, research, and community threads I identified earlier. A tool or a work of advocacy needs to be rooted in the real needs of real communities and produced in partnership with them. Open source and participative models of engagement are crucial ways to not just multiply the impact of the organization’s work, but ensure that it doesn’t become blinkered by its own internal culture. ### I don’t know what I don’t know Of course, none of this is easy. I *don’t* run the EFF. Legal work, building open source communities, and growing coalitions all take time, effort, and resources. There are also practical realities I haven’t necessarily addressed: I’ve reduced the importance of protecting innovation in its mission, but doing so could jeopardize its funding from some big-dollar donors. The people who know how to run the EFF best are the people who already do. But I do think this moment demands focus and a more confrontational mission, and sometimes an outside perspective can help sharpen that. In 2006, the NSA tapped the internet backbone in rooms across the country that were like the one at 2nd and Folsom. EFF filed a lawsuit, exposed the program, and changed how Americans understood surveillance. Today’s threat is more diffuse: not one grey building but thousands of companies selling surveillance products; not one secret program but a thriving marketplace. The cumulative risk is not just the immediate threat to civil liberties, but that these technologies will establish a new normal that will ratchet up surveillance and oppression forever. Strategic resistance is more critical than ever. The EFF has so much in its favor: legal expertise, technical capability, public trust, and thirty-five years of hard-won precedent. What it needs now is the strategic clarity to deploy those tools where they'll matter most: not reacting to every threat, but taking a systems thinking approach to understanding how power operates through technology and fighting that system directly. It’s a truly great, historically important organization. I think it can meet the moment. And we need it to. ### Of the web URL: https://werd.io/of-the-web/ Last updated: 2025-11-24T15:11:41.000Z \[[Dave Winer on Scripting News](http://scripting.com/2025/11/24/141418.html)\] I think [Dave Winer](https://scripting.com) makes an important distinction here: > “For a piece of software, being of the web means that it is built to share data with other apps, ones that receive data as input, as a feed reader consumes feeds, or generate output for other apps, e.g. software used to publish feeds. Or competitive apps, that do roughly the same thing another app does, and want to be able to receive the user's data, or better, share the users' data so they can use both apps (we shouldn't settle for less than this, imho).” By his definition, most web apps are on the web, but not *of* it. This seems right to me, and I suspect web instigators like Tim Berners-Lee would agree. The odd thing is that, for a while, desktop software did exactly this. Word would save a document in a particular format, and another application written by someone else entirely could open that document. When we moved to the cloud, we signed up for a computing environment that was as much about siloing and isolation as much as it was about ease of access and maintenance. Some of the effects of that are good: zero trust enterprise services have made organizations more secure. But the obvious benefit for vendors is lock-in. That’s been true for decades: the whole thrust of the tech side of my has been helping to remove gatekeepers and empower people to access the data and services they need, on their terms. These days, some jurisdictions have legislation to help prevent that. But the web, as Dave points out, was never about lock-in. As Tim Berners-Lee made clear, again and again: this is for everyone. It’s a public domain platform, using open protocols, that allows anyone to publish, share, and read. Anything that’s truly of the web is in line with those principles — and those principles are worth protecting. \[[Link](http://scripting.com/2025/11/24/141418.html)\] ### The State of the Open Social Web URL: https://werd.io/the-state-of-the-open-social-web/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T00:30:56.000Z With [today’s news of a new leadership team for Mastodon](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-build-together/), I thought it would be a good time to take stock of the state of the open social web. I’m not new to this space, or an impartial observer: I co-founded [Elgg](https://elgg.org), one of the first open source social networking platforms, over twenty years ago. It was used by governments, Fortune 500 companies, global NGOs, and universities, and embraced early open standards. [Known](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/known/), a social publishing platform I co-founded, was used by media companies to build award-winning communities. And I’m on the board of [A New Social](https://anew.social), a non-profit dedicated to bridging open social platforms. ### What is the open social web? When you think of social media, many of the platforms you think of are what we call *proprietary*: their underlying software is private to the companies that build them, and it’s very difficult to move your data or your connections anywhere else. They are, in a very real way, closed. The [indie web movement](https://indieweb.org) goes so far as to call them *silos*. These proprietary silos include: - [X](https://x.com) (formerly Twitter): now owned by Elon Musk, [who actively promotes far-right voices on the platform and in its algorithms](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-elon-musk-uses-his-x-social-media-platform-to-amplify-right-wing-views). - Meta’s platforms: chiefly [Facebook](https://facebook.com), [Instagram](https://instagram.com), [Threads](https://threads.com), and [WhatsApp](https://whatsapp.com). (A caveat for Threads follows below.) Meta was, of course, credibly accused of [substantially contributing to the genocide in Myanmar](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/) by Amnesty and others. Owners of pages across Meta properties increasingly find that they need to pay to reach their followers. - [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/), which is [now controlled by the Trump-aligned Ellison family](https://www.npr.org/2025/10/06/nx-s1-5560216/who-is-larry-ellison-the-billionaire-trump-friend-whos-part-of-the-tiktok-takeover). - [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com), the business network owned by Microsoft, which has placed itself in the middle of many hiring and job-seeking processes, and whose professional subscription costs between $30 and $100 a month. Anyone whose brand or livelihood depends on these networks has created risk for themselves: there’s nothing to stop any of them from changing their business policies in a detrimental way, as X did [when it labeled NPR as state-affiliated media](https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label). Any of these networks could disappear, [as TikTok almost did in the US](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tiktok-may-not-be-chinese-owned-anymore-but-there-still-is-a-privacy-problem/) before being strong-armed into selling its US business to a Trump ally. And referrals to websites could dry up, [as happened in Canada when Meta stopped linking to news sites](https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2024/09/12/how-metas-news-ban-reshaped-canadian-media/). Proprietary silos each have an owner that can, ultimately, do what it wants with them. At best, that can mean that users receive content through curated feeds that might suppress certain kinds of content (including links to certain publishers) and promote others. At worst, it means that traffic and reach could disappear at any time. In contrast, open social web platforms are designed *not* to be silos. While each platform is built by a core vendor or community, they run on open protocols that *anyone* can build software for. ### Why should you care? Remember AOL? That was a closed silo. To publish content, you needed to have a relationship with AOL the company. But you don’t need to have a relationship with anyone in particular to publish a website. The open social web works the same way as the web itself: it’s permissionless. You don’t need to have a relationship with anyone in particular to have a profile and gain reach. And that means nobody can take it away from you. Just as AOL became less and less relevant, because maintaining a relationship with AOL the company was more friction than simply publishing a website, silos will become less important and the open social web will become more important over time. It’s early days in that movement. The user bases are still small in comparison. Today, these networks are still mostly filled with early adopters. In my direct experience working with [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), they’re more likely to engage with journalism and information, more likely to donate to non-profit causes, and more likely to re-share according to their values — perhaps because they’re people who have self-selected to move away from proprietary silos. That means these networks are worth engaging with now — and because they will continue to grow, doing so is a good investment in the future. So what *are* those open social web platforms and what is their status today? ✉️ I write about technology that serves journalism and democracy, and work with newsrooms, open source movements, and startups. [****Sign up for a free newsletter subscription**](https://werd.io/#/portal/subscribe) or [****book a call to see how I can help you**](https://werd.io/call/). ### Prevailing open social web networks There are two main open social web networks. This isn’t so much a rivalry as a technical consideration: each is based on a different open protocol. I’ll describe them both in turn. #### The Fediverse You’ve probably heard of [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/). When Musk bought Twitter in late 2022, this was the first network that people flocked to, although it had been running for many years before that. It can be hard for newcomers to get their head around. Whereas to join a silo network you just go to that network’s website and sign up, Mastodon is best thought of as a co-operative network of smaller communities, each with their own rules and culture. That means that signing up involves choosing a community you trust and signing up to *that*, which is a big ask. How, after all, do you know? In reality, you can’t go wrong by joining [mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social), the flagship community run by the project itself. ![A Mastodon screenshot](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/11/image.png) Source: [Mastodon blog](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/mastodon-4.5/) But you don’t need to use Mastodon’s software to join the network. This brings us back to Meta’s Threads: it has support for the underlying protocol, so you can actually talk to and follow Mastodon users from there (and they can follow you). For publishers, [Flipboard](https://flipboard.com) has become [“a Fediverse browser”](https://thelettertwo.com/2024/12/15/behind-flipboard-fediverse-embrace-mike-mccue-interview/) (particularly in tandem with its newsreader [Surf](https://surf.social/), which I use every day), while the [Newsmast Foundation](https://www.newsmastfoundation.org/) is working to onboard newsrooms and surface trustworthy journalism on the network. [Ghost](https://ghost.org) and [WordPress](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/) both now have extensive support (Ghost's keeps getting slicker and slicker). And there’s a long tail of other platforms like [Bonfire](https://bonfirenetworks.org/) and [Friendica](https://friendi.ca/) that are compatible, too, all powered by the underlying [ActivityPub](https://activitypub.rocks/) protocol. ![A Flipboard Surf screenshot](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/11/image-3-1.png) Source: [Flipboard Surf, via TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/20/flipboards-new-app-surf-adds-its-own-video-feed-too/) Regardless, Mastodon is definitely the flagship. It’s also the only European major social network. A longtime German entity, [its non-profit status was stripped some years ago](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/04/mastodon-forms-new-u.s.-non-profit/#mastodons-non-profit-status-in-germany) (the team says it was never told why), [and it’s now in transition to becoming a Belgian AISBL](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-build-together/). Backers include Craig Newmark, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone (who once sat on the advisory board for Elgg, the open source social networking platform I co-founded), and Stack Overflow co-founder Jeff Atwood. Critics say it hasn’t focused enough on user experience, that it feels too different from other networks, and that it can be a bit nerdier. The thing is, there’s still everything to play for here: a solid foundation, millions of dedicated users, and a governance and business model that’s very different to the Silicon Valley norm. And at the time of writing, Mastodon just announced a new executive team that includes a lead dedicated to the communities it runs. That new lead, Hannah Aubry, is incredibly important. Bluesky has made great strides by focusing on the culture of its own flagship site, and there’s much more that Mastodon could do here. I’m personally more excited about Mastodon than ever. Even if it fails — which I don’t believe it will — it’s forging a brave and different path. **Quick facts about the Fediverse:** - Flagship platform: [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org) - Fastest place to sign up: [mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social) - Other platforms: [Ghost](https://ghost.org), [Flipboard](https://flipboard.com), [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.social/), [Friendica](https://friendi.ca), [etc](https://fediverse.party/) - Funding model: Mastodon is becoming a Belgian non-profit. It also has a US 501(c)3 and an original German entity that it is moving away from. It is funded through donations and [its own managed hosting services](https://joinmastodon.org/hosting). - Advocacy groups: [Social Web Foundation](https://socialwebfoundation.org/) - Underlying protocol: [ActivityPub](https://activitypub.rocks) #### The ATmosphere The network built on the [AT Protocol](https://atproto.com/) — often playfully called “The ATmosphere” — functions a bit differently. On Mastodon, you join a neighborhood; on Bluesky, you rent a storage unit that any app can access. [Bluesky](https://bsky.social) began as an internal Twitter project championed by then-CEO Jack Dorsey. Concerned about political pressure on Twitter’s content decisions, he imagined moving parts of the platform’s governance onto an open protocol that nobody could fully control. In that vision, Twitter itself might eventually run on the underlying protocol. In its earliest phase, Bluesky was essentially a working group of open-source developers exploring what a “locked-open” social protocol might look like. [Jay Graber](https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team) quickly emerged as the clearest technical and organizational leader, and she ultimately convinced Dorsey to spin the project out as an independent company. Because of that lineage, the flagship Bluesky app looks and feels like Twitter in many ways. When the site opened to the public, most of the people who left Elon Musk’s X chose Bluesky because it felt more familiar and easier to understand than Mastodon. Over time, the team found itself building not just a protocol, but a full social platform with moderation, recommendation features, and active community management. It’s now the de facto open social web network for journalists, writers, and other public intellectuals. ![Bluesky screenshot](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/11/image-1.png) Source: [Bluesky blog](https://bsky.social/about/blog/04-21-2025-verification) Dorsey’s involvement has been a point of criticism, but ironically, Bluesky’s emphasis on community health is part of what pushed him away. His original aim was to avoid building trust and safety systems altogether: he sees moderation as a path to censorship rather than a requirement for healthy online spaces. Once Bluesky embraced trust and safety as core ethical work rather than something to outsource to the protocol, he walked away and shifted his support to Nostr, a more libertarian network designed to minimize moderation. All of this sits on AT Protocol’s underlying model. While Mastodon is a series of federated communities, on Bluesky, every profile is actually a storage unit containing that user’s data. When you follow someone, you’re really subscribing to updates to their data. Other applications beyond the flagship Bluesky app can also write to your data store: [Leaflet](https://leaflet.pub/home) is a blogging platform, [Graze](https://www.graze.social/) lets you build custom feeds according to your interests, and so on. ![Graze screenshot](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/11/image-4.png) Source: [Graze blog](https://www.graze.social/blog/making-it-easier-than-ever) By default, your data is stored with Bluesky, but there are other options. The best known and in many ways the most exciting is [Blacksky](https://blackskyweb.xyz/), Rudy Fraser’s Black-owned datastore and social application. [Eurosky](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/european-project-eurosky-aims-reduce-reliance-us-tech-giants-2025-07-15/), meanwhile, is an emerging attempt to build outside of North American jurisdiction. **Quick facts about the ATmosphere:** - Flagship platform: [Bluesky](https://bsky.social) - Fastest place to sign up: [bsky.app](https://bsky.app) - Other platforms: [Blacksky](https://blackskyweb.xyz/), [Graze](https://www.graze.social/), [Leaflet](https://leaflet.pub/), [Flashes](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashes-for-bluesky/id6741443033), [etc](https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/13/beyond-bluesky-these-are-the-apps-building-social-experiences-on-the-at-protocol/) - Funding model: Bluesky is a VC-funded startup that has [raised at least $36M to date](https://www.texau.com/profiles/bluesky). It hasn’t deployed a business model yet. - Advocacy groups: [Free Our Feeds](https://freeourfeeds.com/) - Underlying protocol: [AT Protocol](https://atproto.com) #### Protocol TL;DR **If you don’t care about protocols at all, here’s the summary:** - The Fediverse = small communities talking to each other - AT Protocol = personal data pods that apps plug into - Both = avoid lock-in, centralized power, and unpredictable corporate incentives #### Other alternatives The Fediverse and the ATmosphere aren’t the only open social web networks, although they are by far the most prominent. [Nostr](https://nostr.com/) and [Farcaster](https://farcaster.xyz/) have both attracted a crowd that’s heavy on crypto and libertarian ideologies. ([diVine](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive/), funded by Dorsey and run by Twitter OG Rabble, rebuilds Vine on the Nostr network.) Jack Dorsey has poured money into Nostr in particular. Given his relationship with trust and safety, it shouldn’t be a surprise that these networks are very technically pure but low on community safety or culture-building. ![Screenshot of two different Nostr apps](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/11/image-2.png) Source: [Nos Social blog](https://www.nos.social/blog/nostr-user-led-social-media) Meanwhile, [Project Liberty](https://www.projectliberty.io/) is a $500M endeavor funded by [Frank McCourt](https://www.projectliberty.io/people/frank-mccourt/), which has built its own open social layer, [Frequency](https://www.frequency.xyz/). It’s also [funded policy blueprints](https://www.projectliberty.io/governance/) and [real legislation](https://www.projectliberty.io/news/utah-digital-choice-act/) designed to give users more control over their social media. And [the indie web](https://indieweb.org), which builds decentralized social functionality on top of web fundamentals like HTML, should not be discounted. Its focus on a world where everyone’s profile is a website that is completely unique to them but can still communicate and share together has led to an enthusiastic community that’s been growing for over a decade. I think the indie web and the open social web are complimentary: you can build a following on the open social web *and* build an amazing indie web website that really represents you. ### Working across networks The protocols are not as important as the people and communities who connect across them. Part of the ethos of openness is that it’s not about building a “winner”: nobody should be locked into any platform or technology. These movements are also too young for everyone to have converged on one underlying protocol; we’re still at the early innovation stage. I’m on the board of [A New Social](https://anew.social), a non-profit whose mission is to provide bridges between protocols, creating a single, unified open social web. Its product [Bridgy Fed](https://fed.brid.gy/) has long allowed you to follow Fediverse profiles on the ATmosphere and vice versa. And its new product, Bounce, [allows you to easily move your profile from one network to the other, bringing your network with you](https://blog.anew.social/bounce-a-cross-protocol-migration-tool/). The result is even less lock-in: you can decide which network makes the most sense for you. Earlier in this piece, I also mentioned [Surf](https://surf.social), which allows you to find news stories and conversations you care about across all the open social web networks. I’ve curated a [feed of non-profit US newsrooms](https://surf.social/feed/surf%2Fcustom%2F01jf18nkhmm632b8qtret48113) and one of [investigative tech journalism](https://surf.social/feed/surf%2Fcustom%2F01jtzwwt6re2q9s45jxnq36dbt) that are also [available](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:77tdak46psveqneyegsdyc7l/feed/speaking-trut) as [Bluesky feeds](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:77tdak46psveqneyegsdyc7l/feed/speakingtruth). [Buffer](https://buffer.com) is one of many social scheduling tools that support both networks. [Fedica](https://fedica.com) allows you to analyze your stats and surfaces characteristics of your community. These are the kinds of tools that could only exist on the open social web. A network like X would charge these providers a ton of money; others would simply block them as a threat to their business models. But on the open social web, where the open protocols are permissionless and open to all, they can thrive. ### It’s not zero sum There’s no reason you need to pick just one. Like many people, I maintain profiles [on Mastodon](https://werd.social/@ben) and [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/werd.io), as well as [through my blog](https://werd.io/) and on [Threads](https://threads.com/@ben.werdmuller), and I’ve found that the conversations across all of them are different. There’s a lot to be gained on each — but, again, [Bridgy Fed](https://fed.brid.gy/) and [Bounce](https://blog.anew.social/bounce-a-cross-protocol-migration-tool/) mean you can try one without worrying about missing out. The most important thing is to take back ownership of your community and your relationships online. The silo networks have done their best to become intermediaries between you and your connections, forcing you to pay to reach people who have already subscribed to you. They’ve partnered with authoritarian governments and caused great harm through their negligence and blinkered self-interest. Another world is possible, and it’s only just beginning. Go grab your profile and get started. ### Open Source Power URL: https://werd.io/open-source-power/ Last updated: 2025-11-17T18:38:10.000Z \[[Erlend Sogge Heggen](https://blog.muni.town/open-source-power/)\] I’m extremely on board with this whole essay. > “Since its inception the free and open source software movement has lacked a theory of change beyond the liberation of computer code. Liberation of human beings by way of a [liberatory technology](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lewis-herber-murray-bookchin-towards-a-liberatory-technology) was always a secondary and oftentimes incompatible concern for Open Source, since laborers having agency of their work (and how it may be exploited) is in conflict with the inviolable liberties of an Open Source computer program.” As the author points out, open source has facilitated an upwards transfer of wealth and power from contributors and project communities themselves to the larger companies that can make use of this free labor to enrich their own endeavors. In a world where tech has been enabling fascist autocrats in the building of anti-democratic movements and governments, that’s particularly troubling. And it’s dressed up as some kind of altruistic public good, even when the end user is causing great harm. The traditional open source / free software demand that software be made available freely for *any* use feels outdated in the current context. It’s a very libertarian rather than pro-social view of the world. In our current world, it’s particularly worth re-examining permissive licenses and considering what they are actually permissive of. The suggestion here is that commercial use by large corporations is charged for. I think that makes sense: it’s a way of funding development that also preserves the underlying availability of open software and the sustainability of building it. But I’d honestly go further. Do open source maintainers want their software to be used by ICE, for example? You don’t have to allow it to be. There’s no magical law of the universe that means you lose part of your soul if you say “no”. Software is a creative work, and the software you build is *your* creative work. You get to decide who uses it and under what terms. It’s completely reasonable to apply your values in making those decisions. \[[Link](https://blog.muni.town/open-source-power/)\] ### Honor The Maker's Schedule URL: https://werd.io/honor-the-makers-schedule/ Last updated: 2025-11-13T16:42:31.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/honor-the-makers-schedule/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] [Everything Corey says here](https://pointc.co/honor-the-makers-schedule/), all day long. > “Everyone needs (some) meetings for alignment, feedback, brainstorming, hiring, speculative networking, etc. And everyone also needs the space to focus on deep work, whether they consider themselves a "maker" or not. > > The problem is that the people with the most power (leaders like you!), tend to work more on a manager's schedule and, if they're not intentional about establishing team norms regarding how time is valued, they can suck away the ability for anyone else to do deep work.” As always, Corey breaks a problem that may seem intractable down into an easy-to-follow framework. The key here is shared norms, created through intention — which also means that there needs to be a shared agreement with leadership that protecting deep work really is important. In turn, that’s about respect: a culture where a manager can drop an event on your calendar at any time signals that they don’t really care about your experience or needs. That’s the kind of culture that can easily evolve organically if nobody’s tending to it; it’s not necessarily *intentionally* disrespectful, but it’s disrespectful nonetheless. As an aside, I was delighted to see that Corey’s turned his week-long training camp — something I’ve both participated in and helped to participate back in my Matter days — into [a service that anyone can book for their team](https://pointc.co/trainingcamp/). I found it transformative, and I think a lot of teams could use it. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/honor-the-makers-schedule/?ref=the-idea-bucket-newsletter)\] ### Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine's video archive URL: https://werd.io/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive/ Last updated: 2025-11-13T14:50:14.000Z \[[Sarah Perez at TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOCzE5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFHWnZXaWs3TUY5dkdPQnl3c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHucRH6GceRBPpOL100L4hdrr9UflbiOlZZo6EHEBVE8Y1-RzTIgRDjybKZci%5Faem%5Ff0NLCPcBrg-TOQe6-sNhvA)\] I didn’t have Rabble [bringing back Vine](https://divine.video/) on my bingo card, but I should have. This is fascinating: > “On Thursday, a new app called diVine will give access to more than 100,000 archived Vine videos, restored from an older backup that was created before Vine’s shutdown. > > The app won’t just exist as a walk down memory lane; it will also allow users to create profiles and upload their own new Vine videos. However, unlike on traditional social media, where AI content is often haphazardly labeled, diVine will flag suspected generative AI content and prevent it from being posted.” This time around, it’s all based on [Nostr](https://nostr.com/), a decentralized social networking protocol that is intentionally not owned or controlled by a single entity. The game-changer is including Vine’s back archives, which is presumably only possible because of Jack Dorsey’s involvement. Dorsey has been a major backer of Nostr for the last few years, investing in the protocol and apps that have the potential to make it successful. Rabble, of course, was one of the core group at Odeo that was present for the inception of Twitter, along with Dorsey; they’re frequent collaborators and Dorsey backed Rabble’s startup [nos.social](https://www.nos.social/). Clearly Dorsey has had, or been able to negotiate, access to the Vine back catalogue, which makes sense as a potential way to encourage folks to join the Nostr network. \[[Link](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOCzE5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFHWnZXaWs3TUY5dkdPQnl3c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHucRH6GceRBPpOL100L4hdrr9UflbiOlZZo6EHEBVE8Y1-RzTIgRDjybKZci%5Faem%5Ff0NLCPcBrg-TOQe6-sNhvA)\] ### I Want You to Understand Chicago URL: https://werd.io/i-want-you-to-understand-chicago/ Last updated: 2025-11-10T14:47:15.000Z \[[Kyle Kingsbury / Aphyr](https://aphyr.com/posts/397-i-want-you-to-understand-chicago)\] Computer safety researcher [Kyle Kingsbury](https://aphyr.com/) on living in Chicago in the current moment: > “Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again.” The lawlessness of this moment — the oppression, and, let’s be super-clear, the fascism of it all — should not be ignored. We can’t let this become some kind of new normal. I worry a lot about the PATRIOT Act. In the aftermath of 9/11, there was a bipartisan effort to pass what in effect was a draconian security bill that vastly eroded American civil rights. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but, of course, almost everything it brought about is still with us decades later. It permanently ratcheted down American freedom. This year’s activities — which represent not so much a ratchet down as a fall into deep, dark precipice — must not establish a new baseline. I’m less worried about Trump than the framework around Trump. He’s awful in a multitude of very obvious ways, but he’s also a 79 year old man with health problems who is obsessed with his ratings and absolutely needs to eat his rock-hard steak with ketchup. But there is an enormous financial, legislative, and strategic scaffold around him, of which the Heritage Foundation and Stephen Miller are just two nodes, that is pushing this agenda. It’s not one guy who has led to people being kidnapped from the streets of Chicago; it’s thousands and thousands of people, all motivated by power and financial gain. It’s not a cult of personality so much as a mycelial network that has been patiently undermining democratic foundations for decades. It is also, I’m convinced, the dying gasp of the twentieth century. It’s important to share stories like Kyle’s. It’s important to keep talking about it. It’s important to keep marching and organizing. This isn’t some partisan political disagreement; this, in a real way, is about the future of human society. That can be paralyzing, for sure. But I also believe that democracy will win. We just have to keep pushing, telling the truth, and sharing stories about what’s really going on. \[[Link](https://aphyr.com/posts/397-i-want-you-to-understand-chicago)\] ### Time to start de-Appling URL: https://werd.io/time-to-start-de-appling-hi-im-heather-burns/ Last updated: 2025-11-10T14:27:32.000Z \[[Heather Burns](https://heatherburns.tech/2025/11/10/time-to-start-de-appling/)\] Interesting to see this piece from [privacy expert Heather Burns](https://heatherburns.tech/), who encourages UK-based users to start de-centering Apple products in their lives: > “You need to start that because, [as we recently learned](https://support.apple.com/en-us/122234), at some point in the very near future Apple is withdrawing its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature from the UK altogether as a result of the Home Office TCN through the Investigatory Powers Act.” The key thing here is that it’s *not Apple’s fault* — this is driven by the British government, which is very intentionally reducing the privacy and security features available to its citizens. It wants security software to be back-doored; Apple does not want to provide back-doored software; so Apple simply removes its security features in the UK entirely. For now, [Signal](https://signal.org) remains an excellent option for messaging, although the Signal Foundation has indicated that [it will leave the UK if it is asked to compromise its security](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64584001). For other use cases, [Proton](https://proton.me/) may be a decent provider, although [its CEO praising the Trump administration](https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/) earlier this year certainly raised my eyebrows. This legislation is clearly undemocratic and oppressive — delivered by [secret order](https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366630023/Home-Office-back-door-seeks-world-wide-access-to-Apple-iCloud-users-data-court-documents-confirm), no less — and it’s one of the dwindling remaining places where the US is following the better path (until it eventually, inevitably isn’t). What’s weird to me is that British people aren’t full-throatedly shouting their opposition. Many people seem to be in favor, for all the superficial “law and order” reasons that people often accept oppression. But it does need to be opposed with full throats, in Britain and everywhere else it turns up. Without freedom from surveillance there is no journalism, no activism, no freedom of speech or expression, and no democracy. \[[Link](https://heatherburns.tech/2025/11/10/time-to-start-de-appling/)\] ### This Physicist Says We Don’t Take COVID Seriously Enough URL: https://werd.io/this-physicist-says-we-dont-take-covid-seriously-enough/ Last updated: 2025-11-02T18:52:57.000Z \[[Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee](https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/10/31/Physicist-COVID-Seriously-Enough/)\] Based on a new, increased baseline in work absences, and excess deaths beyond their baseline before the pandemic, there’s a lot to worry about. But the cumulative effect of repeat infections, and the debilitating symptoms of long COVID, should also be worrying us more. Among other reasons: > “Because COVID destabilizes the immune system, researchers are now beginning to see a link between repeat COVID infections and rising cancer rates in young people. One study recently found that a COVID infection can accelerate or increase cancer risk, while another study revealed that a COVID infection substantially heightened the risk of six cancers caused by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. ” It’s an existential threat on many levels. And a long-standing belief that children are comparatively less affected is dead wrong: > “A 2024 JAMA study challenged the “misperception” that long COVID is rare in children or resembles that of adults. It reviewed the health outcomes of thousands of children aged between six and 17, both infected and uninfected. It found 10 to 15 per cent of children and adolescents developed long COVID after one infection, a rate similar to that of adults.” There are lots of people who think shutdowns were unnecessary, or that the pandemic is fully over. I disagree with them in the strongest terms. This article details some of the reasons why. \[[Link](https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/10/31/Physicist-COVID-Seriously-Enough/)\] ### How can I be most useful to you? URL: https://werd.io/how-can-i-be-most-useful-to-you/ Last updated: 2025-11-02T18:05:55.000Z Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of problems people in mission-driven organizations are trying to solve, around technology, leadership, product strategy, and building tools that actually serve our communities. My lens has been newsrooms, because that’s where I’ve spent most of my time recently, but I suspect many mission-driven organizations face similar challenges. Most of the time, I write here about things I’ve learned (and mistakes I’ve made) in those areas. I've asked you to post questions in the past. But I’ve realized that I don’t often directly ask you what would be most *helpful*. Earlier this year, I asked folks to book short calls with me, and I found those to be really helpful. Now I’d like to go a little broader. So I’m running a short survey to learn more about what people in this community are working on: the challenges you’re facing, and the kinds of support or resources you wish existed. It’s open to anyone who reads my posts. [**Take the short survey.**](https://airtable.com/app7NDcTu6eEKUZp6/pag2YX7xQ77Yb6BzE/form) It’s five questions and takes about two minutes. I’ll share some of the broader themes that emerge in a future post. My hope is to better understand where I can be most useful, whether that’s through essays, templates, workshops, or conversations with folks tackling similar challenges. There's a box at the end if you'd like to leave your email to chat directly. Otherwise, everything is anonymous. If you take a few minutes to fill this out, I'll do my best to make something genuinely useful from what you share. Thanks, as always, for reading. If you have two minutes, [I'd really value your input](https://airtable.com/app7NDcTu6eEKUZp6/pag2YX7xQ77Yb6BzE/form). ### There's no such thing as neutral technology URL: https://werd.io/theres-no-such-thing-as-neutral-technology/ Last updated: 2025-10-31T14:29:23.000Z *At the News Product Alliance Summit in Chicago this month, I took part in a panel discussion about building a community-focused ethic of news technology, and facilitated a related workshop on picking tools that match your values. It’s about newsrooms, but the lessons apply to any organization.* *This post proposes a way to think about technology assessments not just in terms of cost or capability, but in terms of values. Values alignment isn’t a nice-to-have: misaligned values create risk that could cause major problems for an organization later on.* We often treat technology as being neutral, logical, and deterministic. But there is no such thing as neutral technology. In reality, software is a creative work, just as journalism is a creative work. It’s made by people. Every design and engineering decision is a reflection of their goals, values, strategy, skills, resources, and foibles. Technology always encodes power relationships. What a software development team considers to be *unimportant* is just as crucial as what they consider to be important. The impact of a company’s values tends to grow as it becomes bigger and more powerful. If a team values revenue from targeted advertising but doesn’t value user privacy, it could find itself building a surveillance network that could later be used by a government to deport students who happened to click like on an Instagram post, [as has been happening this year](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/dhs-task-force-scouring-foreign-students-social-media-rcna198532). If a team does not contain people from a diversity of backgrounds, it might find itself building predictive algorithms that penalize people of color, like the ones [researchers like Dr Joy Buolamwini have uncovered](https://www.ted.com/talks/joy%5Fbuolamwini%5Fhow%5Fi%5Fm%5Ffighting%5Fbias%5Fin%5Falgorithms). Or if a team values hockey-stick growth but doesn’t value local relationships, it might find itself enabling a genocide, [as Facebook did in Myanmar](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/amnesty-report-finds-facebook-amplified-hate-ahead-of-rohingya-massacre-in-myanmar). When we bring a technology into our newsrooms — or into any organization — and particularly when we embed it into our workflows, we import the assumptions and values of the people who made it. The things they think are important to encode — and the things they don’t think are important to protect. Let’s make this more concrete. A newsroom uses a proprietary CMS. Its features look beautiful and it claims to have excellent AI integration. But a few years later, its parent company decides it’s not working out, and pivots away from the product. Export options are limited; URLs break. Years of local reporting disappear from the web. The tool worked, until it didn’t, and now the newsroom is held hostage. It’s worth considering: what did the people who made this tool assume about permanence? About the importance of the newsroom’s control over its own work? And how does that differ to how the newsroom thinks about control over its work? Here’s a second example: a newsroom adopts a tool that speeds up its hiring process using AI. The technology sifts through resumes and pre-screens applicants. But [as a University of Washington research team found out last year](https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/10/31/ai-bias-resume-screening-race-gender/), that AI-based screening replicates and amplifies societal biases: > LLMs favored white-associated names 85% of the time, female-associated names only 11% of the time, and never favored Black male-associated names over white male-associated names. What testing did the people who built these tools undertake? When research discovers this level of bias, how much do we think the vendors cared about building equitable software? Do we think a newsroom that buys such a tool feels the same way or wants to further these systemic effects? Probably not, but by using the tool, they do it anyway – importing the values of the vendor. These aren’t edge cases; this is what happens when we don't evaluate values alignment upfront. In journalism, we have a duty of care to our communities. We must be good stewards of the safety of sources who reach out to us. If a federal employee sends us information we use for a story, we must be able to keep them anonymous. We must be good stewards of the people who read our information. If a person reads about where to get contraceptive healthcare from our website, we must not capture data about them that could lead to a prosecution. We must be good stewards of our journalists, our donors, and the people who put themselves on the line for us so the truth can be told. If someone donates to us, that information should not be usable against them. Our newsrooms are a reflection of our values. Those values are important. They are core to the journalism we produce, and therefore to our value as organizations to our communities. We need to protect them. But much of the tech used in journalism — analytics, hosting, ad tech, content management, and so on — isn’t made by journalists or newsrooms. Sometimes those values are aligned with ours, and sometimes they aren’t. As we’ve seen, a team’s values have a greater impact on their actions over time. So if we leave misaligned values unexamined, we inherently create more risk over time. When we do a technology assessment – if we do one at all – we’re not often asked to consider the values fit of a technology and a vendor. But if we fail to examine those things, they can come back to bite us. For example, if we evaluate ChatGPT, we must decide if we trust OpenAI, and whether we’re comfortable with how it was built and trained. They’ve poured a lot of money into making sure we’re hyped about it — but we have to ask ourselves who made it? Who benefits? And whose values does it encode? When we evaluate technology to bring into the newsroom, we need to consider the following: - How well its form and capabilities meet our needs - How well its cost meets our available resources - How well its underlying assumptions meet our values - Whether its benefits outweigh the risks - Who benefits from its power dynamics ![Values established at my workshop at the News Product Alliance Summit](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/values.jpg) As part of a workshop at [the News Product Alliance Summit](https://newsproduct.org/npasummit/sessions) in Chicago this October, I asked a room full of newsroom technology specialists to consider what values they considered to be most crucial when they made technology choices. While some participants emphasized the equity and representation of technology teams, most of them related to their ability to leave a platform if it ceased to be aligned: - Data portability - Open source - Self-determination - Interoperability - Security / Data protection Together, we built a rubric for assessing technology alignment that included smart questions like: - Is the data ours? - Could our data be exposed by a subpoena? - If we delete data, is it removed from servers? - Is it easy to export data in an easily consumable format? This revealed something interesting: many technologists in newsrooms have already internalized that perfect alignment is impossible, so they're building escape hatches instead of trying to find perfect partners. These questions aren’t so much about ensuring values alignment as ensuring that a technology vendor’s values aren’t going to hold a newsroom hostage. By ensuring there’s a credible exit path from any platform, those value misalignments become less risky. So what can we do? [Most newsrooms can’t — and shouldn’t — build much of their own software.](https://werd.io/build-what-makes-you-special-buy-the-rest/) But we can ensure that we can own our own data and use software on our own terms. We can use third-party key encryption so that they physically can’t access our data without our permission. This is available as an option for many of the tools you already use, like [Google Workspace](https://support.google.com/a/answer/10741897), [Slack](https://slack.com/enterprise-key-management), and [AirTable](https://support.airtable.com/docs/airtable-enterprise-key-management). Perhaps most powerfully, we can collaborate and build software together, to better fit our collective values. In the EU, [governments are already building very highly functional collaboration suites to avoid trusting their data with US companies](https://www.euractiv.com/news/quartet-of-eu-countries-to-cooperate-on-building-sovereign-digital-infrastructure/). Networks like [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) and [Bluesky](https://bsky.social/about) have been created as a values-based alternative to the surveillance-based status quo, [and politicians are openly discussing the risks of depending on US software companies](https://www.techpolicy.press/europe-cant-defend-democracy-on-us-servers/). These dynamics are not limited to Europe. News often treats technology as something that happens to it, like an asteroid — but software is a creative work, just as journalism is. We have the expertise, the values, and the imperative. We can build the platforms that carry us. The future of independent journalism depends not just on what we publish, but on the tools we trust to carry it. ### Trump Administration's Arrival on Bluesky Highlights Growing Pains for Open Networks URL: https://werd.io/trump-administrations-arrival-on-bluesky-highlights-growing-pains-for-open-networks/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T17:49:39.000Z \[[Erin Kissane](https://www.techpolicy.press/trump-administrations-arrival-on-bluesky-highlights-growing-pains-for-open-networks/)\] Erin Kissane has written a great overview of why the current administration’s recent arrival on Bluesky is a turning point for the open social web: > “The containment of mass-scale social media by the authoritarian-friendly billionaire class is just about complete: TikTok is coming under the control of billionaire friends of the Trump administration, X is led by the the same billionaire who took a wrecking ball to vital government services, and Meta is run by another billionaire with a miserable record on human rights and misinformation. Open social networks—like those running on Bluesky’s AT Protocol or the Activity Pub protocol that powers Mastodon—are the only remaining leak in their information-containment fields.” And as Erin points out, it’s becoming the network of choice for academics, journalists, writers, and other culture creators. In other words, even though the network is small, it’s disproportionately influential. It makes sense that, in turn, anyone seeking to control public opinion would seek to influence *it*. As I pointed out in [my FediForum keynote](https://werd.io/why-the-open-social-web-matters-now/), an open protocol in itself doesn’t make anything inherently safer. It’s true that it removes the central point of control — Bluesky the corporation doesn’t control all of Bluesky the network — but an open network can still be surveilled and influenced. Because Bluesky is a more cohesive network (broadly, everyone can reach everyone, regardless of where their profile is stored), it’s susceptible to influence campaigns. Does that matter to a company that’s hard at work building a protocol for which the Bluesky product is more or less a proof of concept? I like the term *high-context moderation* that Erin uses here. Bluesky the company *is* moderating its network, but it’s only policing based on actual use of the platform, rather than taking into consideration activity outside of it. The implication is that David Duke could show up and hang out on Bluesky as long as he behaves himself. That’s at odds with what many users need in order to feel safe. They want high-context moderation; Bluesky wants to police what is done on its own servers. That’s going to put open protocol developers into direct opposition with the actual consumers of the protocols. It’s a great piece. [You can read the whole thing here.](https://www.techpolicy.press/trump-administrations-arrival-on-bluesky-highlights-growing-pains-for-open-networks/) \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/trump-administrations-arrival-on-bluesky-highlights-growing-pains-for-open-networks/)\] ### This Is How Much Anthropic and Cursor Spend On Amazon Web Services URL: https://werd.io/this-is-how-much-anthropic-and-cursor-spend-on-amazon-web-services/ Last updated: 2025-10-20T18:57:39.000Z \[[Ed Zitron](https://www.wheresyoured.at/costs/?ref=ed-zitrons-wheres-your-ed-at-newsletter)\] Lots of detail here on what Ed calls the “sub-prime AI crisis”: > “Based on discussions with sources with direct knowledge of their AWS billing, I am able to disclose the amounts that AI firms are spending, specifically Anthropic and AI coding company Cursor, its largest customer.” On the face of it, these numbers don’t look good. Ed’s analysis shows that Anthropic’s AWS compute spend is well over 100% of revenue. The hallmark of a scalable startup is that growth decouples from cost. Early on, costs and revenue may track closely, but once scale kicks in, revenue grows exponentially while costs stay relatively flat. Or at least, that’s what investors hope for. That’s not what’s happening here. Instead, costs appear to be rising more or less linearly with use. At the same time, we’re seeing more and more (legitimate) worries about data security on AI services. Enterprise customers are being asked to integrate sensitive workflows into systems they can’t audit, hosted in jurisdictions they often can’t control. But many companies *can’t*, because, well, that data is *sensitive*. It’s not just about wanting to prevent private data from being used to train; some organizations simply don’t want to, or can’t, share that level of information with an opaque cloud service. Not to mention the environmental impact of these huge models and data centers. If I was running one of these companies, I’d be thinking a lot about building amazing local models — and selling them. In this world, you’re not powering the queries, and you don’t need to worry about data security overheads. Large companies would run these models on their own infra, for example to provide a common model for engineering while maintaining privacy, and pay a steep licensing fee for the privilege. Models (and maybe chips) could also be licensed to software companies and hardware manufacturers who want to build amazing new devices. What’s particularly concerning is that so much value is being wrapped up in these businesses that, if they topple, the shockwaves could ripple far beyond the tech sector. An unprofitable technology — no matter how transformative — should never be “too big to fail.” It’s in everyone’s interest for these models to become sustainable, and everyone in tech should reflect on how this was allowed to happen to begin with. \[[Link](https://www.wheresyoured.at/costs/?ref=ed-zitrons-wheres-your-ed-at-newsletter)\] ### Russell Vought: The Shadow President URL: https://werd.io/russell-vought-the-shadow-president/ Last updated: 2025-10-17T13:54:42.000Z [\[Lisa Riordan Seville, Andy Kroll, Katie Campbell and Mauricio Rodríguez Pons at ProPublica\]](https://www.propublica.org/article/video-who-is-russell-vought-trump-omb-shutdown) It’s exciting to see the newsroom where I work, [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), publish more medium-form video. On a meta-level, I think this is very well done — but it’s also an important story that I hope everyone will pay attention to. As the newsroom explains: > “Over the past decade, this unassuming budget wonk and self-proclaimed Christian nationalist has quietly injected his ideas into the bloodstream of American politics. He was one of the chief architects of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and said he spent much of 2024 drafting the executive orders, regulations and other plans to use in a second Trump presidency. Since returning as the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget in January, he has led the president’s effort to dismantle large swaths of the federal government.” It’s worth your time and attention. [You can watch the video here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1LuV82l0vs) [\[Link\]](https://www.propublica.org/article/video-who-is-russell-vought-trump-omb-shutdown) ### Europe Can’t Defend Democracy on US Servers URL: https://werd.io/europe-cant-defend-democracy-on-us-servers/ Last updated: 2025-10-17T13:39:29.000Z \[[Alexandra Geese in Tech Policy Press](https://www.techpolicy.press/europe-cant-defend-democracy-on-us-servers/)\] More on European data sovereignty from Alexandra Geese, a German Green Party member who has served as a member of the European Parliament since 2019. In an environment shaped by the Trump administration and far-reaching legislation like the CLOUD Act, the argument is obvious: > “Europe needs independent European infrastructure now—especially home-grown social networks that preserve a level playing field for information, safeguard media freedom and guarantee genuine freedom of speech, including the right to access facts instead of being fed lies and propaganda.” The need for data storage and application services that can handle sensitive information beyond the reach of America’s jurisdiction has been spoken about quite a bit, but it’s interesting to see politicians begin to talk more about social networks and social media. Geese calls out [Eurosky](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/european-project-eurosky-aims-reduce-reliance-us-tech-giants-2025-07-15/), an attempt to build an AT protocol PDS on European infrastructure — and, of course, [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) is a German non-profit. It’s interesting that part of her argument is that European alternatives won’t suppress clickthroughs to journalistic media in the way algorithmic social networks and AI-driven Google search results have. > “As Google’s ad monopoly devours media revenues and AI tools harvest content for data, journalism’s financial model crumbles at an alarming rate. When media shift their output to European platforms, advertising dollars will flow, creating mass-appeal services for 450 million citizens.” While Geese focuses on Europe’s economic and cultural independence, I’d extend the argument: the threat isn’t just monopolies, it’s authoritarianism. X, LinkedIn, Meta’s properties, and the US TikTok consortium have all made financial and strategic deals with the current administration. That doesn’t just create risk for vulnerable groups; it carries risk for any country that might be competitive with the United States, or anyone inside the country who might be considered at odds with current policy. If European investment continues to be diverted to decentralized networks and open technologies that allow for greater data sovereignty, everybody wins. We all get to use technology designed to be run on our own infrastructure, on our own terms. In turn, that will help create a more free and open internet — which benefits all of us. \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/europe-cant-defend-democracy-on-us-servers/)\] ### What Made Blogging Different? URL: https://werd.io/what-made-blogging-different/ Last updated: 2025-10-16T16:20:43.000Z \[[Elizabeth Spiers in Talking Points Memo](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/what-made-blogging-different)\] Elizabeth Spiers nails what was — and is — amazing about blogging: > “If you wanted people to read your blog, you had to make it compelling enough that they would visit it, directly, because they wanted to. And if they wanted to respond to you, they had to do it on their own blog, and link back. The effect of this was that there were few equivalents of the worst aspects of social media that broke through. If someone wanted to troll you, they’d have to do it on their own site and hope you took the bait because otherwise no one would see it.” The result was a constellation of individual outlets, writing on a cadence that was divorced from the news cycle, often about topics that were highly personal that nobody else would necessarily cover. One person would write a piece, then another would write a post *referencing* that piece, and the conversation would continue from site to site to site. Each site may have been centered around an individual, but it was a group, community activity. Even the word “blog” is predicated on that idea: a play on words that took us from weblog to “we blog”. As Elizabeth notes, newsletters are a form of that same medium, although the prevalence of paid subscriptions has added a layer that maybe isn’t as conducive to distributed conversation. They’re definitely not dead: I’ve been continuously blogging since 1998 (although not on the same site), and many others have too. Hopefully we’ll continue to see a resurgence? If you’re reading this, I’d love to read your thoughts in long-form, too. I'd love nothing more than to see slow, long-form conversation bloom on the web once again. \[[Link](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/what-made-blogging-different)\] ### Why the open social web matters now URL: https://werd.io/why-the-open-social-web-matters-now/ Last updated: 2025-10-15T02:37:50.000Z *I was privileged to deliver the opening keynote at this month's* [*FediForum*](https://fediforum.org/)*, a conference for people building and supporting the open social web. My talk touched on what's happening now, drew on my experiences building Elgg and Known and investing at Matter Ventures, and gave participants three important questions to ask themselves as they build platforms and serve communities.* *Here's the talk in its entirety, courtesy of FediForum. The transcript follows below.* ### Introduction If we haven’t met, my name’s Ben Werdmuller. I’m based just outside of Philadelphia. Today, I’m the Senior Director of Technology at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), a non-profit newsroom here in the US that investigates abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions. If you remember [the Clarence Thomas corruption scandal](https://www.propublica.org/series/supreme-court-scotus), Project 2025 co-author [Russell Vought’s private remarks about how he was going to go after the left](https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-vought-center-renewing-america-maga), or [Peter Thiel’s tax-free investment scheme](https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank), that was our reporting. I’m not a journalist but I’m very proud to support the people doing this journalistic work. ![My career, from Elgg and Known through to The 19th and ProPublica](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Werdmuller-FediForum-Keynote.jpg) But I actually started my career by building open source social networking platforms. I built a platform that allowed communities to self-host on their terms, using exactly the features that would support their needs. Elgg started in higher education, but it was used by NGOs like Greenpeace and Oxfam to train aid workers, it was used by the anti-austerity movement in Spain to help them organize, and Fortune 500 companies and at least one government used it as their primary intranet. We always wanted Elgg to federate. That was the plan from day one. It was an obvious need. There was no ActivityPub yet. We picked up on whatever tech we could — OpenID, Friend of a Friend — but ended up trying to cobble our own standard together. It wasn’t ActivityPub, and it didn’t work out quite as we’d hoped, but it began to touch on some of those underlying ideas. I built Known as a way for anyone to build feeds containing content of any type. It was mostly used by indie web bloggers, and it supported indie web standards for decentralized conversations, but it could support any number of users, and a feed could be published to by webhook and micropub, meaning theoretically any automatic system could post there. I led west coast investments for something called Matter, which supported early-stage mission-driven startups. These were all ventures with the potential to create a more informed, inclusive, and empathetic society. That was our hypothesis. They had diverse teams and missions that weren’t a million miles away from the missions of people in this room. And then I took a hard left turn and moved into leading technology for newsrooms, because I felt like that was the best way to be useful in this era. [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) reports at the intersection of gender, politics, and policy - a much-needed inclusive newsroom in a world where much of our news is produced by white men in New York City. And I’ve already introduced you to ProPublica. So I’ve been involved in building platforms, supporting people who are building platforms, and leading technology in the kinds of organizations that we hope will be platform users. I’ve been on all sides of the table. And now, maybe ironically, while I’m not building or supporting platforms, open social networking is finally taking off. My timing has always been terrible, but I’m thrilled to be back in this conversation. ### Why should anyone care? I’d like to open FediForum with this provocation: **Why does this matter? Why should anyone care about decentralized or federated networks?** Let’s start by examining the moment we’re in. Here in the US, our government is becoming increasingly authoritarian. Immigrants are being ripped off the streets by masked officers without due process and often shipped to places like El Salvador or South Sudan. Just last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told a roomful of American generals that he wanted them to fight “the enemy within” in the United States, echoing a phrase used in Nazi Germany. In Gaza, a UN commission found that there is indeed an ongoing genocide in progress. Many tens of thousands of people have been killed. Some of them were allegedly identified by a targeting AI through metadata from their WhatsApp chats. Here in the US, students and journalists who have described it as a genocide have been detained or deported. Even liking a post on Instagram has been considered an actionable signal that you support terrorism by aligning yourself with Hamas. And on some US-run social networks, people from Palestine who have been asking for help have been systematically removed. ![An excerpt from (NSPM)-7](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Werdmuller-FediForum-Keynote-1-.jpg) National security policy now describes the following amongst signals that you might be a terrorist: > “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality”. People from communities that were already vulnerable - trans people among them - have been explicitly targeted, just as they were in 1930s Germany. And speaking of trans people, they’re reportedly about to be classified as a nihilistic violent extremist threat group. Categorizing these communities this way is a pretext to surveillance. The CLOUD Act, passed in 2018, compels US-based online services (including US subsidiaries of foreign organizations) to share data with the US government regardless of where in the world that data is stored, and regardless of local regulations like GDPR. In the event of a criminal subpoena, including for suspected terrorist activity, you may never know your data was supplied. That was always creepy, but in a world where you may be profiled as a potential terrorist for having left-of-center opinions, or for being a member of a vulnerable group like the trans community, that really matters. ### The capitulation of social media The first step towards doing something about these events and threats to democracy is to know about them. How do we learn about them? In most western countries, social media and video networks are now our main source of news and the way we receive updates from our friends. A handful of companies own how we learn about the world, giving them the ability to shape our collective worldviews, influence movements, and prioritize their own interests. They have never been *great* actors — Amnesty International accused Meta of platforming a genocide in Myanmar in 2017 — but their influence and power has never been greater than it is today. And every major commercial social network is complicit. They’re collaborators. We all know about Twitter acquirer Elon Musk, who bent the platform to fit his political worldview. But he’s not alone. Here’s Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, owner of LinkedIn, who contributed a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration fund. Here’s Mark Zuckerberg, who owns Threads, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, who said that he feels optimistic about the new administration’s agenda. And here’s Larry Ellison, who will control TikTok in the US, who was a major investor in Trump, and who one advisor called, in a WIRED interview, the shadow President of the United States. Social media is very quickly becoming aligned with a state that in itself is becoming increasingly authoritarian. ### The decline of journalism Journalism and the media is a way we’ve traditionally learned about the world. And a free press is usually a check on power. Multiple studies have found that communities with an active newsroom have less political corruption - or, rather, that communities without an active newsroom had more corruption. But the news industry failed to adapt to the more personal nature of the web, and has been in slow decline for many years. Compounding this, business decisions by companies like Google have led to fewer clickthroughs to news sites from search engines as well as from traditional social networks. They display AI summaries and show you answer boxes instead of prominently linking to the sources themselves. Fewer people clicking through translates to fewer pageviews, fewer subscribers, and fewer donors. Engagement and revenue are both declining. Public service journalism is withering just when we need it most. And now public media has been defunded by the government, driving the final nail into the coffin for many outlets. Hundreds of them have closed or are predicted to close soon. Between the capitulation of social media and the slow decay of journalism, the result is less sunlight, more corruption, and more freedom for authoritarianism to spread and thrive. ### The problem is global I’m speaking from the US context, but these aren’t US only problems. For one thing, America’s influence extends worldwide, both through agreements and through overarching legislation like the CLOUD Act. For another, there are parallel movements elsewhere. Over in Britain, a nationalist movement that started with Brexit is taking hold, while public journalistic institutions like the BBC are under threat. The Online Safety Act requires identity verification that can put people in vulnerable communities at risk, and the government seemingly continually asks for backdoors in privacy software. Similar patterns are emerging over much of Europe. Japan just elected a far right prime minister. There’s a lot going on everywhere. It can be overwhelming. And whether you like it or not, sitting in this virtual room, you’re the counterculture. All of you are building platforms, communities, and relationships, with the potential to create an alternative to this centralization of power and influence. ### Social media and social networking We talk a lot about social media these days, but I want to register two definitions with you. Social media is the town square: a global commons where we can all learn from each other and build audiences at scale. Social networking, on the other hand, is a way to support communities of any kind using technology. These two things can interact and intersect, but they are not the same. ![Social media (scale & broadcast) vs social networking (trust & collaboration)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Werdmuller-FediForum-Keynote-2-.jpg) Because of its emphasis on scale, I think social media is more predisposed to centralization, and because of its emphasis on relationships and communities, social networking is more predisposed to decentralization. Let's make this more concrete. Imagine I'm part of a rapid response network protecting immigrants from deportation without due process. ![A single core community](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-3.38.08---PM.png) I have a core community. We trust each other completely. We coordinate the sensitive stuff in our private space: who has access to various resources, which volunteers are trained legal observers, how we move money to families when someone gets detained. This inner circle needs to be absolutely secure. These conversations could get people deported if they fall into the wrong hands. But our community can't cover a whole city. So we connect with other groups we trust: other mutual aid networks, immigrant rights organizations, faith communities that have offered sanctuary. ![An archipelago of related communities](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-3.38.35---PM.png) These groups have their own secure spaces, their own trusted circles. But we need to coordinate with them. When ICE shows up to detain someone, we might need bodies there within 20 minutes: witnesses with cameras, legal observers, community members who can slow the process down and ensure due process is followed. We're building an archipelago of trusted communities, each with their own secure space, but able to communicate across those boundaries. Together, across this archipelago, we can have private, end-to-end encrypted conversations about who's available for rapid response, where ICE was spotted this morning, which families need emergency funds. This encryption is vital. Without it, the web hosts that power our communities can be subpoenaed without our knowledge, and our conversations can be handed over to the government, putting everyone we're trying to help at risk. So at this level, everything must be encrypted. The inner circles and the archipelago both need to be surveillance-proof. ![The archipelago's encrypted enclave ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-3.39.10---PM.png) Federation makes us stronger. If one community is compromised for any reason and is taken offline, the others remain online. Just like the web itself. And when we're ready, then we step into the public fediverse. ![The private archipelago and the public fediverse](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-3.39.51---PM.png) We announce the action. We share the video. We name the officials responsible. We rally public support. Everyone has access to this: it's the town square, the place where we build power at scale. But we only got here safely because we could organize privately first. That's the distinction: networking builds trust and enables coordination within and across communities. Media scales that message to everyone. And the fediverse can do both. And it can do it without centralization, without being subject to any one company’s business decisions, and, if we add encryption, with freedom from surveillance. For vulnerable groups in particular, that provides a refuge, a place to build relationships and community, and, perhaps most crucially, a place to organize. But these two modes - social media and social networking - are *different* modes with different use cases and different technical requirements. In my example, each group hosts its own communications and controls its own data. They federate to form an archipelago with other trusted groups. At both of these levels, communications are end-to-end encrypted because they have to be. These conversations can’t happen safely without it being physically impossible for adverse actors, including the government, to obtain access to them without the active participation of the community itself. The fediverse is not inherently safer because it’s federated: an open, permissionless protocol can be exploited just as easily to surveil as it can to build. But then, at the public level, those same groups can broadcast to the open fediverse when they need to. The spec for MLS over ActivityPub covers these activities, and using it within a limited archipelago limits potential exposure to a set of trusted communities. Most fediverse platforms don't currently support this archipelago model. But the building blocks exist. ### Start small Of course, this isn’t limited to immigration protests or even activism. This model of small, trusted communities that intersect with the public sphere is already at the heart of the open social web. With the right tooling, it has applicability for journalism, for mutual aid, for co-operative culture, for collaborative marketplaces, and for every aspect of public life. The open social web is, I believe, and I know I’m preaching to the choir, the future of social and the future of the web. So you might reasonably disagree with me about the threats, the needs, and this particular manifestation of a solution. But my point is not necessarily to advocate for this particular model. It’s when we’re building something new, we need to start somewhere small and specific. We need to start by supporting a specific *community’s* burning needs really well and grow outwards from there. Let's talk about TXTmob. ![A vintage graphic about TXTmob](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Werdmuller-FediForum-Keynote-6-.jpg) TXTmob was an SMS messaging service originally built by the Institute for Applied Autonomy for protesting political conventions in 2004, towards the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Activists used it to coordinate actions, report on police movements, and share their whereabouts. A user would send their status update via SMS, and other members of the group would receive it. They refined it based on this very specific use case. After the Republican National Convention, there was a weekend session of hackers and activists. Two of the people there - Rabble and Blaine Cook - worked for a company called Odeo that was having trouble getting its social network for podcasting off the ground. They made some helpful suggestions that improved TXTmob, but they also did an internal presentation at Odeo about the tool and how it worked. A few days later, at an internal hackday, the team there prototyped a tool that worked very similarly. Eventually, they named it Twitter. ![The original sketch of the tool that became Twitter](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/Werdmuller-FediForum-Keynote-7-.jpg) All of our microblogging tools have this lineage: short messages designed for a specific group of people and limited in length for a specific reason that was an outcome of that use case. A specific use case led to a working prototype that led to a wider application. That pattern is repeated again and again. ### Helping communities today For the open social web to thrive, we need to go back to real communities with real-world use cases and solve their problems better than anything else. Not the needs of individuals within them, but of the interconnected communities themselves. We need to build social networks that deeply support their needs, and then social media that helps them thrive. So if microblogging emerged from SMS updates for activists coordinating at the RNC in 2004, what should emerge from the needs of communities in 2025? What does that look like in practice? I'd challenge anyone looking to start a new platform - or add features to an existing one - to ask three questions. **First: Who specifically do we want to help?** Not "activists" or "journalists" in the abstract. Which organizers? Which newsrooms? Which communities? Have you sat with them? Marched with them? Watched them work? Have you understood how they communicate and where their current tools fail them? **Second: Why are we the right team to help them?** Is it lived experience in that community? Deep domain knowledge? A unique technical capability they need? Or are you building what *you* find intellectually interesting, rather than helping someone? If your team isn't representative of the people you're trying to help, you might not be the right people yet. **Third: How can we address their needs better than anything else that exists today?** I don’t mean ideology. Open source or federation are not solutions in themselves. They’re characteristics of a solution. We need to be concretely meeting needs. Not what you *think* their needs are or what they should be, but what you’ve *learned* they are from getting to know them deeply. What specific pain point are you solving that keeps people on WhatsApp despite the surveillance risk, or on X despite the white supremacy? What does open source or federation make possible that *concretely* makes their lives better today? Is it *really* better than Signal or email or whatever else they’re using? Concepts like "credible exit" are hypothetical. They matter in the long term, but they won't drive adoption today if the immediate experience isn't better. What’s making their lives better right *now*? It might be that you don’t have the answers today. Even then, there’s so much you *can* do. Maybe your role is to provide infrastructure, funding, technical support for communities building their own solutions - or just to promote the movement and spread the word. Maybe it’s about supporting and contributing to other projects in forums and communities like FediForum. Maybe you need to build your community or a team, building relationships and doing research until you *do* have the answers. But I don’t think any social movement, any community, needs saviors riding in on a white horse. The world particularly does not need more tech teams swooping in to change the world from the basis of their own assumptions, even if they do believe in open source or federation. It needs more people willing to listen to the people who know, and to support people who are already on the ground. ### These questions work. At Matter Ventures, I invested in and supported a portfolio of 75 startups, all of which were mission-driven, trying to make the world better in some key way. It taught me a lot about projects and how they succeed or fail. It turns out these questions for mission-driven open social web teams happen to be the same ones that most closely predicted whether one of those companies would live or die. If a team was trying to be the smartest people in the room and invent a solution without knowing, being of, and co-creating with the communities they were trying to help, they were not likely to succeed at what they were doing. The startups who were led by unwavering visionaries who thought they could invent something amazing because they were smart and clever and creative, with better values, were the ones that died fastest and hardest. If, on the other hand, they did the work to understand their communities, make sure they were building something that really served them, made the effort to grow to be representative of them, and changed their focus when they learned that their communities needed something different to what they had in mind - those teams were much more likely to succeed. I realize most of this room probably doesn’t care about startups. But again, not to belabor the point: the same questions that predicted whether mission-driven startups would succeed apply to everyone building on the open social web. Who are you building for? Why are you the right team? How does your solution concretely serve their real human needs better than anything else? I’ve learned this first-hand. I mentioned my two social networking projects, Elgg and Known. Elgg started with a concrete use case in higher education, then expanded to adjacent use cases in non-profits, and then to businesses and startups. It became a thriving business for years. Investors came to us asking to put money in. Several governments used it as their national intranets. Known was designed for the indie web, and had a community of people who were lovely people - they’re all my friends today - but they liked and supported us because of a certain set of shared values that we were in line with. It was ideological. There was no concrete real-world use case and Known had real trouble building traction. The internal newsroom conversations I’ve had about the open social web have been disappointing to someone like me who cares about the space. They want to know why it’s better for their bottom line than the incumbent social networks that they already know how to measure and use. The answer can’t be ideological. There *are* real answers - people on the fediverse are more likely to engage in and donate to journalism, for example - but stories about how the fediverse is decentralized don’t land for them. It doesn’t speak to their needs. It turns out that if you solve a community’s needs deeply, you’re valuable to them. And these communities have intersecting communities, which you can get to know too, and be valuable to also. You’re more likely to reach sustainability, whatever your model is, because you’ll have communities that you’re serving deeply, who you’ve become valuable to, and who want to support you. That might be through donations or mutual aid or revenue or collaboration. And we need the open social web to be sustainable. We need people to keep working on these problems. We need *you* to be able to work on this full-time without burning out. These aren't just good questions to ask: they're survival questions. Because the threats communities are facing aren't abstract and we need the open social web to exist. ### The threats are real As I was writing this talk, an entire apartment building in Chicago was raided. Adults were separated into trucks based on race, regardless of their citizenship status. Children were zip tied to each other. And we are at the foothills of this. Every week, it ratchets up. Every week, there’s something new. Every week, there’s a new restrictive social media policy or a news outlet disappears, removing our ability to accurately learn about what’s happening around us. And, look, I don’t mean to scare or pressure you. I really don’t. But you have so much power. The threats are real. But so is the community in this room. You have the skills, the values, and now hopefully a framework to build what's needed. Everyone here has the potential to be building the future. You’re building platforms that provide an alternative to an authoritarian, extractive status quo, and every platform on the fediverse has the potential to help build a more informed and equal global society. What I hope we'll all remember is that protocols and code are only valuable if they serve real communities with real needs. And today, there are communities facing real threats. The opportunity right now isn't to build a better Twitter or to provide a nice place for people who care about Linux to chat: it's to build infrastructure that vulnerable people can actually use to organize, to communicate safely, and to build community. But we can only do that if we're building *with* those communities from day one, not building *for* them based on our assumptions about what they need. Over the next two days, I hope you'll use those three questions as one of your lenses. Who is this really for? Are we the right people to build it? And does it concretely serve their real needs better than what exists today? Because the stakes are real, and there’s real scope to help. ### Thank you Thanks for listening. If you want to yell at me, I understand. Here’s where to find me. - Fediverse: [@ben@werd.social](https://werd.social/@ben/) - Bluesky: [@werd.io](https://bsky.app/profile/werd.io) - Web: [werd.io](https://werd.io/) - Email: [ben@werd.io](mailto:ben@werd.io) ### Build what makes you special. Buy the rest. URL: https://werd.io/build-what-makes-you-special-buy-the-rest/ Last updated: 2025-10-14T19:58:06.000Z Someone in the newsroom needs a new tool. The audience team wants better dashboards; the graphics team needs to publish interactives faster. An engineer says, “we could build that.” They probably could. But a few months later, the prototype still isn’t done, priorities have shifted, and maintenance has quietly become a huge problem. Multiply that story by a few years and you have the technology landscape of many newsrooms: a constellation of one-off tools, each built with the best intentions, each demanding time that no one has. That's where the *build vs buy* dilemma begins. ### Introducing build vs buy You have a problem that needs to be solved using software of some kind. The question is, do you build it yourself, or do you buy it from a vendor? Every technical team encounters this at some point. It’s a decision that seems simple on the surface but regularly destroys engineering roadmaps and budgets. Your engineers might want to build it. It’s why they got into this profession, after all. What’s the point of being an engineer if you’re not, you know, *engineering*? As a writer who is also an engineer, I’m in love with building things from scratch. Being able to create something out of words on the page is a kind of magic, regardless of whether it’s prose or code. Many of us got into the profession because that act of creation gave us energy; I certainly did. We love to build, to create, to *invent*. But sometimes that’s the worst thing we could be doing. ### Newsrooms are not tech companies In a tech company, software is the thing that makes us special. We’re probably all working on different aspects of the same product, or at least the same product *suite*. We then make money by honing the software product for its audience and either selling it to them or monetizing the traffic. In an organization like a newsroom, our product is not software. We *depend* on software at every level from gathering source material to publishing to an audience, but software is not the thing that most people would say is valuable about us. Ask anyone what’s valuable about us and they’ll tell you that it’s the journalism that we produce that you can’t get anywhere else. That’s our *differentiating value*. People subscribe or donate to the journalism, not the software we build. This radically changes how we think about investing in software. Newsroom tech teams are like startups in that they’re running with limited resources and constantly trying to assess how they can provide the most value. Back when I was Director of Investments at Matter Ventures, I advised them to spend their time building the things that made them special — their differentiating value — and using the most boring, accepted solution for everything else. It's a rule of thumb that works universally: build what makes you special and buy the rest. But the critical difference is that, in newsrooms, what makes you special is the journalism that software enables, not the software itself. This creates a particular challenge for newsroom engineering teams. Because the product is journalism rather than a unified software platform, newsrooms often end up with a constellation of disconnected tools, each serving a different newsroom function. At the same time, these teams are typically much smaller than their tech company counterparts. When you build software, you’re not just signing up to architect and produce it: you’re also on the hook for maintaining it for its entire lifecycle. Every unique software project you build comes with its own maintenance overhead. This is cumulative. If you continuously choose *build* over *buy*, you accumulate maintenance overhead until your team is drowning in upkeep with no capacity for anything new. As a result, most newsroom teams should buy almost everything. The bar for building something new needs to be very high: it has to be something that provides real strategic differentiation. But understanding *what* to buy and *when* to build only works if the organization itself is structured to make those decisions coherently — and many newsrooms aren’t. ### Product teams are not helpdesks Okay, but why *are* newsrooms saddled with constellations of disconnected software? In a tech company, there’s a golden triad of teams that work together in tandem: engineering, design, and product. Each of these has a corresponding leader in the C-suite. The result is that technology, product design, and user experience shape company strategy from day one. They're not afterthoughts once the business model is figured out; the business model rests on them. Newsrooms rarely have a comparable structure. Technology and product functions — when they exist as distinct roles — lack the strategic authority they'd have at tech companies. Technology is seen as a tactical function that keeps systems running — running the network and keeping the CMS online — rather than a strategic partner that can build competitive advantages. Strategy, then, comes from elsewhere in the organization, even when it’s inherently technical in nature. Those teams know their own needs, but their understanding is shaped by their own domain expertise, not by engineering principles or emerging technical capabilities. They know what similar newsrooms are doing, but not what's technically possible. Without unified platform strategy or technical leadership at the strategic level, technology teams become reactive. Requests come in from every direction: the graphics team needs better publishing tools, investigations wants data analysis capabilities, the audience team needs custom dashboards. Each request arrives independently, and each feels urgent to the stakeholders who need it. This is the helpdesk trap. Technology teams triage incoming requests and build one-off solutions to immediate problems rather than identifying patterns, creating shared platforms, or asking strategic questions about long-term architecture. Each department gets what they asked for, but the organization accumulates technical debt. In small, reactive teams juggling fragmented requests, knowledge silos form quickly. Often, by necessity, one engineer owns each custom tool. It’s common for them to be abandoned once that engineer has left the organization. Each custom tool adds to the constellation, each one deepens the maintenance burden, and the cycle reinforces itself. As overhead grows, teams become more reactive and less able to step back and think strategically about the next decision. This is why disciplined build vs buy thinking is critical in newsrooms. The default bias is toward building, but the structural constraints mean most teams should buy almost everything, leaving building for projects that yield genuine strategic differentiation that can't be achieved any other way. But even perfect build vs buy decisions can’t fully solve the underlying problem. A helpdesk approach to technology results in fragmented strategy and limited innovation, regardless of how efficiently it’s managed. There’s no substitute for making technology a key strategic partner rather than a service function. To be clear: it’s not that newsrooms need to be tech companies. But every modern newsroom lives and dies on the web, and that web-first thinking needs to be a core part of its strategic DNA. More than that, every newsroom thrives on building trusted relationships with its readers, and technology has the potential to strengthen and empower those relationships. With all of this in mind, how do we actually make these decisions in practice? ### When to build vs buy Newsrooms should never build *commodity technology*: things that have been built hundreds of times before. If your approach for authentication, ad serving, etc, isn’t differentiated from the norm, you should buy it. That means you should almost always buy infrastructure and security (authentication, payments, hosting), standard publishing tools (core CMS, email delivery), analytics, ad serving, business operations tools, and social media management. Before deciding to build, challenge yourself with these questions. You need a clear *yes* to all of them: - Does this enable journalism we literally cannot produce any other way? - Have we genuinely evaluated vendor options, not just assumed they won't work? - Can we commit real engineering time to maintain this for 3-5 years, even after the original builders leave? - Is this tied to our specific editorial differentiation, not just "nice to have"? - Will multiple teams benefit, or is this solving one group's problem? If you answered *yes* to all of these, dig deeper with these practical questions: - Have we looked for vendor solutions that meet our newsroom-specific needs, including legal requirements around data retention, subpoena response, and source protection? - Could we buy something close and either configure it or adapt our workflow slightly? - Could we contribute to an open source project instead of building from scratch? - What's the true cost including 3-5 years of maintenance versus vendor pricing? - What are we not building if we commit resources to this? And then, when you’re calculating your build costs, include: - Initial development (multiply your estimate by 2-3x) - Ongoing maintenance (at least 20% of engineering time annually) - Documentation and knowledge transfer - Opportunity cost of other features - Risk cost when original builders leave Compare these costs to the cost of buying a solution over 3-5 years, not just the first year. Usually you’ll find that buying is cheaper if you’re honest about maintenance. When in doubt, buy. Building is a one-way commitment: once people depend on your custom tool, you can’t easily abandon it. If you’re careful about buying, it’s reversible. You can always build later if vendors truly don't work. Start with the assumption that you’ll buy. In practice, the smartest teams wind up doing both. They buy the stable foundations — CMSs, data stores, analytics — and build the connective tissue that ties them to the newsroom’s unique workflows. Those small bridges and integrations are where differentiation lives. As modular SaaS, open APIs, and generative tools evolve, the line between building and buying will keep blurring. The real question won’t be “should we own this code?” but “which capabilities do we want to own?” The newsrooms that answer that clearly will adapt fastest to whatever comes next. That requires being empowered to build a coherent strategy. ### Software you buy doesn’t need to lock you in Even if you’re buying software from a vendor, you don’t need to be locked into their services. Open source software offers a middle path between vendor lock-in and building everything yourself. When you use open source software, you get the benefits of buying — someone else handles core development — without surrendering control. The code is yours to inspect, modify, or move if needed. That last piece — moving — is the most important. The sweet spot is when a project team provides its own commercial services: you buy their support, use their hosting, and usually enjoy the best possible managed version of their product. But if it all goes south — the CEO has become a megalomaniac, the company has been acquired and is undertaking a hard pivot — you don’t need to find another product. You can take your data and the underlying code and run it somewhere else. There are usually a handful of other managed services to choose from. In other words, treat open source as *buy with an escape hatch*, not *free building blocks*. Adopting an open source project and hosting it yourself should be considered a *build* decision; you’ll pay in maintenance. Obtaining commercial services for software with an open core should be considered a *buy* decision. Many newsrooms have succeeded with open source publishing platforms (WordPress, Ghost), specialized journalism tools (DocumentCloud), or analytics solutions. The key is choosing projects with active communities, regular updates, and a great commercial support structure. ### Helpdesks don’t build the future Getting your build vs buy balance right is how you achieve table stakes: stable infrastructure, reliable publishing, sustainable engineering. But that sets you up for *today*. In order for any business to future-proof itself, it needs to make a bet on what the future will look like and build for *that*. The future of journalism will be shaped by the newsrooms that treat technology as a strategic partner, not a support function. This means bringing technology leadership into strategic planning conversations, not just implementation meetings. It means asking, “what could we do that we’re not considering?” alongside “can you build this?” It means looking for patterns across the disparate requests your team receives and asking whether there’s a platform or capability that could serve multiple needs. It means looking outside the journalism industry to learn from innovation and nascent trends elsewhere. When technology leads strategically, it expands what’s possible. It builds storytelling formats that couldn’t exist before, finds new ways to earn reader trust, anticipates future challenges, and helps newsrooms reach people who’ve been left out of traditional coverage. The build vs buy framework helps you avoid technical debt, but can’t prevent all of it. More than that, though, building the future of journalism depends on treating the people who understand what’s technically possible, and who see the trends ahead, as essential partners in defining what journalism can become. The future of journalism won’t be defined by who builds the best CMS or analytics dashboard. It’ll be defined by who uses technology to deepen trust, reach new audiences, and tell stories that couldn’t exist before. That requires engineering as imagination, not just implementation. Buy stability. Build possibility. ### What AI means for the business of: journalism URL: https://werd.io/what-ai-means-for-the-business-of-journalism/ Last updated: 2025-10-09T14:00:08.000Z \[[Tony Haile at Filament](https://filament.substack.com/p/what-ai-means-for-the-business-of)\] Earlier this week I keynoted FediForum and also used the metaphor of trusted archipelagos — it’s really interesting to see the way Tony Haile’s used them here. I strongly agree with his conclusions, and I think everyone in media needs to pay attention to this argument. There’s a difference between social media and social networks. Social media is the wide-open town square that we’ve heard so much about; social *networks* are communities of interest, practice, or shared values. Social media has been declining, and, as Tony says: > “In its place, the real conversations and connections migrated to an archipelago of WhatsApp groups, Slacks, Discord servers and Signal chats. This is the Archipelago of Trust: self-selecting focused communities loosely bridged by mutual members and bounded by common norms.” This hasn’t been well-represented in the features of new tools. (I’m very interested to see what Tony’s up to with Filament.) My argument earlier this week was partially that people building new open social web tools should look to existing communities to model how they evolve their features and protocols. The thing that I don’t think we’ve solved for yet are that these trusted archipelagos are necessarily exclusive. What social media was brilliant at was letting someone with no connections from anywhere in the world participate based on the strength of their ideas. In a world where you have to know someone to be let in, the bar to participation is higher for someone who isn’t already part of the in-crowd. That has the potential to make homogenous groups; if we’re not really careful, we’ll repeat or even amplify existing social biases. Still, it’s very clear that community organizers — or, to reframe a little, community *facilitators* — are loci of trust that it would be wise to build around. People trust people far more than they trust brands, platforms, or technology. \[[Link](https://filament.substack.com/p/what-ai-means-for-the-business-of)\] ### Telomeres, my son, and me URL: https://werd.io/telomeres-my-son-and-me/ Last updated: 2025-10-04T17:09:56.000Z I bawled my way through *Nowhere Special*, a 2020 movie about a terminally ill man who needs to find a new family for his four year old son. I’ll be thinking about it for years. It’s the story of a window cleaner with a terminal illness who needs to find a new family for his four year old son. The whole thing is perfectly understated, beautiful in its portrayal of a particular kind of love, but completely devastating. The film sits at the intersection of a lot of things for me. Daniel Lamont, who played the four year old Michael, was reminiscent of my own three year old; so many of the furtive looks, reactions, and responses were echoes of my own son, so indicative of our own relationship. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/10/nowhere-special.jpg) Daniel Lamont and James Norton in Nowhere Special A little over four years ago I had to say goodbye to my mother. She had a genetic disorder called a TERT mutation that interferes with the production of the enzyme telomerase, which normally protects your telomeres. You can think of telomeres as the end-caps of your chromosomes; they normally shorten as your cells divide, and therefore become shorter and shorter as you age. Eventually, when they become too short, the cell enters *senescence*, and the cell dies. If you don’t have adequate telomerase, your telomeres shorten artificially quickly, and your cells enter senescence early. In my mother’s case, that led to pulmonary fibrosis: a condition where your lungs progressively scar up, making it harder and harder to breathe. Because TERT is genetic, it runs in the family. So far, five members of my family have died from it. For around a decade, I was sure that I would too. We lost members of my mother's generation in their sixties; my cousins were younger. Going by that pattern, I wouldn't have much time left. In 2018, the science had progressed enough for me to be able to take a genetic test, which found that I *don’t* have the trait. It was bittersweet to say the least, but I’m glad that my mother was able to know that she hadn’t passed it on. The science has advanced again. In particular, our understanding of epigenetics means that it’s perfectly possible to have inherited artificially short telomeres, and even dysfunctional telomerase production, *without* having the genetic trait. I have reason to believe that this might be the case for me, so a few weeks ago, while I was in San Francisco for a work trip, I submitted to a telomere length test at UCSF. I’m still waiting for the results. We don’t know enough, and the science around telomeres continues to evolve. If I have short telomeres, it *could* mean that I will die young. Telomeres can also be affected by other environmental factors, so I would certainly make lifestyle changes to help protect them (and, in fact, I already am). But as I write this, there’s a real chance I will leave my best buddy behind far earlier than I would like. Many people have to deal with these kinds of confronting situations (and far worse, of course). But it is confronting. And it brings up the kinds of questions that are worth asking regardless, in any situation: what does it look like to be the best parent possible in the time I have? How can I make sure that I set him up as well as I can for life? How can I optimize for being present and making wonderful memories together? How can I be the best possible person as we navigate childhood and parenthood together? When my mother died, I made a resolution to be more representative of her values. I haven’t always lived up to this, and I was frankly a total mess in the year afterwards in particular, but it was the core reason that I shifted into working inside non-profit newsrooms. I’m really grateful for the upbringing I had: a non-traditional journey that involved multiple countries and parents who were oriented towards togetherness, internationalism, and equity from first principles rather than personal gain or living according to traditional templates. How can I give my son something similar? And working backwards from that, what should our family life look like? These are heavy questions. *Nowhere Special* has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you haven’t yet, I’d go check it out. ### Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated' URL: https://werd.io/massive-immigration-raid-on-chicago-apartment-building-leaves-residents-reeling-i-feel-defeated/ Last updated: 2025-10-03T14:02:25.000Z \[[Cindy Hernandez in the Chicago Sun-Times](https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-immigration-raid-on-chicago-apartment-building-leaves-residents-reeling-i-feel-defeated?fbclid=IwY2xjawNMs1dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETExbE1yUGRXTEtYQ2xvTVlrAR5NAhn6m-mN25gq60THIahWS1cCqleTJDBOzNjOeG5V-VjfSt%5F7XNEJIMGONw%5Faem%5F5M8Rcy7o0JLaNTqLSYdMCA)\] These stories of rising anti-immigrant actions in an increasingly authoritarian state should be disturbing to everyone, but for many people they represent a direct attack on their communities and safety. Managers and leaders should take notice. > “Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said. Agents approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story building, and U.S. citizens were among those detained for hours.” The more privileged among us will remain at arms length, will not personally experience the trauma of a missing neighbor or relative, and will not live in fear of something happening to themselves. Everyone else lives on a spectrum of being directly targeted to having family histories filled with similar events, where stories of horror and trauma have been passed between generations. Leaders are more likely to fall into the first bucket: not directly affected, with little family history of trauma. They’ll find it easier to compartmentalize, and harder to truly empathize with the cognitive overhead and real risks that many are dealing with as they live through this era. But they’re also the people who are charged with creating great working conditions for their teams and who have a duty of care to the individuals within them. Emotional safety is paramount. It starts with offering an environment where team members feel safe to express emotions and are treated with kindness and inclusivity — and to share their lived experiences. We can’t learn and adapt without openness. But it’s also about giving people space, acknowledging events in the outside world, and not leading with an expectation that nothing has changed. For senior leadership, providing access to resources, and acknowledging new realities when making policy are vital. Actually asking: what do people whose communities are targeted by these raids need? What do our trans colleagues need? How can we provide a safer community? And going to the source rather than trying to guess, and never dismissing a perspective because it doesn’t represent the majority. When we hire, we build a community and foster relationships based on trust and support. In this adverse environment, that’s more important than ever. As managers and leaders, we need to live up to the responsibility. \[[Link](https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-immigration-raid-on-chicago-apartment-building-leaves-residents-reeling-i-feel-defeated?fbclid=IwY2xjawNMs1dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETExbE1yUGRXTEtYQ2xvTVlrAR5NAhn6m-mN25gq60THIahWS1cCqleTJDBOzNjOeG5V-VjfSt%5F7XNEJIMGONw%5Faem%5F5M8Rcy7o0JLaNTqLSYdMCA)\] ### Don’t dwell on “democracy,” and other new findings about how to market local news URL: https://werd.io/dont-dwell-on-democracy-and-other-new-findings-about-how-to-market-local-news/ Last updated: 2025-10-03T12:19:00.000Z \[[Sophie Culpepper in NiemanLab](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/dont-dwell-on-democracy-and-other-new-findings-about-how-to-market-local-news/)\] Interesting findings about how to market local news: > “Here’s the paradox: 93% of people believe reliable local news is necessary for democracy, yet many of these same people react negatively to explicit “democracy” messaging. This happens because of a disconnect between cognitive and emotional responses. People intellectually understand the connection but emotionally resist being told about it. Years of political messaging have created fatigue around the word “democracy,” and it now triggers partisan defenses regardless of people’s actual beliefs.” Beyond the effectiveness off using “democracy” messaging, I’ve never found high-level ideology to be a particularly effective way to sell without other pressure. (Ask me about my years trying to sell the idea, “Facebook is a gatekeeper to information and a threat to democracy; we need open social media” to a world that hadn’t yet encountered Cambridge Analytica.) From a newsroom’s perspective, they’re protecting democracy; from the industry’s perspective, the entire ecosystem is in crisis. But “please pay us money, we’re protecting democracy and our industry is dying” is obviously not a great sales pitch — at least, beyond a core subset of people who are also energetically worried that democracy and journalism are dying. Those people are far more likely to be on one side of the political aisle, and if you’re trying to sell to a whole community, that won’t work. It seems to me that, like all products, the question is: what do you actually get from it? It’s no surprise to me that the messages that worked were along the lines of “trustworthy local information”. A sample message from the report itself: > “Coverage of school board decisions, local elections, public safety, or community events won’t come from a national newsroom. These are stories only we tell, and they are essential for people making daily choices that affect their families and neighborhoods.” That checks out. \[[Link](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/dont-dwell-on-democracy-and-other-new-findings-about-how-to-market-local-news/)\] ### The One-on-One Gift Exchange URL: https://werd.io/the-one-on-one-gift-exchange/ Last updated: 2025-10-02T13:09:44.000Z \[[Corey Ford at Point C](https://pointc.co/the-one-on-one-gift-exchange/)\] I’ve [used this feedback technique](https://pointc.co/the-one-on-one-gift-exchange/) — which Corey taught me — for over a decade, across many teams. I love it and trust it. Creating a culture of open feedback is really important for any team, but innovation teams are particularly subject to ups and downs, and relationships can sour if friction of any kind goes unaddressed. It’s important to be able to give and receive feedback without fear. As Corey points out: > “The innovation journey is hard on relationships. You should not expect the team experience to constantly be moving up and to the right. It will be a rollercoaster. Accepting that fact from the beginning, innovation leaders establish norms and rituals from the outset that prepare their team for when they inevitably hit the bottom of the roller coaster. > > Establishing regular feedback rhythms between members of the team ensures they won't blow up. The time for feedback is not just when things are going poorly. Feedback is a muscle that needs to be regularly exercised in all conditions. If you are giving and receiving feedback on a regular basis, it ensures minor corrections that keep your team from going off course.” If I have one wish, it’s that it was easier to do in virtual team situations. The setup Corey describes where you use Post-Its around a table is brilliant (I also agree with his use of Time Timers, and own more than a few). In a virtual situation, you end up inevitably creating documents and artifacts that feel a little too finite and perfect. Really the feedback should be ephemeral: something you do in the moment as part of a gift exchange that also helps strengthen the foundation of your relationship. I’m still thinking about it. Give it a try. The first time is a little uncomfortable, but once you’ve done it on a regular basis (the regularity is crucial) it becomes second nature. Open feedback is a key ingredient to building high-performing teams, and this is a great framework to grow that muscle. I couldn’t recommend it more. \[[Link](https://pointc.co/the-one-on-one-gift-exchange/)\] ### Your private data isn't as private as you think URL: https://werd.io/your-private-data-isnt-as-private-as-you-think/ Last updated: 2025-10-01T16:44:34.000Z *I’m not a lawyer, and this piece is for informational purposes only, not legal advice. Laws vary by location and change frequently. If you need specific guidance for your situation, please consult with a qualified attorney.* It’s not widely understood that it is technically possible for privately hosted data to be obtained by government, law enforcement, or even private parties without your knowledge. Here’s how it works: - Someone files a case. It’s possible for this case to be sealed so that you never find out about it. The case needs to have a court that is willing to hear it, which depends on the judge. - In civil cases, attorneys can issue subpoenas directly during discovery, though judges can quash them if challenged. In criminal cases, prosecutors typically seek court-approved subpoenas or warrants. - The provider needs to determine whether they will fight the subpoena or grant access to your information. - If it is a *civil* case, those providers *may* notify you. If it is a *criminal* case, subpoenas often include gag clauses that prohibit providers from notifying you. - Not wanting a court battle, many providers are likely to provide your information. This is the most frequent outcome. Civil cases involve disputes between private parties (like individuals or companies), while criminal cases involve the government prosecuting someone for violating the law. As law and policy becomes increasingly draconian, the latter will become more and more common. Depending on the provider type, they may be *compelled* to hand over your information. They also might not consider your information to be particularly private. For example, US law has not generally considered call metadata (who you’re speaking to, when, and for how long) to be protected by the Fourth Amendment. An important exception is cell-site location records, which the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 generally require a warrant. But, of course, you can obtain a lot of information just through call records, as well as by obtaining data center records for online apps that use geolocation, like maps, check-in apps, and social media. US courts have long followed the “third-party doctrine,” which says that if you voluntarily share information with a company (like a phone provider, ISP, or app), you lose any reasonable expectation of privacy over it. In practice, that means metadata and many kinds of records can be handed over to law enforcement without a warrant, simply because you already shared them with a third party. Much of this information can also be obtained through data brokers. Many apps sell very detailed personal information about their users as secondary revenue, or even as their primary business model. Law enforcement is an active purchaser of information that it couldn’t have obtained directly for Fourth Amendment reasons; because it’s sold as a product, they are able to be a customer like any other. This loophole is beginning to close — [Montana became the first state to outlaw the practice](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/montana-becomes-first-state-close-law-enforcement-data-broker-loophole) — but it remains widespread. [This 404 Media report on ICE's recent data purchases is a perfect case study of how this works](https://www.404media.co/email/0ba0f6a2-9195-4ced-9c40-92bb72367e7a/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter): > ICE is choosing this \[surveillance product that offers a continuously-updated database of millions of peoples' cellphone data\] over others offered by the contractor’s competitors because it gives ICE essentially an “all-in-one” tool for searching both masses of location data and information taken from social media. The documents also show that ICE is planning to once again use location data remotely harvested from peoples’ smartphones after previously saying it had stopped the practice. If you’re using a US service, you’re not immune from this potential surveillance even if you live in a country with stronger privacy protections. The CLOUD Act requires that US companies share information with US law enforcement even if the data is stored abroad and a local protection, like the EU’s GDPR, is in place. Businesses that fall under the jurisdiction of the CLOUD Act may be US-owned, but they could also be subsidiaries of US companies. They could also have just enough connection with the US, including those that have a US office or US employees. The key factor is whether US courts have personal jurisdiction over the provider. There are some protections; companies are allowed to challenge requests where there is a conflict with local law, for example. Some countries have also negotiated more nuanced agreements. The UK and Australia, for example, have agreements that establish specific privacy protections and limit requests to “serious crimes”. Everyone needs to conduct their own risk assessment. If you’re a journalist who reports on sensitive topics, or if you’re a member of a vulnerable community that is being targeted by government, you need to be very careful with your metadata. But privacy is a group inoculation: if you *know* people in sensitive groups, you should also be more careful with your data, in case information you accidentally collect is used to implicate them. Some ways you *can* protect your private information from being shared without your knowledge: - Consider which data you share with third parties. Do you really need to check into your favorite restaurant or track your running route? - Use third-party encryption wherever possible. This means that a service provider doesn’t have access to the content of your communications or files, and you hold the access keys. For example, use end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Signal, encrypted email services, or other tools that let you manage your own encryption keys. You may still be the target of a subpoena, but for someone to obtain access to your information, they will need to come directly to you to get it. - Check your default settings. Many apps and devices share more information than you realize by default. Turning off location history, ad personalization, and unnecessary tracking can meaningfully reduce what’s collected about you. None of these steps are perfect shields. But they can reduce your exposure, raise the bar for anyone trying to access your data, and, just as importantly, help protect the people around you. Privacy isn’t something you defend alone; it’s something we build together. In an era of increasingly expansive surveillance and rising authoritarianism, that’s more important than ever. ### Building distributed media for a democratic breakdown URL: https://werd.io/building-distributed-media-for-a-democratic-breakdown/ Last updated: 2025-09-25T16:26:47.000Z Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air on Tuesday and delivered a 28-minute monologue that set the record straight and sharply criticized the Trump administration. Sinclair and Nexstar, two TV networks whose affiliate stations collectively represent 25% of ABC’s broadcast audience, [refused to transmit the show](https://www.theringer.com/2025/09/24/tv/jimmy-kimmel-live-abc-return-sinclair-nexstar-disney-trump-fcc), pre-empting it with extended news programming instead. Trump, who is only increasing his authoritarianism, [took to Truth Social to threaten ABC with new legal action](https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/24/media/trump-abc-threat-jimmy-kimmel-disney) for bringing it back. Someone needed to introduce them to the [Streisand effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand%5Feffect): [his monologue was streamed over 17.7 million times on YouTube in the first 24 hours alone](https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/jimmy-kimmel-return-youtube-record-views-1236528127/), breaking records in the process. In the age of the internet, broadcast television is a legacy technology, and the content can always be obtained elsewhere. [The median age of a primetime ABC viewer is 65.6 years old](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-viewers-oldest-audiences-1235910778/). Everyone else is streaming. While the discussion of Kimmel’s [week-long indefinite suspension](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/business/jimmy-kimmel-show-abc-kirk-fcc.html) dominated media discourse, a few other things were going on. [New Jersey public media announced it would cease operations due to funding cuts](https://whyy.org/articles/new-jersey-pbs-shutting-down-television-channel/). [Cascade PBS in Seattle announced it would stop producing written journalism](https://current.org/2025/09/cascade-pbs-cuts-12-of-staff/). [Arizona public media made significant cuts to its content production staff](https://current.org/2025/09/arizona-public-media-to-lay-off-six-workers-eliminate-11-open-positions/). And on, and on, and on. Public service media has been gutted by [the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/01/nx-s1-5489808/cpb-shut-down-public-broadcasting-trump) and other attacks. It’s maybe not as exciting as the former host of [*The Man Show*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FMan%5FShow) being canceled for a very mild criticism of the current administration — which, to be clear, *is* an alarmingly fascist abuse of power — but it’s ongoing and harmful. It leaves rural communities in particular [with no information sources and no meaningful journalism covering their local governments](https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/29/media/pbs-npr-trump-defund-rescissions-alaska-remote-stations). If you believe that public service journalism is a load-bearing prerequisite for democracy, as I do, these are scary changes. These changes are particularly alarming because they're happening just as the news industry overall has been contracting for decades, leaving fewer resources to fill the gaps. Other, larger, newsrooms could theoretically help fill the content and funding gaps, but there are fewer and fewer resources to share around. The irony is that local news is the one place where this erosion of trust hasn’t been happening: local newsrooms know how to build community [and are disproportionately trusted as a result](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/06/americans-still-have-faith-in-local-news-but-few-are-willing-to-pay-for-it/). It’s also the one place where the broadcast medium is still important; in an emergency, or in a broadband desert, a radio signal can be the last source of real information. You can’t, yet, take a closed rural station and move it to YouTube without losing a large proportion of its audience. Around 90% of Americans have access to broadband internet, but that last 10% really matters. Of course, if all the shuttered public media stations did move to YouTube, the government would go after that, too. As a service owned by a single corporation, it’s a central point of failure. Publishing on the open web would remove that risk, but the internet itself has been repeatedly under attack. In some areas, legislation has passed that effectively bans certain kinds of content ([Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippi](https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-goes-dark-in-mississippi-age-verification/)for this reason) and [net neutrality has been decimated nationwide](https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5169139-fcc-net-neutrality-fast-lanes/), making it far easier for an ISP to cut access to a particular service, perhaps in response to pressure from the government. With the government flexing severe restrictions to broadcast media, and nothing stopping severe restrictions to *streaming* media, there’s nowhere left for information to go. In Cuba, the internet was legalized in 2019, although you need a permit to have a home connection, and connection quality is still intermittent. Starting long before that, people with access would download content to flash drives and [then distribute them through a vast, illicit network](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cuba-el-paquete-internet-wifi-havana-1.3527274) called [*El Paquete Semanal*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El%5FPaquete%5FSemanal), or *The Weekly Package*. You could think of it as a magazine: every week there would be a new issue of media that couldn’t be obtained any other way. It became so popular that the government tried to release its own competing USB drop containing approved media; unsurprisingly, it didn’t catch on. There are other analogues through history to draw on: [Samizdat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat) was a method for reproducing and distributing censored material by hand in the USSR; its network was similarly decentralized. In France during the Nazi occupation, [there were over a thousand underground publications operating with portable printing equipment and distribution cells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground%5Fmedia%5Fin%5FGerman-occupied%5FFrance), with over two million copies circulated in total. We’ve become very reliant on the internet, but we may need to prepare for a post-broadcast, post-open-internet era. Ironically, newspapers, long the poster-child of media’s death throes, are semi-distributed and would be more resilient to this more restrictive media landscape, as the French resistance example demonstrates. (Of course, a newspaper that relies on a centralized printing press can always be shut down.) These are things that *might* happen, not things that definitely will, but it doesn’t hurt to consider this as a potential future that we might need to react to. In a world where we succumb to truly authoritarian control over the media, I think there may be something to learn from *El Paquete*. A discrete bundle of digital media can be transmitted in multiple forms. It can be accessed via the web; consumed via an app that downloads the new bundle every week; transmitted over peer-to-peer networks; stored on resilient alternative file systems like [IPFS](https://ipfs.tech/); and even through [sneakernet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet) networks like Cuba’s. The bundle could contain archives of entire websites in the Internet Archive’s [WARC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WARC%5F%28file%5Fformat%29) format, downloads of video podcasts, and so on, linked with a web-based interface that would be somewhat akin to a DVD menu. Such a bundle would probably not be collated inside the US. Instead, a group might be established in safe third-party countries like Switzerland, who could communicate securely with journalists on the ground in the US and elsewhere. They would bundle the release, publish it to various networks (the open social web, IPFS, p2p networks), publish a checksum hash, and publicize it in [Signal](https://signal.org) channels. It would be paid for in various ways. The central newsroom would need to be funded by international non-profits oriented towards re-establishing media freedom in the US (for example, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders). Individual journalists and creators in the US would need to be supported by communities more local to them and would likely take the form of mutual aid as much as direct support. Because traditional payment and crypto networks are both highly traceable, direct donations or subscriptions might not be feasible or safe. I think it’s important to establish this ahead of time. By the time the internet is locked down and major restrictions have been applied to broadcast media, it’s too late. The good news is that it’s kind of cool in itself: the form of an online magazine that carries submissions from multiple news and media creators has a lot of scope for experimentation at every level, from content to design. It’s offline-first, which means you can interact with it on a plane and in other situations where internet is not an option. That’s neat in itself! It also solves the problem of how this would be found by new readers to begin with. After a democratic collapse, discovery would need to be through word of mouth; before it, though, such a product could be promoted through more traditional channels (emphasizing the innovative nature of its issue-based format rather than its resiliency to authoritarian control). Early adopters who are attracted to the initial product would form the backbone of the word-of-mouth network later on. Just as newsrooms today thrive if they successfully build community, building trusted networks of people becomes vital for distributing underground material in an authoritarian environment. Historical underground media networks took years to establish, as all communities do; building community would need to begin immediately. Our entire software stack — our content management systems in particular — are designed to be accessed through a functioning internet. Luckily, thanks to tools created by organizations like the [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/), we can simply build websites locally on our own devices and create an archived version to distribute. The tools are there; the work to be done is all at the human level. ### What I learned in the first five years of Platformer URL: https://werd.io/what-i-learned-in-the-first-five-years-of-platformer/ Last updated: 2025-09-24T01:39:45.000Z \[[Casey Newton at Platformer](https://www.platformer.news/platformer-year-five-lessons/?ref=platformer-newsletter)\] Casey Newton’s annual recaps are always great. Platformer has been a shining example of what going out on your own can look like: first as a thriving solo effort, and now as a bona fide small newsroom with a real staff. All running from an independent Ghost site. For me, perhaps predictably, the biggest callout is his ambitions around community: > “The one place where I feel like Platformer has failed on basically every level is in cultivating a community. Our audience of tech executives and rank-and-file employees has never felt safe posting comments or interacting with each other in our Discord. For the most part, people who work on tech policy would rather gather in spaces where they can talk off the record. And for my part, I haven’t invested enough energy in cultivating a community among those of you who would be willing to share your thoughts.” I think it’s clear that Discord is not the platform for this. It’s not private enough, it doesn’t support safe information-passing from sources, and it’s too grounded in real-time chat: a newsroom’s community is going to need to engage in asynchronous discussion. Platformer needs, well, a platform. Something that truly supports its efforts. And that doesn’t quite exist — at least, not right now. It’s delightful to see Platformer thrive. I love reading it. I can’t wait to see how it evolves over the next year. \[[Link](https://www.platformer.news/platformer-year-five-lessons/?ref=platformer-newsletter)\] ### How aesthetics destroyed privacy and polarized us URL: https://werd.io/how-aesthetics-destroyed-privacy-and-polarized-us/ Last updated: 2025-09-22T13:23:58.000Z \[[Tracy Durnell](https://tracydurnell.com/2025/09/21/how-aesthetics-destroyed-privacy-and-polarized-us/)\] Tracy has written a super-interesting discussion about how the online disinhibition effect has dovetailed with our tendency to send aesthetic signals to our communities, arguing that this has been a key ingredient into our polarization. > “Corporate platforms encourage us to aestheticize formerly private endeavors, like reading, so they can become signals too. Our overall online activity — which platforms we use, which sources we read — becomes another abstracted signal; sharing a Fox News video sends the opposite signal as linking a Jacobin article. Speech itself has become a powerful aesthetic signal.” It’s certainly thought-provoking. I have a few competing thoughts: It’s certainly true that our private lives have become aesthetic signals. Instagram, Goodreads, Swarm, and apps like them have encouraged us to share more private activity — and we form pictures of people and how they mesh with our own interests based on that activity. But did that really lead to polarization? I can tell you that my own politics have not shifted. What’s different is that I’ve found more people who feel the same way I do, and I feel less alone in having those opinions. But I’m in the same place on the same map. I’ve learned some new things about peoples’ lived experiences — I wouldn’t have as clear a picture of the trans experience without social media, for example — but my reaction to them would have been similar before social media. So is it possible that what we’re seeing is not polarization but a lack of political masking? I’d offer that, perhaps, more people feel more free to express radical opinions, because there is more social proof of people having them in public. In turn, more people are exposed to those arguments and find themselves attracted to them. This is not the same thing: it’s not aesthetics but genuine values alignment. The conclusions are perhaps no less troubling. While I’m not particularly moved by people worrying about what they call the “far left” — the so-called far left in America would be considered reasonably centrist in parts of Europe, with views that basically just relate to universal healthcare availability and not letting poor people die — we’re also living amidst a political climate that is increasingly reminiscent of 1930s Germany. It’s not a fun thing to come to the conclusion that a bunch of people really are intrinsically attracted to what amount to Nazi ideologies, but that is what I think. And if you consider the history of America over the 20th century, including Jim Crow, the McCarthy period, and even the post-9/11 furore and introduction of the PATRIOT Act, it checks out. Those are all popular fascist movements. On trips to Germany, I’ve stayed in guesthouses where the owners felt safe enough to quietly show off their pristinely-kept Nazi uniforms, perhaps because of our Germanic last name. (In reality, of course, the reveal was horror movie material.) In the UK and US, I’ve had people feel comfortable enough with me to reveal their dislike of people of other ethnicities, or their opinion that women should be homemakers, or any number of other deeply regressive opinions. I’ve seen tattoos furtively hidden under shirts. Those people weren’t polarized by the internet: they were always there. So that’s my take. This is not so much a *polarization* as a *great unmasking*. There is truth in the idea that aesthetic signals have led to some conformity, and there are, unfortunately, purity tests on all sides. I suspect there are also some morally rudderless people who have decided to hitch their values to particular wagons based on their popularity. But the underlying train tracks were always there; they’ve simply been dug out and given a bit of a polish. \[[Link](https://tracydurnell.com/2025/09/21/how-aesthetics-destroyed-privacy-and-polarized-us/)\] ### Using technology skills for positive change URL: https://werd.io/using-technology-skills-for-positive-change/ Last updated: 2025-09-10T13:49:03.000Z [*I’m answering your questions about the future of news technology*](https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/)*, and about how news works behind the scenes.* [*If you have a question for me, enter it here, and I’ll answer it in a future post.*](https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/) [Evan Hahn](https://evanhahn.com/) asks: > What is the best way for technologists to apply their skills to positive change? This feels like a good question to answer now: this week, the Supreme Court ruled that [roving immigration enforcement patrols can continue to profile people based on their appearance in California](https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/09/la-immigration-sweeps-supreme-court/). Afterwards, Governor Gavin Newsom, in a statement I agree with, said: > “Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court majority just became the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles. This isn’t about enforcing immigration laws — it’s about targeting Latinos and anyone who doesn’t look or sound like Stephen Miller’s idea of an American”. This immigration enforcement is heavily technology-powered. Amnesty International has pointed out that [Palantir and Babel X, in particular, are heavy collaborators](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/08/usa-global-tech-made-by-palantir-and-babel-street-pose-surveillance-threats-to-pro-palestine-student-protestors-migrants/). They have produced software that allows authorities to scan social media and other activity for content that they deem unacceptable. Palantir’s Immigration OS supports “end-to-end immigration management,” which includes facial recognition and support for fast removal. In this environment, how can technologists be forces for good? The technology industry has never been an unambiguous force for human progress. [IBM’s technology helped the Nazis manage the Holocaust](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.highereducation), in full knowledge of its management; Thomas J. Watson, its head, received the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle from Hitler himself. (He returned it in 1940 after the State Department gave him some quiet advice.) Silicon Valley itself was arguably [built on billions of dollars in Cold War military contracts](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/silicon-valley/). As a movement, the web stands apart, and has been an aberration in tech rather than the thing that defines it. It was created by a software engineer at [CERN](https://home.web.cern.ch/), the vast particle physics laboratory that straddles the border of Switzerland and France, to help people share information more easily. From the beginning, its ethos has been of free and open co-operation and pursuit of collective knowledge rather than the competition and dominance that characterizes military-funded work. Tim Berners-Lee made a conscious decision that the web would be available for all, rather than for the profit of any one group. CERN itself is a collaboration of many nations in service of collective knowledge, and it made sense for the web to follow suit. That doesn’t mean that doing good technical work means advancing the open web (although I do believe the open web is a force for good). More important are those principles of collaboration: a focus on elevating a common good rather than creating something proprietary that only its stakeholders can gain from. That could be doing work that helps combat climate change, make government more transparent, providing ways for independent artists to thrive, or many other things. It could mean building open technologies, seeding an ecosystem, or pushing for civil liberties and justice. I believe that doing good means making the world better for everybody. But it helps to understand what “good” means for you. I’ve found it useful to build myself a career mission: *to work on and support projects with the potential to make the world more informed and equal*. This allows me to make clearer decisions about which projects I get involved in: if a project is successful, will the world be more equal and/or informed? If not, I don’t want to get involved. *Informed* speaks to collective knowledge; *equal* is intended to speak to [intersectional equality](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.12760). The two together imply revealing truths that lead to equality. For me, that led to me seeking out non-profit newsrooms that focused on bringing about change through their journalism. One important factor in being a force for good is finding an environment where you are supported in applying these principles. That’s particularly tricky in today’s very harsh hiring environment: most technology vacancies seem to be in line with the current administration’s priorities, and mission-driven organizations are hiring less frequently. Unless you’re privileged enough to be financially independent, that places serious constraints on your ability to do values-aligned work. Both your skills and mindset need to be compatible. It’s not enough to want to do good; you need to be able to slot into an organization and meet it where it’s at. If you go in thinking you’re going to be a savior on a white horse, you’re going to fail. You have to respect its needs, its values, and its culture. There are experts in each space, and you need to learn from them. Because your skills and mindset need to be compatible, you need to understand organizational culture from the start. Not only does that help you figure out if you can meaningfully help, it helps you evaluate it as a place to work. Unfortunately, some mission-driven organizations feel absolved from building supportive organizational cultures because of their missions: they justify being shittier places to work because the work itself is meaningful. That’s usually a sign that leaders don’t understand the impact culture has on the quality or depth of the work being done, and that the mission itself is not as integral as it could be. So you need to figure out: 1. What is your mission? 2. What can you offer? 3. Which organizations are in line with your mission and need what you have to offer? 4. Of those, which ones will be sustainable places to work? It’s worth saying that “places to work” might also mean “industries to work in”; it might be more sustainable to put out a shingle as an independent contractor or consultant than as an employee at an organization. Regardless, the steps are the same. Each industry has its own norms around organizational culture and how people are supported; each requires you to meet them where they’re at and show up with a spirit of learning and service rather than being a savior. Here’s where I would look for values-aligned organizations: **Knowledge commons:** - Universities and research labs - Foundations supporting open source projects - Open knowledge and open science projects **Accountability and transparency:** - Journalism and media - Civil and digital rights organizations **Alternative ownership models:** - Worker-owned co-operatives - Community-owned infrastructure projects - Member-supported non-profits - Technology companies that aim to seed ecosystems These categories aren’t enough in themselves: they have to be aligned with your values. For example, a foundation supporting an open source project can still be doing harmful work: open source projects can be components of all kinds of evils. The project itself would need to be in line with your definition of “good”. There’s no doubt that working in these organizations pays less than working in tech. When I moved into journalism, my cash salary dropped by a six figure sum and I stopped earning equity. I made the calculation that this was worth it: I am still paid very fairly, all things considered, and the loss of income was offset by how much more meaningful my work was. Depending on your own circumstances, your calculations might vary. And if your goal is to become a millionaire, this path is not for you. For what it’s worth, I do think journalism’s salaries and benefits could improve, and paying too low leads to inclusion issues that harm an organization’s ability to do good work (because past a certain point the work only becomes sustainable for the independently wealthy). Pushing for change is never a bad thing. But it’s also important to acknowledge the current reality. If you’re a founder like me, you may also wonder if it’s more effective to work inside one of these organizations or to start something new. My recommendation that working inside one is non-optional. Even if you eventually aim to start something new, the experience understanding a new space, becoming familiar with its norms, and figuring out what’s effective and ineffective is invaluable. Approach it all with a beginner’s mindset, an intention to be of service, clarity about your values, and an understanding of how to make this work sustainable for you, and good things will flow from there. In a world that faces unprecedented challenges, from a resurgence in global fascism to the fast-developing storm of the climate crisis, we need more technologists to focus on doing good work. I encourage you to take the leap. [*Do you have a question about newsroom technology? Ask it here and I may answer it in a future post.*](https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/) ### WordPress for newsrooms URL: https://werd.io/wordpress-for-newsrooms/ Last updated: 2025-09-07T17:25:25.000Z [*I’m answering your questions about the future of news technology*](https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/)*, and about how news works behind the scenes.* [*If you have a question for me, enter it here, and I’ll answer it in a future post.*](https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/) Steve asks: > What do you think of news organizations that use WordPress, and where do you suggest they move in terms of a CMS? There are two CMS choices that I think are particularly well-suited for newsrooms. The first, [Ghost](https://ghost.org), is perfect for smaller newsrooms with a newsletter-centric distribution model. (I love Ghost’s elegance and use it for my own site and newsletter.) The other is, indeed, [WordPress](https://wordpress.org). In my experience, other content management systems are at least one of the following: - *Proprietary*, locking you into a vendor’s ecosystem without an easy exit - *Flexible but unopinionated*, providing copious building blocks that you could potentially build a site with but not enough out-of-the-box support for editorial workflows - *Overly technical*, requiring that users edit stories in static text files and commit them using git – a non-starter in any newsroom environment - *Marketing and sales oriented*, rather than editorially focused In practice, these are the two systems that excel at sites that center on ongoing content publishing. ### When to choose Ghost over WordPress A newsroom should choose Ghost if memberships are central to its strategy and simplicity is an asset. Conversely, it should choose WordPress if it needs complex integrations or customizations, multiple content types, or plans to distribute to multiple off-site platforms. Ghost’s [managed Pro offering](https://ghost.org/pricing/) requires significantly less ongoing technical involvement than WordPress, making it more suitable for newsrooms without dedicated development resources. However, most CMS platforms, including Ghost, benefit from some technical support for customizations and integrations. The biggest difference is architectural: you can best think of Ghost as an out-of-the-box CMS and WordPress as a framework for building more complex websites with CMS functionality at their core. As such, Ghost may not be suitable for newsrooms that need complex integrations or other interactive customization. Self-hosting is also arguably technically harder than with WordPress. But it’s pretty great. It powers newsrooms like [The Kyiv Independent](https://kyivindependent.com/), [404 Media](https://www.404media.co/), and [Hellgate NYC](https://hellgatenyc.com/). On the other hand, if you need an extensive plugin ecosystem, WordPress is likely a better fit. ### WordPress for publishers Although it started as a blogging platform, WordPress has come on in leaps and bounds for professional use cases. (Ironically, it is now less good at this original mission, for which Ghost is a much better choice.) Particularly when you consider its plugin ecosystem, it includes most of the features even very large newsrooms need to publish on the web as well as to off-site platforms like Apple News. WordPress’s open-source nature means that while recent leadership controversies at Automattic have created some uncertainty, the platform itself remains stable and newsrooms have multiple hosting options that provide independence from any single company's decisions. It’s an open platform, under active development, with a thriving ecosystem that allows newsrooms to choose functionality that meets their individual needs while embracing the open web. Because it’s open source, newsrooms can easily move providers and can modify its functionality to their hearts content. But it’s also not one thing. ### Multiple WordPresses to choose from The platform comes in lots of flavors. Newsrooms need to pick between the following: **Self-hosted WordPress:** Take the WordPress core platform and plugins and host them wherever you like, managing the files and your deployment process. The upside here is complete control; the downside is that you’re on the hook for both platform and infrastructure maintenance, and you need to have the team to support both. *Costs:* The costs and complexity of self-hosting start small, but they grow quickly, particularly when you consider security monitoring and development overheads. WordPress doesn’t have a stellar security reputation, and it’s because of these installations: often people will take the open source platform and run it on their own infrastructure without having the time, resources, or skills to keep it safe and up to date. Those issues stem from outdated installations and vulnerable plugins; a degree of awareness is required to keep an installation locked down and current. **Managed WordPress hosting:** Platforms like [Pressable](https://pressable.com/) provide a fully-managed WordPress hosting environment. They keep the core codebase up to date, maintain the infrastructure for you, give you a CDN, and help with tasks like migrations. You’re then left to maintain your theme and any plugins. *Costs:* Usually newsrooms will find themselves paying up to around $500 a month. [**Newspack**](https://newspack.com/)**:** A managed WordPress hosting solution tuned for small and medium sized newsrooms that can’t dedicate more than one or two people to building their websites. It comes with a set of plugins and integrations that provide things like CRM, newsletter, and advertising support so that you don’t have to build those from scratch or assemble them yourself. This provides the same kind of integrated, turnkey solution that [Ghost](https://ghost.org) offers. *Costs:* Hosted Newspack starts at $750 a month and smartly tiers itself based on how much the newsroom is making: as of September 7, 2025, prices seem to be roughly pegged at 0.25% of gross revenue. To put this in perspective, a newsroom with $1M annual revenue would pay roughly $2,500/month – competitive with enterprise solutions but potentially costly for smaller operations as they scale. [**WordPress VIP**](https://wpvip.com/)**:** Enterprise-grade WordPress hosting with white-glove support, designed for larger newsrooms that need to scale to large audiences (the service hosts Vox Media, NBCUniversal, and TIME, for example; the latter received 100,000 requests a second for some of its Taylor Swift coverage). The support and infrastructure are top-tier (I’ve moved two websites to VIP so far and was impressed both times). But the trade-off is that your code needs to be run through VIP’s own CI/CD tests — as well as the cost, which is not unreasonable for an enterprise-level service but may be too high for many newsrooms. *Costs:* There’s no off-the-shelf published pricing, but it’s fair to say that WordPress VIP is not a budget option. ✉️ I write about technology that serves journalism and democracy, informed by my work with newsrooms, open source movements, and startups. [****Sign up for a free subscription**](https://werd.io/#/portal/subscribe) or [****book a call**](https://werd.io/call/). ### How to choose a WordPress solution The right solution depends on: - The number of full-time technical employees on your team - Your budget - Your size Because of the time involved in maintenance and infrastructure, I think self-hosted WordPress is only really feasible for newsrooms with larger technical teams. For those teams, who may also be building more customizations, the extra control might be worth it. Everyone else needs to apportion their time and resources very carefully. Most newsrooms need to spend their time and resources on the things that make their offerings unique, rather than working on commodities like infrastructure or core WordPress maintenance. That makes using managed services a no-brainer: those things are fully taken care of, usually better than a small team could manage themselves. **If you need an out-of-the-box newsroom platform and want access to the WordPress ecosystem:** Choose [Newspack](https://newspack.com/). **If you don’t want or have outgrown the curated set of plugins Newspack provides and you have more development firepower:** Choose a managed WordPress hosting solution like [Pressable](https://pressable.com). **If you have enterprise traffic or security concerns, need white glove support, and have the budget to back it up:** Choose [WordPress VIP](https://wpvip.com/). Whichever tier you pick within the WordPress ecosystem, I think it’s a solid choice. WordPress continues to have strong community support and an excellent ecosystem. The key is matching the solution's complexity to your team's resources; it’s better to choose a more managed solution that your team can execute well than a more flexible option that overwhelms your capacity. [*Do you have a question about newsroom technology? Ask it here and I may answer it in a future post.*](https://airtable.com/apprAIfJE1AEamVyC/shrA1LC8KUjDtR4Zb?ref=werd.io) ### Implementing an unlimited PTO policy URL: https://werd.io/implementing-an-unlimited-pto-policy/ Last updated: 2025-09-03T09:57:18.000Z \[[Jen Dennard in Startup Soup](https://startupsoup.substack.com/p/implementing-an-unlimited-pto-policy)\] Jen Dennard shares tips on implementing unlimited PTO policies for a startup in this piece. It’s characteristically practical and well thought out, although I have some questions about what kind of tracking and limits are allowable and which are not. I’ve been on a journey with unlimited PTO policies. They are an accounting hack: in particular, an organization that implements them doesn’t need to pay employees for unused time when they leave, and the lower administrative requirements are easier for startups to implement. That lack of payout for unused time used to really irk me. But that would be more of a problem if US companies offered sane vacation policies. The statutory minimum PTO of 5.6 weeks that I enjoyed in the UK would be seen as a joke here: how would any work get done?! (The answer is that employees with these benefits are productive, happy, and far better rested, but never mind that.) In those situations, a departing employee might be owed as much as a month and a half’s pay. But in the US, knowledge workers start with an average 11 days of vacation a year, working up to 20. In order to be fully effective, happier, healthier, and receive the full value of their benefits, every employee should use their full PTO. In a world where everyone is taking 2-4 weeks of vacation a year, the lack of payouts on an unlimited PTO plan is moot. So as long as the company strongly encourages that people take theirs — as Jen notes here, they can’t *require* vacation — and doesn’t create [a culture of performative productivity](https://benwerd.medium.com/rules-for-resters-809e368c0fdb), it’s actually a pretty good deal. \[[Link](https://startupsoup.substack.com/p/implementing-an-unlimited-pto-policy)\] ### Can newsrooms become social platforms? URL: https://werd.io/can-newsrooms-become-social-platforms/ Last updated: 2025-08-31T13:02:37.000Z [*I’m answering your questions about the future of news technology*](https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/)*, and about how news works behind the scenes.* [*If you have a question for me, enter it here, and I’ll answer it in a future post.*](https://airtable.com/apprAIfJE1AEamVyC/shrA1LC8KUjDtR4Zb?ref=werd.io) [Kamran Pakseresht](https://bsky.app/profile/kamranjon.bsky.social) asks: > More and more it seems that stories “develop” in the comment sections. That people often want to understand the reactions to stories just as much as the stories themselves, and sometimes this discovery phase uncovers parts of the story people didn’t even know existed. This pattern seemingly developed alongside crowd sourced services and platforms that utilized the network effects of the internet. > > As AI gains prominence, many of these models are trained on the data from these platforms, like Stack Overflow, Quora, Wikipedia, Reddit, traditional forums etc. AI overviews in search engines risk knee-capping the value in these networked models, with users less and less likely to be making it past the overviews provided by Google and now even DuckDuckGo. > > It seems newsrooms have never really developed communities around their stories themselves and have always relied on external providers to get this flywheel spinning. Do you see a future where newsrooms promote and contribute to these type of discussions in a more substantive way (understanding that the audience is now part of the story) and potentially becoming a platform in and of themselves? Is the networked model still thriving and can it live side by side with the access patterns being developed around AI? There’s a lot to unpack here. I’ll break this down into the following questions: - Will newsrooms embrace audiences as part of the story? - Can newsrooms become social platforms themselves? - Can social platform models survive AI? These questions are particularly interesting to me. Beyond leading newsroom technology at places like [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) and [The 19th](https://19thnews.org), I spent decades building open source social networking systems that organizations could white label and incorporate into their own communities and brands. Elgg was used by governments, Ivy League universities, social movements, and NGOs. And I’m active in the communities behind the new generation of protocol-driven social media platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon, in part as a board member of [A New Social](https://anew.social/). Let’s dig into it. ### Will newsrooms embrace audiences as part of the story? Bluntly, the ones that survive will. I’ve long pushed for newsrooms to change their terminology: “audience” suggests a one-way, broadcast relationship, but relationships on the internet are bidirectional and multi-modal. What every newsroom has is a *community*, whether it embraces it or not. Today, newsrooms often address these relationships with two distinct teams: - *Audience*: focuses on distribution by posting on social media (including creating video for platforms like TikTok), optimizing headlines, working on SEO, and managing publishing to off-site destinations like Apple News and MSN. The audience team is the primary user for web and social media analytics, analyzing trends to adjust their own posting strategy and reporting back to the newsroom. - *Engagement*: focuses on listening to the audience to drive the story-gathering process. The engagement team solicits tips, encourages conversation in the comments, and builds trustworthy relationships that might lead to more and better stories in the future. In one sense, this means that newsrooms are already embracing their communities. The reader growth driven by audience teams wouldn’t be possible without community, and engagement teams do lead to new reporting. But there’s clearly room for deeper connections here. It’s rare for a newsroom to know who its communities actually *are*, for one thing, which makes it hard to reach people where they’re at. It’s a little reductive, but you could summarize the role of one team as being the mouth (driving traffic, increasing reach), and another as being the ears (soliciting leads). There’s much to gain by connecting them and having a joined-up community management strategy that seeks to build lasting relationships and learn from a newsroom’s community at least as much as it informs them. Both teams are traditionally part of the editorial rather than the product function in a newsroom. This also creates a disconnect with product user research: any in-house social platform innovation would need to be a joint venture between the audience, engagement, and product teams. The effort involved would also need to have a clear return on investment that relates to the goals for all three teams. This setup makes it easy to use incumbent social media platforms like X, Facebook, and Instagram: networks with established toolsets, analytics, and strategies. Only the most experimental teams will take the leap into newer entrants like Bluesky and Mastodon — many added Bluesky to their line-up only when analytics made it very clear that it would increase their audience team goals of increasing click-throughs. And very few organizations will be able to build their own social platforms to serve deeper goals. Of course, traditional social media referrals are generally declining (particularly on sites like X), search engine referrals are *also* generally declining (thanks to AI-driven user patterns), and experimentation is badly needed. ### Can newsrooms become social platforms themselves? I think it’s a good idea. Because newsrooms have *communities*, not *audiences*, building spaces for community to thrive gives newsrooms first-party data about who is actually engaging with their work and opportunities to build deeper relationships. Doing this on third-party social media platforms might be important for growth and discovery, but it makes a newsroom’s entire community strategy at the mercy of someone else’s business decisions. As we saw with Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and his subsequent move to make it a brand-unsafe, heavily right-wing platform [that users are leaving in droves](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/11/from-x-to-bluesky-why-are-people-abandoning-twitter-digital-town-square), this can put them in precarious positions. Many newsrooms see newsletters as a large part of the solution. A newsletter subscription is a direct relationship between the newsroom and a member of the community; the newsroom is more likely to know who that person is, and the person is more likely to receive the newsroom’s content. But it’s still a broadcast model: it’s rare that someone will reply to a newsletter. AI is increasingly creating an intermediation layer for email, too, which means the content might not reach the reader. And privacy tools mean the newsroom might not know who the subscriber is, either. A lot of people are looking at Vox Media. In August, [Vox relaunched its popular SB Nation sports sites to include a community-driven section called “The Feed”](https://www.axios.com/2025/08/05/sb-nation-redesign-vox-media). This strategy is explicitly a way to hedge against the decline in search traffic in the wake of AI; it’s not a secret that if it’s successful, it will influence the development of other Vox platforms. The Verge’s editor Nilay Patel has been particularly vocal about [the need for social platform integration](https://digiday.com/media/why-publishers-are-preparing-to-federate-their-sites/) — and support for next-generation social media protocols, which is a strong hint about where these Vox social platforms are going. Meanwhile, while smaller startup newsrooms have fewer resources, their team structures are more malleable and they have more to gain by innovating. Many of them use [Ghost](https://ghost.org) as their CMS and newsletter platform and embraced its support of the fediverse. For example, articles from [404 Media](https://www.404media.co/) are fediverse-native and can be directly commented on and reshared by anyone on a compatible platform like Mastodon and Threads. As a whole, newsrooms tend to be late adopters rather than early innovators. Often, they will wait to see how a technology or approach has been successful elsewhere before trying it themselves (“what is the Times doing?”). So a lot depends on whether these existing initiatives are successful: if they are, we can expect to see a lot more of them. If they *aren’t* immediately successful, the larger newsrooms are unlikely to take the leap; it’ll take another small, startup newsroom to try something new and make it work. As we’ve seen with how Ghost’s adoption of fediverse features has translated to use by newsrooms, open source platforms can really help here. It’s rare for a newsroom to build its own CMS; most use WordPress, with a long tail of other platforms bringing up the rear. If WordPress adopted more community features, more newsrooms would use them. A third-party community platform that integrates with existing CMS solutions would go a long way towards helping newsrooms adopt this strategy. Adopting the Automattic WordPress approach would make sense here: the combination of VIP hosted services with an open source codebase gives newsrooms the comfort of not having to maintain their own infrastructure, safe in the knowledge that they have a credible exit if the service fails them in some way. There’s one other wrinkle: Mississippi. The state now has a law on the books [that requires users to verify their ages before using social media sites](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/14/nx-s1-5482925/scotus-netchoice). This has led Bluesky [to block use in the state entirely](https://bsky.social/about/blog/08-22-2025-mississippi-hb1126). If newsrooms became social platforms, they would have a choice: either follow in Bluesky’s footsteps or ask for verification for users in Mississippi up-front. This is clear friction for the kind of growth audience teams are looking for, and creates extra legal liability at a time when newsrooms are politically under attack. So it might well be that American newsrooms are shy to create these kinds of features in the current environment. ### Can social platform models survive AI? *Can* they? Sure. *Will* they? Maybe. It’s isn’t fully one yet, but AI has the potential to bring about a paradigm shift in terms of the way people access information. Previous paradigm shifts have included the web itself, the iPhone, and the rise of near-ubiquitous connectivity. In each case, the organizations that embraced change and dared to change their strategies in the face of trends survived in far greater numbers than the organizations that clung to their existing strategies for longer. The way to do this is to go back to the users, understand who they are and what they need, and build something that addresses their needs well using ongoing trends as a guide. If you build for *now*, you’ll always be building for the past: it takes time to establish any kind of new product or strategy, and the world will have changed in the meantime. So you need to make an informed bet on the future — and the only way to do that is to deeply understand where the world is going, and to deeply understand the people you’re trying to reach. AI summaries on sites like Google are designed to answer definitive questions. But neither journalism nor communities map well to a question-and-answer model. The likes of Stack Overflow and Quora might have to adapt a little, but the real value is in qualitative conversation and contextual information, not in a deterministic answer. For journalism, that means doubling down on providing stories and context you can’t find anywhere else; for communities, that means promoting really great, substantive discussion. In his question, Kamran mentioned that “stories develop in the comment sections”; AI can’t hope to replace that. And in fact, AI could *help* users find communities and conversations that really provide value to the user. What we don’t know yet is what future AI-powered interaction models might look like. It won’t be a chatbot, just like most of us aren’t using MS-DOS or UNIX. AI agents might be a big part of new browsers, creating new interfaces and summaries of publisher-provided information and community conversations. In that world, advertising-supported sites are dead, because the ads will never be displayed, and it may be harder to build direct relationships with users. While it certainly requires adaptation, it’s actually a progression of an ongoing trend. Browsers were always meant to be extensible to modify content on the page: that’s why extensions exist. Users were always meant to be able to modify CSS for themselves to make sites more readable. And most modern browsers ship with ad blockers. I’m not going to cry for the demise of ads. I *do* think modern AI vendors have an exploitative relationship with publishers; for example, [the Anthropic class action settlement](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/anthropic-settles-class-action-us-authors-alleging-copyright-infringement-2025-08-26/) indicates that author rights have been infringed through its storing of pirated material for use as training data. Setting up AI vendors as a new generation of information gatekeepers would be bad for the world. But my ideological feelings about it don’t have a bearing on whether it will actually happen or not, and newsrooms and community platforms both have to be ready for a future where it will. AI might disappear at the end of its [hype cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner%5Fhype%5Fcycle) like blockchain has; if it does become the future of computing, organizations like Mozilla that are pushing for more ethical models might have enough influence to make the ecosystem more pro-social. Regulation from places like Europe may place important restrictions on the industry’s worst impulses. We just don’t know yet. I think we can be reasonably confident that it *won’t* look like [Meta’s bizarre experiments](https://www.techspot.com/news/106138-meta-wants-fill-social-platforms-ai-generated-bots.html) making the [dead internet theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead%5FInternet%5Ftheory) even more of a reality. [OpenAI is building a social network](https://www.theverge.com/openai/648130/openai-social-network-x-competitor) and I don’t have high hopes that this will point to the future of social communication either. The social future will likely be established by a new startup with nothing to lose, as has been the case with just about every paradigm shift. It’s very possible that Bluesky, or more specifically its underlying [AT protocol](https://atproto.com/), will be a part of this future. But there’s everything to play for. ### So what are the implications? Regardless of what the future holds, newsrooms have a lot to gain by deepening their understanding of, and engagement with, their communities. They need to know who they are as people and meet them where they’re at. That likely means deepening their product efforts around community and getting comfortable with, if not becoming platforms themselves, integrating more deeply with social media protocols. I would like to see three things: - A remodel of audience and engagement teams around a more holistic community strategy. - More product experimentation in the model of Vox’s SB Nation redesign. - Community platform vendors that embrace integration with CMS solutions in order to make this experimentation easier. Regardless of the future of computing, these moves create more trustworthy, enduring, direct relationships. Ultimately, what drives a newsroom isn’t the underlying technology; a platform can only provide tools to support community and relationships. What really matters is the people. Newsrooms have to understand that they’re in a relationship business, and reorganize themselves around that simple fact. [*Do you have a question about newsroom technology? Ask it here and I may answer it in a future post.*](https://airtable.com/apprAIfJE1AEamVyC/shrA1LC8KUjDtR4Zb?ref=werd.io) ### GregoryAI aims to improve the lives of researchers and patients alike URL: https://werd.io/gregoryai-aims-to-improve-the-lives-of-researchers-and-patients-alike/ Last updated: 2025-08-29T12:00:52.000Z I enjoyed learning about [GregoryAI](https://gregory-ai.com/), a tool that uses traditional machine learning techniques to examine new peer-reviewed papers and trustworthy sources and determine trends. It’s being used to [gather and filter research into multiple sclerosis](https://gregory-ms.com/), but it’s a fully open source project that could be geared towards filtering research in any scientific field. Feeds are processed and automatically classified. Don’t be fooled by the AI in the name: there are no chatbots or automatic summaries here. Instead, incoming articles are classified for relevance and tagged for easier retrieval. You can also see trends across articles, [for example to see how the volume of published research into cell therapy for MS has changed over time](https://gregory-ms.com/observatory/category/car-t). You can also receive email alerts, for example, [digests of new clinical trials](https://gregory-ms.com/trials/). And at its heart, the system provides browsable structured feeds tuned to help researchers and patients get to information faster. This focus on practical research tools reflects the project's deeply personal origins. Like many open source projects, it scratches the author’s itch. Some open source projects aim to solve a simple problem with the author’s operating system or digital workflows. In contrast, [Bruno Amaral](https://brunoamaral.eu/about/) was diagnosed with MS during lockdown. Although I’m less familiar with MS, the desire to investigate a medical diagnosis deeply through the emerging scientific literature resonates deeply. There’s a genetic telomere dysfunction that runs in my family. We still have binders of printed research papers from when my mother was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. When you or a loved one have a major condition, understanding the current state of the science is an obvious need, and wanting to help the medical professionals involved in finding a cure becomes existentially important – and finding relevant resources, let alone staying on top of the literature, is really hard. More than anything, what Bruno needs to help develop GregoryAI is input from scientific researchers and practicing clinicians. His aim is to build a tool that genuinely improves your working life. If that’s you, if you know someone who matches this description, or if you want to help him in any way, [reach out to him at this link](https://gregory-ms.com/support/). ### Bluesky now platform of choice for science community URL: https://werd.io/bluesky-now-platform-of-choice-for-science-community/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T12:31:52.000Z \[[Jennifer Ouellette in Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/more-scientists-choose-bluesky-over-twitter/)\] The Bluesky / AT protocol ecosystem is still fairly small, but it’s telling that demographics like scientists, journalists, and writers are moving there. It doesn’t need to be the “global town square” (something that never really existed) to succeed; if it becomes a conduit for communities of knowledge workers, researchers, and culture creators, that works too. If it’s left-leaning, that’s not because it’s a bubble; it’s, frankly, because, by today’s standards, facts and research have a liberal bias. As David Shiffman, a scientist [who ran a survey confirming that scientists prefer Bluesky](https://www.southernfriedscience.com/twitter-sucks-now-and-all-the-cool-kids-are-moving-to-bluesky-our-new-survey-shows-that-scientists-no-longer-find-twitter-professionally-useful-or-pleasant/), put it: > “I don’t care about this, because I don’t use social media to argue with strangers about politics. I use social media to talk about fish. When I talk about fish on Bluesky, people ask me questions about fish. When I talk about fish on Twitter, people threaten to murder my family because we’re Jewish.” The slightly confounding thing is that *this was Mastodon’s to lose*: there are scientific communities there too, and its open source, federated nature theoretically makes it even safer and more welcoming for the science community (particularly as science-based instances can set their own rules). I’d love to dig into *why* Bluesky became the favorite; my assumption is that it’s fundamentally easier to understand, having taken its design and functional cues from Twitter. But it could also be that the overhead of finding and running instances is just too great. Regardless, it’s great that these communities are making the leap to the open social web. (Recent moves in the ecosystem have shown that, yes, Bluesky / ATproto *is* open, despite some detractors on the Mastodon side particularly.) And with tools like [Bridgy Fed](https://fed.brid.gy/), it doesn’t matter if you prefer one protocol and they prefer another, because you can all follow each other and interact anyway. That’s the beauty of open ecosystems; the open social web is one thing, even if parts of it use different underlying technology. \[[Link](https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/more-scientists-choose-bluesky-over-twitter/)\] ### More UK news publishers are adopting 'consent or pay' advertising model URL: https://werd.io/more-uk-news-publishers-are-adopting-consent-or-pay-advertising-model/ Last updated: 2025-08-25T13:23:36.000Z \[[Charlotte Tobitt in Press Gazette](https://pressgazette.co.uk/marketing/consent-or-pay-uk-publishers-advertising-2025/)\] This seems bad. Sixteen of the largest news websites in the UK are now charging users if they want to reject cookies. > “More publishers have begun to implement consent or pay this year after the ICO clarified that the model was acceptable as long as users are given a “realistic choice”, including by not putting the price too high.” Charging for privacy — the so-called “consent or pay” or “pay or okay” strategy — is a predatory business practice. As the article notes, once a website switches to this model, almost 100% of readers choose to accept the cookie, which is mostly an indictment of how little people actually want to pay for the content they’re reading, as well as the low premium people put on their own privacy. In the EU, [this is illegal](https://cdt.org/insights/the-european-data-protection-boards-opinion-on-pay-or-okay-models-surveillance-based-advertising-is-on-borrowed-time/) under the GDPR if a user isn’t able to make a freely-given choice that centers on actual features or capabilities. It should be: a world where privacy and security are things you pay for is one where you have a privileged class of people whose digital human rights are protected because they can pay, and a class of people whose rights are not protected because they can’t. Not only is it immoral, it sets a precedent of insecure and invasive as a default on the web, and that shouldn’t be acceptable to any of us. \[[Link](https://pressgazette.co.uk/marketing/consent-or-pay-uk-publishers-advertising-2025/)\] ### Why You Need Systems Thinking Now URL: https://werd.io/why-you-need-systems-thinking-now/ Last updated: 2025-08-24T16:42:40.000Z \[[Tima Bansal and Julian Birkinshaw in Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/2025/09/why-you-need-systems-thinking-now)\] The key thing I love about this is the focus on relationships rather than products and services. Those two things are relationships of a sort too, of course, but they’re not the only kinds of relationships involved in innovation, and it makes sense to think about them all holistically. > “An innovation need not be a new product, service, or feature to solve a problem. Changes to the flows or relationships among actors can be just as effective, either by reducing friction to speed things up or adding friction to slow down some parts of the system.” I used to argue for a [Sustainability](https://werd.io/desirability-viability-feasibility-sustainability/) lens, but that label suggests ethical risks. Those things are vitally important, but a true systems lens needs to additionally consider the health, experience, and effectiveness of the whole system *beyond* ethics and sustainability. I actually don’t think that’s incompatible with design thinking. I also don’t think we can lose the focused lens on individual users, because there’s no sense in improving a system if the individual people in it won’t use your solutions — in software we always start with a 1:1 relationship with a user and work outwards. But there’s a lot to be gained by adding an additional focus on systems and giving it equal weight to our user focus. What’s really nice about design thinking is that it offers very well-defined frameworks and activities to zero in on a user-centric solution. This article doesn’t concretely offer that for systems thinking; I’d love to think about how this applies in practice, and how you can effectively represent, consider, and test against systems as part of your development cycle. \[[Link](https://hbr.org/2025/09/why-you-need-systems-thinking-now)\] ### Political Pollsters Are Trying to Save Money by Polling AI Instead of Real People, and It’s Going About as Well as You’d Expect URL: https://werd.io/political-pollsters-are-trying-to-save-money-by-polling-ai-instead-of-real-people-and-its-going-about-as-well-as-youd-expect/ Last updated: 2025-08-23T19:01:29.000Z \[[Noor Al-Sibai in Futurism](https://futurism.com/ai-polling-inaccuracy)\] Repeat after me: do not use AI for user research. That goes for software, it goes for news, and it goes, as it turns out, for political polling. > “In a white paper about the topic for the survey platform Verasight, data journalist G. Elliott Morris found, when comparing 1,500 "synthetic" survey respondents and 1,500 real people, that large language models (LLMs) were overall very bad at reflecting the views of actual human respondents.” It *should* be obvious that this is a terrible thing to do. As the article points out: > “Obviously, any campaign that used only that AI-generated data would miss the mark — instead of looking at the views of real respondents, it would be looking at a funhouse mirror reflection of a demographic cooked up by a language model with no access to actual data.” There’s been a push in various quarters to use AI to do all kinds of user research. You can see why it’s tempting: it’s very fast to ask a probabilistic model rather than an actual human being, and because LLMs respond with very confident, human-sounding language, it’s easy to be duped into thinking there’s anything other than mathematics going on behind the scenes. I’ve always been against [personas](https://www.uxdesigninstitute.com/blog/what-are-ux-personas/), where teams do research and synthesize it into amalgamated profiles. Those are essentially fiction: it’s too easy for a team to impose their own biases and assumptions, and asking an amalgam that you created is essentially the same as asking a short story that you wrote. It’s nowhere near the same thing as researching with an actual human being, who will always be quirkier, more surprising, and more interesting than an invented simulacrum. A fictional person is never going to buy your product or engage with your content; that’s something real human beings do. But doing this with LLMs is far more disingenuous and self-deceiving than even that practice. So in many ways, this finding is obvious. But it’s good to see it on paper, and now it’s something we can point to in order to demonstrate how ludicrous this practice actually is. \[[Link](https://futurism.com/ai-polling-inaccuracy)\] ### Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser URL: https://werd.io/why-im-all-in-on-zen-browser/ Last updated: 2025-08-19T14:16:21.000Z A few years ago, I moved to [Arc](https://arc.net/) as my default browser. I felt like everything was immediately upgraded: finally, a web browser worked how I needed it to. The interface got out of the way; it was superpowered with keyboard shortcuts that just made sense (a bit like other professional tools like [Superhuman](https://superhuman.com/p)); and its profiles feature allowed me to fully sandbox my work activity away from my personal activity. It’s how I want a browser to work. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to the goals its vendor, [The Browser Company](https://www.thebrowser.company/), had set up for it. It was a niche tool for a certain kind of power user, which didn’t justify the company’s valuation. Had it been a product made by an independent company, I would have gladly paid for it, and it might have formed the basis of a sustainable business. But [The Browser Company needed scale](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/27/the-browser-company-mulls-selling-or-open-sourcing-arc-browser-amid-ai-focused-pivot/), and it was not to be. Instead, The Browser Company took advantage of the buzz around AI, and [created a new, AI-focused browser called Dia](https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/11/the-browser-company-launches-its-ai-first-browser-dia-in-beta/). Rather than build these features into Arc, the company tried again: it lost most of Arc’s power user features and added AI to a browser framework that isn’t a million miles away from stock Chrome. The learning curve was removed, but so was the utility. Meanwhile, [Arc is not gone, but it’s certainly on life support, with no new features planned](https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-browser-company-stops-active-development-of-arc-in-favor-of-new-ai-focused-product-153045276.html). I tried to love Dia, but I’m not bullish about it. It really has lost the power user features that made Arc special: the excellent tab sidebar is gone and profile switching is nowhere near as fluid. But it also has far more competition: [Perplexity has introduced Comet](https://www.perplexity.ai/comet), its own AI browser, [and Chrome itself has built-in Gemini features](https://www.google.com/chrome/ai-innovations/). It’s not clear why Dia would do better. And ironically, [The Browser Company now charges $20/month](https://www.diabrowser.com/pro), the same amount I would gladly have paid for Arc. Unless The Browser Company has something amazing up its sleeve, I think it’s destined for an acquisition that might see features from its own products incorporated into someone else’s. Because Dia is heavily oriented around contextual AI, I’m also worried about the privacy of my browsing. One feature allows your discussions with an AI model to be informed by your recent browsing history, which requires sending a supposedly-protected version of that history to their servers. No thanks: that’s a judgment call for my personal data, but it’s an absolute no-go for my work browsing. You can turn that feature off, but it’s not a given that this contextual information isn’t shared any other way. Which left me hunting for another browser. I cannot compromise my data, and I’m not interested in investing in a product that I think will be going away soon. Firefox remains the gold standard for user-first browsing. Unfortunately, while the original Firefox was a huge step forward in browsing user experience (certainly over the original Mozilla browser, but also over everything else at the time), it now feels pretty clunky. Each function works well, but it doesn’t feel like much thought has been put into the experience of using Firefox overall; the user journey to get things done often feels disjointed, and the browser interface is always there, taking up screen real estate. It was my first stop as a replacement once I chose to move on from Dia, but I pined for the power user features I enjoyed with Arc. It’s fine but not delightful. So I was pleased to rediscover [Zen Browser](https://zen-browser.app/), which has improved in leaps and bounds since I last tried it. It has a very Arc-inspired UI that gets out of your face quickly, with all the customization and keyboard shortcuts you’d expect from something built on top of Firefox. I use vertical tabs in a sidebar that auto-hides, and I can navigate just as smoothly as I ever did with Arc. The Firefox framework itself has gained [a new profile manager](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-management), which is the last remaining piece. Although you have to turn it on through a switch buried deep in your settings, once you do, you can easily flip between browser contexts, and I can once again have fully independent work and personal browser windows. The previous one looked like it had been built in Perl in 1996, and was really optimized to use via the command line; the new one is what you’d expect from a browser that cares about non-developer users. To be clear, there are some weird quirks. Keyboard shortcuts have to be set up for every profile, which doesn’t make sense to me. Computers are typically single-user, and profiles are for different contexts, not people; unifying shortcuts across them should at least be an option. And [syncing with a Firefox account](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-set-sync-my-computer) only works one profile at a time, so if you want to sync multiple profiles, you need to create multiple Firefox accounts. (I've chosen to sync my personal profile but not my work data.) But these are all weirdnesses that are inherited from the core Firefox product; Zen Browser has made the best of these raw ingredients and built something pretty special. So, as of now, it’s my default browser. It can be yours, too: [it works across all major desktop platforms](https://zen-browser.app/download/). I think, right now at least, that it’s the best of the bunch. But I do have a question. Given how much better Zen is than stock Firefox, *why isn’t it Firefox?* Mozilla should take this team, absorb it, and use it to help navigate the future of their flagship browser for end users. Firefox is a great framework for developers to innovate their own browser experiences, but it also needs a default way for users to experience its functionality. Zen Browser should be it. ### The 19th's Strategic Plan URL: https://werd.io/the-19ths-strategic-plan/ Last updated: 2025-08-18T14:10:20.000Z \[[The 19th](https://19thnews.org/strategic-plan/)\] It’s really cool to see [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) working in the open and releasing its three-year plan publicly. It’s an important mission that just gets more relevant and vital over time, and getting there requires taking an inclusive approach: > “The 19th’s mission is to produce trustworthy, representative journalism that serves women and LGBTQ+ people in the United States who are excluded from the promise of the 19th Amendment by their gender, race, ethnicity, class or disability.” Some of these plans are audacious for a non-profit newsroom of its size. Building a $30M endowment, in particular, is an important step towards independence: it’s a way to ease fundraising pressure year-on-year and ensure that no one party can have an outsized influence on its reporting or goals. Given the sizable forces that *don’t* want reporting that serves women and LGBTQ+ reporting in the current environment, it’s a really smart move that makes me really hopeful about its future. And their focus on security and working to mitigate a threat model is something *every* newsroom needs to be doing — and particularly the smaller, startup newsrooms that tend to serve communities that don’t have any other journalistic platform. > “We’re building the systems and safeguards needed to protect our newsroom and ensure we can keep showing up for our audiences, no matter what challenges arise. That means preparing for growing risks independent media faces, including legal threats, security breaches and platform instability. > > We’re undergoing various security trainings for all staff and conducting regular scenario planning and risk assessments, among other measures.” I love that they’re narrating this in public. It’s important work. And it’s a way of working that other newsrooms would do well to pay attention to. \[[Link](https://19thnews.org/strategic-plan/)\] ### Ask a newsroom technology leader URL: https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/ Last updated: 2025-08-16T16:02:05.000Z I've spent 15+ years building media technology. At [Latakoo](https://latakoo.com), where I was the first employee and founding CTO, we built the video-gathering platform used by news networks like NBC News. At [Matter Ventures](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/meet-matter-seven-d07f02683108), I supported media startups and helped partners like KQED, PRX, the Associated Press, and the New York Times navigate innovation challenges. And at [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) and [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), I've led technology inside newsrooms themselves. Now I want to answer your questions about the future of news technology, and about how news works behind the scenes. What can I answer for you? I won't answer on behalf of any of the above organizations: this is my personal space. But I can provide my opinionated perspective, shed some light on how news works, and maybe help you answer some organizational questions of your own. [**If you have a question for me, enter it here, and I’ll answer it in a future post.**](https://airtable.com/apprAIfJE1AEamVyC/shrA1LC8KUjDtR4Zb) --- If you’re a newsroom or non-profit leader yourself, I’ve opened some slots to have 1:1 conversations about your own technology strategy and challenges. [**You can book a call with me here using Calendly.**](https://calendly.com/benwerdmuller/mission-driven-tech) ### How Do We Tell the Story of Gaza’s Murdered Journalists? URL: https://werd.io/how-do-we-tell-the-story-of-gazas-murdered-journalists/ Last updated: 2025-08-15T13:43:15.000Z \[[Steven W. Thrasher in LitHub](https://lithub.com/how-do-we-tell-the-story-of-gazas-murdered-journalists/)\] A fiery piece from [Steven W. Thrasher](https://steventhrasher.com/), who holds the Daniel Renberg chair at the Medill School of Journalism. > “In the last two weeks, two high profile journalists have been martyred: one was Awdah Hathaleen, a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, who was lynched by settlers on live video in the West Bank. The other was Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif. Though only 28 years old, Al-Sharif was kind of the captain of journalists in the north, especially after Hossam Sabbat was killed in March. > > There have been other Palestinian journalists killed in the last two weeks whose lives were no less important and whose deaths no less tragic, but the lynching and targeted assassination of these two men signal something particularly sinister: Israel’s concerted effort to eliminate every journalist in Palestine who has borne witness to this genocide. The message the entity is sending is brutally obvious.” At its best, journalism allows democracy to function: it provides the information we need to know in order to make informed democratic decisions. The kind of journalism Thrasher is talking about genuinely speaks truth to power and reveals what’s happening on the ground. That these journalists should not be protected, let alone be murdered — [over 270 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza so far](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/11/here-are-the-names-of-the-journalists-israel-killed-in-gaza) — says a great deal about which stories are allowed to be told. Yet every day, I still see sentiments that supporting journalism on the ground in Gaza is supporting terrorism. That is not the case. Supporting freedom and democracy *must* mean supporting journalism’s ability to record the truth, and it must mean publishing stories that challenge us. There’s a name for societies that only have one approved narrative, and it’s not “democracy”. Everyone has the right to be free. Journalists are a core part of that equation. \[[Link](https://lithub.com/how-do-we-tell-the-story-of-gazas-murdered-journalists/)\] ### Funding Open Source like public infrastructure URL: https://werd.io/funding-open-source-like-public-infrastructure/ Last updated: 2025-08-14T21:33:47.000Z \[[Dries Buytaert](https://dri.es/funding-open-source-like-public-infrastructure)\] I think this proposal is sound for every country other than the United States: > “Recent geopolitical tensions and policy unpredictability have made governments more aware of the risks of relying on foreign-controlled, proprietary software. Around the world, there is growing recognition that they cannot afford to lose control over their digital infrastructure.” In a world where countries are exploring moving their infrastructures over to sovereign tech, and in particular are both using and fostering open source projects in order to do so, it’s time to get serious about funding. Building real infrastructure to create an alternative software ecosystem — one that is about openness, but retains the usability and design rigor of the most-loved software — carries enormous benefits. Further, as more governments rely on open source software, it’s a security requirement. As Dries points out: > “Today, some Open Source has become public infrastructure. Leaving critical infrastructure dependent on too few maintainers is a risk no society should accept.” So let’s not accept it. I’m on board. Governments should channel funding into structures designed to help open source projects thrive, not just financially but organizationally. Many of them need help figuring out how to run a team or how to conduct essential tasks like user research and navigating privacy regulations. Promoting sustainability covers many bases. If it’s done well, the result could be a safer, pro-human software ecosystem that works better for everybody. I hope that it can be. I’d love to be a part of conversations about how to promote this in Europe and elsewhere — it’s incredibly important. I previously worked on open source projects with major impacts like [Elgg](https://elgg.org), and now at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) I’m a downstream user who needs more secure, open software. I’d love to see this happen. \[[Link](https://dri.es/funding-open-source-like-public-infrastructure)\] ### Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5 Billion Offer for Chrome URL: https://werd.io/perplexity-makes-longshot-34-5-billion-offer-for-chrome/ Last updated: 2025-08-13T23:04:55.000Z \[[Katherine Blunt in the Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/tech/perplexity-ai-google-chrome-offer-5ddb7a22)\] The thing I’ve learned about tech companies breaking down monopolies is that many of them just want to become the *next* monopoly rather than establish a genuinely different power dynamic. So in a world where Google may be forced to divest itself from its Chrome browser in the wake of an antitrust ruling, Perplexity’s offer to buy it from them makes sense. And in a world where [OpenAI can raise $40B in a single funding round](https://openai.com/index/march-funding-updates/), Perplexity offering $34.5B to buy the browser isn't outrageous on their part. It potentially solves a problem for Google, and would help them establish dominance as a part of the next generation of tech companies. It also would help it raise a bigger funding round itself, boosting its own valuation: > “Perplexity’s offer is significantly more than its own valuation, which is estimated at $18 billion. The company told The Wall Street Journal that several investors including large venture-capital funds had agreed to back the transaction in full.” Of course, Google itself is going to fight tooth and nail to *not* sell Chrome, which has become something like the successor to the once-dominant Microsoft Internet Explorer. Just as Internet Explorer once had a chokehold on the whole web, Chrome has an outsized influence on which features make it into the web platform. > “In testimony this year, Pichai told the judge that forcing the company to sell it or share data with rivals would harm Google’s business, deter it from investing in new technology and potentially create security risks. Chrome has roughly 3.5 billion users worldwide and accounts for more than 60% of the global browser market.” It’ll be interesting to see what happens here. We don’t know if the judge will force a Chrome sale, and if it does, there will surely be other offers. (And perhaps it could strike a deal with an open source org like Mozilla to prevent a competitor from creating business risk for it.) But it’s a clear indication of the position Perplexity would like to take in the ecosystem — not just in AI, but in all of tech. \[[Link](https://www.wsj.com/tech/perplexity-ai-google-chrome-offer-5ddb7a22)\] ### Lifelogging under fascism URL: https://werd.io/lifelogging-under-fascism/ Last updated: 2025-08-13T14:01:23.000Z The quantified self movement encouraged everybody to measure their life through sensors and self-tracking. The term was coined by WIRED in 2007 and really came into its own by 2011, with its own conferences, blogs, meetups, and so on. When the Apple Watch hit the market in 2015, with its slick fitness rings and other tracking data, it had the benefit of learning from a whole spectrum of wearable sensors that enthusiasts had been prototyping for years. People interested in quantified self used wearable tech to record basic stats like details about their physical activity, biometrics, mood, health, and sleep. This was all stored in one place for easy access and, theoretically at least, experimentation. The idea was that by measuring your life, you could more easily make changes to be healthier and more productive. It was all about optimization. While quantified self involved *quantitative* data that was typically private and optimization-focused, *lifelogging* was its *qualitative* equivalent, typically public and sharing-focused. People would check into every location they visited with apps like Foursquare (later Swarm), take photos of their day, and so on. Some people wore a camera, or installed one in their homes, and recorded or even live broadcast everything they did. Many people took their quantified self data and published it online; the core ethos was one of living life in public. Beyond hitting my fitness goals every day on my Apple Watch, I was never really into the deeper quantified self movement. But I *was* a heavy Foursquare / Swarm user. I have many thousands of checkins in multiple countries. I can still go back and look at my Swarm map to see how many US states I’ve visited (47). It still shows where I used to hang out when I lived in Scotland, and restaurants I ate at in other countries around the world. I also used it to learn about new places to go; if someone I knew had great taste kept going back to the same cocktail bar, I knew I also wanted to try it. But both movements feel different in 2025\. We live in a world where [warrantless surveillance](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-bill-program.html) [is](https://www.aclu.org/trump-on-surveillance-protest-and-free-speech) [well-documented](https://freedomhouse.org/article/trumps-immigration-crackdown-built-ai-surveillance-and-disregard-due-process), where [ICE agents are smashing their way into peoples’ cars](https://projects.propublica.org/trump-ice-smashed-windows-deportation-arrests/) in order to [seize and deport people with no due process](https://www.vera.org/news/what-does-due-process-mean-for-immigrants-and-why-is-it-important), and [threats of using the military on US soil are becoming clearer](https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/07/politics/us-military-trump) (with the National Guard already deployed against protestors in cities like LA). Outside of the US, [Britain just detained 466 people who were protesting the war on Gaza](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/9/uk-police-arrest-at-least-200-in-palestine-action-protest-in-london). Hard-won freedoms are under attack. ✉️ I write about technology that serves journalism and democracy, informed by my work with newsrooms, open source movements, and startups. [****Sign up for a free subscription**](https://werd.io/#/portal/subscribe) or [****book a call**](https://werd.io/call/). At the same time, widespread surveillance is becoming easier and more prolific. In the US, legislation like the [CLOUD Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD%5FAct) allows a user’s data to be obtained by law enforcement without their involvement, and often without their notification. (Service providers *might*, at their own discretion, notify you if your data is the subject of a civil subpoena; they won’t if it’s the subject of a criminal subpoena.) In the UK, [the government has been hard at work trying to establish backdoors into encrypted data](https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2025/05/encryption-under-threat-the-uks-backdoor-mandate-and-its-impact-on-online-safety/), making their own intentions to surveil the population clear. In both cases, they can and do often purchase data straight from service providers, bypassing the court system entirely. In this environment, lifelogging and many quantified self activities backed by cloud services amount to *creating more surveillance* for you to be tracked by. The old anti-privacy cry of “I have nothing to hide!”, [which was always nonsense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing%5Fto%5Fhide%5Fargument), rings even more hollow when your political alignment or liking an Instagram post [can put you at risk of surveillance and worse](https://truthout.org/articles/report-ice-is-expanding-surveillance-of-its-critics-on-social-media/). Those thousands of location check-ins that once felt like harmless social sharing now represent a detailed surveillance profile that law enforcement can potentially access without my knowledge. As soon as Trump was sworn in for a second term, I stopped sharing my location with tools like Swarm. On the other hand, I’ve continued to use my Apple Watch as a fitness band, measuring my activity every day — and, so far, have maintained a year-long streak of hitting my fitness goals every single day. Being healthier feels particularly important as an older father with a young son, and because [Apple Fitness data is encrypted both in transit and at rest](https://support.apple.com/en-us/111755), and is fully under my control, I feel reasonably secure in continuing to use it. Which makes me wonder about sousveillance. (I am fun at parties.) Whereas surveillance is close observation that is usually conducted by an authority like an employer, the police, or the government, *sousveillance* is conducted by members of the public *on* an authority. People filming police using their iPhones is an example of sousveillance. It is a necessary part of [equiveillance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equiveillance), where a person can counter potentially incriminating evidence gathered by surveillance with evidence they’ve gathered themselves using sousveillance. While lifelogging in public just gives authorities more data to mine, what if it could be used to maintain a record that could be used in the event of an unlawful detention? For example, we know that [police often misuse their mandated body cameras](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66809642), turning them off when force is used and deleting footage. If we all had our *own* footage that lay outside of the police’s control, these abuses would be effectively meaningless. Imagine a device that lifelogged and stored quantified self data using strong, key-based encryption. You could access the information yourself for your own purposes, but it would remain fully encrypted and behind multi-factor login protection. If you needed to, you could release footage to predefined trusted parties: family members, a trusted member of the community, organizations like the ACLU, and as a tip to trusted newsrooms. If you didn’t get a chance to do that before being detained or otherwise incapacitated, a set number (three or five, perhaps) trusted people could agree to release your footage by taking action on their own devices together — a bit like needing multiple people to launch a nuclear missile. Every time footage was released, that action would be indelibly logged, as a guard against abuse. It would keep a multi-day charge and sync data via a connection to a phone to cloud storage (safely, because the data would remain fully encrypted). There would be a companion app to easily log qualitative data like location check-ins. (The latter could perhaps be shareable with trusted friends in a group using something like the [Signal Protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal%5FProtocol).) It would be based on open protocols, with an open source design, so any manufacturer could make one, and so that the security of the system could be fully audited. The data would be usable in all the same ways quantified self and lifelogging data was always usable to a person: as a way to optimize your health, remember where you’ve been, and even learn from your friends. But it would also be a black box that could provide provable, indelible information if you were unlawfully detained or if someone took action against you. We have a choice when we build technology. We can take the easy way out and build something optimized for growth that doesn’t necessarily keep users safe — which, in turn, can be actively used against them in the hands of an adverse regime. Or we can build it to be truly user-first, with their well-being in mind. Many of the user experience details will be the same. The difference is in intention, care for the user, and ultimately, the values of the developer. We’ve entered an age where protecting users is more important than ever before, and isn’t an abstract idea; for many people, particularly from the most vulnerable communities, it can be life or death. ### What I owe to August 6 URL: https://werd.io/what-i-owe-to-august-6/ Last updated: 2025-08-06T14:59:21.000Z Today, August 6, marks eighty years since the bombing of Hiroshima. Nuclear weapons are clearly abhorrent: weapons of mass destruction designed to level entire areas. So many civilians were killed, there was so much damage beyond military targets, that [many believe dropping the bomb was a war crime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate%5Fover%5Fthe%5Fatomic%5Fbombings%5Fof%5FHiroshima%5Fand%5FNagasaki). I agree. There’s fierce debate over whether the bombs were a key factor in Japan’s surrender. But if you think that they were, it’s also fair to say that I wouldn’t exist without them. At the time, my father was detained in a Japanese-run concentration camp in Indonesia. He was surrounded by brutality — some of his first memories are of atrocities being committed there — and was significantly malnourished. Food was scarce. His digestive system was beginning to fail. Had he not been rescued by the camp by allied forces when he was, he undoubtedly would have died. I’m not glad that the bomb dropped or that somewhere between 150,000 and 246,000 people died. I’m not glad that atomic weapons exist or have the potential to be used again. I’m not glad that the US unilaterally decided to target civilians in their hundreds of thousands. But I am glad that my dad survived. I’m grateful for him. I’m grateful to be alive. It was unquestionably a barbaric act. No nuclear weapon should be dropped again. No child should be intentionally starved again. There should be no war like it again. There is no moral clarity in war except that human life is valuable and precious, and that children should be protected. ### Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December URL: https://werd.io/japan-apple-must-lift-browser-engine-ban-by-december/ Last updated: 2025-08-06T14:14:50.000Z \[[Open Web Advocacy](https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/japan-apple-must-lift-engine-ban-by-december/)\] It’s interesting to watch various national technology policies build on each other, learning from their failures and unintended effects in order to be more effective. Here, Japan’s legislation has learned from EU rules in order to more effectively ensure that Apple allows non-Safari engines to be used in iOS browser apps: > “Designated providers (i.e. Apple) must not only eliminate outright bans (like [App Store Guideline 2.5.6](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/)), but must also refrain from practices that, while technically permitting browser engines, render their use impractical or commercially unviable. > > This is directly relevant to Apple’s current iOS behavior, even under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, where [technical and procedural restrictions continue to block meaningful competition](https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban-persists-even-under-the-dma/). Japan’s guidance is clearly designed to avoid similar outcomes.” This should be great news for consumers — particularly if these kinds of regulations are offered beyond the current three regions (EU, UK, and now Japan). Apple has traditionally been a laggard when it comes to adding open web features that might be competitive with native apps. Opening up the App Store to other browsers, and forcing browser choice, could help mitigate that and allow open web features to fall into the hands of iPhone and iPad users sooner. One way this could go wrong, of course, is if it further entrenches Chrome’s position in the market. [Chrome already represents two thirds of web browsers](https://techjury.net/industry-analysis/chrome-browser-market-share/). Although Chrome does a far better job of supporting modern open web features (because it suits Google’s business model), it would be a real shame if regulation designed to promote competition actually *reduces* it on the web. We’ll see how this all pans out, but the best outcome would be a web that has a plethora of different browser engines from different vendors with different business and sustainability models. Stronger competition (with a healthy dose of structured regulation) would help ensure that open web features arrive in the hands of users promptly and accurately. That, in turn, prevents lock-in, helps improve user privacy, and allows the open web to thrive. \[[Link](https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/japan-apple-must-lift-engine-ban-by-december/)\] ### Silicon Valley’s Dream Tech Job Is Disappearing URL: https://werd.io/silicon-valleys-dream-tech-job-is-disappearing/ Last updated: 2025-08-04T16:39:16.000Z \[[Kate Conger at the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/tech-jobs-silicon-valley-changes.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.bk8.7-OO.wE3BW7FcAht1&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)\] Tech companies are cutting down on some of the things that made them interesting places to work, including stronger parental benefits, intentional inclusion initiatives, and a more experimental attitude towards building better work cultures: > “Gone are the days when Google, Apple, Meta and Netflix were the dream destinations for tech workers, offering fat salaries, lush corporate campuses and say-anything, do-anything cultures. Now the behemoth firms have aged into large bureaucracies. While many of them still provide free food and pay well, they have little compunction cutting jobs, ordering mandatory office attendance and clamping down on employee debate.” What really strikes me as sad is not the loss of things like Nerf guns at desks — that story, embedded in this piece, is more anti-pattern — but the sense of bottom-up, collaborative community that many of these companies once had. The sense of *building the future* was real, not just in terms of the products, but in terms up reinventing what a workplace *was*. Many of them have fallen back on more traditional models. It’s not clear that those models failed; it seems like what’s actually happened is that some shareholders and board members have demanded a return to more traditional norms because it’s seen as getting down to business and improves top line numbers, even if the knock-on systemic effects are detrimental. The best example of this is return to office mandates, which cut costs because some people quit rather than having to be laid off, but lead to a reduction in productivity and morale over time. But everything can be disrupted. There’s a lot of room for a new generation of tech startups that can offer a better place to work, free from these influences — at least, until they get too big and the cycle begins anew. How to break the cycle more completely? A central claim in the piece is that this is why tech needs unions. That seems right, for this and many other reasons. \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/tech-jobs-silicon-valley-changes.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.bk8.7-OO.wE3BW7FcAht1&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)\] ### Ghost 6.0 URL: https://werd.io/ghost-6-0/ Last updated: 2025-08-04T14:24:36.000Z \[[Ghost team](https://ghost.org/changelog/6/)\] The latest release of Ghost comes with a bunch of really exciting changes. For me, the most important is that each Ghost instance is now a part of a big decentralized social network: > “Ghost publications are now connected with an open network. People can discover, follow, like and reply to your posts across Bluesky, Flipboard, Threads, Mastodon, WordPress, Ghost, and any other social web platform. Distribution is now built-in.” That’s a huge step forward for independent publishing: built-in reach without sacrificing independence. This is in addition to a frankly excellent built-in newsletter product and web publishing tools. I’m so much of a fan that [I moved my site to Ghost Pro this year](https://werd.io/welcome-to-the-new-werd-io/). It’s been a perfect transition so far: I can’t speak highly enough about the platform and the way it’s supported. The open social network works as advertised and it’s all as slick as you’d want it to be. It’s also exciting to hear about how successful publishers have become on Ghost: > “Today, Ghost's annual revenue is over $8.5M while total publisher earnings on Ghost have now surpassed $100M.” These numbers are at the foothills of something bigger: something that’s made clear when you consider that, when the previous version of Ghost was released, these numbers were $4M and $8M respectively. It’s also worth noticing that publisher revenue is increasing far faster than Ghost’s take, which is an indication of how good the deal is. I’m not involved with Ghost; I just happen to love it. If you’re wavering, and particularly if you’re still on Substack, my message is very simple: come on in. The water isn’t just fine, it’s so much better. \[[Link](https://ghost.org/changelog/6/)\] ### Small repairs URL: https://werd.io/small-repairs/ Last updated: 2025-08-03T13:27:21.000Z The wall of humidity has finally broken: today’s high is supposed to be 82 degrees, a mere 28 degrees Celsius, and it’s meant to *feel* like 82\. The last month or two have felt like living in some kind of extended greenhouse, my green little subset of the world encased in an invisible dome rising high above us, so this is a relief. The weeds and vines have loved these inhuman conditions, and their tendrils have curled and knotted up the walls and through bushes. Hopefully, in a temperate climate, they’ll give it a bloody rest. The house has been challenging. It’s a creaking, old thing, old for America at least, and it needs more love and care than I’d hoped to have to give it. In the winter, it’s heated by a great steam boiler, which we had dutifully serviced each year until the last person at the maintenance company who knew what to do with it died. One of the radiators is blocked, and before the deep cold sets in again we’ll need to replace its hundred-year-old valves. In the meantime, we’ve had to replace a retaining wall that burst because it didn’t have weep holes to let the moisture through; an air conditioning unit that died unexpectedly; an electricity panel that wasn’t grounded but was overloaded past any reasonable capacity; ancient windows whose glass one day simply fell out; and a chimney crown that wasn’t made of the right material and cracked apart. Oh, and we had a small tornado on our block, too, which was very dramatic in the moment, knocking out trees in its path and leaving us without power for days. But as I sit and write this, a squirrel is crawling up and down the tree outside my window, its tiny feet scrabbling past the pink blossoms that seem to be exploding everywhere. Birds come and go — a red cardinal, a bluejay — and children rush past on their way to the playground down the street. Maybe we’ll go there later, too, but right now the sofa is serving as a reasonable alternative. For a while, I thought I’d made a mistake by buying the grey Costco sectional, not least because it constantly gives me static electric shocks in the winter when the air is dry, but it’s become a sturdy trampoline adventure playground for a two year old. I’m trying not to descend into obsessive depression. I don’t want to ignore it all; I feel like if I don’t say anything, don’t do anything, if I’m not friction in some way, I’m contributing to it happening. But if that’s solely where my attention lies, I’ll miss so much. I’ll resent it: I don’t want to miss the first few years of my child’s life, those smiles, those adventures, that learning, because I was fixated on ICE smashing their way through car windows to capture innocent people and send them to El Salvador, or the complicity of dead-eyed founders signing government deals for their tech companies because they see a generation’s suffering as an opportunity for profit. So there are still blossoms, there is still ice cream, there is music and joy. I want to write about things that aren’t *them*. They don’t own me. ### Did Craigslist decimate newspapers? URL: https://werd.io/did-craigslist-decimate-newspapers/ Last updated: 2025-08-02T16:20:11.000Z \[[Rick Edmonds at Poynter](https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/did-craigslist-kill-newspapers-poynter-50/)\] For years, Craig Newmark has been one of the fall guys for the decline of the newspaper business. Instead, the blame should absolutely lie with the news leaders who failed to adapt to changing platforms. This is commonly described as failing to adapt to digital, but I’ve always thought it was more than that: digital just allowed there to be more platforms, which in turn allowed more people to create offerings that were closer to what people actually wanted. It’s not that newspapers were ever the best product possible to meet peoples’ needs: it’s that newspapers were the closest product that was actually available in the market. The advent of the web changed that dynamic. This piece in Poynter lays out the history, and points out some blunt home truths: > “By the early 2000s, newspaper executives had a dawning awareness of the business challenge from Craigslist and similar sites. They took minimal action to meet it.” The fatal weakness of the news industry — certainly then, but arguably in many newsrooms now — is that many of the people involved think they are the best arbiters for what people want and need, rather than finding ways to test those assumptions, build more representative newsrooms, and ensure that their assumptions are actually right. Craigslist was a better product than newspaper classifieds, and newspaper leaders were both constitutionally and structurally unable to adapt to a changing world. They assumed the world would stay more or less the same, which is always a mistake. Craig himself is a gem. He’s spent large sums of his own money in order to protect journalism, boost cybersecurity, support military families, and other initiatives that are unquestionably doing good. It’s good to see that laid out in a piece like this. \[[Link](https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/did-craigslist-kill-newspapers-poynter-50/)\] ### Curate your own newspaper with RSS URL: https://werd.io/curate-your-own-newspaper-with-rss/ Last updated: 2025-08-01T13:15:57.000Z \[[Molly White at Citation Needed](https://www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-rss/)\] I’ve done this for decades, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s still a part of my daily routine: in fact, it’s how I start my day when I sit down at my desk. > “What if you could take all your favorite newsletters, ditch the data collection, and curate your own newspaper? It could include independent journalists, bloggers, mainstream media, worker-owned media collectives, and just about anyone else who publishes online. Even podcast episodes, videos from your favorite YouTube channels, and online forum posts could slot in, too. Only the stuff you want to see, all in one place, ready to read at your convenience. No email notifications interrupting your peace (unless you want them), no pressure to read articles immediately. Wouldn’t that be nice?” RSS is still here, still powerful, and its ecosystem has become more sophisticated since the Google Reader days. I use [Reeder Classic](https://reeder.app/classic/) with [NewsBlur](https://newsblur.com/) as a back-end. It works across my devices and it’s less interruptive, less antagonizing, less *annoying* as an interface. There are no upsells or user engagement hacks. It’s just the stories I want to read, in one place. But here’s a thing I also try and do, which I’m glad Molly calls out: > “As always, support writers when possible. The RSS feed can make it easier to miss subscription prompts or donation requests that appear on a website outside the content feed. If you regularly read a writer or publication through RSS, consider subscribing to their newsletter directly, purchasing a paid subscription, or making a one-time donation if accepted.” There’s a burgeoning ecosystem of great independent writing, and without an adversarial advertising network or venture capital funding to support it, many of these writers need to make a living another way. Subscriptions work. I particularly like it when writers (like Molly) offer *patronage*, allowing everyone to see the benefit of their writing for free, while allowing the people who can pay to back it. \[[Link](https://www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-rss/)\] ### Evaluating AI URL: https://werd.io/evaluating-ai/ Last updated: 2025-08-15T03:26:28.000Z AI is everywhere. The conversations are ubiquitous and the technology is rapidly transforming. It dominates the conferences I attend and the strategy blogs I read across journalism *and* tech. This week, even Mark Zuckerberg, seeing the writing on the wall, [published an essay about Meta building “a personal superintelligence that serves everyone”](https://www.meta.com/superintelligence/). So I thought this might be a good time to talk about how I’m thinking about AI. This is my personal mental model (not, to be clear, a company policy at my employer). A few people have said it’s helped them make decisions about AI in their own teams, workplaces, and lives, so I thought I’d share. My approach to evaluating AI is through two main lenses: *the technology itself* and *the vendors who make it*. Let’s start with the vendors, since they shape how we access the technology. ### AI vendors In turn, we should think about evaluating vendors in terms of two questions: *what do they want?* and *how do they work?* Understanding these dynamics helps you predict how they’ll evolve and whether their interests align with yours. #### What do they want? Bluntly: they want to make money. AI vendors see a rare chance to piggyback on a major shift in technology trends in order to become a generational tech institution. Tech companies tend towards monopoly, not implicitly but as a declared intention: [former Meta board member and Palantir chairman Peter Thiel has argued that they are good for society and “competition is for losers”](https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-losers-1410535536). Although OpenAI began as a nonprofit, it shares this motive, and will [convert to a for-profit business](https://openai.com/index/evolving-our-structure/). As anyone who’s read Karen Hao’s [*Empire of AI*](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780593657508) will tell you, this is not a break from strategy, but in line with the founders’ intentions. Anthropic, whose founders broke away from OpenAI, doesn’t fall far from the tree, and Meta and Google are, well, Meta and Google. Microsoft and Amazon, in turn, want to be *the* infrastructure provider (and have made major investments in OpenAI and Anthropic respectively). Palantir wants to be *the* service provider for government and law enforcement. And so on. In order to get there, it serves them to build models that are as generally applicable as possible, in order to capture as many markets as possible. To do *that*, they need to train these models with as much data from across different disciplines as they possibly can; to become more useful in our work, they need to gain more access to data from inside our businesses. In turn, they either need us to provide that data willingly, or for that data collection to be impossible to avoid. There are two main arguments being made to help us buy these products: - You’ll be left behind if you don’t: everyone else is using AI. - These will become incredible superintelligences that will remake human society. These are pure marketing. As I’ll mention later on, we should evaluate these technologies based on what they can do today, rather than claims about the future. The latter is science fiction storytelling that we should treat with the same skepticism we gave Elon Musk when he told us [we’d be going to Mars in 2024](https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/06/02/elon-musk-hopes-spacex-will-send-humans-to-mars-in-2024/). But the “fear of being left behind” argument is particularly dangerous: it suggests that you should pick a technology *first* and then find problems for it to solve. That’s always backwards. You should always start with the human problems you need to solve in order to serve your organizational strategy or personal goals, and then figure out what potential tools are in your toolbox to address them. AI might well be one of them, but we shouldn’t go looking for places to use it for its own sake. A lot of money has been spent to encourage businesses to adopt AI — which means deeply embed services provided by these vendors into their processes. The intention is to make their services integral as quickly as possible. That’s why there’s heavy sponsorship at conferences for various industries, programs to sponsor adoption, and so on. Managers and board members see all this messaging and start asking, “what are we doing with AI?” specifically because this FOMO message has reached them. I want to be clear: I believe there *are* uses for AI, and it should be included as part of a modern toolbox. But never in a vacuum, never because of FOMO, and always while considering the wider context of the tool and the vendor. ✉️ I write about technology that serves journalism and democracy, informed by my work with newsrooms, open source movements, and startups. [****Sign up for a free subscription**](https://werd.io/#/portal/subscribe) or [****book a call**](https://werd.io/call/). #### How do they work? Technically, most AI services are SaaS businesses. You usually either pay a monthly fee to use a web interface, or you pay per API call / token to access models programmatically. Enterprise plans make costs more predictable for larger organizations. Downstream software vendors often embed AI capabilities and charge for it on a per-feature basis; those vendors usually pay API fees upstream to the model vendors. In each of these cases, the prompt makes its way to servers run by the vendor, is processed, and the response is returned. When you’re using AI features provided by downstream vendors, you don’t have a direct relationship with the upstream API provider; it may not even be clear which provider is being used. For instance, when you use AI features in Slack or Notion, your data may be processed by OpenAI or Anthropic, even though you never signed up with them directly. This has clear data privacy implications. I think it’s completely reasonable to use such a service with public data. But as soon as you’re using sensitive data of any kind — which includes both business data and detailed information about your life — you should consider the chain of custody. Vendors will often make attestations that they won’t *train* a model on this data at certain subscription levels, but that’s only half the problem: that data is still hitting their servers. Sometimes, depending on the service and subscription level, queries and responses may also be analyzed by engineers in order to improve the service. For some sensitive data, you need to decide whether you trust a service’s security in order to use it. For others, it might not be appropriate or even legally permissible to use a service to process it. It’s also worth considering: if the service was compromised, or had weak security controls that meant a bad actor or service employee could read your data, how much would it matter? Would you be upholding your commitments, agreements, and responsibilities with your community? It’s worth saying that local models exist: these allow you to run models on your own infrastructure, or even on your own laptop. That removes much of the service privacy risk, while not removing risks associated with the models themselves. ### AI tech #### Underlying principles When we talk about AI in today’s technology discourse, we’re mostly talking about Large Language Models (LLMs). These are trained on massive amounts of text from the internet (as well as [pirated books](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/meta-ai-lawsuit) and [other materials](https://allenpike.com/2024/llms-trained-on-internet)) to predict what word should come next in a sentence, over and over again. When you ask it a question, it's not actually reasoning; it's using those patterns it learned to generate text that sounds like a plausible human response. That text can include written language, but also structured data, programming languages, and so on. These days, AI services based on LLMs can usually go fetch websites in real time and include their content as source material in their answers. In addition to LLMs, *generative AI* — models that can produce content in response to prompts — also include image generation, music generation, and so on. In each case, the same high-level principle applies: the model makes predictions about what the content should be based on what it’s learned from huge amounts of training data. Services with user-generated content can be incredibly valuable for this: for example, YouTube became a giant training set for Google’s video generation, and other services may have used that dataset less legally. Similarly, xAI is trained in part on X/Twitter. The open indie web blog publishing world became fodder for *any* model to be trained on. #### A black box for answers Although the training data behind a model is sometimes made open, it’s very rare for a model *itself* to be open. They’re almost impossible to audit, and in fact, [we actually don’t fully know how they work](https://medium.com/@paul.k.pallaghy/we-dont-understand-exactly-how-llms-work-but-there-is-progress-a1e1a2532e38)! As such, they’re black boxes that take in prompts and produce answers. Because they’re so deeply-bound to their training data, they reflect any biases inherent to them. Because vendors also shape these datasets through their choices about what to include and how to weight different sources, they *also* reflect any biases inherent to the companies that produce them. (You might remember that [xAI started making antisemitic comments after vendor tweaks for tone and viewpoint](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/09/grok-ai-praised-hitler-antisemitism-x-ntwnfb).) Because they’re predictive models rather than brains that reason, they’re also often terribly wrong in ways that go far beyond bias. [Hallucinations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination%5F%28artificial%5Fintelligence%29) are an inherent by-product of the technology itself and not something that can easily be fixed. Some vendor assumptions are particularly troubling. Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres coined the term [TESCREAL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TESCREAL) — Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, (modern) Cosmism, Rationalist ideology, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism — to describe an ideology that deprioritizes current risks like climate change and systemic oppression in favor of working towards colonization of the stars and science fiction superintelligences that they think could form the basis of human civilization. To do so, many of them believe we need to accelerate technological progress, even at the cost of justice and human well-being — and as such, in execution it’s indistinguishable from technofascism. It’s an absurd ideology, and it would be tempting to dismiss it as ludicrous were there not plenty of people in the industry who adhere to it. It’s not that models are wildly wrong all the time, but because they *can* be wildly wrong, this needs to be a part of your mental model for assessing them. Similarly, it’s not that models are going to [declare themselves to be MechaHitler](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/09/nx-s1-5462609/grok-elon-musk-antisemitic-racist-content) and parrot white supremacist talking points, but the fact that one *did* should give everyone pause and help us consider what other biases, big and small, are being returned in their responses. It’s not that everyone in AI believes we need to ignore current problems in favor of colonizing Mars, but the fact that some of their founders *do* should feature prominently in how we evaluate them. But because of the way they work, you don’t *see* any of those dynamics. Even though they don’t reason, are often terribly wrong, and are susceptible to bias, models simply return a confident response that looks like fact. In a world where a model vendor tends towards monopoly, its training data and corporate biases have the potential to affect how many people learn about the world, with very little transparency or auditability. That potentially gives them enormous power. ### Power dynamics We’ve already discussed how models can encode the goals and biases of the vendors who build them. But there’s more to consider about how AI bakes in certain kinds of power dynamics. The first relates to that black box model. The Trump Administration seeks to [remove “woke AI” from the federal government](https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2025/07/trumps-order-remove-woke-ai-government-may-have-downstream-impacts-experts-worry/407035/), an intent that will affect the priorities of every AI vendor. By dictating how models answer questions and make recommendations that touch on societal imbalances and issues like climate change, they will have a significant impact on how people learn about the world. It’s effectively saying that software systems need to stay in line with a hard-right ideology. Workers’ rights are at risk too. The hallucinations and bias inherent to the technology should make it clear that AI should never be used to replace a human employee. It can be used to augment their work, much as a spreadsheet, a grammar checker, or a web browser does. But there always needs to be a human not just “in the loop” but *in control of the process*. The AI must always be in the hands of a real person. I also tend to think that AI output should never be seen by an end user (a reader at a publication, a consumer of a report, and so on): they’re potentially useful tools to speed up someone’s work, but the end result still needs to be human. Still, some people very much want to use AI to trim their workforces and increase their profit margins, regardless of the drawbacks. Inevitably, that mostly affects people at the lower end of the ladder, although it can occur everywhere below the strategic management layer. Notably, this appears to have been the guiding philosophy behind DOGE, the repurposed government department that fired huge swathes of government employees, installing AI models in their absence (and then sometimes re-hiring them as it became clear that this approach didn’t actually work). Another power dynamic is that of content ownership. I’ve mentioned that not all of the data used in training sets was legally used. Many large publishers are suing AI models for doing this; [Anthropic was found to possibly have broken the law when it pirated books for this purpose](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthropic-ai-copyright-case-claude/), and is now [subject to a class action suit by authors whose books were stolen](https://www.obsolete.pub/p/anthropic-faces-potentially-business). Larger publishers and authors with representation can afford to conduct these suits; independent artists cannot. The result is that people who already have power and a platform will see any benefit from a legal win, but independents (who are more likely to come from vulnerable communities) are less so. And the impact on vulnerable communities is intense. [People in developing nations help to train the models](https://restofworld.org/2025/the-ai-con-book-invisible-labor/) by correcting, filtering out, and labeling data, often for low compensation and with high potential exposure to upsetting or traumatic material. [AI datacenters are draining local water supplies](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/) and [spewing toxic emissions](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memphis-gas-turbines-air-pollution-permits-00317582), often in poorer communities. And [a great deal of investment in AI is for military use cases](https://www.techpolicy.press/booming-military-spending-on-ai-is-a-windfall-for-tech-and-a-blow-to-democracy/), where models are sometimes used to select targets for assassination in places like Gaza. Too often, in other words, AI systems allow value to be extracted from poorer communities for the benefit of richer ones. As these systems become more entrenched in everyday life, these dynamics become locked in. ### So how can I use AI? The answer to the question “how can I use AI” is the same as the answer to how you should approach using any technology: carefully, and with a strong handle on your needs and values. **Make sure you start with real, human problems.** What are you trying to solve for yourself or your organization? Every technical solution must be in response to a human problem. **Evaluate services not just through cost/benefit, but through the lenses of values and liability.** Who are the vendors and what do they believe in? How do they work? How might their ethical stances create financial, technical, or reputational risk in the future? **Be clear-eyed about what the products can do today.** Ignore hyperbolic claims about the future and phrases like *superintelligence* or *artifical general intelligence*. What are they capable of *now*? Where do they excel and what are their shortcomings? How will you deal with bias and incorrect answers? For creative work specifically, consider whether you’re undermining human creativity and livelihoods for marginally useful output. **Follow the data.** What data are you handing to whom? Many third-party AI-based services are thin veneers over OpenAI or Anthropic. What are you being encouraged to hand over? Who has custody of it? What are their commitments? What are they capable of doing to it, regardless of their commitments? **Maintain human control.** Always keep a human not just [in the loop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-in-the-loop) but always fully in control of AI processes. Remember that because of bias and hallucinations, fully autonomous AI may be risky. **Maintain optionality.** Are you locking an AI vendor into your critical processes? Consider what will happen to your business if the vendor radically changes the functionality of their service or its pricing model. I think there’s a lot of scope for personal and local models to be useful — particularly with tightly-scoped tasks that aren’t trying to replicate human creativity. A lot of engineers now use agentic AI to build software; I see that as less problematic than many use cases, and it will be particularly powerful when those models can be run internally within an organization and tailored to their coding preferences and history. Similarly, pipelines for streamlining and classifying data are proving to be really interesting. Models can take fairly vague instructions and reach out to web services, sources, and databases to create structured datasets. Those sets still need human oversight, but they can save a ton of time. AI is pretty decent at finding patterns in data. Local models that connect to your calendar and other local productivity tools also have the potential to be useful — as do models provided by your calendar and cloud productivity host themselves under the same terms and conditions, if you use one. For example, you can ask a model to give you an overview of what to prepare for a meeting. On-device tools like Apple Intelligence work this way, and although [its summaries are famously awful](https://arstechnica.com/apple/2024/11/apple-intelligence-notification-summaries-are-honestly-pretty-bad/), it does make useful suggestions. Google’s built-in Gemini AI tools can similarly provide helpful nudges. I wouldn’t ask it to write an email, but it can be useful to check what you’ve missed or summarize things you need to understand. If you’re using Google’s tools, you’ve already bought into its cloud, and these AI services are bound by the same agreement. Given the privacy and power centralization concerns, my suspicion is that we’ll see more local, on-device AI in the future. This will also alleviate the need for huge datacenters. Ultimately: no, you won’t be left behind if you don’t use AI. There’s a lot to be gained by resisting the hype cycle and staying true to your own needs and values. But it’s also not true that there’s no utility in AI: many of these tools really can speed you up, as long as you’re mindful of their realities and understand their shortcomings. ### Further reading Some books, blogs, and websites to consider reading in order to deepen your knowledge: - [Simon Willison has been exploring AI models and services in his blog](https://simonwillison.net/) — if you want a solid technical understanding, it’s worth following along. - [Empire of AI by Karen Hao](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780593657508) — in-depth reporting on the companies behind the current AI boom. - [The AI Con by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780063418561) — an overview of the AI landscape from a (very) critical lens. - [Inside the AI Prompts DOGE Used to “Munch” Contracts Related to Veterans’ Health](https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ai-tool-doge-veterans-affairs-contracts-sahil-lavingia) \- How imprecise AI use, overconfidence in its abilities, and a right-wing, technofascist worldview can combine to cause real harm. - [On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922) — a foundational paper that defines many of the terms I’ve used above. - [Rest of World’s AI coverage](https://restofworld.org/tag/artificial-intelligence/) — a genuinely excellent global view - [Anthropic’s science blog](https://alignment.anthropic.com/); [OpenAI research updates](https://openai.com/research/index/); [Google’s research blog](https://research.google/blog/) - [Andrew Karpathy’s blog](https://karpathy.bearblog.dev/blog/) \- updates from the former head of Tesla AI, now [Eureka Labs](https://eurekalabs.ai/) founder ### If I ran my life URL: https://werd.io/if-i-ran-my-life/ Last updated: 2025-08-05T01:37:18.000Z It’s time to wrap up the series. Over the last few months, I’ve written about what I’d do if I ran [Bluesky](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-bluesky-product/), [Mastodon](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-mastodon/), [my own platform](https://werd.io/if-i-started-fresh/), [a fund for decentralized social media](https://werd.io/lets-fund-the-open-social-web/), [Twitter / X](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-x/), and [NPR and PBS](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-npr-and-pbs/). These posts have brought together my experience in tech, media, human-centered, prototype-driven venture design, and building both teams and companies. Although they’re thought experiments that verge on being pipe dreams, they’ve been well received; I’d originally intended to leave it at three posts, but readers asked me to write more. So here we are. For the final post in the series, I want to turn inward and ask a more personal question. Knowing what I know now, with all the experiences I have, how would I run my *own life*? The question might seem absurd, but here’s what I mean. Our lives are a product of a combination of our experiences, our context, decisions we make for ourselves, and decisions that are made for us: they evolve naturally as we live. We have the ability to design aspects of how we live, but others fall into place in ways that aren’t fully in our control. That’s not bad: it’s how life works, no matter how intentionally we travel through it. But I think there’s also value in taking a step back and considering what our lives might look like if we had the luxury of designing them from scratch. That’s no less a pipe dream than imagining what it would look like to run NPR or Bluesky — in some ways it’s more of one — but I think it’s an interesting way to surface your values and figure out what you really care about. By naming these things, there’s a chance we can also make them possible; knowing that something is a desire allows you to consider the concrete steps that would make it real. In many ways it’s a self-indulgent exploration, but sometimes you *need* to be self-indulgent in order to grow. I recognize this entire exercise reflects a certain degree of privilege: financial stability, professional flexibility, and passport advantages most people don’t have. I’m not suggesting everyone should or could make these choices. I’m not even suggesting that *I* could make these choices. This is a thought experiment, not a life plan. So that’s this piece. If I could intentionally design my life from scratch, what would it look like? My hope is that my sharing this reflection with you will encourage you to do your own reflection, and perhaps share it with me, too. We can learn together. Let’s go. ### Personal values Later on we’ll talk about career and how I think about making decisions about what to work on and for whom. But I think it’s also important to have a strong set of values that you can look to when you need to make decisions or decide how to show up in the world. These values will color the other explorations I’ll make in this piece later on. I haven’t always been good at following my values. Many of us aren’t. I’ve found it particularly hard to follow them in the wake of trauma; I’ve also struggled with self-esteem throughout my life and have sometimes felt a sense of shame that I’ve allowed to lead me into a kind of nihilistic toxicity where it feels like nothing really matters. Things *do* matter, and people rightly judge you by your actions, so living by your values is important. But I want to make clear that by listing my values I’m not trying to suggest that I’m a perfect person; I *am* saying that I want to be a *better* person. When you’re a part of a family unit, as I am, I think it’s important to have *shared* values. That’s particularly important when you’re raising a child. Some are implicit, while others are named and agreed-upon. But like all brainstorming activities, it starts with individual work, before working on figuring out where they intersect and diverge, and finding common ground that everyone can agree on. And if you *can’t* agree on core values — well, that’s important to know, too, for other reasons. Some peoples’ values are derived from their religion or spirituality. I don’t have either. That’s not a value judgment on *being* religious or spiritual; I’m just not. Instead, I’d like to think of my values as being broadly [humanist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism) in nature. These are the values that I think are particularly important. - **Internationalism.** See humanity as interconnected rather than divided by borders. A diversity of contexts and cultures makes us all stronger; everyone is important, regardless of where they live or where they come from. - **Justice.** Everyone deserves equal dignity and opportunity. Privilege creates responsibility to help dismantle barriers for others. - **Inclusion.** Build bridges, not walls. The best solutions and the best communities come from bringing together people with different backgrounds, identities, and ways of thinking. - **Curiosity.** Intellectual openness: maintain the drive to keep learning and the freedom to explore new paths without worrying about whether you’re meandering or not. - **Self-direction.** Maintain and protect the ability to chart your own course without caring about the templates for living other people might think are important, even if they judge you for it. - **Creativity.** Choose to build rather than just consume. Refuse to accept that things have to be the way they are and always look for ways to make them better. - **Authenticity.** Be honest about who you are rather than performing who you think you should be. Choose vulnerability over image, even when it’s uncomfortable. - **Peace.** Do not promote, endorse, or collaborate with conflict, war, or harm. - **Be a net benefit.** Be of service to your community and to the world. Make sure peoples’ lives are better for having you in them. Don’t take people for granted. Prioritize work that genuinely improves the world rather than just generating profit or status. Think carefully not just about the footprint of your actions and your consumption, but about being outwardly rather than inwardly focused. Conversely, here are the values that I think I *shouldn’t* be optimizing for. - **Wealth and power.** Accumulation does not equal success. We should enrich our communities equitably, not ourselves, although freedom and security are important to maintain. - **Tribalism.** Refuse to define yourself in opposition to others; avoid the trap of in-group thinking that makes you see other people as enemies rather than fellow humans. Patriotism and nationalism are all on a spectrum of exclusion that also includes xenophobia and other bigotries. - **Laser focus.** Reject the myth that focus requires tunnel vision. A breadth of experience and interests makes you more effective, not less. - **Competition.** Choose collaboration over zero-sum thinking; other people's success doesn’t diminish your own. - **Tradition.** Question inherited practices rather than following them blindly. “We’ve always done it this way” or “this is our way of life” are anti-patterns that lead to exclusion and conservatism. Parenting needs to be central. Now that we have a son, I think it’s vital to prioritize these values with respect to him. For example, I want him to have broad horizons, think inclusively, be justice and community-minded and consider himself a global citizen rather than someone who is individualistic, just cares about his particular tribe, cares for himself, or is afraid to explore or inhabit the world. Mr Rogers, not Ayn Rand. We need to make sure we’re fostering an environment that promotes those values for him. Knowing our values is a good beginning, but it’s all about execution. One big factor in fostering an environment based on your values is determining where, geographically, you’re going to be. That’s a good place to start. ### Location, location, location These values imply somewhere that: - **Makes it easy to maintain an international perspective.** These are places that have a strong throughput of people coming through from different places in the world: they’re not monocultures, and the ebb and flow of people means the culture is constantly changing as the world changes. It also means having strong transport links, so you can easily leave for other cities and countries. - **Is diverse and values equity.** Places with populations that reflect many different backgrounds, identities, and experiences; not just demographically diverse, but where that diversity is genuinely valued and supported through policies, institutions, and culture. This means strong public education systems, accessible healthcare, progressive governance, walkable communities, and communities that actively work to dismantle barriers rather than just tolerating differences. - **Allows you to maintain your curiosity and self-direction.** Places that foster intellectual and creative exploration, with universities, arts scenes, and communities of people building new things. Somewhere that rewards curiosity over conformity and supports people charting unconventional paths. And somewhere where living costs are relatively low and that values infrastructure like strong public transit and great internet, so you have more options for how to make ends meet. But I think there’s more I’d like to dig into. The above are explicitly dictated by my values, but there’s more that’s important about a place to live: things that effect how it *feels* to live there, how easily you can build community, how healthy you can be, and how ethically you can live. So the following are *implied* rather than dictated by my values, but are worth calling out explicitly: - **Is designed to be integrated.** Communities that [Jane Jacobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%5FJacobs) would be proud of: places that are designed to be nurturing environments, that don’t prioritize cars. There’s lots of green space, public art, and they’re zoned to be integrated so that every neighborhood has what it needs. You don’t need a car, the built environment feels like it’s there to support your brain rather than support someone else’s commercial agenda, and you can always find culture and touch grass. - **Has a rich seam of progressive, internationalist communities.** Bottom line: I need to make friends. This means places with institutions, spaces, and activities that attract like-minded people: co-working spaces, community gardens, volunteer organizations working on justice issues, maker spaces, arts festivals, meetups. Places where it’s normal to care about the world beyond your immediate surroundings and where curiosity about other cultures is celebrated rather than seen as pretentious. - **Is healthy.** The air is clean; the ground is unpolluted; there are sensible protections to ensure both. There’s access to good food and fresh ingredients. Nature is easily accessible. Places that, on top of these things, prioritize mental health resources and don't have the kind of stress-inducing pace that makes authentic relationships impossible. - **Supports purpose-driven work.** Places with nonprofits, social enterprises, mission-driven businesses, and institutions that value contribution over just profit maximization. - **Respects humans.** Finally, this is worth calling out explicitly. These are places that respect peoples’ bodily autonomy, allow people to be themselves regardless of their identities, don’t criminalize or clear out the homeless, and provide strong, free programs to solve systemic social problems rather than penalize their effects. (In a perfect world, this includes free healthcare, education, and daycare.) They’re also real democracies, where people can get involved, have their say, and make a difference with their votes and community actions. The rich seam of communities is worth highlighting in particular. Everyone needs community. I want to build mine with informed, skeptical, progressive people who are concerned with the world; the kinds of people who marched against the war in Iraq rather than buying into the war on terror back in the Bush / Blair days, and are worried about the state of the world today. They’re people who reject the idea that America (or Britain, or anywhere) is the best country in the world, not just because they understand its shortcomings, but because they reject the premise entirely and wonder why we care about best countries to begin with. They think gender norms, like all traditional norms, are to be questioned rather than blindly obeyed. They think immigrants should be welcomed as they are and don’t ask them to assimilate. They’re more Greta Thunberg than Jordan Peterson. Defaults matter. A community where traditional norms — homogeneous, heteronormative Christianity with little ethnic or cultural diversity — are considered to be the “default” are the anti-pattern. There shouldn’t, ideally, *ever* be defaults. But for me to feel comfortable in a community, it needs to be free of the creeping xenophobia that sits just under the surface of many places; ideally, it should lean towards *xenophilia* — the love of difference — if anything at all. This is a tall order. So where fits the bill? After doing a little research and asking folks, I came up a shortlist of places. None of them are *perfect* — the Netherlands has a right-wing government right now, for example — but as enduring cultures, they fit my criteria well. - **Amsterdam, Netherlands.** Strong international perspective with people from 180+ nationalities, excellent public transit and bike infrastructure, progressive governance with robust social services, thriving arts scene, relatively affordable by European standards, integrated neighborhoods, strong democratic participation, universal healthcare, and a culture that celebrates curiosity and unconventional paths. - **Montreal, Canada.** Bilingual international city with strong cultural throughput, diverse population with genuine multicultural policies, excellent universities and arts festivals, affordable compared to other major North American cities, walkable neighborhoods with good public transit, universal healthcare, strong social safety net, and a collaborative rather than competitive culture. - **Toronto, Canada.** One of the world’s most multicultural cities where no single ethnic group dominates, official multiculturalism policies that go beyond tolerance to genuine power-sharing, excellent public schools with diverse populations, universal healthcare, strong public transit, relatively affordable compared to other major North American cities, proximity to nature, and a culture where speaking multiple languages and crossing cultural boundaries is completely normal. - **Copenhagen, Denmark.** Highly international with strong transport links, exceptional commitment to equity and sustainability, bike-friendly design with integrated green spaces, thriving maker/startup scene, excellent public services including free education and healthcare, democratic participation culture, and prioritizes mental health and work-life balance. - **Vienna, Austria.** Central European hub with constant cultural exchange, excellent social housing and public services, world-class arts and intellectual institutions, relatively affordable, beautiful integrated urban design, strong democratic traditions, comprehensive social safety net, and a culture that values both tradition and innovation in healthy balance. - **Berlin, Germany.** Deeply international city with a culture built on questioning authority and traditional norms, remnants of its divided history creating strong anti-nationalist sentiment, thriving arts and tech scenes, relatively affordable for a major European city, excellent public transit, strong social safety net, vibrant LGBTQ+ community, and a default assumption that difference and experimentation are normal rather than exceptional. Unfortunately, I don’t have the legal right to live in Montreal or Toronto, so I’m going to remove those from the list. (I’d love to spend more time there though!) That leaves strong contenders, all with different pros and cons. None of the above are in the United States. This wasn’t a deliberate choice; it was just how the chips fell after I conducted my search. If I had to push myself to absolutely include an American city, I’d choose: - **Portland, Oregon.** Strong progressive values with active justice communities, diverse neighborhoods with good public transit, lower costs than other West Coast cities, excellent food scene and maker spaces, prioritizes mental health resources, strong civic engagement culture, and celebrates unconventional career paths and creativity. But it’s also very white, in one of America’s least diverse states. Oregon as a whole [formerly criminalized being Black](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon%5Fblack%5Fexclusion%5Flaws) and [didn’t ratify the 15th Amendment that gave Black citizens the right to vote until 1959](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/oregon-once-legally-barred-black-people-has-the-state-reconciled-its-racist-past), 89 years after it had been first introduced. Even recently, the Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had to resign [after receiving racist death threats](https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1130086650/npr-reporting-on-oregon-theater-death-threats-prompt-local-and-national-response) in part [for programming more diverse and contemporary work](https://playbill.com/article/nataki-garrett-resigns-as-oregon-shakespeare-festival-artistic-director-following-tenure-marked-by-racially-charged-controversy) and in part for being Black. Of course, Portland is significantly more progressive than this, and these issues don’t solely define Oregon as a whole (Erin’s family is from there and are not represented by this). But it can’t simply be ignored. Even considering all this, Portland comes out as the best pick in my analysis, but clearly this is a difficult choice. San Francisco / Oakland / Berkeley would also be on my list (I’ve lived there before and loved it) were it not for [their very stark financial inequality](https://www.bayareaeconomy.org/report/bay-area-income-inequality/), which also limits the kind of lifestyle you can feasibly have if you aren’t financially independent. New York City is one of my favorite places in the world — and is overtly diverse — but suffers from the same financial shortcomings. America as a country has so many wonderful people, welcoming communities, beautiful landscapes, and rich and deep culture. But it’s troubled. It’s always been troubled. And the current context really sucks. I didn’t cover climate in my criteria, but maybe I should have. None of the cities on my shortlist are what I’d call *sunny*, and many of them descend into deep, cold winter. At the same time, most of them are fairly resilient to the medium-term effects of climate change, with the possible exception of Amsterdam, which sits over six feet below sea level and is protected by a series of dikes, dams, and pumping stations. They’re also all cities, [where an individual’s carbon footprint is lower than in the countryside](https://www.asla.org/mitigationurban.aspx) because of shared resources and more accessible public transit, bike lanes, and pedestrian infrastructure. Every parent wants their child to be safe, educated, and have opportunities. The question is how to best achieve that in a rapidly changing, potentially adverse world. The good news is that all of these cities have good options for raising a child. Copenhagen and Vienna have the best infrastructure for this, including free daycare; Dutch children [are the happiest in the world](https://www.fatherly.com/health/why-dutch-children-are-happiest-in-the-world), which is a big plus for Amsterdam. Each of these options would also natural lead to a multilingual child, which is a huge boost that will support him for life. Portland is a good choice, *for America*, but public funding is, well, American, and is therefore inconsistent and lacking. And it’s much less likely that he’d end up bilingual or as comfortable with other cultures. So if we needed to stay in America, it’s probably the best option, but if we *didn’t*, it wouldn’t make the list. And if America continues its slide into fascism, *nowhere* here will be a good place to raise a child, however historically progressive it might have been. American schooling has always incorporated some degree of indoctrination — consider the awfulness of the pledge of allegiance and the intentional omissions around teaching historical injustices — but this would be a step beyond even that. As I write this, masked ICE officers are patrolling American cities, hunting for immigrants who are deported without due process, often to prisons in places like El Salvador where they are treated like animals. You can’t sugarcoat or ignore that. The historical precedents alone are screaming. Although it is not descending into fascism to anywhere near the same degree, Europe isn’t always as great at inclusion as it thinks it is: there’s a pervasive racism sitting just under the surface, which goes unacknowledged because much of Europe thinks it’s better than that while not actually being. Almaz Teffera, Human Rights Watch’s researcher on racism in Europe, [shares experiences that sound similar to those in America](https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/27/interview-human-rights-watchs-first-dedicated-researcher-racism-europe): > As a Black woman, I was born and raised in Germany. I have faced a plethora of lived experience of racism, at school, by strangers on the street. I see how my father is treated in Germany. My mom is white, and my dad is a refugee from Ethiopia who has lived in Germany longer than Ethiopia, yet is treated like he doesn’t belong in German society. People ask us questions like, where are you really from? How do you speak German without an accent? At the airport, my father’s been pulled out of line by border officials to show his documents before even reaching immigration control. The *average* quality of life for people is higher there, there is a higher life expectancy, and the quality of basics like food and neighborhood design can be significantly better. But it’s not a panacea, and significant problems persist for people of color and immigrants; some of these problems are accelerating, just as they are in America. (Although, again, there are not masked officers hunting down people to send them to concentration camps. I am not trying to establish a moral equivalence here.) For now, it’s easiest to start in the US. We’re already here, which makes it administratively easier, and our immediate families are here. But it’s important to have red lines: creeping fascism is like boiling a frog, so setting up the things that will trigger you to leave is important to do in advance rather than in the moment. At some point, even regardless of the ongoing state of the country, spending time in a place like Amsterdam or Copenhagen at least for a few years would be healthy for our child and healthy for us. There is no location that absolves its inhabitants of being watchful for bigotry and doing their own parenting work to raise a child according to their values. But demonstrating that other places exist and are viable, expanding our son’s horizons, and skewering restrictive propaganda like the idea that America is the only free (or free-est) country in the world feel central to setting him up for success throughout his life. If I could wave a magic wand, I would establish a new community with likeminded friends, somewhere in Europe. Creating something new may be the answer. But that requires money, willingness, and flexibility that not everyone necessarily has. It’s not realistic, but at the same time, I can’t stop thinking about it. So, maybe. Of course, all of this needs money. I’m not independently wealthy and I’m fairly unlikely to become so. Therefore a healthy lifestyle, wherever it might be, requires a job. ### Work I want to do good, important, hard work, but on my terms. I want to have time and space to do my own creative work. And I want it all to be in balance with living a good life. A good friend, who has also been a startup founder, remarked to me once: “founders are ruined for regular work”. I believe this is real (or at least, real for me): we’re terrible employees because we want to be fully self-directed. We’ve had a taste of environments where we have full creative control over our goals, our strategies, our methods of working and our hours. Founders have accountability — customers, investors — but they shape their companies. Going back to a standard working environment, in a conventional company with traditional hierarchies, can be a real adjustment. That creative freedom is what I’m looking for in everything I do, but it’s not important that it’s a startup or that I work for myself. I didn’t become a founder because of the potential financial upside; I became one because I wanted freedom to define how I worked. In part that’s because I wanted to feel *safe*; I’m an introverted third culture kid who needs to mask if he wants to fit in to a lot of mainstream cultural norms, and as anyone who masks knows, that’s *exhausting*. It chips away at little at your self esteem every day. At its worst, work culture can feel like it’s trying to push us into homogenous boxes; I want a space where I can be myself and not feel any pressure to apologize for it. What I’ve learned is that, at the very least, I need some kind of an outlet for my energy where I have that freedom, even if it doesn’t come from my day job. That’s what my writing in this space is; that’s what creative work is for me. Having a spot where I can create on my terms keeps me anchored, allows me to follow my interests, and ensures that I have a bubble that supports me as a human. I can work a more traditional job if that outlet with creative freedom is in place and I have space and time to do it. But even then, the kind of work really matters. Making career choices is a privilege; everyone’s latitude varies, but regardless, I think it’s a good idea to have a values-based North Star that helps you make decisions. To build a *career* strategy, I like to borrow a little from how I think about *company* strategy. Well-run companies have a *mission*, a *vision*, and a strategy. This is something I wrote about in both my [Bluesky](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-bluesky-product/) and [Mastodon](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-mastodon) pieces. As a reminder, here’s how they fit together: - *The mission*: why the company exists - *The vision*: what world it intends to create, in service to that mission - *The strategy*: how, concretely, it will take its next steps to get there [I’ve also written about how this framework can be useful personally, too.](https://werd.io/my-okrs-for-2025/) In that piece, I articulated my mission and vision for my career: > **My mission** is to work on and support things that make the world more equal and informed, while living a life rooted in creativity, inclusiveness, openness, and spontaneity, in opposition to competitiveness, aggression, tribalism, and conformity. I more or less stand by that, although I’d add the word “authentic”: “\[…\] while living an *authentic* life rooted in creativity \[…\]”. (I wish there was a better word for this; isn’t it weird that describing something as authentic almost automatically feels *in*\-authentic?) But a lot has changed in the world this year. In light of that, I want to restate my career vision — the world I want to help create through the work I do: > **My vision** is a world where everyone has equal opportunities, a voice that can be heard, and an equal, well-informed democratic say, and everyone has the right to live a good life, with no fear of violence, oppression, or hardship. Given these principles, what kinds of work actually serve this mission and vision? I keep coming back to the intersection of technology and democracy. My background is in building digital products and platforms, but I want to use those skills in service of genuine equity rather than just efficiency or engagement. This means thinking carefully about what problems technology should and shouldn’t try to solve, and how it can amplify human agency rather than replace it. What I specifically don't want to work on: surveillance technology, advertising-driven platforms that profit from engagement regardless of social cost, anything that facilitates harm to vulnerable populations, or technology that consolidates power rather than distributing equity. My hardest lines involve military work or contributing to any project with the potential to lead to direct physical harm of a person, anywhere: I won’t do it. But there are a lot of companies that, say, do business with the military, or invest in arms. Some of them aren’t obvious: the CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, [just invested $694 million in a defense startup](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/17/spotifys-daniel-ek-leads-investment-in-defense-startup-helsing.html), and the company itself [has long hurt independent artists](https://indiemusiccenter.com/news/how-spotify-will-bury-indie-artists-even-further-1578). It’s not always immediately what will cause harm and what won’t. Companies that make weapons, provide services to ICE, or help facilitate the annexation of Gaza, are easier to spot (and obvious no-gos). But doing harm can be deeper and more nuanced. Staying informed, and adhering to your pre-defined values, can help you navigate — as long as you have creative and strategic control of your work, so you have the freedom to make the right decision. The organizational model matters almost as much as the work itself. I'm drawn to public benefit corporations, co-operatives, and non-profits with earned revenue streams: structures that bake social mission into their governance rather than treating it as an afterthought. I want to work somewhere that measures success by impact on the community rather than shareholder returns. Those are non-profits, and public benefit corporations. B-Corps are fine, too, but that framework doesn’t bake in legal requirements in the same way an incorporation structure can. Unionized workplaces help. They typically have stronger benefits, better work-life balance, and push back on management to create a better equilibrium between the needs of strategic leadership and of on-the-ground employee well-being. It’s unfortunately rare for tech companies to be unionized; other industries fare a little better. For the last decade and change, my focus has been on supporting journalism. This feels like it’s aligned with my values and with the mission I’ve established for my career; I can follow what’s important to me and further the values that I think are important in the world. Working in non-profit journalism — I’m currently the Senior Director of Technology at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) and was previously the Chief Technology Officer at [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) — particularly meets my thematic and structural needs, as long as it continues to allow me creative freedom in my work and how I lead my teams. When I made this career pivot away from tech, my salary dropped significantly. And the perks are, to be frank, not the same. But the value and meaning of the work trumps financial compensation. It feels like I’m doing something important, and I feel privileged to be able to do it. I also get to work with some of the smartest, values-aligned people I’ve ever met; whereas in tech I felt like I was often at the leading edge of living by my values, in non-profit journalism I’m in much more of a learning position. That’s important. When these kinds of leadership positions work well, they also satisfy my need for creative freedom as well as meaning. I’m not just setting the tone for my own work, but I’m working with teams and across entire organizations to build better systems that affect *everyone’s* work, and make an impact in the process. Would I found another startup again in the future? Absolutely. I like creating new things. My ideal would be to build something that helps strengthen the future of news and democracy by tackling a specific problem (or specific problems) that the industry needs to deal with. Until then, though, I’m happy doing what I do. ### Creative projects are work too But even then, I need space to work on my own projects. Some of the most impactful work I’ve done has been kickstarted in my own time. Elgg, the social networking platform I started that wound up acting as the intranet for governments and powering social movements, was started in my evenings and weekends. The same was true for Known and many of the other things that have both propelled my career and been the most useful for other people. This is meaningful to me. Having an outlet for my own creative work is at least as important to me as having creative control in my day-to-day work. What’s different to the Elgg days is that I have a kid — I don’t want to spend my time with him working on some project instead of being present. So that means I need more space in my days, as well as after he goes to sleep. Depending on the project, these can be investments in the future or just in my mental health. They should be considered to be just as much a part of work as a salaried position. I guess what I’m saying is: I want the time and space to write and to experiment. (I’ve had a book in progress for years now; I would prefer to be able to finish one every six months.) In turn, that implies some serious choices around lifestyle. ### Life (oh, life) These things need to be in balance: - Family (including fully-present parenting) - Work (including creative work) - Rest (including health) Inevitably, these partially connect back to things we’ve already spoken about — location and work — while also considering the culture of life at home, parenting, health, and the time balance of it all. Some people build their lives in stages, like a lasagna: they advocate over-dedicating yourself to work early on and then having more space to rest later. The [FIRE movement](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/financial-independence-retire-early) (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is one example of this: here, people work intensely while saving intentionally, with the intention of retiring from the mainstream workforce before the official retirement age, and then living however you like. I have a few problems with that idea. The most important one is: you can die! That’s not a dark hypothetical; there’s a genetic telomere dysfunction that runs in my family. Many members of my family, including my mother, *have* died early from it. We lost some of my cousins when they were effectively the age I am now. There are no absolute guarantees that your life will be long, and if you front-load an all-encompassing work ethic with the expectation that pleasure will happen later, you may find that you gave your life for a job and didn’t ever see the benefit. I think this is less problematic in an impactful, mission-driven job that helps to make the world better, but it’s still a problem. What good is a life if you’re not living it? If you’re a parent, living like that also necessitates neglecting your child. There’s no way to prioritize parenting *and* dedicating most of your time to work. However much you might be building freedom for later on, or however much you think you might be leaving them, you’ll never get those years back. If you look at life as a series of investments (which you shouldn’t), the best investment in them is the experiences, love, and context that will build the neural pathways that will set them up for success. If you just think that loving your child and doing things with them is important, the right thing to do becomes obvious. I like the model the [eight-hour day movement fought for](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour%5Fday%5Fmovement), as coined by [Robert Owen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%5FOwen): *Eight hours’ labour, Eight hours’ recreation, Eight hours’ rest*. If a reasonable workday is eight hours long, maintaining the other sixteen hours implies reducing the time it takes both getting to and leaving work. The longer the commute time, the less time you have for rest and recreation — which means less time for family, less time for your own health, and less time for pursuing other projects. If you’re a carer for a child, an elderly parent, or any other dependent, a long commute (or a workday beyond eight hours) also reduces your ability to care for your loved ones. In turn, that implies that to be able to have a life that contains enough time for *living*, you’ve got to cut your commute. Either you live very close to where you work, or you typically work remotely. And either way, you probably need flexible hours. I do think there’s value to in-person collaboration at work — it’s just that I also strongly value spending time with my loved ones. Given that living close to work is usually more expensive, I think the best solution is a remote-default hybrid model: people work remotely most of the time, but come together on a regular basis for in-person collaboration. Not only does this model leave more room for life, but it allows people to live further away from the office, potentially in more affordable areas. Those workers then spend money in their own communities. It turns out that remote workers are [more productive](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=66633), [happier](https://www.jennifer-moss.com/writing/creating-a-happier-workplace-is-possible-and-worth-it), and [build stronger workplace relationships](https://www.hrgrapevine.com/us/content/article/2024-11-15-hbr-research-suggests-remote-work-strengthens-employee-relationships); it’s a winning idea from every angle. That’s how I want to work: mostly remotely, allowing me to show up for my family and spend more time on my health and my own pursuits, but with some dedicated in-person time to push specific collaborative work forward. So that’s work. What about home? People talk a lot about *work* culture, but strangely, less about home culture, even though it’s arguably far more important. In both cases, a culture consists of the norms, agreements, assumptions, and communication styles of a community. But while the work cultures we connect with change over time, our home life is usually more enduring: it becomes the foundation of our whole lives. When I was talking about work, I mentioned wanting to not have to mask. That’s even more important at home. It needs to be a place where everyone can be themselves and not have to apologize for it, and where they can be truly self-directed. Like a workplace, it needs open communication and feedback; *unlike* a workplace, it needs to run as a collective, with shared values, ideals, and goals as a North Star. There should be no leaders at home: everyone is in it together. Some families are led by a patriarch or a matriarch; some buy into outdated toxic ideas like “the man of the house” being the leader and provider. I have less than no interest in any of that. A family is a collective; as such, having strong shared values becomes paramount. Similarly, no community can function well without good communication. I’ve read a lot over the years about [ask vs guess culture](https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/ask-vs-guess-culture); I read this as being a culture based on explicit communication vs implicit cues. Neither has to be selfish; I disagree with the idea that ask culture inherently includes the idea that you should “take care of your own needs, and others will take care of theirs”. In a family culture, everyone should look out for each other’s best interests (while preserving their own well-being; I’m not arguing for [codependency](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/codependency)). But guess culture only works well when everyone comes from the same background and shares the same implicit assumptions; forming more of an explicit ask culture is really important if people in the home come from different contexts. (As they should! Diverse families are great.) This is all easier said than done. Remember, this is a thought experiment, not a claim that I actually live my life this way. As I mentioned earlier, particularly in the wake of tragedy and serious stress, I have sometimes found living up to my values to be hard. *Living* is hard, and nothing is harder than creating an enduring home culture that supports everyone. Building it requires explicit, open, truthful communication in itself, and more than that, a willingness to do it to begin with. Raising a child means having a strong point of view about education. I think there’s a certain amount of leading by example to be done here: treating ongoing education as a good in itself rather than a vocational pursuit that you do to try and earn more money. Finding wonder in the world is important, as is valuing art, literature, history, and culture. The house should be full of books, but more importantly, he needs to see us *love* the books, *love* learning, *love* pushing our own horizons, being creative, and having intellectual conversations about anything and everything. We should go to marches for causes we care about, and bring him, so he sees that it is a normal part of being in a democracy. We should watch and read the news. Home life should be about culture and soul, and about trying new things. It’s got to be a culture of being a creator and a self-led learner, not a consumer or a follower. That’s a huge amount of what underpins education. As for schools? One of my most controversial opinions is that private schools should be banned. Everyone, no matter how rich or how poor, should have to go through the same system. This will force the system to be better, and helps ensure that everyone has the same opportunities. (It also ensures that children meet peers from other stratas and classes.) In reality, that’s never going to happen, but it’s another reason why location is so important: we need to live somewhere with excellent free schooling. He can be whatever he wants to be, but there *are* a handful of cases where I would consider my parenting to be a failure. One is if he became a Republican or a Libertarian, succumbing to the politics of selfishness. A second is if he just stayed in one place his whole life, without trying to live in different places or explore the world; his ability to move is a privilege, and he should use it. And the final one is if he became someone who dove into TV (and particularly televised team sports) instead of reading books, making things, building things, and inventing. That’s all about education, context, and home culture. Finally, rest and health. I’m a roamer: I like to walk. Not so long ago, I would go out for four or five mile walks to end my day. I’d take an audiobook with me and roam around the hills in whatever city I was in. I found it meditative, and it kept me in reasonably good shape. (Back when I lived in the UK, I’d walk two miles to work, two miles back, roam around for an hour at lunchtime, and *also* walk for three or five miles in the evening.) That’s harder to achieve with a child, at least until he’s old enough to come walking with me. So instead, shorter, more intense kinds of exercise is needed. Running, even on a treadmill, fits the bill. Ideally, I would start almost every day with at least a 5K jog — something that I did until I moved to Pennsylvania a few years ago. I want to eat healthily; a range of cuisines, cooked from scratch, with good ingredients. (Another thing any possible location has to provide.) I like to cook. It’s a meditative, creative act in itself, although it can’t take the place of other creative work. ### Where does tech fit in? Technology is there to support a life; we should never be defined by it. Above, I mentioned that a good home culture is centered on being creators and self-led learners, not consumers or followers. In order for technology to support this lifestyle, it needs to be centered on *creation* and *reinvention*, rather than locked-down tech designed to optimize us into being consumers. In order to adhere to my other values, it also needs to support internationalism, justice, inclusion, and curiosity. That means the platforms I use can’t be optimized to deliver propaganda; they also shouldn’t be designed to prioritize an American point of view. Open source and [indie web](https://indieweb.org) platforms are, of course, important. Devices like [Framework](https://frame.work/) laptops, which can be upgraded and repaired rather than replaced, should also be central. There’s no such thing as a hardware device with zero footprint today; they’re often assembled in factories with hazardous working conditions, and the precious metals required for their intricate chips and boards are sometimes mined by children. But we can continue to push for the right things, and the software we use can be built ethically. We can avoid platforms like X and Substack that promote fascism. And more than anything else, we can *build our own stuff*, and store our data in places that *we* control instead of being mined and profiled to try to control *us*. That also extends to AI. I already try not to publish photos of him online for fear of it being used to track him, or to train an AI model on his face. We’re going to be pressured to normalize these technologies in the coming years; they certainly have uses, but they’re also sometimes used as excuses to gather more data, track more of our lives, run roughshod over copyright laws and environmental protections, and create surveillance ecosystems. Low-income people in developing nations are often used to tag and filter their input data, often to their own great personal detriment. Datacenters seize water from communities that need it and sometimes spew poisonous gasses into the air. The technologies themselves serve as black boxes for answers, with no accountability into their truthfulness, vendor points of view, or how the training data was selected. These things cannot go unquestioned. Technology cannot be separated from its human context. They must be conversations at the very least. It’s important for our son to see us responsibly using technology as ethical creators. I think that also probably means putting down the phones. As slick and addictive as they are, they’re pure consumption machines, and they lead to other consumption device use: if we’re on our phones, why shouldn’t he be watching TV? Instead, as he gets older, he should learn to program, and see the joy in creating his own work. For that to happen, we should build things together. That’s how I learned: when I was five, my mother patiently sat down with me and taught me BASIC on a [ZX81](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81). When I was 13, my parents gave me a copy of Prospero Pascal that I used to write games on our [286 PC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel%5F80286). I learned to write on the computer and was writing stories in a word processor as soon as I could string a sentence together. That’s exactly how it should be. It set me up for success, not so much in terms of skills but in terms of a mindset of creating things; I want to set our son up for success in the same way. ### I mean, this is a lot In this piece I’ve tried to talk about the various things I’d do if I had free rein to design a life. In reality, how we live is full of compromises and agreements with the people we live with and care about, outside context, and accidents. It’s not so much a life plan as a way of naming things that are important and talking about values that I think really matter. Our values aren’t hard and fast; instead, they evolve as time goes on. This is a reflection of where I am now: a combination of where I’ve been, what I care about, how I’ve been living and working, and the state of the world around me. Perhaps in another five years it’ll look very different. But if I was going to design a life from scratch today, these are some of the things I would care about. The first step towards building a life is to name your values and ocnsider what they mean. This has been a more introspective, personal piece than I’ve run in a while. My hope is that it will inspire some of you to do the same. If you do write your own, I’d love to read it: please post it on the web and send me the link. And if you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, you can always reach out. I’d love to talk about it. ### If I ran NPR and PBS URL: https://werd.io/if-i-ran-npr-and-pbs/ Last updated: 2025-08-05T01:37:26.000Z Last week, Congress voted [to roll back $9 billion in public media funding and foreign aid](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/18/nx-s1-5469912/npr-congress-rescission-funding-trump). The impact on public media in the United States is profound: the cuts include $1.1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which completely cuts federal support for NPR, PBS, and their member stations. The immediate question for NPR, PBS, their member stations, and the communities that depend on them is: *what now*? I believe there are a few steps they could take. Over the last few months, I’ve been running a series where I explore, as a thought experiment, how I might approach running services in the public interest: so far, this has included [Bluesky](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-bluesky-product/), [Mastodon](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-mastodon/), [my own platform](https://werd.io/if-i-started-fresh/), [a fund for decentralized social media](https://werd.io/lets-fund-the-open-social-web/), and [Twitter / X](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-x/). In the wake of these cuts to American public media, a number of readers asked me to extend my series to include how I might approach running both NPR and PBS. I’m a technologist and entrepreneur who has spent over a decade working with, for, and in American media. As the first employee at Latakoo, I helped build a system that allowed TV journalists to more easily send footage back to newsrooms, with the content already formatted according to each newsroom’s standards. At Known, we worked with San Francisco PBS and NPR affiliate KQED to build an award-winning learning platform for teachers. At Matter, I helped run an accelerator for early-stage media companies in partnership with KQED, PRX, and the Knight Foundation, among others, and taught venture design to both startups and our partners. More recently, I’ve led technology inside non-profit newsrooms, first at The 19th and currently at ProPublica. Through this work, I've developed relationships across the public interest media ecosystem, so I want to make one thing explicit. This post is, like the others, a thought experiment. None of my posts are a criticism of leadership (with the exception of the one about X, because, *you know*), and nor are they meant to imply that their leaders don’t already have smart solutions of their own. Instead, I want to surface different ideas and widen the conversation. I only have the deepest respect for the people who run public media, and I hope they will take this piece in that light. This is a stressful time — not least because the jobs of amazing people who have dedicated their careers to public service are on the line — and my intention is not to add to that stress. It’s also worth noting that NPR and PBS are separate organizations. In this post, I’ll be considering them together: as you’ll see, I think convergence is part of the likely solution. But it’s important to remember that they each have their own budgets and funding. First, I’ll explore what NPR and PBS *are*, how they are funded, and the implications of these funding cuts. Then how I’d go about mitigating them and building for the future. ### How does American public media work? Public media in America is very different to most countries, and receives significantly less government funding. Whereas the British Broadcasting Corporation receives around £100 ($134) in government funding per person per year, the US spent around $1.50 on public media before it was defunded completely. And rather than one large organization, the US public media landscape is a decentralized patchwork of individual stations. Like the country itself, it’s federated. The public media brands you’re most likely to recognize are NPR and PBS. These are separate organizations. [National Public Radio](https://npr.org) is a *radio* network that distributes audio programming to member stations; the [Public Broadcasting Service](https://pbs.org) is a *television* network that distributes video programming to its member stations. In both cases, stations pay a fee to be a part of the network and receive programming in return, but they are independent organizations, and retain their own editorial control. There are also independent marketplaces for content like [PRX](https://prx.org) and [American Public Media](https://www.americanpublicmedia.org/) that help distribute shows to public media stations. [The Corporation for Public Broadcasting](https://cpb.org/) — the thing that was just defunded — was established in 1967, a few years before NPR and PBS, to support public media across the country. It received a small (around 0.01%) portion of the federal budget each year and spent most of its money on supporting local stations, with the bulk of the remainder spent on NPR and PBS themselves. It also awarded grants for innovation in the space and projects aimed at underserved communities. ### Funding cuts disproportionately hurt rural America Stations in bigger cities don’t tend to rely as much on federal funding: they have a bigger potential member-base to draw on, and are more likely to receive support from local foundations. It’s the stations in rural communities that are really hard-hit by funding cuts. Federal funding represents [7% of the budget for KQED in San Francisco](https://www.kqed.org/support/federal-funding); for [Allegheny Mountain Radio](https://www.alleghenymountainradio.org/), which serves rural counties on the border of Virginia and West Virginia, [it represents 65%](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/20/nx-s1-5469908/trump-npr-public-community-radio-corporation-broadcasting-federal-funding-cuts). [As NPR reported](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/20/nx-s1-5469908/trump-npr-public-community-radio-corporation-broadcasting-federal-funding-cuts), the station is an important conduit for local information that doesn’t have any real alternatives: > Some people here say they really value the news and community information Allegheny Mountain provides. Jay Garber, mayor of the town of Monterey, Va., says the radio remains the fastest way to let citizens know about everything from water main breaks to road closures. Places like these are also the locations where broadband and mobile internet are scarcer, and where radio and television are a lifeline: the best way to understand what’s happening locally and receive safety alerts. Not only will these communities lose that much-needed information, [when a community doesn’t have adequate local news, it often experiences increased political corruption](https://www.gmu.edu/news/2024-11/are-us-news-deserts-hothouses-corruption). There are real knock-on effects for citizens of these communities: a lack of scrutiny leads to more opportunities to be exploited. In a world where these stations go away, there will be anti-democracy alternatives waiting in the wings. Networks like Truth Social are designed to be alternatives to America’s existing information infrastructure, providing media that is tailored to an autocratic worldview. Removing public media, along with [bringing commercial networks like CBS in line](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/media/david-ellison-fcc-chairman-paramount-deal-cbs-rcna219687), is part of changing the overarching media narrative in the United States. So, if I was in charge of NPR and PBS, what would I do about it? ### First: triage The most important immediate problem is the shortfall in support for rural stations. Given the stakes, public media needs to move quickly to preserve the most vulnerable parts of the system. Grassroots sites like [Adopt a Station](https://adoptastation.org/) are already trying to build support for individual stations from the donating public. There’s energy here: huge portions of the public want to help. The public media networks can harness this energy to drive donations and help prevent news deserts from being created in rural areas. I would start immediately; time is of the essence. The first step, within a month or two, would be to prioritize stations by a combination of vulnerability and likelihood to create a news desert in their absence. These would be tiered into those that can survive independently, those needing moderate support, and stations facing closure, with stations with no alternatives in their localities first in each category. I’d then launch an accelerated fundraising campaign targeting major donors, foundations, and corporate sponsors specifically aimed and preserving the stations that were most in need. It would probably look a lot like [the campaign that’s already underway](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/public-media-appeals-to-audiences-for-support-after-rescission-bill-passes/): > NPR hasn’t minced words. “This decision is devastating for the millions of people who rely on public media every day,” a pop-up on its website reads. The organization has also inserted a two-minute statement from CEO Katherine Maher in every in-house podcast’s feed, and has been circulating a one-minute video of Maher on social media. The video has nearly half a million likes and 237,000 views on TikTok, for example. This strategy would start as soon as possible — as has, in fact, happened — and carry on for at least three months. Over time, in addition to messaging broadcast through stations, it would expand to include materials and technology libraries aimed at decentralizing the fundraising campaign. Sites like Adopt a Station could incorporate branding, images, and embedded fundraising code provided by the networks in order to more easily raise money for stations. Similarly, anyone could easily share customized fundraising links on social media, for example to hit their own fundraising goals. Fundraisers who hit a certain level would receive perks — from old standbys of tote bags and T-shirts to invitations to private events and acknowledgement on the air, depending on their levels. Public media is rightly non-partisan, so the messaging for these campaigns wouldn’t be party political. But they would be pro-democracy, and emphasize the need for media to support communities across the country, as well as the dangers of government trying to undermine it. Finally, in order to help offset costs for the most in-need stations over the first year, I would raise funding from major national foundations focused on democracy and media, regional foundations with stakes in rural communities, and corporate sponsors aligned with public service missions. Content and network membership costs for those stations would be reduced for the duration of the time they were under threat of closure. It wouldn’t replace the whole budget, but it would at least cut into costs and give stations a greater chance of survival. ### Next: community Public media should have community at its heart. Local media, of course, is all about community: rather than thinking of their listeners or viewers as an *audience*, stations should think of them as a community that they can interact and build relationships with directly. But the public service nature of public media can also extend to seeding its platforms and content as things it can co-create with its communities, too. I would quickly make sure that every department at the networks is thinking like a product team: that is to say, prioritizing the needs of their stakeholders, ensuring that they understand what those needs are through rapid research and real-world prototype-driven testing rather than relying on internal assumptions and perspectives, and using an iterative process. Each team needs to test its assumptions and work with real-world stakeholders like listeners and donors as they make incremental improvements towards hitting defined [objectives and key results](https://rework.withgoogle.com/en/guides/set-goals-with-okrs) (more on those in a moment). Design techniques like [using aggregated personas](https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/personas) would be banned; instead, every major development would need to be prototyped and tested with real people in the community. Initiatives like [the JR3 project](https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2025/07/21/jr3-workshop-recap/), which seeks to reconsider journalism’s role in the current era and given the increasing prevalence of [news avoidance](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/dnr-executive-summary#avoidance), are a step in the right direction, and would be built on, with wider participation, anchored in real-world qualitative research into real people. Reflection and ideation would be encouraged, but the people being served by journalism would always be the referee and the center of gravity for every decision. Ideally, new initiatives would be co-created with them. Once key leaders at the networks had rapidly mastered this kind of human-centered, prototype-driven thinking, it would be offered to the stations for free. I would hire [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co/coreyford/) to run week-long media venture design thinking bootcamps for leaders at at-risk media stations, and then retain support at the network level to provide ongoing mentorship for them. The networks create safe community spaces as a way to help solve the stations’ most pressing challenges. Experts from across media, technology, and other relevant industries would be brought together to help figure out how to solve existential problems. This wouldn’t be slick consultancy arrangements; leaders across industries would give their time to support a bedrock of democracy, and have no-nonsense facilitated conversations that would move stations forward quickly. Those could evolve into direct, ongoing relationships between those leaders and the stations, or they could remain informal or temporal. Finally, those network OKRs would be tethered to an aggressive three-year plan that would center on finding more individual members, building sustainable revenue, and removing dependence on proprietary platforms. ### Removing dependence on proprietary platforms Public media networks have offered their stations centrally managed content management systems and other software for years. But many of those systems are closed and one-size-fits-all: for example, NPR offers a CMS called Grove, [which replaced its homegrown Core Publisher offering five years ago](https://greaterpublic.org/blog/how-grove-cms-features-address-the-growing-importance-of-digital-sponsorship/). Grove has lots of features that stations might find useful, and its central management means that new features roll out to many stations at once, but [is based on Brightspot](https://current.org/2024/10/with-grove-adoption-nearly-complete-stations-look-to-enhancements-single-sign-on/), a commercial CMS. If there need to be changes or customizations, stations need to work with Brightspot, and they may find there’s a hefty price tag. Brightspot also doesn’t have great answers for posting to new networks like Bluesky or to use more experimental web features. Just as the networks should be safe spaces where stations and experts can collaborate on experiments with business models and strategy, they should also foster collaboration on platform. There is a universe of mission-driven open source projects and engineers ready to help these stations. This isn’t new for media: for example, [the Tiny News Collective](https://www.tinynewsco.org/), which supports newsroom startups, works with the open source [Ghost](https://ghost.org) team to provide a great CMS. Ghost is more suitable for smaller newsrooms, but because it’s open source, newsrooms don’t have to use the hosted service Tiny News Collective provides. They can graduate to their own as they grow, customizing its code, and eventually porting themselves to another CMS if they want — all without being locked into a particular provider. [Newspack](https://newspack.com/), a CMS for news based on WordPress, offers similar freedom. Open source projects would be paid to provide hosted infrastructure. Again, this isn’t new: Tiny News Collective includes Ghost Pro, while Newspack sits on top of Automattic’s WordPress hosting. I would create space at the networks to bring together mission-driven developers and technology organizations in order to solve station problems — which, remember, were discovered through real-world research and testing with members of their communities. The stations get ready-made technology; the projects get exposure to validated, real-world problems and a set of users who need their work. These wouldn’t just be solutions to external problems like content management system features and fundraising support. Projects would also include solutions for *internal* problems like easier analytics and secure management for tips from sources. The work would be funded by a combination of the networks themselves and the larger stations. It would always be released under an open source license, inviting collaborators, users, and donors from outside public media. The result would be stronger, more innovative, more resilient platforms, produced at a lower cost. ### Convergence NPR and PBS were both authorized (alongside the CPB) by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967\. At the time, it made sense for radio and television to be treated separately: these were two very different mediums with different needs and different legacies. In 2025, that distinction isn’t so clear. [NPR creates video content](https://www.npr.org/series/718730324/video), like the excellent [Tiny Desk Concerts](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1B627337ED6F55F0). [PBS, in turn, creates a range of audio podcasts](https://www.pbs.org/articles/pbs-podcasts), like the [News Hour](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/podcasts), which is also broadcast on some public radio stations. Both publish on the web: a technology that supports audio, video, text, interactivity, immersive worlds, and more. Public radio and television both still have — and *need* to have — analogue content transmission, but they are now more alike than they are different. Not only should they share content production resources, but also fundraising and business resources, and even marketing plans. Costs will be saved by avoiding duplication. I don’t mean laying people off: combining efforts on functions like fundraising, accounting, product, and technology infrastructure would create efficiencies and allow for more sophisticated strategies. Research conducted with listeners of a rural public radio station could be applied to public television — and removing the artificial separation of broadcast technologies would free both networks up to work on new media initiatives in collaboration with each other. I’m not proposing a formal merger. But there are ways two independent organizations can collaborate more closely. ### Community convergence And then we go back to the communities. Organizations like [Hearken](https://wearehearken.com/) have made it more possible for the public to participate more fully in the public media that serves them. Hearken helps newsrooms crowdsource story ideas and involve communities in editorial processes; this should be at the core of the future of public media. Not only should the public be involved in reporting on their communities, but they should be trained in building media *for* their communities. This is how you get to more representative media that communities are more likely to invest in: you make sure it truly does represent them. Just as initiatives and platforms should be co-created, so should the content itself. [The PRX Podcast Garage](https://www.podcastgarage.org/) is an example of how public media organizations can work with communities in order not just elevate their voices but train them to elevate themselves. The networks should aim to provide more opportunities along these lines, and work towards an OKR that defines a percentage of total work that should be co-created — for example, 33% within three years. This doesn’t need to be limited to streaming media like audio and video. I’d direct the networks to support grassroots local newsletters and blogs, embracing tools co-created with open source communities in order to create a decentralized commons for local news. These would sit on networks based on ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, allowing voices to more easily be shared throughout social media without losing direct ownership of their work and social relationships. Finally, the networks should provide toolkits for in-person, local events, allowing stations to facilitate community in their areas safely. Each of these acts of co-creation would flow from the network to stations to individuals. The network would create toolkits and provide platforms (in collaboration with outside experts, open source communities, and other volunteers); the stations would choose to use them as they saw fit; individuals could then take the opportunity to engage. ### Sustainability and the commons These resources — platforms, materials, techniques, infrastructure — wouldn’t just be useful for grassroots communities. There’s a world where they also become useful for corporations and other large profit-making enterprises. While grassroots organizations and communities should receive them for free, larger for-profit enterprises should pay for them. This could be through a sponsorship model, or it could be through direct licensing payments. But widening the tent would help to bring in new funds to support it all. By turning public media into a commons that is co-created with communities at every level from the national to the hyper-local, we create cost savings, establish new opportunities for financial support, and better anchor local media to real-world needs. We also make it more resilient: each of these pieces is released openly, under an open license, allowing it to live on should the networks or stations eventually disappear. But let me be clear: public media does not need to be profitable. There will always be a need for both institutional and individual investment, and it would certainly be far better if the federal government resumed its support. (Hopefully it will again in the future, under a more community-minded administration.) Similarly, not every station can be sustainable, and this fact is independent of each station’s value to its community. Sometimes, particularly in rural areas, a station can be a vital lifeline, but also impossible to run sustainably in its own right. This is where the networks come into their own. It’s vitally important for larger, wealthier stations to help pay for smaller, more vulnerable ones. ### Onwards Public media is vital infrastructure. Without it, democracy is weakened. The act of defunding it isn’t just a crisis for the media companies themselves, nor even just for the communities that will become news deserts without this support. It’s a crisis for American democracy itself. There’s no silver lining here. But there are ways networks, stations, and the communities they serve can re-orient themselves, becoming more open and collaborative to conserve resources while providing new services that deepen their democratic service. All is not lost: while the status quo might not be sustainable, there’s much to be gained by rapidly innovating without losing the public service soul that makes it so special. As I said at the beginning, this has been a thought experiment. I don’t run NPR or PBS, and there are people far smarter than me who make these networks, stations, and communities work at every level, from the C-suite at the networks to the trenches at individual rural stations. These people are superheroes, and they’re already mobilizing with their own plans. I wish them only the best, and I hope, in some way, that this conversation has been useful. ### Trump and the Energy Industry Are Eager to Power AI With Fossil Fuels URL: https://werd.io/trump-and-the-energy-industry-are-eager-to-power-ai-with-fossil-fuels/ Last updated: 2025-07-20T14:43:38.000Z \[[Molly Taft in WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/trump-energy-industry-ai-fossil-fuels-pittsburgh-summit/)\] AI is a useful technology for anyone who wants to push forward a basket of issues that include increased surveillance (it needs more and more data to be useful) and energy (AI services are hungry for it, as we’ll see). Fossil fuels sit squarely in the middle of the mix. As WIRED reports: > “Since taking office, Trump has used AI as a lever to open up opportunities for fossil fuels, including a well-publicized effort to resuscitate coal in the name of more computing power.” The piece talks about a summit that included Pennsylvanian natural gas producers and pipeline companies. But even on a purely economic level, this doesn’t make sense: companies like Google are turning to renewable energy sources like hydropower not because it’s good for the environment (although that would be a great reason), but because it’s cheaper and more sustainable *for them*. > “Financial analyst Lazard said last month that installing utility-scale solar panels and batteries is still cheaper than building out natural gas plants, even without tax incentives. Gas infrastructure is also facing a global shortage that makes the timescales for setting up power generation vastly different.” If these technologies continue to grow in prominence — which for now seems like a safe bet — the demand for electricity is going to grow significantly. For folks with ties to last-century energy sources like fossil fuels, that’s an opportunity to spread propaganda for their cause. But renewables are the obvious way forward, economically, environmentally, and practically. There are still logistical problems to solve with these technologies, but this is something added investment and attention can directly help with. Of course, the actual growth of AI won’t necessarily match what’s currently being hyped. So there’s a potential pitfall here too: if companies invest in infrastructure based on the hype cycle, they might find themselves in trouble later on when the bubble bursts. On the other hand, if that investment went into renewable infrastructure, we might find that it’s useful nonetheless. \[[Link](https://www.wired.com/story/trump-energy-industry-ai-fossil-fuels-pittsburgh-summit/)\] ### OpenAI’s gold medal performance on the International Math Olympiad URL: https://werd.io/openais-gold-medal-performance-on-the-international-math-olympiad/ Last updated: 2025-07-20T14:22:46.000Z \[[Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/19/openai-gold-medal-math-olympiad/)\] This is a genuinely impressive-sounding result from OpenAI, [as reshared by Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/19/openai-gold-medal-math-olympiad/): > “I’m excited to share that our latest OpenAI experimental reasoning LLM has achieved a longstanding grand challenge in AI: gold medal-level performance on the world’s most prestigious math competition — the International Math Olympiad (IMO).” It uses an unreleased model — nothing on their current site, and not the upcoming GPT-5\. It’s not as consumer-friendly, given its propensity to take hours to solve problems, but on the face of it, this is an interesting outcome. As OpenAI research scientist Alexander Wei says: > “Just to spell it out as clearly as possible: a next-word prediction machine (because that's really what it is here, no tools no nothing) just produced genuinely creative proofs for hard, novel math problems at a level reached only by an elite handful of pre‑college prodigies.” So, how can we independently evaluate and consider this outcome? It’s worth noting that it was graded by “three former Olympiads”, not the formal scorers, with no indication of how they were paid or what the arrangement was. It’s also obviously a black box, like almost all AI models; it’s not clear how this was achieved. In particular, while they claim no tools, it’s not clear what the training data was, or which techniques were used to build the model. That’s not to dismiss these results outright! The IMO challenges are unique each year, and this has the potential to be a genuine breakthrough in computing. The next step would hopefully be a research paper that lays these things out. If this really is what they claim it is, it’s undeniably impressive. But it’s not enough to *say* it; it needs to be independently verified and repeated. \[[Link](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/19/openai-gold-medal-math-olympiad/)\] ### Microsoft can't protect French data from US government access URL: https://werd.io/microsoft-cant-protect-french-data-from-us-government-access/ Last updated: 2025-07-19T21:50:11.000Z \[[Luis Rijo at PPC Land](https://ppc.land/microsoft-cant-protect-french-data-from-us-government-access/)\] Microsoft’s disclosure that it can’t protect French data from being silently accessed by its US business is in apparent tension with the GDPR but in compliance with the [US CLOUD Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD%5FAct): > “The CLOUD Act asserts that U.S. data and communication companies must provide stored data for a customer or subscriber on any server they own and operate when requested by warrant.” There are provisions for a provider to reject or contest these warrants and subpoenas, but they’re limited in scope. The EU previously found that [the Act was in conflict with privacy protections guaranteed by the GDPR](https://www.edps.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publication/19-07-10%5Fedpb%5Fedps%5Fcloudact%5Fannex%5Fen.pdf). Microsoft has claimed that there have been no such accesses “in recent years”, but this excludes classified requests and national security letters. Microsoft may have found that its hands were tied because of the CLOUD Act, but it’s nonetheless made assurances that European data couldn’t be accessed from the US. [From the linked post](https://ppc.land/microsoft-cant-protect-french-data-from-us-government-access/): > “The testimony contradicts years of Microsoft's security assurances regarding European data hosting. Despite implementing encryption and technical safeguards, the company acknowledged that US legislation ultimately supersedes protective measures when federal agencies issue valid data requests.” For organizations storing sensitive data, this suggests some important principles to consider. 1. It’s not enough for a vendor to *assure* that data cannot be accessed via warrant or subpoena. Because US law supersedes those assurances, for your data to be truly protected it must be *physically* (not just legally) impossible for anyone to access it, in a way that’s fully auditable and under your control. That implies client-side encryption and self-hosting strategies. 2. Because the subjects of criminal subpoenas are unlikely to be notified, they present a useful route for government and law enforcement to silently access data. If you deal with sensitive or personally identifying data, this needs to be a part of your threat model. 3. Promises aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. 4. Governments and organizations outside the US should invest in building their own software and platforms that adhere to their values and responsibilities. 5. Governments and organizations *inside* the US *also* can’t trust the safety of their data, and should consider doing the same. In particular, using strong, sovereign encryption ensures that an organization will know when their data is accessed — because it’s impossible to do so without their involvement. This issue is not limited to Microsoft. As the article points out: > “Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and other hyperscale providers operate under identical legal frameworks, potentially exposing European data to extraterritorial access. The testimony suggests widespread vulnerability in European digital infrastructure built on American technological foundations.” Reliance on US services has become a point of vulnerability for everyone. This should be a concern regardless of American leadership; under the current administration, it’s become a frequent topic of conversation for security leaders both inside and outside of the country. France has mandated that sensitive data is migrated to services certified by SecNumCloud, a French security qualification to ensure the robustness of cloud solutions, particularly for sensitive and critical data. But this concern goes far beyond France. *Any* organization that needs to keep its information private, particularly for the safety and privacy of vulnerable individuals, must make tough choices about how to protect the sanctity of its data. For many of them, the prevailing cloud strategy of the last decade may have outlived its usefulness. \[[Link](https://ppc.land/microsoft-cant-protect-french-data-from-us-government-access/)\] ### Senate Votes to Strip $1.1 Billion From Public Broadcasting in Blow to PBS and NPR URL: https://werd.io/senate-votes-to-strip-1-1-billion-from-public-broadcasting-in-blow-to-pbs-and-npr/ Last updated: 2025-07-17T13:13:29.000Z \[[Variety](https://variety.com/2025/politics/news/senate-strips-billion-public-broadcasting-1236462722/)\] Removing over a billion dollars in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as the Senate has voted to do, will have the following effects: - Local public news stations, which disproportionately receive money from the CPB, will shutter. - More news deserts will be created. - PBS will be very hard-hit. - Political corruption will thrive. The idea that public media is a mouthpiece for “partisan left-wing activism” is ridiculous. It *is* an independent voice, which may be out of step with the politics of the current administration. But it broadcasts conservative voices and aims to highlight all major sides of the issues it covers. In addition to news, one of the important things public media does is provide programming that might not be viable on commercial stations. *Sesame Street* is the canonical example, but every state has programs that highlight local businesses and attractions, covers local culture, and reflects the pulse of regions around the country. It’s a huge loss. Hopefully there are other ways to make up the shortfall, but patronage from private individuals and foundations isn’t the same thing. These services deserve sustained public funding. This is yet another wound inflicted upon the country that will be felt for years to come. \[[Link](https://variety.com/2025/politics/news/senate-strips-billion-public-broadcasting-1236462722/)\] ### Why Big Tech is threatened by a global push for data sovereignty URL: https://werd.io/why-big-tech-is-threatened-by-a-global-push-for-data-sovereignty/ Last updated: 2025-07-13T14:00:32.000Z \[[Damilare Dosunmu at Rest of World](https://restofworld.org/2025/big-tech-data-sovereignty/)\] The devolution of data (and with it, software) from the United States to the rest of the world continues apace: > “Developing nations are challenging Big Tech’s decades-long hold on global data by demanding that their citizens’ information be stored locally. The move is driven by the realization that countries have been giving away their most valuable resource for tech giants to build a trillion-dollar market capitalization.” This has always been true, but was perhaps less of an issue when the US government wasn’t both unpredictable and antagonistic. Now, it isn’t just Europe that is seeking to own its own technology future: Global Majority countries are too. And they’re taking steps to make sure it happens. Africa is building new data centers. While some more of the wealth and investment will flow into the continent as a result, it doesn’t appear that many of them are actually *owned by Africans*, which feels like a necessary next step. Otherwise they’re essentially being colonized by tech companies from places like the US and China. Countries like Nigeria have also become adept at building software. What’s going to be really interesting is when these countries also pull out of tagging and moderating AI data; much of this work has been outsourced to the Global Majority, and companies like OpenAI depend on it. That may have seemed like smart arbitrage from their points of view to begin with, but with the right strategy and underlying legislation, it could begin to look like leverage. \[[Link](https://restofworld.org/2025/big-tech-data-sovereignty/)\] ### Fell in a hole, got out. URL: https://werd.io/fell-in-a-hole-got-out/ Last updated: 2025-07-13T12:59:42.000Z \[[Tony Stubblebine at Medium](https://medium.com/the-coach-life/fell-in-a-hole-got-out-381356ec8d7f)\] This account of Medium’s resurgence is remarkable on multiple levels: the transparency of Tony Stubblebine’s account is rare, but the story itself is astonishing. This kind of turnaround almost never happens, and it’s a testament to Tony that it worked in this case. > “Ev had two eras here. The first was the design era where the team reinvented what a writing platform could look like, both simplifying and beautifying every part of the experience. The second was the invention of a new business model, moving away from the toxic incentives of ads and instead offering a single bundled subscription that any writer could share in.” I’ve spoken to a few other people who worked at Medium in one of its earlier eras. For the folks who were around during the business model era, it feels a bit weird that much of their work was to dig the “hole” as he describes it here — but it’s also not wrong (and, to be clear, not their fault). Building Medium with a Twitter-scale sensibility was the wrong thing; building it with profitability in mind, and with a no-nonsense approach to promoting really interesting writing, was always the way. I think Tony’s self-described superpowers were really key here: > “One is that running small businesses gave me a chance to see how every part of a company operates, often because I had to be the one doing it. Two, there really is no such thing as a social media platform having a bigger power user than I was with Medium. I had been a prolific user in every capacity, from hobby writer, to thought leader, to promoting a business, to daily newsletter writer, to building three of the biggest publications here. Nearly 2% of page views on Medium were going to my publications and writing.” There’s a lot here for startup founders and anyone who cares about tech and media business models to digest. This account is generous in its transparency and detail, and it deserves to be read and understood by everyone in the space. \[[Link](https://medium.com/the-coach-life/fell-in-a-hole-got-out-381356ec8d7f)\] ### If I ran X URL: https://werd.io/if-i-ran-x/ Last updated: 2025-08-05T01:37:34.000Z “After two incredible years,” Linda Yaccarino tweeted, “I’ve decided to step down as CEO of 𝕏.” It was the day after the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, [began calling itself MechaHitler and started spewing antisemitic slurs and advocating for Adolf Hitler in public](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/09/nx-s1-5462609/grok-elon-musk-antisemitic-racist-content) until the company eventually [had to remove them](https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-chatbot-grok-removes-posts-after-complaints-antisemitism-2025-07-09/). Many of the users still posting to X greeted the antisemitism warmly; some tweeted, “finally”. No new CEO has been named. I’ve previously written about what I’d do if [I ran Bluesky product](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-bluesky-product/), [Mastodon](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-mastodon/), [my own platform](https://werd.io/if-i-started-fresh/), and [a fund supporting the open social web](https://werd.io/lets-fund-the-open-social-web/). I’d intended to stop the series there. But as there’s an opening: let’s imagine I was handed the reins to the most toxic mainstream social network. What would I do if I was the new CEO of X? I have some history with the people behind Twitter, the site that eventually became X. I consider multiple people who were there at the site’s inception, as well as many people who worked there in its later years, to be friends; Biz Stone sat on my first startup’s advisory board; I worked for Ev Williams at Medium for a little while. I’ve heard various pieces of founding stories from each of them. And I really loved using Twitter. Long before Elon Musk bought it, I was an addicted user who posted many times a day. It opened up communities for me: I attended Twestivals (and hosted one), [saw Ben Walker play his Twitter Song live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYP-wBaqQAI), took part in countless hashtag games and still own a tote bag I won from the literary magazine Granta for writing a tweet-length horror story. Every time I went to an industry event or a conference, I’d be in the Twitter backchannel, making and reading observations, and building new connections. And then, one day, [Elon Musk walked into the building carrying a kitchen sink](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/26/elon-musk-twitter-visit-sink) and began to refashion it around his need to amass power and influence to bring about his edgelord, [pronatalist](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5371718/pronatalist-birth-rate-musk-natal-conference), [Hitler-saluting](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/21/the-gesture-speaks-for-itself-germans-divided-over-musks-apparent-nazi-salute) view of the world. The name changed to X, Musk’s original name for PayPal, a company [whose board voted to fire him as CEO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com%5F%28bank%29) due to mismanagement. Musk fired 80% of the staff, cratered the morale of the people who remained, [reinstated Nazi accounts](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/05/business/nightcap-twitter-neo-nazi), [hate speech surged](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0313293) — and the rest is history. I’ve been given the reins. I’m CEO now. Can it be saved? Throughout this tumult, X’s active user numbers have remained remarkably steady. 2024’s 335.7M monthly active users represented a 9% drop from 2022, the year Musk acquired Twitter. TechCrunch recently reported that [its web views remain vastly higher than new competitors like Threads and Bluesky](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/07/threads-is-nearing-xs-daily-app-users-new-data-shows/). Famously, many brands and journalists have been reticent to leave the site, despite its near-constant onslaught of white supremacy and hate speech. In other words: *the traffic is there*. These users may be a mix of bots, literal Nazis, and people who don’t mind posting on a site that is heavily used by literal Nazis, but there are *hundreds of millions of them*. So that’s something. On the other hand, [its revenue tanked following the acquisition](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/x-just-revealed-glimpse-dramatic-160249796.html), with some reports showing a drop as big as 66%. More recently, it saw 17.5% growth between 2024 and 2025, but it needs to claw back a lot of ground if it wants to return to its 2021 revenue peak — and even then, [it posted a loss for most of the decade that preceded it](https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/12/21/twitter-and-its-fight-for-profitability/). In short: its online culture is toxic, its finances are decimated, and morale at the company is through the floor. But there is a great deal of remaining traffic, and many stalwarts have refused to give up followings they spent over a decade building. If we want to turn it around, the only place it’s possible to start is the culture of the company itself. Everything else flows from there. First, let’s address the ketamine in the room: there is no possible cultural turnaround at X while Elon Musk owns the site or has a significant stake. It must be acquired from him. That may seem far-fetched, but [much of his wealth is stored in Tesla stock](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-stock-stakes-value-net-worth-2025-3); in a world where [his political machinations tank the price of his cash cow](https://www.thewrap.com/trump-musk-train-wreck-70-billion-tesla-stock/), he may need liquidity through other means. [X’s valuation had already declined by 80%](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitter-x-fidelity); [his own xAI acquired it at a relative discount](https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/musks-xai-buys-social-media-platform-x-45-billion-2025-03-28/). As X’s culture continues to degrade, it may prove to be a drag on the valuation of his AI startup. The benefits of offloading it, in other words, may begin to outweigh the benefits to keeping it. A coalition of hands-on investors would be needed to perform this acquisition, but consider the upside: a de-Nazified Twitter would be worth considerably more than its current incarnation. Musk had previously taken it private; the revived company could once again be floated on the stock market. The potential gains would be significant. A newly-independent X would then be ripe for change. Executives and managers who were loyal to Musk would need to be removed. It’s not a given that other employees were fully on board with his [“extremely hardcore”](https://fortune.com/2022/11/16/elon-musk-email-twitter-extremely-hardcore-long-hours-high-intensity/), hard-right ideology: some may have needed to remain to maintain their visas or to ensure a paycheck in a tough hiring environment. Internally, diversity policies and mandatory inclusion training would return. Protections for work-life balance would return, and remote work would once again be allowed, with a staged roll-out. Work would be undertaken to establish an internal culture of empathy, which is a hard requirement for building non-toxic communities; experts like [Carole Robin](https://leadersintech.org/team) and [Vernā Myers](https://vernamyers.com/) would be heavily drawn on for ongoing manager training and culture guidance, and experts like [Dr Joy Buolamwini](https://www.poetofcode.com/) and [Timnit Gebru](https://www.dair-institute.org/team/) would be drawn on to help the company be mindful the implications of ongoing work. This is the work of years, but the process would begin immediately. To be clear, it’s not that employees would need to be left-wing. This isn’t an inquisition, and a company culture that only allows one political alignment is more harmful than good. But basic human decency would once again be a value: hate speech and bigotry would be explicitly disallowed, and it would be made obvious that the aim of Twitter’s platform is to create a community where voices from a diversity of communities should feel safe to post, which starts with internal cultural expectations. Nazi accounts would need to be banned again, swiftly, with their posts preserved internally in a vault in a de facto legal hold. The messages would be made available as a dataset to organizations that research and investigate hate groups, although users would have the ability to have their content removed in accordance with relevant privacy legislation for their jurisdiction. Significant investments would be made into non-profits and on-the-ground organizations that support the vulnerable communities harmed by the hate speech, doxxing, and other activities previously enabled on X. A commitment would be made for ongoing support: it couldn’t be a one-and-done gesture. A permanent, inclusive trust and safety council would be established, modeled after the Supreme Court, with real, encoded power to affect company policies around content and moderation. This council and its permanence would be defined in the articles of association of the new company; it would be almost impossible to remove them. Its members would be guaranteed a salary (but could not own stock) and required to both adjudicate on content moderation issues and intervene during strategic lapses. The number of members of the council would increase based on active users but could never decrease. Employees who objected to these measures would be free to take a buyout. Some would likely just quit. Meanwhile, the company would begin to aggressively hire across the board, including but not limited to engineering, product, research, design, partnerships, communications, and trust and safety. Public statements and heavy PR would signal the internal cultural changes in order to attract new applicants. The name and brand would be symbolically restored to Twitter, indicating a clean break from the Musk years. It’s a trustworthy brand, and the change back would likely turn heads. But it would be a mistake to simply return the company to its old self. The new Twitter needs to be something else entirely. It’s now clear that Musk’s acquisition was about amassing power, not providing value. [As Dan Primack wrote in Axios last year](https://www.axios.com/2024/11/07/elon-musk-twitter-takeover-math-changed): > Musk used the platform to help shape public opinion during the election, artificially amplifying his political messages and giving him influence with Donald Trump that money alone wouldn't have bought. While this might seem like a selling point to a would-be autocrat, it serves as a weakness to Twitter as a business. Not only does this property make it vulnerable to takeovers from terrible people, but it elevates the company’s business decisions to a level where a mistake could significantly impact democracy or even public safety around the world. (This is also the lesson [Meta failed to learn in Myanmar](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/).) In turn, this could subject the company to greater regulatory scrutiny and oversight. It may seem like value at first sight, but it’s actually a business risk. So how can the new Twitter be incredibly valuable but also safer from regulatory oversight? The core value of Twitter is not its social network as such. That’s always been a means to an end. [The vast majority of content on the site has historically been created by just 10% of users](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/), but people don’t log in to post: [they want to see what *other* people are saying](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/11/15/1-the-views-and-experiences-of-u-s-adult-twitter-users/). The point of Twitter is to find out what’s going on right now and get an insight into the conversation around it. My new Twitter would retain the social network but expand upon the idea that people want to know what’s happening right now. The feed would expand to not just include Twitter’s own conversations, but *every* public conversation across the social web. Search, trending topics, and live dashboards would represent the entire addressable real-time web, using open standards and protocols like AT Protocol, ActivityPub, and RSS. Twitter would become the way to find out what’s happening *everywhere*. Some social networks — like Facebook — would not be available via this feed. The *addressable* social web would consist of sites that embrace open protocols (best), or otherwise make a content deal directly with Twitter (less good). However, a Twitter that aims to provide the pulse of the internet and not necessarily a social network in itself is less of a competitor to closed networks; in fact, the tools may provide new engagement and users for them. The aim would be, over time, to make *not* being represented on the feed more of a business liability for closed social networking platforms than being included. Twitter would provide libraries, ecosystem support, and even funding for open social web protocols: its value increases as the the social web pie gets bigger. Monetization would be three-prong. Advertising would remain on public feeds, and a renewed focus on trust and safety would improve brand safety, bringing advertising prices back up. Twitter Blue premium profiles on the social network would remain. But most differently, enterprise tools for tracking public sentiment and yielding unique insights from the global conversation would be made available for corporations, media companies, and governments. These tools would also be made available to public research institutions, with some restrictions, for free. Using open protocols should help reduce regulatory risk. In this world, trust and safety is as much about de-listing external content as it is about policing the in-house social network. Aggregating across the entire social web is an enormous infrastructure task that requires real resources and expertise to carry out; the compliance demands across global jurisdictions are complex but fully within Twitter’s wheelhouse. The moat for the business is, in part, the combination of the difficulty of building the tools and their ease of use for end users. In-house expertise would create proprietary machine learning algorithms for sentiment and insight analysis, and integrations with third-party tools like CRMs and analytics platforms could embed the platform in existing enterprise ecosystems. It’s a very similar model to how Google originally became the dominant search engine: simplicity of use combined with the sophistication of its internal technology, all layered over the open web. It’s not even particularly unprecedented: Blaine Cook, then CTO of Twitter, [was fired for demonstrating interoperability with Jaiku, another social network](https://x.com/blaine/status/1460182020194279424). For this new Twitter, interoperability would be core to its value. This transformation wouldn’t happen overnight. A still-aggressive but more realistic timeline might look like: - Culture change: biggest changes in the first six months, then ongoing - Platform redevelopment and rebuilding the team: 1-2 years - Building up aggregation and partnerships: 2-3 years Once established, the new Twitter would set the tone for the social web itself. By implication, it wouldn’t just be the way that conversations were discovered; people would find platforms this way, too. By not hyper-focusing on its own social network, it has the potential to become a much bigger and more valuable company: one that people use to unlock the entire online social conversation. By using open protocols, the company ensures the whole internet isn’t locked into its services, but by caring for trust and safety, design, and the quality of its feeds, it provides best-in-class options for people to choose. And it fosters a bigger, more interesting social web in the process. Does X or Twitter actually need to be saved? Absolutely not. There are plenty of new social networks that are more interesting, more fun to use, and show more promise. But there’s interesting potential here, both to remove a major source of toxicity on the internet, to diffuse a centralized source of power that can be abused by autocrats and oligarchs, and to create a way to elevate the entire social web. So that’s what I would do if I was CEO. ### The Future of Forums is Lies, I Guess URL: https://werd.io/the-future-of-forums-is-lies-i-guess/ Last updated: 2025-07-08T13:54:27.000Z \[[Kyle Kingsbury](https://aphyr.com/posts/389-the-future-of-forums-is-lies-i-guess)\] This account of how LLMs are used to create spam accounts across Mastodon servers is likely a glimpse into both the future of spam and the future of online communities. > "In some sense, this is a wildly sophisticated attack. The state of NLP seven years ago would have made this sort of thing flatly impossible. It is now effective. There is no way for moderators to robustly deny these kinds of applications without also rejecting real human beings searching for community." Back in the old days, I ran communities that ran on classic forum software. Spam was an arms race *then*: a successful spammer could make a ton of money (and increase the search engine ranking of their clients' sites) by injecting links on community sites all over the web, so they were incentivized to get past any blockers we erected. These days, LLMs make these attacks a great deal more sophisticated - and a great deal more possible. Then, as now, it was a numbers game. As Kyle points out: > "These attacks do not have to be reliable to be successful. They only need to work often enough to be cost-effective, and the cost of LLM text generation is cheap and falling." The attack laid out here is fairly naive. It uses the same username and spams the same content across communities. That's actually an illustration of how low-effort it is. A higher-effort attack would see the posts customized for each community, with different usernames and profiles to fit the community's theme and culture. Those attacks are doubtless already here. Attempts to spot LLM writing are not very reliable and have the potential to create false positives - not least because they probably rely on an LLM themselves, and therefore are prone to inaccuracies and bias. So for now this requires human moderation. That's potentially fine for a giant megacorporation (although even they struggle with the tide of AI-enabled spam accounts), but for individual, niche communities maintained by enthusiasts and hobbyists, that may be the beginning of the end. \[[Link](https://aphyr.com/posts/389-the-future-of-forums-is-lies-i-guess)\] ### Threads is nearing X's daily app users, new data shows URL: https://werd.io/threads-is-nearing-xs-daily-app-users-new-data-shows/ Last updated: 2025-07-08T13:28:04.000Z \[[Sarah Perez at TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/07/threads-is-nearing-xs-daily-app-users-new-data-shows/)\] There's a graph in the middle of this article which is fairly sobering for those of us who are really hoping for Bluesky and Mastodon to succeed. In it, we see a gentle decline in X usage, a healthy increase in Threads usage, and a straight, slightly-declining line representing Bluesky usage that seems to stubbornly cling to the X axis. For me, this is in contrast to the experience of actually *using* each network. Every so often, I'll dip into X to see what the discourse is like, but it's universally the most toxic feed I've ever seen. (I reset my account some time ago and don't follow anyone or have any followers.) My Threads feed has become unreadable, with a few really bright spots who prefer to post there. On Bluesky, I interact with some very smart and insightful people I like very much, and get a bunch of interactions from political posters who, while potentially human, are indistinguishable from bots. The growth of Threads is, of course, tethered to Instagram: there are calls to action to sign up and to look at your Threads feed all over that app. Which is why its app usage is flourishing but its web usage is not; Instagram doesn't have much of a life on the web. It's worth saying that the raw numbers are not the important thing: instead, it's worth considering the difference in *interactions* across networks. Here, Bluesky and Mastodon absolutely outshine the competition. People are much more likely to reshare and engage in conversation - or donate to non-profits - on those networks, and that counts for a lot. \[[Link](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/07/threads-is-nearing-xs-daily-app-users-new-data-shows/)\] ### ‘Improved’ Grok criticizes Democrats and Hollywood’s ‘Jewish executives’ URL: https://werd.io/improved-grok-criticizes-democrats-and-hollywoods-jewish-executives/ Last updated: 2025-07-07T14:29:40.000Z [*Link: Anthony Ha at TechCrunch*](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/06/improved-grok-criticizes-democrats-and-hollywoods-jewish-executives/)*.* Elon Musk's definition of "improved" might be a little bit different to mine: > "\[...\] another user asked whether there’s a “particular group that runs Hollywood that injects these subversive themes,” to which Grok replied, “Yes, Jewish executives have historically founded and still dominate leadership in major studios like Warner Bros., Paramount, and Disney. Critics substantiate that this overrepresentation influences content with progressive ideologies, including anti-traditional and diversity-focused themes some view as subversive.”" Musk tweaking his AI model to be more aligned with right-wing edgelords was inevitable, but there's a broader point to be made: each AI model is a black box that supposedly gives objective answers but in reality is shaped by its owners. As more people look to AI to learn about the world, the people who control how it's trained and how it responds will control our prevailing narratives. That's a very dangerous future: one where it's impossible for democracy to properly function, because citizens cannot be properly informed. Given that it currently seems like AI models will likely be run by large multinational corporations that cross borders, rather than there being a tapestry of much smaller, more specific models, the potential for people to gain power that they can then abuse horribly is immense. It just so happens that Elon Musk is a grotesque caricature of those kinds of power dynamics: > "Even before these recent changes, Grok raised eyebrows after appearing to briefly censor unflattering mentions of Musk and his then-ally President Donald Trump, repeatedly bringing up “white genocide” without prompting, and expressing skepticism about the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust." But make no mistake, they're present in every AI company. \[[Link](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/06/improved-grok-criticizes-democrats-and-hollywoods-jewish-executives/)\] ### Family zoning actually means something cool URL: https://werd.io/family-zoning-actually-means-something-cool/ Last updated: 2025-07-06T14:03:51.000Z [*Link: Thomas Goetz in The San Francisco Standard*](https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2025/07/06/family-zoning-may-be-a-euphemism-its-also-a-great-idea/)*.* Beyond San Francisco, I wish every single US city would do this. We're too car-dependent, too isolated, too unhealthy: > "The “family zoning” concept offers a way to say yes to a whole new vision of healthy housing. We need a smart mix of retail, office, housing, and parks to create the sorts of neighborhoods that encourage walking to the store and bumping into your neighbors. Healthy housing also means more than parks or exercise equipment. We need spaces that foster socializing and fun almost by accident." We need the kind of mixed-use neighborhoods that [Jane Jacobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%5FJacobs) would have approved of. Honestly, European mixed-use development should be the model, with plenty of public art, shared spaces, and amenities the author suggests like fitness circuits and lots of kinds of libraries added into the mix. That sounds like the kind of place I'd like to live. If San Francisco wants to be the model for this, great! But it's one of the most expensive places to live in the world. For this to be effective and interesting, it needs to be expanded to cities that are more affordable for everyone, too. \[[Link](https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2025/07/06/family-zoning-may-be-a-euphemism-its-also-a-great-idea/)\] ### America is a myth URL: https://werd.io/america-is-a-myth/ Last updated: 2025-07-04T06:05:44.000Z My father’s first memories are of a concentration camp. I grew up hearing the stories, and hearing my grandmother’s screams at the hands of the nightmares she faced every single night. I am able to exist because she secretly gathered and cooked snails in the camp, and because my aunt was able to sneak out through the sewers to gather more food. It wasn’t a death camp, technically, but they killed people in high numbers. The way people died was through malnourishment, or the terrible conditions, or through direct punishment or torture at the hands of the guards. The Japanese-run camps were the site of many atrocities, forced labor, and medical experiments. Of course, in camps run by Nazi Germany, they systematically executed people. That wasn’t always the plan: first, they intended to deport people in large numbers. It was only later on, once these detainments and deportations proved to be too slow, that they moved on to the “final solution”. That was eighty years ago. Today, we’re building, running, and partnering with camps that are both visually and thematically similar. We own the sociopathically-named Alligator Alcatraz in South Florida; we partner with the Center for Terrorism Confinement in El Salvador; we’re trying to make deals with places like South Sudan and Rwanda to take deportees that echo plans from long ago. ICE, our anti-immigrant federal agency, is now better funded than most national militaries. We are still at the foothills of a bigger fascist movement in the United States. Notable experts in totalitarianism have already left the country. It seems big compared to where we’ve been, but it’s still small compared to where we’re going. I reject nativism completely. I unapologetically think people who use phrases like “un-American” are dumb as rocks, but if anything seems un-American, it’s that. I’m a natural-born American citizen who hails, on my mother's side, from a long-standing American family who arrived here on the Mayflower. My ancestors include diplomats who shaped American foreign policy and authors who are a part of the American canon. Yet I’m no more American than someone who naturalized today; I’m no more important on this or any soil than any other person. Why would I be? The stories I’ve always been told about America, the ones that really make it sound great, are the ones where immigrants arrived here, perhaps via Ellis Island, and could make a life for themselves, with great union jobs, and make a mark on what the country is. The ones where our cities are homes to people of every ethnicity and every background, where every culture and religion is welcome. They’re myths, of course. The history is far more dark and complicated than that — we’re still dealing with the legacy of slavery and the civil war, let alone Jim Crow, the Tulsa race massacre, the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, or COINTELPRO, to pick just some examples. But as far as myths go, they’re good ones; something to aim for. We’re busy building a new myth: one that looks a lot closer to the stories that led to death and suffering that was so traumatic that it defined the century that followed it. Those are also the stories that led my grandfather to lead his local resistance movement in Indonesia, and to my cousins in Northern Europe to lead theirs. Back then, good people around the world stood up for inclusion, equality, parity, life, and dignity for all. Now, we have to decide which story about America we want to believe, hold onto, and stand up for — and we have to decide what really matters. There are still people who think this is about partisanship, and that our norms will endure. I simply don’t agree. It’s about democracy itself, and our norms are already gone. Happy Fourth of July. I’m not feeling very patriotic. But given the choice between a multicultural democracy that welcomes all and one that seeks to tear us back to the worst part of the twentieth century, I’m damn sure where I stand. ### What are we actually for? The Mamdani case for positive resistance URL: https://werd.io/what-are-we-actually-for-the-mamdani-case-for-positive-resistance/ Last updated: 2025-07-03T02:15:56.000Z I’m on vacation this week, which means I’d taken some time away from the internet to breathe. The Oregon coast is beautiful; if you’ve never had a chance, I recommend that you visit. Let me amend that: if you’re not already within the United States, I recommend that you *wait* to visit. [Incidents of visitors being detained at the border are on the rise.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-immigration-detained-visitors-border-search-device-visa-passport-rcna197736) When I reconnected, I learned that we’ve [opened a concentration camp in South Florida](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-alligator-alcatraz-detention-center-florida/) and that a funding bill that will serve to create, among other things, [an unprecedented surveillance state](https://www.techpolicy.press/republican-budget-bill-signals-new-era-in-federal-surveillance/) has [been passed by the Senate and sent back to the House for approval](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5450367/senate-republicans-trump-tax-bill-medicaid). Meanwhile, [a Supreme Court decision stripped courts of the ability to block executive actions nationwide](https://msmagazine.com/2025/06/30/supreme-court-nationwide-injunctions-immigrant-birthright-citizenship-casa-trump/), making it much harder to pose legal challenges to the ongoing [descent into fascism](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-s-immigration-team-goes-full-fascist-with-threat-to-visa-holders/ar-AA1Hq5dq) at the hands of the current President. I know, I know. We’ve all got dystopia fatigue: the stories are relentless and [more people are turning away from the news in order to protect their mental health](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/apr/01/i-cant-cope-with-it-any-more-newsrooms-scramble-to-retain-audiences-amid-the-big-switch-off). The temptation is not to say anything about it at all, because what could we possibly add to the conversation? And how can we say something about the current moment that doesn’t sound like something from a paranoid science fiction novel? But at the same time, silence is acquiescence. The overwhelming narrative is one of racism, nativism, and bigotry; by not raising our voices to counter it, we effectively help it along. The government knows this, which is why it’s attempting to create a chilling effect on free speech, in part by demanding to see the social media accounts of immigrants and flagging people who might be critical of the current administration. [Surveillance *always* creates a chilling effect on speech and organizing](https://academic.oup.com/jhrp/article/16/1/397/7234270): clearly, immigrants who want a visa but know their social media profiles may prevent them from obtaining or maintaining one will watch what they say. But, as bad as this already is, this climate of intimidation affects more than immigrants: it’s designed to make *everyone* think twice before speaking out. For the rest of us who might find staying silent more comfortable, we need to understand that [the bystander effect is real](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/21/say-it-loud-this-is-fascism-and-we-must-all-resist-it): > In this study, when a person is alone in a room that begins to fill with smoke, three-quarters raise the alarm within minutes. Yet, when surrounded by others who remain passive, only 10% take action. This is the “bystander effect”, identified by Latané and Darley in the 1970s, which reveals how a silent, unresponsive crowd can stifle our instincts – even when our own lives are at stake. It’s not just about speaking out: a resistance with no message of its own is doomed to repeat empty slogans. The hashtag resistance movement of the first Trump administration is a joke for a reason: it was largely performative, with few actions or real alternatives to back up its words. There needs to be something to say beyond, “not this guy”. Beyond what we’re against, what are we *for*? This moment demands a robust counter-movement, but the formal opposition has been profoundly disappointing. I don’t know what established Democrats are doing. In response to the Republican spending bill that will give funding superpowers to ICE, Senate Minority Leader [forced the bill to change its name](https://www.yahoo.com/news/schumer-forces-name-change-big-184428548.html) and claimed a victory for it on social media. Meanwhile, the game remains the same: pass measures and repeal regulations to [give as much wealth and power as possible to the ruling class, stripping it from lower income people](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/30/trump-bill-helps-wealthy-hurts-low-earners-yale-report.html), while [scapegoating immigrants for their misfortune](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/30/trump-bill-helps-wealthy-hurts-low-earners-yale-report.html). Much of Trump’s support this time around was [about the cost of living](https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-the-reasons-for-voting-for-trump-and-harris/). For some reason, Democrats insist on messaging that supports “the middle class”, leaving low-wage earners and the working class behind. To be clear, this was reason number two; reason number one was racist anti-immigrant sentiment, but that can also be tied into the economy when you consider how immigrants have been scapegoated for high costs and job losses. Removing the name from a terrible bill isn’t going to help here, but some inroads have been made. Many of Trump’s social media posts over the last few days have highlighted the price of gas, food, and taxes on social security. This week, [Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral primary over Andrew Cuomo by a landslide](https://abc7ny.com/post/zohran-mamdani-nyc-mayoral-primary-ranked-choice-trump-reaction/16903542/), with more votes being cast than in any NYC mayoral primary since 1989\. Voters were excited, and many precincts switched their allegiance from the Republican Party. ([His video about why he won](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjgI-nK1PHE) is a masterclass.) His core policies are [progressive answers to cost of living problems](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5449040/zohran-mamdani-nyc-mayoral-candidate): things like expanded childcare, cheaper groceries, and free public transit that will benefit people on lower incomes more than anyone else. They’re based on working policies from elsewhere or pilots that yielded great results. We need to clearly oppose the cruelty of the second Trump administration, from [unconstitutional deportations](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/groups-take-legal-action-to-halt-trump-fast-track-deportation-policy) and [detentions without due process](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/trump-immigration-people-detained-deported-cases) through [unprecedented surveillance](https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-palantir-surveillance-americans-rcna210017) and [his anti-trans crusade](https://19thnews.org/2025/03/trump-anti-trans-executive-orders/) to [ethnic cleansing in Gaza](https://www.politico.eu/article/trumps-plan-to-ethnically-cleanse-gaza-is-illegal-says-un-backed-judge/). This goes far beyond partisan politics to simply being a position that fascism should always be opposed. But we also need to have our own vision: one that addresses the core issues felt by ordinary people who are struggling to live in an increasingly cruel American society. I think Zohran Mamdani has clearly shown a road ahead: one that is embraced by a coalition of voters across cultural and ideological barriers. I think Trump does too, which is why he posted: > As President of the United States, I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York. Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I’ll save New York City, and make it “Hot” and “Great” again, just like I did with the Good Ol’ USA! It would be better if the Democratic Party embodied its current role as an opposition force and embraced a progressive approach to the financial hardships faced by many Americans. Instead, both Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have [declined to endorse Mamdani](https://www.axios.com/2025/06/26/democrats-zohran-mamdani-meltdown-new-york) and other major figures have expressed concerns, in part because big-dollar donors favor a more centrist approach. But that approach is entirely at odds with what the electorate wants and needs — and the path forward is now clear. Establishment Democrats need to adjust accordingly or get the hell out of the way. ### Republican Budget Bill Signals New Era in Federal Surveillance URL: https://werd.io/republican-budget-bill-signals-new-era-in-federal-surveillance/ Last updated: 2025-07-02T14:59:47.000Z [*Link: Dean Jackson and Justin Hendrix at TechPolicy.Press*](https://www.techpolicy.press/republican-budget-bill-signals-new-era-in-federal-surveillance/)*.* TechPolicy.Press looks at Trump's big bill from a technology-enabled civil rights perspective. This much has become very clear: > "The current form of the Republican budget bill [commits](https://www.nytimes.com/article/house-gop-tax-bill-trump.html) as much as $175 billion to enforce President Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. While the final number will depend on reconciliation between the chambers of Congress, the next budget will almost certainly include billions of dollars for administration priorities, such as [new technological capabilities](https://migrantinsider.com/p/gop-megabill-gives-ice-30-billion) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and ICE." What's important to understand is what this bill enables in terms of aggregation between data stores owned by individual states and departments. Trump's executive order to “ensure the Federal Government has unfettered access to comprehensive data from all State programs that receive Federal funding, including, as appropriate, data generated by those programs but maintained in third-party databases” is hugely important - not only have local government databases like this never been aggregated before, but that mention of third-party databases may require unfettered access to private services. Data brokers already provide warrantless access to the information we're sharing with online services for a low price. It'll all be connected and - you can put money on this - used to train AI models that will supposedly provide information about us to law enforcement, ICE, and other agencies, but will also hallucinate and be subject to systemic biases. It's fair to assume that all data that is collected anywhere will be eventually used by the worst possible actor. The best way to avoid this kind of surveillance is to never collect this kind of data in the first place. Failing those needed restrictions, we need stronger controls on how data is stored, used, and redacted. That ship has now completely sailed. It's all out there, being used by the worst possible actor to enact policies that have the potential to lead to the worst possible things. Just as the civil liberties violations of the PATRIOT Act never really went away, the cat is out of the bag forever. Even when this administration is behind us, we can never really go back. For that, we can blame the failure of imagination of every system designer, every digital policy leader, every decision-maker who led us here. \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/republican-budget-bill-signals-new-era-in-federal-surveillance/)\] ### Grammarly to acquire email startup Superhuman in AI platform push URL: https://werd.io/grammarly-to-acquire-email-startup-superhuman-in-ai-platform-push/ Last updated: 2025-07-01T15:05:43.000Z [*Link: Krystal Hu in Reuters*](https://www.reuters.com/business/grammarly-acquires-email-startup-superhuman-ai-platform-push-2025-07-01/)*.* I have to admit that I didn't see this coming: > "Grammarly has signed a deal to acquire email efficiency tool Superhuman as part of the company's push to build an artificial intelligence-powered productivity suite and diversify its business, its executives told Reuters in an interview." I loved using Superhuman before moving to ProPublica; it helped me develop more efficient email habits, but its use of AI agents to process email was not compatible with our security stance. (We don't allow *any* third-party email clients, so this stance is not anti-Superhuman as such.) Its AI features were not the selling point for me: it was the design of the email client itself, its reliance on common keyboard shortcuts, and its optimization for getting through my inbox quickly. (I'm terrible at email, and this didn't *completely* help, but it helped a lot.) Grammarly is clearly trying to turn into an alternative productivity suite - one that operates as a layer over other software - and it has every opportunity to. Lots of people already have its grammar software installed; fewer have Coda (which they previously acquired) or Superhuman, but it's clear how they might work together. I'm not at all sold on the AI aspect of this, but presumably it's helped them raise more funding than they otherwise might. \[[Link](https://www.reuters.com/business/grammarly-acquires-email-startup-superhuman-ai-platform-push-2025-07-01/)\] ### Schools serving undocumented kids go underground URL: https://werd.io/schools-serving-undocumented-kids-go-underground/ Last updated: 2025-07-01T14:45:50.000Z [*Link: Jo Naplitano at The 74, published in The 19th*](https://19thnews.org/2025/07/schools-serving-undocumented-kids-go-underground/)*.* It's heartening to see educators take their responsibilities as stewards of children's wellbeing seriously in this environment, potentially to their own detriment. But it's undeniably depressing to be in a place where public educators feel they need to hide from the government to keep their students safe: > "Schools and other organizations serving undocumented students are taking their activities underground, fearful of revealing all they do to help newcomers navigate life in America — lest they be targeted and shuttered by the Trump administration." The result is a curbing of their democratic speech outwardly - no criticisms of Trump or advocacy for diversity - while using end-to-end encrypted apps like Signal and not putting anything in writing. These needs are common across a whole swathe of organizations that seek to avoid scrutiny from the administration. It's a place where the cloud is not serving organizations: the fear is that data and communications can be seized without an organization's knowledge. But self-hosted, encrypted apps remain too hard to install and maintain, and often too hard to use. Some cloud services offer third-party key encryption, but those offerings are designed for large enterprises and cost more money than these organizations can afford, while often not providing the complete security they need. As the article notes, some services are taking note and adapting: > "As for the written footprint, Marler, who has attended numerous conferences on how best to serve multilingual learners, has observed a telling shift in the types of in-class translating applications marketed to teachers. These tools were long promoted for their ability to keep records, allowing educators to go back and examine communications over time to learn more about students and families. > > Now, Marler said, those same companies are marketing privacy." But they undeniably need more help. \[[Link](https://19thnews.org/2025/07/schools-serving-undocumented-kids-go-underground/)\] ### Self-censorship and the ‘spiral of silence’: Why Americans are less likely to publicly voice their opinions on political issues URL: https://werd.io/self-censorship-and-the-spiral-of-silence-why-americans-are-less-likely-to-publicly-voice-their-opinions-on-political-issues/ Last updated: 2025-06-29T21:42:33.000Z [*Link: James L. Gibson at The Conversation*](https://theconversation.com/self-censorship-and-the-spiral-of-silence-why-americans-are-less-likely-to-publicly-voice-their-opinions-on-political-issues-251979)*.* Americans are apparently withholding their political views more than ever before: > "About three to four times more Americans said they did not feel free to express themselves, compared with the number of those who said so during the McCarthy era." Lest you think this is about people who harbor bigoted opinions feeling like they're less able to share them, it's not: > "Fearful of consequences, many people are withholding their views on Israel – whether Israel has committed war crimes, for instance, or whether Israeli members of government should be sanctioned – because they fear being branded as antisemitic. > > Many Americans are also biting their tongues when it comes to DEI, affirmative action and even whether political tolerance is essential for democracy." It's hard to know exactly how to unpick this. One of the challenges that the internet has brought with it is that we can be exposed to the political opinions of our friends and neighbors more than ever before, often with a knee-jerk "they think *what*?!" response. Another challenge is that dunking on people via social media, rather than engaging in conversation with them, is celebrated. That's not to say that every opinion should be granted oxygen or debate. Sometimes an opinion really is just bigotry, and platforming it for discussion just serves to elevate it to a legitimacy that it doesn't deserve. But surely we should all be able to discuss the effects of the Israeli occupation of Gaza or why diversity, equity, and inclusion are important. And if we can't, where does that lead us, and can we really consider ourselves to have anything close to either democracy or the right to free expression? \[[Link](https://theconversation.com/self-censorship-and-the-spiral-of-silence-why-americans-are-less-likely-to-publicly-voice-their-opinions-on-political-issues-251979)\] ### AI won't live on publisher sites URL: https://werd.io/ai-wont-live-on-publisher-sites/ Last updated: 2025-07-17T23:03:53.000Z Over on the Nieman Lab site, [Amy Ross Arguedas reports on the various ways news publishers are using AI to personalize their offerings](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/06/ai-personalized-news-takes-new-forms-but-do-readers-want-it/): > Some newsrooms have integrated AI tools into their websites that allow audiences to automatically summarize news articles (e.g. [Aftonbladet in Sweden](https://journalists.org/resources/case-study-swedens-aftonbladet-built-ai-driven-editorial-tools-and-an-election-chatbot/)) or change news text to audio (e.g. the Miami Herald in the U.S.). Argentinian newspaper Clarín uses a tool called [UalterAI](https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/inteligencia-artificial-llega-clarin-ualterai-asistente-lectura%5F0%5F2rylIOLV4D.html) to offer a variety of additional analyses, including key quotes and figures, as well as a glossary for technical terms. Beyond personalized selection and formats, newspapers like The Washington Post have been trialing [tools](https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2024/11/07/washington-post-launches-ask-post-ai-new-search-experience/) that can answer complex queries based on their own archives. Although I’m always in favor of experimentation, I don’t think most of these ideas will succeed as long-term products. I’m *particularly* bearish on interfaces that embed chatbots (whether they’re called that or not) in news websites. I’d like to explore why I think that — even in a world where AI becomes a core part of how we use computers, which is far from a given. Many publishers hope that we’ll go visit their websites or open their apps and interact with their AI-powered interfaces. This mimics the existing mindset where they hope people will visit their homepages and read a bunch of their articles, in the same way a person might have read through a magazine or a newspaper in the past. In this world, the publisher is a destination in themselves. In reality, of course, that’s not how people largely consume information. Instead, they have some aggregator that is the backbone for how they learn about the world. That might be a dedicated app like Apple News, but [it’s more likely to be social media](https://werd.io/when-people-trust-people-more-than-brands-the-incubator-newsroom/): 1. You open your social app (or apps) of choice 2. You are presented with a feed and you learn about all kinds of information that is relevant to you through relevant connections to, or algorithmic recommendations of, people you might find interesting and trustworthy 3. Sometimes you might click through to a single article to read more 4. Then you’ll return to your feed. If a publisher is particularly interesting to you, you might follow them so you can discover more of their stuff through your feed. Almost nobody is visiting homepage after homepage. Readers almost universally read content from a central feed of information. Email newsletters are, at their heart, another version of this model. By subscribing to a publisher’s newsletter, you’re adding their content to your reverse-chronological feed of information. Sometimes you’ll open a newsletter message — and then you’ll return to your inbox feed. Newsletters are also not destinations. And apps? Most people use them for the notifications. Which are feeds on your mobile device that you dip into and then dip out of. Publisher websites and apps are not destinations in themselves and no amount of AI will make them so. But also: AI that lives at the app or website level is inherently siloed — and, as such, is not very useful. Instead, it’s worth considering what happens when you move AI down the stack. If AI lives in the browser, as it does in products like [Dia](https://www.diabrowser.com/) (and [soon in Chrome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBjM0SHg-aU)), you can query not just one information source, but *every* information source you visit through that browser. If I access ProPublica and the Washington Post and half a dozen blogs, I can ask my browser questions about how the story is reported across all of them, and to summarize the story based on information it gleans from each one. Dia can already do this, as well as a bunch of other stuff that some publishers are trying to bake into their own websites. If we go down a level and AI lives in the operating system, as it’s beginning to in the Microsoft, Google, and Apple ecosystems, you can query everything that’s happening not just in your browser, but in every app you use. In the case of Apple products, this will largely happen on-device, allowing you to query privately. It can be localized and more personalized. And you’ll interact with it in *one place*, rather than having to visit destination after destination. It’s both easier *and* more powerful for the user. Given this, I don’t think it makes any sense to embed these features at the publisher level. Instead, publishers are better off considering how they might embrace emerging standards like [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol) into their offerings so that their information can be consumed. They might also think about charging for access to premium information and talking to The Browser Company, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, et al about how those payments could be deeply embedded in the places where people *will* use AI. There are real opportunities for monetization here — but again, not on your homepage, not with your website as the central destination. What’s neat about this model is that it re-establishes a kind of open web ethos that we’ve been missing for decades — which will enable much more than AI. [As Anil Dash recently pointed out](https://www.anildash.com/2025/05/20/mcp-web20-20/): > The rise of MCP gives hope that the popularity of AI amongst coders might pry open all these other platforms to make them programmable for *any* purpose, not just so that LLMs can control them. Like Anil, I’m not saying that AI is inherently great, or that it works as advertised, or that the ethical considerations that underly everything from its training sets to its resource use aren’t real. This is not, in other words, an endorsement of AI-everywhere. But if you’re accepting all that and making a bet that AI will be *somewhere*, I wouldn’t put money on it being on your website, and I *certainly* wouldn’t put money on it being something that magically makes people want to visit your website every day. On the other hand, there may be a shift towards publishers contributing to open feeds of data that we interact with using agents and prompts. My proposal is this: you should consider what’s actually the most useful experience for the user, rather than what furthers your own interests, and make a bet on that, instead. ### Stephen Miller’s Financial Stake in ICE Contractor Palantir URL: https://werd.io/stephen-millers-financial-stake-in-ice-contractor-palantir/ Last updated: 2025-06-24T21:57:47.000Z [*Link: Nick Schwellenbach at the Project on Government Oversight*](https://www.pogo.org/investigations/stephen-miller-conflicts-of-interest)*.* This is obviously an enormous conflict of interest: > "Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s powerful deputy chief of staff and homeland security advisor \[...\] disclosed from $100,001 up to a quarter million dollars of stock in Palantir, a tech company woven into the operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and used by other federal agencies such as the Pentagon." Other staffers in the Trump White House also own Palantir stock; most have a smaller stake ($15,000 or less), aside from Miller's senior policy advisor Kara Frederick, who owns somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 of stock in the firm. That this was openly declared demonstrates how little this administration sees to care about proprietary or avoiding corruption. Obviously, actions directly taken by Miller and these other members of the administration could have a serious impact on Palantir's stock. Perhaps nothing matters anymore. But there have been bipartisan efforts to prevent elected officials from owning stock; this seems like an overtly good idea, and should be extended to unelected appointees. As the article notes: > "ICE recently announced it would award a contract to Palantir without competition, claiming no other company could meet its needs in a timely way." And there's now no way to know if this was really the case, or if there was no other company that could line the administration's profits in the same way. Of course, [these deportations themselves represent a constitutional crisis](https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/05/30/a-looming-crisis-in-deportation-push-will-the-u-s-scrap-constitutional-safeguards/) and a humanitarian disaster that is ripping apart families and sewing fear in entire communities. But in addition to those things - which always were and should remain the main story - it turns out to *also* be corrupt to its core. \[[Link](https://www.pogo.org/investigations/stephen-miller-conflicts-of-interest)\] ### Anthropic wins key US ruling on AI training in authors' copyright lawsuit URL: https://werd.io/anthropic-wins-key-us-ruling-on-ai-training-in-authors-copyright-lawsuit/ Last updated: 2025-06-24T16:19:22.000Z [*Link: Blake Brittain at Reuters*](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/anthropic-wins-key-ruling-ai-authors-copyright-lawsuit-2025-06-24/)*.* The headline here focuses on the fair use portion of Anthropic's argument: > "Siding with tech companies on a pivotal question for the AI industry, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said Anthropic made "fair use", opens new tab of books by writers Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson to train its Claude large language model." But it's important to also note that the way Anthropic obtained them is *not* fair use: > "Alsup also said, however, that Anthropic's copying and storage of more than 7 million pirated books in a "central library" infringed the authors' copyrights and was not fair use. The judge has ordered a trial in December to determine how much Anthropic owes for the infringement." In other words: training a model on copyright works is inherently transformative and is used to create new works rather than infringe the rights of creators. But how you get them *does* matter, which is something AI vendors have been hoping to sidestep. If you go out and pirate a whole bunch of books and other media, and then keep that pirated media around, that's a violation, and copyright owners are owed compensation that could reach $150,000 per work. For now, while this might seem like a win for the AI industry, it maintains an important boundary that protects rights-holders. A lot will depend on how much the court decides is actually owed; that trial begins in December. \[[Link](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/anthropic-wins-key-ruling-ai-authors-copyright-lawsuit-2025-06-24/)\] ### Substack's Secret URL: https://werd.io/substacks-secret/ Last updated: 2025-06-23T14:05:36.000Z [*Link: Atoms vs Bits*](https://www.atvbt.com/substacks-secret/)*.* I enjoyed this dig into Substack's economics in light of it attempting to raise another round: > "If I were an investor, the first thing I'd ask about is Substack's "enterprise" offering. If an individual publisher is (supposedly) responsible for more than 1% of Substack's nominal revenue, it becomes really important what deal that publisher is actually on. And there are many ways to rebate to a publisher, for a platform that is willing to do so." Right now the company is telling its potential investors that it's generating $450 in annual recurring revenue for its publisher network, which nets out at $45 million for the company itself because of its default 10% take. But that take is likely to be wildly different for the big names that bring in other publishers. I would be very interesting to learn what the real numbers are. Of course, it is obligatory for me to mention that [Substack has a Nazi problem](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/12/casey-newton-quits-substack-nazi-newsletter). \[[Link](https://www.atvbt.com/substacks-secret/)\] ### The High Stakes of Biometric Surveillance URL: https://werd.io/the-high-stakes-of-biometric-surveillance/ Last updated: 2025-06-23T13:46:54.000Z [*Link: Dia Kayyali at Tech Policy.Press*](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-high-stakes-of-biometric-surveillance/)*.* An important call to action in the current political context: > "Amidst a global shift towards the far-right and authoritarianism, there are clear indications from oppressive governments around the world that biometrics will be used to harm human rights, regardless of their accuracy or fairness. At this point, biometrics are not simply an individual issue that can be avoided through personal decisions; they have become a political crisis that demands direct action and legislative intervention." Anyone who knows the history of authoritarian governments knows how dangerous it is to allow people to be systematically categorized with their deep personal details available for retrieval. That's how some of the world's worst atrocities have been committed. And as surreal as that possibility might seem - at least to folks who aren't in Global Majority nations who have had to contend with it for generations - the prospect is becoming more and more real. Here in the US, privacy legislation is woefully inefficient. But as the author points out, gaps have been filled in: > "States, and even some counties and cities, have stepped in with privacy laws, as well as transparency laws related to the acquisition of some types of surveillance technology, and even bans on facial recognition in some places. Pursuing these types of policies at the local level is one way communities in the US can resist the Trump Administration." Hopefully we'll see more and more of this, but the current situation should be a lesson to us all. We need our legislative frameworks and hard rules to function well even under the worst actor. When we find ourselves on firmer democratic ground, it's time to harden our privacy posture for good. \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-high-stakes-of-biometric-surveillance/)\] ### The New Surveillance State: Why Data Privacy Is Now Essential to Democracy URL: https://werd.io/the-new-surveillance-state-why-data-privacy-is-now-essential-to-democracy/ Last updated: 2025-06-22T13:34:56.000Z [*Link: Laura Maccleery in TechPolicy.Press*](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-new-surveillance-state-why-data-privacy-is-now-essential-to-democracy/)*.* Data privacy was always essential to democracy, but now that democracy itself is in dire straits the need for strong protections are more obviously pressing. As the author notes: > "When the government can track where you go, whom you associate with, and what you spend your money on, it violates the Fourth Amendment. It also chills First Amendment freedom of expression, undermines your freedom to travel, and destroys what Justice Louis Brandeis famously called “the right to be left alone” — the fundamental privacy right that underlies American liberty." The trick, of course, is that we now probably can't expect those protections *from our government*. Instead, we're going to need to build new systems ourselves - applications, platforms, utilities, and infrastructure that inherently protect our right to be left alone. These include apps like [Signal](https://signal.org), but I predict a larger trend: there will be a swing back from cloud systems, which are inherently open to inspection by third parties, to self-hosted and on-premise solutions. When you control your infrastructure, you can be more sure of who can access it. There are other ways to achieve this: third-party key management is a decent halfway house, but it's really important to consider who holds the keys and how they can be managed. Many require the AWS Key Management Service specifically: a monoculture that doesn't exactly *scream* resilience. So, self-hosting. That trend will be spearheaded in places like Europe that are already investing in leaving US-based software behind given the machinations of the current administration. But we already know that the effects of legislation like GDPR were far-reaching; I expect to see this pendulum swing everywhere. In the past, this led to insecure, half-maintained infrastructure inside organizations. For a new era of self-hosted apps to work, the underlying infrastructure must function much more like an iPhone: fewer configuration options, stronger security, and a user experience that doesn't require deep technical knowledge to administer. There's an opportunity here: both to protect peoples' privacy through privacy tools with fantastic user experiences and to create stronger models for infrastructure that provide more levels of abstraction, automatic upgrades, and everything you'd expect from consumer devices. Regardless of where the industry goes, the core claim here is, I believe, right: there is no democracy without privacy, and we must protect it at all costs. \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/the-new-surveillance-state-why-data-privacy-is-now-essential-to-democracy/)\] ### Publishers facing existential threat from AI, Cloudflare CEO says URL: https://werd.io/publishers-facing-existential-threat-from-ai-cloudflare-ceo-says/ Last updated: 2025-06-22T12:24:36.000Z [*Christine Wang in Axios*](https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/ai-search-traffic-publishers)*:* Although it must be noted that he's got a vested interest in playing up the problem - his company is releasing a tool to prevent AI bot scraping - [these numbers shared by Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince](https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/ai-search-traffic-publishers) are incredibly damning. Ten years ago, Google crawled two pages for every visitor it sent to a publisher. Today, according to Cloudflare's stats, Anthropic crawls 60,000; OpenAI crawls 1,500; Google crawls 18\. That means that while people are seeing the benefit of the information publishers provide, the publishers are being cut off from much-needed ad, subscription, or donation revenue. As Prince says: > "People trust the AI more over the last six months, which means they're not reading original content \[...\] The future of the web is going to be more and more like AI, and that means that people are going to be reading the summaries of your content, not the original content." Make no mistake: this is not limited to chatbots like ChatGPT. These AI features are making their way into email inboxes, inserting themselves into the relationship between newsletters and their readers, and into web browsers themselves. This compounds existing trends. Publisher revenue is already being squeezed: an ongoing concern for decades now. AI interfaces that stripmine publishers are going to make this problem much worse. In a world where people read the reporting but never form even a pageview-deep relationship with the publisher that funded it, how does journalism continue to function? \[[Link](https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/ai-search-traffic-publishers)\] ### When people trust humans more than brands: the incubator newsroom URL: https://werd.io/when-people-trust-people-more-than-brands-the-incubator-newsroom/ Last updated: 2025-07-17T23:04:24.000Z [This year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Report](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/dnr-executive-summary) paints a bleak picture for traditional newsrooms. [As the BBC summarizes](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93lzyxkklpo): > Social media and video networks have become the main source of news in the US, overtaking traditional TV channels and news websites, research suggests. \[…\] More than half (54%) of people get news from networks like Facebook, X and YouTube - overtaking TV (50%) and news sites and apps (48%). Not every newsroom is declining — the one I work for, [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), is actively growing. But the industry-wide trend is alarming. The nature of the news received via social media is often markedly different to that from traditional newsrooms; the latter adheres to a well-established set of journalistic norms, whereas the former is more often unashamedly skewed towards a particular point of view, with lax or nonexistent fact-checking. The report establishes Joe Rogan as the most widely-heard voice in news: although he more properly sits in the entertainment category, 22% of people were exposed to his news commentary. Overall, “personality-based news” — where you’re informed through individuals who you follow and trust on social media rather than institutions — is on the rise. Getting your news from AI chatbots like ChatGPT is another rising trend, which is twice as popular among the under-25s (15%) than anyone else (7%). There has been some hope that the new batch of social networks will give newsrooms a boost. It’s true that users there are more likely to both engage with news stories and pay money to donate or subscribe to news organizations, but they’re still too small to make a big difference in terms of the overall news consumption landscape: > Rival networks like Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon are "making little impact globally, with reach of 2% or less for news”. Apple News is widely considered by the industry to be a success, but it’s not really: [this year it reached 125 million monthly active users across the US, Canada, UK and Australia](https://www.ft.com/content/48685786-f0fc-43dd-8bd4-c62011af8af1), while five years ago [it reached 100 million](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/01/apple-rings-in-new-era-of-services-following-landmark-year/). Those might sound like big numbers, but they’re pretty low for a free app that comes bundled with a phone that has 1.38 billion active users. Added to which, that growth rate is very slow: iPhone use itself increased by 33% in that time, meaning that use of Apple News per capita by iPhone users actually decreased. Apple is looking outside news, at games and other non-news features, to boost its engagement. There have been many other attempts to create news aggregators and news-based social networks over time. At Matter Ventures, I supported several of them. Since then, newer apps like [Particle](https://particle.news/) aimed to throw a new spin on surfacing headlines, for example by summarizing them through AI or filtering them through different viewpoints. But historically, most of them have failed to gain anything more than a niche audience. The Reuters report makes clear that it’s not that people don’t *like* institutional news brands — at least not when they’re surveyed about them. (There’s always a possibility that people feel like they’re *supposed* to like them, for example.) But what people say is less important than what they do, and in practice, they’re just not particularly paying attention to them. [Areas that become local news deserts often succumb to local corruption](https://www.gmu.edu/news/2024-11/are-us-news-deserts-hothouses-corruption). National news helps people to make more informed decisions as voters and citizens. Journalism is clearly important; what isn’t as clear is whether we need it to come from traditional newsrooms. Newspapers were a historic form of distribution technology that became largely obsolete in the face of the internet. Similarly, there’s little value to be found in preserving traditional news institutions for their own sakes. The important thing is safeguarding the value of journalism: to individuals, and to society. So how do we do that? If we’re concerned about the societal value of journalism rather than preserving its existing institutions, the shift from traditional newsrooms to individual personalities on social media isn’t necessarily *inherently* bad. Much depends on whether these personalities can sustainably provide the same societal value. Rather than hand-wringing about whether a particular publication should survive, I think we should instead consider the value of newsrooms to journalists. If we believe that journalism is a societal good, but that existing newsrooms might not survive, then we *might* consider building new scaffolding that addresses the value they currently provide. This includes: - **Resources:** salary, equipment, an office to work from, coverage for expenses, the financial freedom to deeply report stories, access to source archives and databases. - **Legal protections and advice:** the protection necessary to withstand lawsuits, subpoenas, and other legal jeopardy. (I would include insurance here too.) - **Fact-checking and editing:** help to ensure that reporting is fair, accurate, truthful, and tells the story as well as possible. - **Platforms:** a place to publish. - **A community of trust:** a brand that automatically imbues authenticity, and a community of potential sources that feels safe providing information to people associated with it. - **Promotion:** an audience for their work. Some of these are easier to provide to independent journalists than others, but for a few of them, options already exist. [Some authors on Substack can apply for legal defense through Defender](https://pages.substack.com/defender/), which claims to help navigate them through legal pressure or challenges. Of course, Substack has to decide that you are worth supporting, which is entirely up to their discretion. Given [the platform’s financial support for Nazi authors](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/12/casey-newton-quits-substack-nazi-newsletter), this may reasonably give some independent journalists pause. In a platform-centered world rather than a newsroom-centered world, these decisions are made based on platform business considerations rather than journalistic ethics. Trust is transitive in a similar way. If you attach yourself to a platform like Substack, perhaps because you’re sold on its free tier, the potential to gain more readers through its network effects, and its easy revenue-generating features, any missteps the platform makes reflect on you. Many publishers have discovered that readers now judge them based on their choice to share a platform with Nazis. In a world where platform decisions affect personal reputations, independent journalists must weigh the benefits of reach and monetization against the reputational risks of guilt by association. On the other hand, a newsroom has similar properties to a platform: a decision by ownership, for example Jeff Bezos [blocking the Washington Post from endorsing Presidential candidates](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeff-bezos-defends-washington-post-endorsement-decision-rcna177742) or [repointing its opinion pages to endorse libertarian values](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/washington-post-owner-bezos-says-opinion-pages-shift-from-broad-focus-to-will-defend-free-market-and-personal-liberties), also carries a hit to trust. Journalists in the *Post* newsroom who had nothing to do with these decisions will have suffered a reputational hit (as well as potential job instability drawn from [mass cancelations](https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5312819/washington-post-bezos-subscriptions-cancellations)). Being a part of a newsroom doesn’t immunize journalists against abrupt business changes. Given that incumbent newsrooms are failing, and platform-based independence comes with new risks, I don’t think the solution is one or the other. Instead, it’s worth trying to imagine a new kind of newsroom: one that meets the moment in terms of platform, trust, and voice, but provides the quality assurance, support, continuity, and opportunities for collaboration that newsrooms at their best provide. What if a newsroom was more like an incubator? Unlike traditional newsrooms, which tend to centralize audience and revenue under the institution’s brand, the incubator model is semi-decentralized by design. It treats the journalist as the primary unit of trust and invests in them accordingly, while providing them the support, backup, and network they need. In this model, the newsroom “invests” in individual journalists by guaranteeing a base salary in exchange for a minimum volume of quality stories, giving them a platform, and providing editorial, legal, and fact-checking support. Readers follow individual journalists and can support them, for example through subscriptions or donations. The journalist keeps most of the revenue, but a percentage is funneled back to the newsroom in order to cover costs and allow the newsroom to grow. Each journalist publishes under a domain name that they own and control. If they ever choose to leave the newsroom, they can take their domain, their subscribers, and their archive with them. But because the newsroom provides infrastructure, distribution, and a trusted brand ecosystem, many will choose to stay. Star performers who bring added benefit to the newsroom will be retained with better profit-sharing deals. When journalists collaborate on stories, the platform automatically calculates and distributes profit shares. Journalists are free to — and actually are *expected* to — do more of their own promotion across social media, because that’s who people want to follow, but the newsroom provides safety mechanism to, for example, shield journalists from abuse should it occur. Journalists who are just starting out will benefit too: there is a homepage for the newsroom that aggregates new stories and lets you search by topic in all the usual ways. Because every journalist is on the same platform, traffic can be recirculated between them through automatic features in the UI: readers who came for a big-name journalist will be prompted to read a similarly-good story from someone they haven’t heard of yet. That recirculation means that the journalists have to be reasonably compatible; this isn’t a model that necessarily invests in radically different modes of storytelling. Everyone must also agree to a fact-checking and editing process before publication. Editors offer guidance — suggesting beats, sharpening pitches — but they don’t hold veto power. Journalists retain creative control. Fact-checkers and editors who do sensitivity and ethics checks *do* hold veto power, ensuring a level of truthfulness and quality and that the newsroom’s legal protection can function, but journalists can always take the piece elsewhere if they choose. The result is a personality-led factual newsroom where journalists have wide latitude to write and promote their work, and where readers can follow journalists they particularly admire while discovering new ones. The societal benefits of journalism are preserved, but the model shifts to reflect a modern truth: people trust people more than brands. Ideally, there would be many of these — each with its own governance model and editorial mission. A newsroom incubator in the style of [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) could ensure more inclusive stories are told. One in the style of [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) might orient its incubator funding around investigative stories that take longer to report. Some might be worker-owned co-operatives, while others might be traditional private companies with an institutional backer. Each would be its own experiment in voice, governance, and public trust. There’s no need to preserve institutions for their own sakes. But we do need to preserve truth and democracy. To do that, we need to be ready to imagine new futures that go beyond traditional structures and support what really matters. This thought experiment is one embodiment of that idea, which is intended to start a conversation. There will be many others. ### Some of those who work forces URL: https://werd.io/some-of-those-who-work-forces/ Last updated: 2025-06-17T11:23:55.000Z [404 Media reports on the casual alliance between police and ICE agents](https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillance-alliance-between-ice-and-local-police/): > Local police in Oregon casually offered various surveillance services to federal law enforcement officials from the FBI and ICE, and to other state and local police departments, as part of an informal email and meetup group of crime analysts, [internal emails](https://info4publicuse.org/2025/06/mass-surveillance-and-ice-backdoors-in-southern-oregon/) shared with 404 Media show. In Medford, Oregon, police and ICE shared information with each other on an as-needed basis, both via email and a meetup group called the “Southern Oregon Analyst Group”. This also allowed different police departments to share surveillance data with each other based on what each had access to. This is part of a broader pattern of sharing that happens at, and between, every level: ICE and local Medford police are two examples, but intelligence agencies in different countries are known to share information with each other to dodge local privacy laws and civil rights. In this case, I’d be surprised if there was any intent to bypass regulations or norms here; the Medford police actively want to support ICE, so they do. But in reality, it does bypass Oregon’s rules around sharing this kind of information, which are relatively strong. Part of the solution has to be both better training and stronger enforcement of the rules — which in turn requires leadership that *wants* to enforce the rules. Many police departments seem to be eagerly complicit, so that may be hard to come by. \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillance-alliance-between-ice-and-local-police/)\] ### Just another Saturday in June. URL: https://werd.io/just-another-saturday-in-june/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T16:30:22.000Z Minnesotan Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark [have died at the hands of a politically-motivated assassin](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/14/democratic-lawmakers-minnesota-shot) who also grievously wounded Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. The perpetrator was disguised as a police officer and is still at large at the time of writing; he had made a list of other Democratic representatives to kill. The President of the United States has organized a North Korean style military parade ostensibly to mark the US Army’s 250th anniversary and not at all to celebrate his 79th birthday that just happens to sit on the same day. 28 Abrams tanks, 28 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and 6,700 soldiers will march on Washington in a brazenly authoritarian show of power that broadcast news media is happily painting as a fun day out. Protests are scheduled across the nation to protest the current administration under a *No Kings* banner. The [core organizational website reads](https://www.nokings.org/): “They’ve defied our courts, deported Americans, disappeared people off the streets, attacked our civil rights, and slashed our services.” It is designed to be a peaceful protest. Meanwhile, peaceful protests in Los Angeles against ICE deportations have been met with [federalized National Guard troops and 700 Marines, who have begun detaining civilians](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/jun/13/donald-trump-national-guard-los-angeles-ice-protests-military-parade-us-politics-live-news-updates). Far right groups like the Proud Boys — many of whom were pardoned by President Trump after the Jan 6 insurrection — [are discussing how to respond to the No Kings protests with violence](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/no-kings-protest-proud-boys-df066df0). Meanwhile, [Israel and Iran are trading missiles](https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-missile-drone-attacks-nuclear-a8b23f58b502ed77a20a9d843bf30f76), [the situation in Gaza looks a lot like US-enabled ethnic cleansing](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/17/israel-gaza-ethnic-cleansing-palestinian-death-toll), and the Ukrainian-Russian war continues apace. Just another Saturday in June. ### What is open source? URL: https://werd.io/what-is-open-source/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T15:40:44.000Z *I published a version of this article on Medium eight years ago. This version is updated with new references and arguments.* Over the last few years, I’ve been a part of lots of discussions — across domains, from technology to journalism and education — about Silicon Valley and how technology business models are affecting other industries. Outside technology industry circles, there’s lots of talk about how open source software is a more respectful model. What’s missing from many of these discussions is a thorough explanation of what open source software actually is, and why exactly it promises an alternative. In this post, I’ll talk about the history and mechanics of open source software, and then discuss some of these arguments. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/06/image.png) ## How software became commercial In the early days of computing, when the work being done was largely academic in nature, software was often built collaboratively between institutions and shared under a *public domain* license. Public domain means that all intellectual property rights have been *forfeited*: anyone can sell, copy, alter, and use the work as the basis of something new, and the original author can’t take back their rights. Companies like IBM had a slightly more restrictive approach: they supplied their mainframe computers with the source code. If customers made changes to make the software work better or fix bugs, they could send them back to IBM. Because the value of the computer itself was so high, and there were so few of them, the software itself was not considered to be valuable on its own. As computers became more widespread, there were enough of them to create a market. They still came with bundled software for specific tasks, but new companies started appearing, selling more sophisticated alternatives that could be installed instead. Commercial software, released under a more restrictive license, became the norm. In particular, one change bit academic researchers. Bell Labs developed a powerful new operating system called UNIX, originally for use inside the Bell network of companies. AT&T licensed it free of charge to academic and government users in the seventies — until everyone was locked in. Then they turned around and started charging for updates. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/06/image-1.png) Richard Stallman ## The birth of free software In 1983, Richard Stallman, an artificial intelligence researcher at MIT, decided to do something about this situation. He already had experience building community-driven software, having founded a powerful text editor called [EMACS](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/). However, this new announcement, [a new UNIX clone that would be once again free of charge](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/net.unix-wizards/8twfRPM79u0/1xlglzrWrU0J), was far broader in scope: > Free Unix! > > Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu’s Not Unix), and give it away free to everyone who can use it. > > \[..\] To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including on-line and hardcopy documentation. Together with his software, he published a definition of free software, defining [four specific freedoms](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html): > The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). > > The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. > > The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). > > The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. In 1989, the same year the web was born, he followed this up with the [General Public License](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) (GPL), a distribution license that legally codified these freedoms. The GPL arguably remains the standard — and most popular — free software license. While he kicked off the movement, Richard Stallman himself has proven to be a controversial figure. He left the Free Software Foundation in 2019 after he made some [controversial statements about the Epstein scandal that followed his own pattern of unpleasant behavior](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/17/761718975/free-software-pioneer-quits-mit-over-his-comments-on-epstein-sex-trafficking-cas). > The controversy swirling around him now stems from a series of emails from a CSAIL group email list — made public by Selam Jie Gano — in which Stallman said that a 17-year-old girl who allegedly was instructed by Epstein to have sex with AI pioneer Marvin Minsky likely seemed “entirely willing” to engage in the illegal act. He also argued it is unfair to call such an incident “sexual assault.” He subsequently returned [thanks to an arguably underhanded vote by FSF board members](https://www.zdnet.com/article/return-of-stallman-to-fsf-sparks-outrage-among-open-source-and-free-software-leaders/), which understandably caused widespread resignations and sparked many longtime free software advocates to distance itself from the Foundation. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/06/image-2.png) Linus Torvalds and Daffy Duck ## Free vs open source software Even before Stallman was publicly revealed to be a problematic figure, the problem for the movement was that, outside of a relatively small group of hobbyists and academics, free software didn’t really go anywhere. [As Eric Raymond, a free software developer, later noted](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/hacker-revenge/ar01s05.html): > It seemed clear to us in retrospect that the term ‘free software’ had done our movement tremendous damage over the years. Part of this stemmed from the fact that the word ‘free’ has two different meanings in the English language,one suggesting a price of zero and one related to the idea of liberty. Richard Stallman, whose Free Software Foundation has long championed the term, says“Think free speech, not free beer’’ but the ambiguity of the term has nevertheless created serious problems — especially since most “free software” is also distributed free of charge. > > Most of the damage, though, came from something worse — the strong association of the term ‘free software’ with hostility to intellectual property rights, communism, and other ideas hardly likely to endear it to an MIS manager. The clue is in that last sentence: Raymond was a hardcore libertarian ([as well as a holder of some problematic opinions on sex and race](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=129)), and felt that some of the principles of free software were too close to communism. Free and open source software movements have no shortage of problematic, unempathetic leaders, a problem that remains largely unaddressed. Nonetheless, it was true that free software needed a makeover: it had not been a popular idea. The term “open source” was designed as a callback to the early days of software, when source code had been bundled by default. The strategy was to sell Fortune 500 companies on using this software, rather than employ the grassroots evangelism that had been the bread and butter of the free software movement. Raymond and his collaborators met with a developer called Linus Torvalds, who [had developed a new UNIX compatible operating system kernel called Linux](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA%5B1-25%5D). He was on board with the idea, so the strategy focused on replacing proprietary operating systems with Linux. The strategy worked: today, while the “free” in “free software” remains a source of confusion (leading some to call it “*libre* software” instead), “open source” is a commonly-used phrase. And aside from on the desktop, Linux is the dominant operating system worldwide, appearing everywhere from supercomputers and web servers to Android phones. Perhaps ironically, it is almost always accompanied by GNU free software tools. The main difference between free and open source software is politics. Both define roughly the same freedoms, but free software advocates like Richard Stallman argue that “open source” is too ambiguous a term, and could cover less-free distribution models. In turn, open source advocates like Eric Raymond argue that “free software” implies “free of charge”, making it very hard to make a living or build a business. --- ## It’s all about distribution Both free and open source software licenses are *distribution* *licenses*. This means that the software is distributed to you under the terms of that license, and it does not affect the original author’s exclusive intellectual property rights. If someone releases one version of a software product under an open source license, they are within their rights to distribute a subsequent version under a commercial license. However, because the licenses are perpetual, nobody can *take away* your rights to use a free or open source *version* of the software once it’s been distributed to you. **tldr: Releasing software as open source doesn’t affect the copyright or ownership of that software. It *does* affect how you can use it as a *recipient* of the software.** --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/7c/187cc681-d3f3-49fc-87de-b01d06b76821/content/images/2025/06/image-3.png) ## Free software vs capitalism Despite its intentions, open source software has not been particularly lucrative. [As former Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst told The Information](https://www.theinformation.com/the-only-guy-making-money-off-free-software): > “People seem to take the free stuff and work around the paid stuff. You have to recognize that the early adopters are the people who really want free. They’re working hard to work around you. By the time you get people who might pay you who’d follow those early adopters, you’ve already lost them because the early adopters \[have shown how to\] work around your stuff.” Despite this, [Red Hat](https://www.redhat.com/en) has become a relatively profitable business by offering business-friendly services around Linux. It was acquired by IBM and last year made $6.5 billion in revenue: not to be sniffed at. This success, alongside Google’s commercial success with Android, and the success of web services as a whole, have driven Linux’s growth. There are but a handful of other successful open source businesses — all of which provide services to corporations. (This includes WordPress, which makes its core income from larger media companies, and its own, largely ad-driven, web service.) From the same article: > The key is that there has to be a way to make solid money off a technology if it’s going to break into the mainstream the way that Linux has for operating servers. Mr. Whitehurst notes that the desktop version of Linux never caught on for exactly this reason. Linux is not a grassroots movement. [Over 80% of contributions back to its codebase are corporate](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2610207/open-source-software/who-writes-linux--corporations--more-than-ever.html). The model is very similar to IBM’s source-sharing back in the 1960s. A lot of people argue that open source is an answer to capitalism’s consolidation of wealth, and think of both the free software and open source movements as an antidote to late-stage capitalism. I don’t think this is true. Instead, volunteers are creating software for free that largely benefits large corporations. The researcher and former VC partner [Nadia Asparouhova](https://nadia.xyz/open-source/) wrote [a 2016 report in partnership with the Ford Foundation detailing the problem](http://www.fordfoundation.org/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/). The whole report is worth reading at length, but for example, she cites OpenSSL, a toolkit that underpins most web security: > There was enough to pay the salary of one developer, Stephen Henson. That meant that two-thirds of the Web relied on encryption software maintained by just one full-time employee. Although billions of dollars of revenue rested on this software working properly, OpenSSL received $2,000 a year in donations, and Stephen Henson was barely making a living. This situation only changed due to [a bug that threatened the security of every internet user](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed), and the resulting [international press](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/technology/heartbleed-highlights-a-contradiction-in-the-web.html?%5Fr=0) that ensued. Even then, the initial round of donations amounted to $9,000. Since then, the precarious status of the OpenSSL project has led to a concerted effort to find it better funding. The project has expanded to support more employees, but there remain fewer than ten in total. Funding remains a problem, and the project is continually searching for new backers. Meanwhile, the risks of these precarious structures became very real when the XZ Utils project – a compressor / decompressor that is bundled with most Linux distributions – turned out to have been backdoored as part of a sophisticated operation that took place over years. An attacker conducted a long-running social engineering attack that led to them gaining the trust of the existing maintainer, taking over the project, and inserting a backdoor that could allow remote code execution on Linux systems running SSH servers (a significant percentage of all internet servers). An engineer at Microsoft discovered the vulnerability by accident; it had otherwise gone undetected. Had it not been detected and addressed, the effect could have been catastrophic. And it would have been far less likely to happen in a better-funded project. --- ## The cash-edral and the bizarre In 2006, [researchers at the University of Cambridge found that only 1.5% of open source contributors were women](http://flosspols.merit.unu.edu/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender%5FIntegrated%5FReport%5Fof%5FFindings.pdf) (PDF link). The report noted that because open source software isn’t produced in an employment environment, discrimination that would be illegal in a business is rampant in open source communities. It recommended that both financial and social resources be devoted to encouraging women to participate. Because of larger inequities in society, women are less able to contribute to open source software for other reasons. It takes a certain level of privilege to work on something for free. Some employers now check for an engineer’s open source contributions on GitHub before hiring, which perpetuates the tech industry’s imbalance towards affluent, young white men. For these contributors, making money from their work is a far more radical act than giving it away. While it’s tempting to connect community software with community values, the reality is more nuanced. The idea that underrepresented groups should make their software available for free is far from empowering. --- ## Free software on the web There is a problem with data ownership on the web. Web services are opaque, and there is at least a perception that many of them are generating a competitive advantage by locking up your data. Companies like Facebook also employ widespread web tracking in order to sell targeted ads. For very good reasons, many people are upset about the trend towards less privacy and ownership. AI has only accelerated this trend as more advanced models scoop up more and more data in order to train models that operate as opaque black boxes. The irony is, all of these services, including Facebook, are built on open source building blocks. Because open source licenses involve distribution, these issues are actually orthogonal: you don’t install web services, so they’re never distributed to you. An open source license can’t save you from Facebook. However, open source software is a really useful contributor to its profit margin: imagine if it had to pay for all the system software on all those servers! It’s not just larger corporations who are profiting. As Nadia Asparouhova [noted in her report](http://www.fordfoundation.org/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/): > The availability of free software components today (as well as cheaper hosting and cloud services, like Amazon Web Services and Heroku) means that a technology startup no longer requires millions of dollars to get off the ground. Entrepreneurs can conceivably release a product and find a market without spending a single dollar, then raise money from venture capitalists only after they’ve shown strong signs of demand. Free and open source software has driven decades of Silicon Valley tech industry growth, but it’s notable that [many open source contributions are made outside of this ecosystem](http://davidfischer.github.io/gdc2/#languages/All), including in developing nations that will not see the economic benefits of those activities. Of course, an open infrastructure that supports startups in San Francisco can also support startups in Bangladesh. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that support for digital infrastructure should be proportional to revenue, in the same way that support for social infrastructure is proportional to income. Right now, the truth is, for *both* free and open source software, free means free. People largely use it because it doesn’t cost anything, rather than because of free software’s underlying values. This focus on *free of charge* directly impacts the volunteers who build it. It’s not a bad thing that all this infrastructure is available — in fact, it’s great! — but the lack of working compensation funnel is a problem. ([Here’s one more link to the Ford Foundation report](http://www.fordfoundation.org/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/), which expresses this in a much more detailed way.) How progressive is it, really, to waive recurring license fees for major corporations? Or even for universities with large endowments? --- ## End-user open source alternatives Back in 2003, I co-founded an open source social networking platform called [Elgg](http://elgg.org/). At the time, the press noted [our choice of license](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/mar/07/elearning.technology13) and pointed out that you could [run your own MySpace](http://www.zdnet.com/article/run-your-own-myspace-with-elgg-spaces/) using our software. This was a catchy way of getting attention, but the truth is that you *couldn’t* “run your own MySpace”, just as you can’t “run your own Facebook” today. The supposition that Facebook is its software is completely wrong. Facebook is its *network*. You could build a new open source platform today that had every single feature on Facebook — although it would be quite an undertaking — but you still wouldn’t have the same effect. The thing that makes Facebook special is that everyone is already on it. Software released under a free or open source license is not inherently better. It isn’t inherently more secure (largely due to funding issues — think back to that OpenSSL story). And as I’ve argued, it isn’t inherently more socially beneficial. And then there’s software for non-technical end-users: people like you and I who want to *use* software, not build it. (Okay, I build software too, but I don’t want to build all the software I use.) I’m talking email clients, blogging software, to-do lists, office suites, etc. It takes millions of dollars to create high-quality end-user software experiences. User experience isn’t something you can throw together, and it takes both a lot of work and a huge amount of listening and product iteration to get it right. Because *end-user* open source software doesn’t always have the same level of corporate buy-in that infrastructure does, open source software often can’t reach the same level of user experience. (There are exceptions to this rule, including Firefox, WordPress, and new social networks like Bluesky and Mastodon. We need more examples, and we need people to back them.) Elgg didn’t displace MySpace or Facebook. But it is still thriving, because it found a niche as a corporate intranet tool. The governments of three nations use it as an internal social network for their civil servants, as well as Fortune 500 companies and startups wanting something as the basis to build a new social platform. Guess what? That’s where the money is (even if it’s one-off project money, rather than the sustainable subscriptions web services enjoy). --- ## A lot of good is going on I knew Elgg would be successful when non-profits in Colombia got in touch with us to tell us they were using it to organize combine resources. That’s *awesome*. Oxfam used it to educate volunteers, and hundreds of universities used it to teach. Because it was released under an open source license, a lot of people were able to use it for free to do good things. Open source has transformed computing. It created opportunities that proprietary software never could have, and has accelerated the growth of the tech industry. It is, however, not a magic bullet. It is disproportionately built by privileged, white men, and doesn’t live up to the progressive ideals that it is often sold on. That’s not a reason to not use open source software, but is *is* a good reason to continue to evolve the idea, find ways for people to be fairly compensated for their work, and create new frameworks and methodologies for working together. The software industry, like its products, is always changing. By embracing the flaws in current models, we can iterate on them and make better things. The core idea in both free and open source software is a beautiful one: make things together, for everybody’s benefit. It’s something to strive for, and as a movement it continues to accelerate in influence and impact. I had a lot of hope for the future when I wrote the first version of this piece in 2016, and I have a great deal more now. ### How to Protest Safely in the Age of Surveillance URL: https://werd.io/how-to-protest-safely-in-the-age-of-surveillance-1/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T21:01:42.000Z [*Andy Greenberg and Lily Hay Newman in WIRED*](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-protest-safely-surveillance-digital-privacy/)*:* This is timely advice. > "If you're going to join any protests, as is your right under the First Amendment, you need to think beyond your physical well-being to your digital security, too. The same surveillance apparatus that’s enabling the Trump administration’s raids of undocumented people and targeting of left-leaning activists will no doubt be out in full force on the streets." This isn't just great information to use if you're attending a protest - it may become the right information for many sensitive activities as time goes on. This is an interesting idea: > "Instead of a burner phone, Holmes argues that it may be far more practical to simply own a secondary phone that you’ve set up to be less sensitive—leaving off accounts and apps that offer your most private information to anyone who seizes it, such as social media, email, and messaging apps. “Choosing a secondary device that limits the amount of personal data that you have on you at all times is probably your best protection,” Holmes says." At the time of writing, the situation in LA has been accelerating - and the administration has said that ["if it works out well in L.A., expect it everywhere"](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-los-angeles-ice-immigration-raids-everywhere-1235362973/). It's going to be a long summer. \[[Link](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-protest-safely-surveillance-digital-privacy/)\] ### Welcome to my new site URL: https://werd.io/welcome-to-the-new-werd-io/ Last updated: 2025-08-13T13:42:45.000Z As of this morning I’ve migrated my website and newsletter onto [Ghost](https://ghost.org). It marks the end of an era for me: I’ve been using Known for twelve years. Actually, more properly, I migrated my web *sites*: I now have (almost) every post I’ve written for over twenty years in one place. And you can follow all of it on the fediverse at ben@werd.io — which means, for the first time, that my fediverse handle is the same as my email address. I thought I’d break down *why* I did it, *how* I did it, and what’s next. ### Why Ghost? Ghost is one of the success stories of the open social web. It’s an open source personal publishing platform with a beautiful interface and built-in newsletters, which over the last few years has become targeted towards independent publishers. It powers some of my favorite publishers, like [Molly White’s Citation Needed](https://citationneeded.news/), [404 Media](https://www.404media.co/), [Platformer](https://www.platformer.news/), and [Mathew Ingram’s When the Going Gets Weird](https://newsletter.mathewingram.com/). It’s a little bit like Substack, perhaps, but fully open, and [without a commercial relationship with Nazis](https://werd.io/leaving-the-nazi-bar/). Over the last few months, the Ghost team has [openly discussed building in support for the fediverse](https://activitypub.ghost.org/), which is now live and in beta. That means that Ghost-powered sites can be followed from any fediverse-compatible site. That was enough to push me over the edge. I want my site to be on the fediverse, I want it to load quickly and have a great interface, and I want to absolve myself of having to maintain my own server. Ghost’s hosted offering, [Ghost (Pro)](https://ghost.org/pricing/), gave me all of those things, and works out much cheaper than what I was paying to support my own site with an email service provider powering its newsletters. Finally, Ghost’s content migration features mean that I could bring *all* of my posts together. Not only does the new site have every post from the last twelve years — stuff like [If I ran Bluesky product](https://werd.io/if-i-ran-bluesky-product/) and [The complicated, liberating metadata of my future children](https://werd.io/the-complicated-liberating-metadata-of-my-future-children/) — but also far beyond that. You can find [my keynote from the 2008 Elgg conference](https://werd.io/the-internet-is-people/), [my commitment that Elgg will always be open source](https://werd.io/elgg-will-always-be-open-source/), and [a 2006 rebuttal to the idea that Web 2.0 is Marxism](https://werd.io/web-20-is-marxism-think-again/). It’s not quite my complete archive (I started blogging in 1998 and my first seven years are lost to time), but it’s close. That’s really exciting to me. As a student of open source publishing platforms who has had skin in the game, Ghost is really inspiring to me: a fully open source platform run by a non-profit that has been profitable enough to grow to over thirty employees. That’s a model that lots of other platforms should look to follow. ### How I migrated Known now has a built-in command-line export function that will take the entire contents of your site and export it in Ghost’s own JSON format. On your server, you can just run: ``` ./known.php ghost-export ``` It will generate multiple export JSON files that can then be zipped up and imported straight into Ghost. This was a relatively straightforward process, but I couldn’t have built this without technical help from [Ghost’s concierge service](https://ghost.org/concierge), who were magnificently helpful and responsive from start to finish. I’ve now got a pretty up-to-date knowledge of that JSON format and its ins and outs — which is not something other Known users will need to worry about. There was already a WordPress exporter; getting my content from there was a walk in the park. And once all my posts were in place, all that remained was to set up redirects from my old sites to the new one. What’s cool about Ghost is that, even though I’m on a hosted plan, I can download the theme, make code changes, and upload those changes in place. I’ve made some light customizations, with more to come. It took a few evenings to get it right, but given we’re talking about twenty years of content, that’s really not a bad investment! ### What’s next I paused on publishing while I was undergoing this transition, but now it’s full steam ahead. [I’ve previously posted about my focus on speculative futures](https://werd.io/focusing-on-speculative-futures/), and that’s still the plan: it’s important to point out what’s wrong, particularly in eras like the one we’re living through, but it’s even better to try and paint a picture of what might be better. But now I’m doing it on a faster, more modern platform, with full fediverse compatibility, beautiful email subscriptions, and backup from an incredibly helpful team. I love it. ### Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS URL: https://werd.io/airlines-dont-want-you-to-know-they-sold-your-flight/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T02:28:11.000Z \[[Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS](https://www.404media.co/airlines-dont-want-you-to-know-they-sold-your-flight-data-to-dhs/)\] I assumed this was happening, but it's good to have it confirmed. > "A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected U.S. travellers’ domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media. The data includes passenger names, their full flight itineraries, and financial details." This is another example of how the US government bypasses certain Constitutional protections by simply buying the data they seek. [ICE separately purchases data from this broker.](https://www.levernews.com/airlines-are-collecting-your-data-and-selling-it-to-ice/) I agree with Jake Laperruque of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, who is quoted in the piece as follows: > “Overall it strikes me as yet another alarming example of how the ‘Big Data Surveillance Complex’ is becoming the digital age version of the Military-Industrial Complex.” We need stronger data regulations very badly - but are unlikely to get them during this administration. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/airlines-dont-want-you-to-know-they-sold-your-flight-data-to-dhs/)\] ### Who's reading Werd I/O? Community survey 2025 URL: https://werd.io/whos-reading-werd-io-community-survey-2025/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T02:08:09.000Z I’m grateful that people stop by and read my posts. I think I’m really lucky. Thank you! I love writing here, but I’d love to know how I could serve you better. So every year I ask my readers to fill in a short survey. It doesn’t take more than a minute or two. This survey will help me figure out which problems and ideas people are thinking about, which will help me figure out how helpful I can be. [**Click here to answer a few short questions**](https://airtable.com/appSeTU6ADfSnEXpD/shrQJ4LgNbqpO2YIv)**.** It’s entirely anonymous (unless you decide to leave your email address). And it helps me out a great deal. Thank you in advance for your feedback! ### Bounce lets you move your followers from Bluesky to Mastodon URL: https://werd.io/bounce-lets-you-move-your-followers-from-bluesky-to-mastodon/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T21:53:06.000Z \[[Cameron Faulkner at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/news/678928/bounce-bluesky-mastodon-bridgy-fed-tool-followers)\] [Bounce](https://blog.anew.social/p/3c244a8b-894b-40ea-a22d-c642adb6f64e) is a game-changer for the open social web: > "Bounce is built on the work of Bridgy Fed, which makes your Bluesky posts visible on Mastodon and vice versa. Using Bounce will bridge your accounts, in case you haven’t already set up Bridgy Fed. Then, Bounce can move your account from Bluesky to Mastodon by shifting personal data servers and utilizing the native “move” functionality that ActivityPub and AT Protocol have in common. A New Social CEO and executive director Anuj Ahooja tells The Verge, “Folks on Bluesky will likely never even know you’ve Bounced to Mastodon.”" This prevents any one service on the open social web from locking you in. Which, after all, is the promise and the power of the platform. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/news/678928/bounce-bluesky-mastodon-bridgy-fed-tool-followers)\] ### The Darkest Day: A fantasy Doctor Who season URL: https://werd.io/the-darkest-day-a-fantasy-doctor-who-season/ Last updated: 2025-06-21T00:39:52.000Z I can’t help myself. I’ve loved every moment of the rebooted *Doctor Who* on Disney+, but it appears to have hit a bit of a pause while Disney considers whether to renew its co-production. With its future unclear (although I’m certain it’s coming back before too long), I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if I was show-runner. (To be clear, I think about what I’d do if I was show-runner … a *lot*. Whovian first, everything else second. I make no apologies.) Like I said, I loved every moment. But if I have any quibble at all with the last two seasons, with their extended budget provided by Disney, it’s that they used that budget to make the finales *bombastic*. *Who* is a show about people, first and foremost; [as I wrote recently while justifying my opinion that it’s the best show ever made](https://werd.io/2025/doctor-who-is-the-best-show-ever-made-heres-why): > Doctor Who doesn’t promise us a perfect future — it promises us people who will fight for one. It shows us a universe where the best tool you can carry is your mind, your heart, and your ability to listen. Where change is baked into the story, and where survival requires transformation. These are quiet, small, human ideas. The second episode of modern *Who*, back in 2005, was mostly spent in the far future examining the future of the human race, but ended on a normal British city street getting chips. That quiet moment was everything. The best *Doctor Who* stories are small in scale, terrifying in scope, and, like the Doctor themselves, work more with heart and intelligence than they do with the high-octane weaponry of special effects and epic monsters. As a show, *Doctor Who* gets to play with the toolbox of time travel, but it rarely uses that power to investigate the past, present, and future of a single story. There’s so much power in this: history provides context to our present, while speculative fiction does the same in a different way, by taking ideas from our present and extrapolating them into possible futures that shed light on our lives in new ways. My fantasy *Doctor Who* season would lean on this in a big way. It would center around a single mystery — not as a slight thread that’s lightly mentioned, in the style of *Buffy* or *Bad Wolf*, but truly centered on it. Every story in the season would illuminate the mystery in a new way, like picking up an object and examining it from a new angle. You’ll think you’ll know the dynamics of the situation in the present, and then the next episode the Doctor will go back in time and you’ll see what led people to act the way they did in a whole new light. So, just for fun, using the eight-story format of the Disney co-production, here’s what my fantasy Doctor Who season would look like. I’m deliberately leaving the casting of the Doctor and their companion unspecified. In my head, I’m still imagining Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and Verada Sethu as Belinda Chandra, who were wonderful, but I’m leaving name and gender unfilled for both. That’s not because they don’t matter, but what matters *most* to the story is that the companion is contemporary and highly independent. The Doctor, of course, is always just a little bit alien: an outsider who doesn’t care how different they seem. *The Shadow and the Loom* The Doctor lands in 19th century Nottingham after detecting an anomalous signal on the TARDIS console. Textile workers are dying, murdered at the hands of an unseen force lurking in the dark of the factories. The Doctor and companion discover the missing workers are Luddites: textile artisans who’ve been smashing the new, wider looms because automation threatens to subjugate them to the factory owners. Scanning, the Doctor finds some weird dimensional phase harmonics, like there’s been a breach in the universe. The factory owners have struck a secret deal with an unseen person known only as The Director to harness an alien force that will kill the perpetrators and preserve their profits. Ultimately, the Doctor destroys the control device for the alien force, tucking away a critical component in order to figure out where and why it was created. As the TARDIS dematerializes, the alien has been defeated, but the Luddites’ battle continues — and The Director is still out there, still unseen, and still up to something. *The Lovely City* The Doctor traces the component to a floating city in the 25th century, surrounded by pristine clouds. Here, everyone has everything they need, for which they pay almost nothing; each person is served by a personal magic mirror that promises to reveal the complete truth about everything, with no secrets left untold. Again, the sonic screwdriver reveals weird dimensional phase harmonics. The Doctor’s companion notices that everyone is subservient to a higher class of people, the Best of Us, who treat them like underlings — and nobody has any inclination to do anything about it. One person who begins to resist is swarmed by the others and disappeared; when the companion asks what they did, they say they were a “threat to all of us”. When the Doctor and companion try to get close to the Palace of the Best of Us at the center of the city, the mirrors begin to lie. The population turns on them, believing them to be murderers who will kill them if they aren’t killed first, and the quest to get to the Palace becomes a race to get out of the maze-like city alive. While making their escape back to the TARDIS, they come across a vast loading bay that seems to be receiving bulk goods that are materializing from across time and space: clothing from the 19th century looms, crates of alien technology, and more, all unloaded to be sold at low cost. The episode ends on a cliffhanger reveal of who is overseeing them all: the Daleks. *The Cloud Machines* The Daleks nearly exterminate the Doctor and companion; to flee, they escape into an elevator that hurtles them onto the ground below. Here, they find that the clouds are thicker: the ground is covered in a foggy haze. There are factories as far as the eye can see, their chimneys creating the clouds that surrounded the lovely city. Daleks patrol the streets, exterminating anyone who is not in their right place. Posters extol obedience, purity of purpose, and the glory of sacrifice: a grim echo of history’s worst ideologies. The outputs from the factories are loaded into crates and sent up to the city via transmat. They find that the workers are just as docile as the people in the city above. “This is just our way of life,” one of them says. “We love to build and make.” But when questioned further, they add, “Mustn’t grumble. The Director is watching.” Every morning, they gather in the squares for the Daily Affirmation: a broadcast that reminds them they’re the backbone of progress, the heroes of production. Even in the fog, they cheer. The Doctor encounters a small group that is planning a riot to disrupt the central power station, stop the factories, and clear the sky: a whole underground network that has been distributing pamphlets, putting up alternative posters, and finding ways to destroy the Daleks. “Even on the darkest day, there is always someone helping.” They theorize that that if the gleaming city above is revealed, the workers will realize their plight and rise up. The Doctor thinks that this will also force the Director to show themselves, and finds a way to help the group, ultimately reversing the polarity of the neutron flow (why not?) to bring back the sky. The clouds part, the workers look up, and begin to take to the streets to reassess their world. And then the Daleks begin trying to exterminate them en masse — but it isn’t enough to quell the uprising. The Doctor and companion escape back up the elevator as the planet below coalesces into a full-blown riot. There’s more to discover. Who is the Director? Why are the Daleks a part of this scheme? They’re never subservient — what do *they* want? *The Imagined Planet* Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor is troubled: someone is using time travel to build a network of exploitation across time and space, in conjunction with the Daleks. The cultures being exploited have no chance to rebel against the whole system because they don’t have time travel themselves. The Doctor traces the artron energy from the crates of goods to a planet that seems to exist outside of time itself, tucked away in a corner of the time vortex. It seems impossible. And perhaps it is the home of the Director. But as the Doctor and companion leave the TARDIS and explore, they discover a utopia: a gleaming city of stained glass surrounded by nature, where diverse people make art, play music, and are free to be themselves. It’s not what they expected at all. The companion makes friends and discovers that this is a hiding place: the only way to escape from the Director’s web is to exist outside of time. But the Doctor is skeptical: why did the artron energy from the cloud city lead them here? The companion also begins to ask questions: is it truly a utopia if they know people are being exploited elsewhere? Shouldn’t they be *helping*? And why do some members of the community seem to have technology they shouldn’t? As it becomes clear that key members of this utopian society have been not brainwashed but *bribed* by some unseen force, the truth begins to dawn. The artron energy was in the planet’s future, and the Director is just beginning to take hold here. The Doctor scans, and the unusual dimensional phase harmonics here are off the charts. And then, in the lush green of the city, the Director materializes. In a TARDIS. Locked into the form of a police box. Just like the Doctor’s. Because, somehow, the Director *is* the Doctor. Who begins directing the Daleks to subjugate the people of the planet while *our* Doctor looks on, horrified, terrified, shaken to their core. *Small Island* The Doctor is reeling and their companion doesn’t know who to trust. Some future of the Doctor — not a future regeneration but apparently *this incarnation* — is using the TARDIS to build a network of exploitation across time, in conjunction with their arch enemies the Daleks. The companion demands to be taken home and the Doctor complies, landing in present day London. It seems safer here: life carries on as it always did. They make a cup of tea and sit down on the sofa to watch TV as the Doctor makes their way back to the TARDIS alone. But the news broadcast on TV is not reassuring. The Prime Minister makes a statement outside Downing Street, but includes all of the phrases that hung on the walls of the buildings in *The Cloud Machines*. The companion realizes that all is not well, and rushes to get the Doctor before they dematerialize for good. “You have to fix this.” The two of them materialize into Downing Street and demand an audience with the Prime Minister, who we find alone, sitting at a table signing papers. He explains that Britain has lost its way, and that he has chosen to enter into an agreement with the Director in order to secure its future. He’s not subjugated in any forceful sense: he’s willingly complicit. He sees it as a path to stability. But Parliament must first agree via a vote. The Doctor and their companion meet with the Leader of the Opposition and frantically try to convince him that this is a dark bargain. Their pleas fall on deaf ears. When they appeal to individual Members of Parliament, they ask for things in return. Some agree to vote against the agreement. But then, finally, when the MPs line up one by one to vote, they all vote in favor of it, regardless of what they said. As the final vote is made and the votes are tallied, the Daleks descend on Parliament. We zoom out and see that all the democratic countries in the world are passing similar votes, with the Daleks are descending. UNIT joins them to stand side by side with them. Everywhere. Worldwide. Everywhere, that is, except for a small island nation in the middle of the Pacific. *Big Island* In a sweep across the capital city of the small island nation of Tuvati, we see that they’re a mutualistic society with a gift economy; children learn in circles from adults; music and art are practiced much as they were in *The Imagined Planet*; it feels like a fully-functioning society. We zoom in on its leaders, who watch the world hand itself over to the Director in horror. They take a quick vote around the circle, each one raising their hand in turn, and switch on a defense system that raises a visible blue ring around the island. We see the Daleks attempt to descend, but they cannot. The Doctor and companion dematerialize and announce themselves: “we’re here to help if we can.” But the leaders don’t want their help. They’re way ahead of them and see the Doctor’s interference in particular as paternalistic colonialism. They’ve been establishing a network of resistance across the globe — not led by them, but running in co-operation. They’re not a safe haven; they work in deep collaboration with resistance movements everywhere. One member of the leadership council, however, is out for himself. He imagines a life where he reaps the benefits of enormous profit in collaboration with the Director as vanguard leaders, in contrast to feeling like his ideas are constantly thwarted by having to be approved by the council. The council’s slow decision-making once threatened the island itself as the waters rose around it. We see him build a small cadre of followers who seek to take down the protective ring and rat out the resistance movements across the world. The companion sees this in action, and warns the Doctor. They plot to spring a trap and reveal the rebels to the council — but just as it’s almost sprung, it turns out that the council was already wise to it and had been using them to learn more about the Director. They are imprisoned. The council is irritated at the Doctor and companion for getting involved despite their requests not to. “If you want to help,” they say, “go find the Director and confront him. Leave us be.” *Never Cruel* Now locking on to the dimensional phase harmonics, the time travelers land in a future version of the utopian city from *The Imagined Planet*. The beautiful stained glass towers are replaced with concrete, smoke once again fills the air, and the DirectorDoctor’s face hangs on great posters from the buildings. Daleks patrol the streets. The companion is horrified. She had friends here. She’s lost faith in the Doctor’s ability to help. “We came here to save them, and now … now it’s your face on the banners.” Citizens murmur that “The Director is here,” and “They’ve given us order.” They love them because they gave them safety, just like the Doctor always tries to do. The Doctor is desperate to stop it. They must reach the central control tower, now repurposed as the Director’s fortress — which looks eerily similar to the Palace of the Best of Us. Once there, the Director explains that they are, indeed, the Doctor. They realized the universe needed order to survive. Tired of patching holes in the universe over and over again, they decided to build something stable. “Look at them,” the Director says, gesturing to the subjugated society. “They’re alive, aren’t they? They’re safe. They’re well. No Auton invasions. No Weeping Angels feeding on them in the dark. I gave them that. I made the hard choices you never would.” The Director reveals their final plan: a “Final Affirmation” broadcast that will integrate all the planets in their network into a single locked timeline: no more wars, no more flux, but no more freedom either. A universe without chaos, but also without change. They have set up the broadcast technology, connected to every world across a single, unified timeline. Slowly, they begin to speak. *Affirmation* It’s weeks later. The affirmation has been broadcast. As we hear its words, we see every world — the 19th century, contemporary London, the Imagined Planet — subjugated to the Director’s rule. The same posters, the same patrolling Daleks, the same smoke and fog clouding the sky. The Director has established a system where the people of the worlds are either engaged in making — down on the ground in the factories — or they’re using the products of the makers, buying with docile abandon, placated by their mirrors, sending resources back to the makers to continue the cycle. The Doctor and companion are locked up in parallel temporal cells, unable to leave their solitary confinement. The Doctor knocks on the door again and again, seemingly out of boredom. As robot guards walk in from time to time to provide food and water, the Doctor whistles strange tunes. The Director, meanwhile, is making deals with the Daleks. If they continue to enforce the norms of the Director’s network, the Director will allow them to rule. The Director makes it explicit that a “strong hand” is needed to keep it on track, to ensure everything sticks to the template. The Doctor has been knocking on the door at its harmonic frequency. Finally, it gives in, and they walk out and free their companion. As they emerge, they have one question they’ve been pondering for all this time: “Doctor, if the Director is you, where’s the companion?” The Doctor strides into the Director’s chamber alone. This — the Director’s whole plan, the subjugation of worlds in the name of stability — is not what the Doctor wants. It’s *never* what they want. As they spar, the penny drops: the Director is from another universe where the Doctor never had a companion. They’ve been alone the whole time, with no community, no friendship, no-one to teach them empathy and kindness. Ultimately, their world disintegrated, and they found their way through a crack in the universe to establish something better. “It’s too late, Doctor,” the Director says, finally. “I own this universe. I have provided order. It bends to *me*.” “I don’t know if everyone agrees,” the Doctor says. “Correct,” a Dalek announces. “We do not need you. It bends to *us*. The Doctor is an enemy of the Daleks. The Director is an enemy of the Daleks.” They, of course, have been double-crossing him the whole time. They hold both Time Lords at gunpoint, ready to exterminate. The Director tried to make a partnership with extremists, and it did not work out. They’re both about to die. But then we realize: the companion isn’t here. The Doctor hadn’t just been whistling at the robot guards; they were being slowly reprogrammed to carry a message. The companion has been using the TARDIS to amplify it and further it across time and space. Because everywhere, no matter how bad things get, “even on the darkest day, there is always someone helping.” The Doctor has established strong communication channels that cross the stars — a network that even extends to the magic mirrors. We see networks of resistance everywhere, facilitated by the Tuvati people and the companion, making links across time and space. Those same networks of cargo that transmitted goods between their worlds and the Lovely City are used to transmit weapons, materials, pamphlets. They rise up. We see them swarm the Director’s Palace. The Director’s lack of humanity also made them underestimate the power of people, together. The collaborative masses defeat the Daleks with explosives and baseball bats in the Palace, across the streets, across every world. The factories are halted and the skies clear of clouds. The Director themselves, however, seems to have vanished. There’s no going back. As an epilogue, we discover that the formerly subjugated people now own the factories and the transport carriers together. They do the work in a way that works for them, and create a peaceful order through collaboration, taught by the Tuvati. They achieve everything the Director set out to do but without subjugation, without fear, without authority. Finally, the Doctor and companion slip out unnoticed, off to get a well-earned cup of tea. ### Letter to Arc members 2025 URL: https://werd.io/letter-to-arc-members-2025/ Last updated: 2025-06-03T02:01:48.000Z \[[The Browser Company](https://browsercompany.substack.com/p/letter-to-arc-members-2025)\] Arc is my primary browser, and I'm feeling like that's a choice I should never have made: > "The part that was hard to admit, is that Arc — and even Arc Search — were too incremental. They were meaningful, yes. But ultimately not at the scale of improvements that we aspired to. Or that could breakout as a mass-market product. If we were serious about our original mission, we needed a technological unlock to build something truly new." So many of its features feel completely *made for me* \- the way it gets out of the way, its very easy keystroke-bound profile switching, the split panes, and the fact that it cleans up my tabs every day. (Some people keep their tabs forever. That's not how I roll.) It's brilliant and I truly love using it - but, as it turns out, it's also a dead end. I'm going to retrain myself to head back to Firefox, but I do so reluctantly. My hope is that someone really studies why this UX was amazing and backports it to the Firefox ecosystem - [Zen Browser](https://zen-browser.app/) is sort of there but also not really, and I'd love for something to get closer or even surpass it. Open source products don't often prioritize user experience to the degree they should, so I'm not holding my breath. But maybe if I wish hard enough ... Sigh. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://browsercompany.substack.com/p/letter-to-arc-members-2025)\] ### Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America URL: https://werd.io/curtis-yarvins-plot-against-america/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T01:50:34.000Z \[[Ava Kofman in The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile)\] Curtis Yarvin is a pathetic little man: > "As his ideas have been surrealized in DOGE and Trump has taken to self-identifying as a king, one might expect to find Yarvin in an exultant mood. In fact, he has spent the past few months fretting that the moment will go to waste. “If you have a Trump boner right now, enjoy it,” he wrote two days after the election. “It’s as hard as you’ll ever get.” What many see as the most dangerous assault on American democracy in the nation’s history Yarvin dismisses as woefully insufficient—a “vibes coup.” Without a full-blown autocratic takeover, he believes, a backlash is sure to follow." Much of this piece goes into his background, which in my view at this point gives him too much oxygen. It's no surprise that he was almost a libertarian - libertarianism feels very adjacent to the views he publicly writes about - and his ideas about federations of city states are very much in line. (They're also very much in line with what someone might say if they'd never read or understood any European history.) I mean, this is bananas: > "Yarvin proposes that nations should eventually be broken up into a “patchwork” of statelets, like Singapore or Dubai, each with its own sovereign ruler. The eternal political problems of legitimacy, accountability, and succession would be solved by a secret board with the power to select and recall the otherwise all-powerful C.E.O. of each sovereign corporation, or SovCorp. \[...\] To prevent a C.E.O. from staging a military coup, the board members would have access to cryptographic keys that would allow them to disarm all government weapons, from nuclear missiles down to small arms, with the push of a button." And he loves dictators, etc etc. Overall, this piece is like a litmus test: if someone comes away with anything other than revulsion for the man, you'll know what to think of them. That so many of the people in the current administration fit into that category speaks volumes. Oh, and finally, there's this: > "Whatever the exact solution, he has written, it is crucial to find “a humane alternative to genocide,” an outcome that “achieves the same result as mass murder (the removal of undesirable elements from society) but without any of the moral stigma.”" That backlash is overdue. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile)\] ### Building a newsroom technology culture URL: https://werd.io/building-a-newsroom-technology-culture/ Last updated: 2025-08-14T13:29:04.000Z *A quick note before we begin: This post reflects my own views on newsroom technology leadership, not necessarily those of my employer.* I like to say that journalism treats technology as something that happens to it — like an asteroid. But technology is too important to the future of news for it to be treated passively. Journalism’s most impactful publishing surfaces have all migrated to the internet: websites, newsletters, aggregators like Apple News, social media platforms, and streaming media. And most crucially, every publisher lives or dies on the web: it’s the platform where articles are shared and discovered, where a publisher makes their first impressions, and where most of their revenue is earned. Recently, journalism’s existential threats have also been rooted in technology: radical changes in the social media landscape and referrals from search engines have been ongoing for a while, and AI threatens to shift the way people learn about the world towards black-box proprietary systems that are prone to hallucinations, bias, and misinformation. We’re in a period of great *platform* change. I believe journalism is the bedrock of democracy. We need a functioning press in order to speak truth to power and ensure we have an informed electorate. As an industry, it’s in trouble for many reasons — primarily that it’s lost trust with the people it seeks to serve. This is, in part, because it often fails to be truly representative of the interests and demographics of their communities. And, obviously, not every newsroom lives up to its journalistic responsibilities. But it’s also because it often insists on clinging to the norms, traditions, and voices that worked for it in the print era, even as the internet has brought about great *cultural* change. The way people relate to information and institutions has been radically altered forever. Building a strong technology competence inside a newsroom is existentially important. Given journalism’s *platform* dependence, it’s vital to build and shape the technologies that newsrooms rely on in order to function. Given journalism’s *cultural* dependence, it’s also vital to ensure a newsroom understands how the internet is building and shaping culture — not just at the periphery, but as a core part of its own culture. In this piece, I’ll explore how I suggest building these technology competences into a newsroom that doesn’t yet have them. It’s partially about building a team, but newsrooms often operate on low budgets; it’s also about establishing a mindset and practices that will help any newsroom adapt to, and plan for, technological change. Everything big starts small. If you want to spread a technology competence throughout your organization, it all starts with finding a leader you can trust. ✉️ I write about technology that serves journalism and democracy, informed by my work with newsrooms, open source movements, and startups. [****Sign up for a free subscription**](https://werd.io/#/portal/subscribe) or [****book a call**](https://werd.io/call/). ### Finding a technology leader #### The case for a technology voice in senior leadership Every newsroom has a *senior leadership team*, whether they call it that or not: the collection of people who set strategy for the organization across its key areas of operation. This usually includes: - *Editorial*: The editorial vision, standards, and content strategy that define the newsroom’s journalism. - *Fundraising / Development / Revenue*: The strategies that bring funds into the newsroom and allow it to continue operating. - *Finance*: The budgeting and accounting that keeps the lights on and allows the newsroom to plan for the future. - *Operations*: Day-to-day management, HR, vendor relationships, office management. More progressive newsrooms elevate *People* into its own function (as they should). - *Legal*: Risk assessment, compliance oversight, and legal protection for the newsroom’s journalism and business operations, including press law, source protection, records requests, and contract review. More recently, some newsrooms have added: - *Brand / Creative*: The visual identity, tone, and creative strategy that shapes how the newsroom presents itself across all touch-points. - *Product*: The design, functionality, and user experience of how readers actually consume the newsroom’s journalism. This often also includes partnerships with other newsrooms. Given my previous discussion about journalism’s existential interdependence with technology, adding technology leadership to this mix is vital. #### Product is not Technology Many newsrooms conflate Product and Technology leadership, but they’re different disciplines. Product leadership focuses on the “what” and “why”: understanding user needs, defining features, prioritizing what gets built, and ensuring the end result serves both readers and business goals. They need to understand reader needs, culture, and expectations. Technology leadership focuses on the “how” and “what’s possible”: the technical infrastructure, capabilities, and strategic technology decisions that enable everything else. They need to be able to understand the implications of today’s technology for the newsroom, including how technology is shaping how people interact with information, but also predict technological changes and understand the impact of those futures, too. Both Product and Technology leadership need to have an understanding of each other’s worlds. Product needs to be technologically savvy, but is centered on reader and business needs. Technology needs to have a solid understanding of readers and the business, but is centered on the practice and culture of technology. This needfully encompasses security and privacy, so technology leadership needs to have a holistic understanding of the impact of technology on people and communities. Because Product encompasses the experience of interacting with the newsroom, product leadership needs to have a working understanding of what’s possible. It’s also about who has the final word. While many decisions should be made collaboratively, responsibility for the technical underpinnings — particularly when it comes to privacy, security, and infrastructure — must ultimately rest with technology leadership. In turn, responsibility for understanding and meeting reader needs rests with Product. And, of course, in both cases, they need to translate their realms of experience and set standards for the rest of the newsroom. #### What to look for in a technology leader At this point, it should be clear that I don’t think being a great engineer is enough to make someone a great technology leader. A pure engineering leader is typically a Head of Engineering. In contrast, a technology leader is more strategic, more predictive, and more people-centered. As a field, technology sometimes gets a reputation as a place where hard logic is prized, where empathy and social consciousness are not needed. That attracts exactly the wrong people. Fundamentally, technology leadership is as much about humans as it is about technology itself, and doing it well requires empathetic leaders who understand people well, who in turn will build teams with those same qualities. When I’m thinking about hiring technology leadership, here’s what I have in mind: - **Strategic technology vision:** The ability to see beyond immediate technical needs to understand how emerging technologies will reshape journalism. They should be able to anticipate platform changes, evaluate new tools critically, and help the newsroom adapt proactively rather than reactively. - **Cultural fluency:** A deep understanding of how internet culture works: how information spreads, how communities form around content, how trust is built and lost online. - **Newsroom sensitivity:** A respect for journalistic values and ability to make technology decisions that support rather than undermine editorial integrity. They must understand when technical efficiency might conflict with editorial principles, and how to navigate those tensions. - **Communication skills:** An ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical leadership and explain the broader implications of technical decisions. This is also an ability to listen to and understand newsroom needs that might not be articulated in technical terms. - **Community stewardship:** They must not just have a technical understanding of security and privacy, but also an understanding and care for the ethical and legal implications of data handling, reader privacy, choosing values-aligned vendors, and how these things intersect with trust. - **Cross-functional collaboration:** The ability to work effectively with Product, Editorial, and Business teams without territorialism. Fundamentally this comes down to an understanding that technology serves the mission, not the other way around, and that we shouldn’t seek to remake the newsroom around technology. - **Pragmatism over dogmatism:** A resentment-free understanding of how to build *and maintain* resilient systems within newsroom budget constraints, which are sometimes very tight. It’s important to take a pragmatic approach to building rather than buying, prioritizing technical debt, and making technology decisions that scale sustainably. - **A long-term mindset:** A focus on strategies that will serve the newsroom into the future, rather than succumbing to hype cycles or short-term fads. (Spoiler alert: this usually means betting on the open web, while pragmatically engaging with some shorter-term approaches to address proximal business or reader needs.) Finally, while a technology leader might be a sole operator in a small newsroom to start with, they’re usually ultimately tasked with building a team. They’re responsible for creating a high-functioning technology team that can operate inside a newsroom culture, with strong empathy, social responsibility, and the potential to form a deep understanding of journalistic needs. Although it’s better to have one, not every newsroom can hire a full-time technology leader right away. In these cases, hiring either a fractional leader (one who works for less than full-time), or a consultant to act as a sounding board who can guide your technology-adjacent decision-making, is the next best thing. One thing you shouldn’t worry too much about is matching tech salaries. While it would certainly be better if journalism could match tech compensation — journalists deserve this level of compensation too — there are people who are willing to trade high salaries for mission-driven work. It’s not that organizations can or should hide behind their mission to pay poorly, but journalism is a distinct industry with its own norms, and people from tech will make the leap. I speak from experience here: I dropped a six-figure sum from my salary to work in news because I wanted a position where I felt like I was helping in our current political moment. Let’s acknowledge, though, that only some people can afford to drop their compensation, and this contributes to significant staffing inequalities in the industry. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to assume my hypothetical newsroom has the budget to hire one. But this advice scales down to finding people who can help guide you on a regular basis rather than fully in the trenches with you. In fact, it can be better to start with these kinds of advisors, because they can help you vet an eventual full-time hire. So, in my hypothetical newsroom that needs to build a technology competence, how do I get started? #### Sourcing a newsroom technology leader Look for the bloggers, the community organizers, and the mission-driven founders. People who are already writing on their own site or starting open conversations critically about *both* the human implications of technology issues *and* the underlying technologies themselves, and building trust-driven communities in the process, are demonstrating a number of important characteristics: - The ability to communicate technical issues, and their human impacts, well to non-technical colleagues. - A care for, and participation in, the open web that newsrooms depend on. These people are often already thinking about decentralized infrastructure, reader privacy, and how to build technology that serves people rather than extracting from them. - Independent thinking that doesn’t just echo company lines or conventional wisdom. - An understanding of community reactions to technical decisions and discourse. For instance, people writing thoughtful posts on their own sites about how the open social web changes community dynamics — and the protocols that power it — are already engaging with the exact kinds of questions that newsrooms should be thinking about. So are people who are engaging seriously with the ethics of AI rather than joining the hype cycle. People who recognized that the rise of Discord servers and group chats represented a move toward more intimate, trusted information sharing similarly have the ability to predict how changes in the information landscape might affect newsrooms. Depending on your audience, an understanding of how different services and attendant norms are popular in different communities is also important to look for. Of course, it’s not enough to write, or to organize. You need people who have a track record of not just shipping software (including writing code themselves) but creating technology-informed strategy in resource-constrained, mission-driven environments. That doesn’t need to be a newsroom: it could be a mission-driven startup or a non-profit. You’ll want to interview someone who managed them (which in most cases will be the CEO or Managing Director), as well as someone they managed. In every case you’re looking for: - A highly empathetic, [emotionally intelligent](https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-improve-your-emotional-intelligence/) person who isn’t an asshole, - With a [beginner’s mindset](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210222-how-a-beginners-mindset-can-help-you-learn-anything), - Who will do whatever needs to be done to achieve the team’s goals regardless of the nature of the task, - Who regularly ships both technical and strategic work, - With enough hands-on technical experience to review code, earn respect from technical staff, evaluate architectural decisions, and understand the implications of technical trade-offs, - And who takes a [“servant leadership”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant%5Fleadership) approach to leading and supporting teams and creating a culture of mentorship rather than being a top down-director. That last one is important, and might be unfamiliar to some newsroom cultures, which may be based on traditional editorial hierarchies. Tech is best created in a collaborative environment of experts, not a top-down, directive culture. While I personally prefer to frame it as empowering leadership rather than *servant leadership*, the concept is vital: it’s by far the most effective way to create an empathetic, high-performing technology team. (I think it’s probably better for *every* team, but that might be the subject of another post.) #### How not to look for a technology leader Conversely, two anti-patterns are to prioritize hiring from other newsrooms or people with backgrounds in big tech. Hiring from other newsrooms perpetuates an insular journalism industry that is not open to outside ideas. While there’s nothing wrong with including people with newsroom backgrounds in the hiring pool, people who *don’t* have that background shouldn’t be excluded; there are plenty of industries and backgrounds that would bring applicable skills and knowledge into newsrooms, while potentially also bringing in new approaches. Meanwhile, big tech’s incentives, resources, and constraints are completely different to the newsroom context. An engineering approach that works in a multi-billion-dollar tech company simply *doesn’t* in a resource-constrained, time-limited environment. That’s not to say that everyone in big tech will be unable to make this shift, but they must know it is a big shift, and they’ve got to be able to lean into it. Finally, newsrooms still don’t adequately represent the communities they seek to serve, and particularly not at the senior leadership level. This is a fundamental requirement for building trust, and is as important for technology leadership as it is for hiring on the editorial side. More representative teams are wise to the nuances of their audience’s lived experiences. In order for this to be effective, a diverse and inclusive newsroom isn’t enough: a diverse leadership ensures that more representative strategic decisions can be made, and signals to the audience that the newsroom truly represents them. Technology is not neutral. It must be representative, inclusive, and rooted in service to the public. If we want to rebuild trust and technical resilience in journalism, we must be open to fresh perspectives and hire from outside the usual echo chambers at every level. Journalism and big tech are both fairly exclusionary industries, and not requiring these backgrounds is an ingredient to building a more inclusive hiring pipeline. It’s not enough in itself — intentional outreach to diverse communities is a must, for example — but it’s certainly a prerequisite. Technology as a discipline is not absolved from the need for an inclusive understanding of the impact of leadership decisions, so it’s no less important here. You do need someone who can build. Avoid candidates who can talk eloquently about technology but have never actually built systems or written production code. Without technical credibility, they’ll struggle to gain respect from technical staff and make informed decisions about complex technical trade-offs — and potentially lead you down some blind alleys. ### Supporting a technology leader Once you’ve found your leader, the most important thing you can do is listen to them — and the most important thing *they* can do is listen to *you*. Newsrooms that have been waiting for a technology function might have a whole backlog of requests. But one of the most common pitfalls for a technology leader is to be treated like a helpdesk: someone who can help execute on existing strategy but isn’t empowered to be a core contributor to *new* strategy. Given the widely-perceived adverse impact of technology on the journalism industry there may even be some cultural resistance to elevating it into strategic leadership in this way. Their decision-making power needs to be well-defined. A technology leader’s responsibilities should encompass how software is written, setting engineering standards throughout the organization. In a tech company this is a no-brainer, but newsrooms often have editorial staff who write code, for example to power visualizations or special experiences for specific articles, or to undertake computational research. While this staff probably doesn’t ultimately report to this leader, the way they write software needs to be under their purview too: there’s no sense spending a lot of time making your software fast, modern, and secure if some of the code most likely to be interacted with by audiences doesn’t follow those same rules. They should also probably be a co-owner of privacy with the organization’s legal function, marrying their own technical understanding of what can a user’s data can be used for with the legal team’s understanding of relevant legislation and case law. Similarly, their understanding of the web landscape should underpin a partnership with the audience teams who work on social media, SEO, and analytics. But most importantly, they need to be in the room when the senior leadership team meets. They need to be able to bring an informed technology perspective to strategic discussions across the newsroom; advocate for budgeting; make suggestions for ways technology can assist strategic ideas on the table, and how likely future technical developments might affect the newsroom’s strategy; and provide frameworks for other teams to think about how to use technology. As the newsroom sets its goals for the year (your newsroom does that, right?), they need to be a core contributor. For smaller newsrooms — for example, smaller startups that only have a handful of people — this may still be someone who you contract on a part-time basis to provide these perspectives at particularly impactful moments. For larger newsrooms, it should be someone who’s always there, on the ground with you, standing by your side as you work through every hard decision. ### Technology principles for newsrooms Hiring a leader — and then, in turn, hiring a team — will inevitably take a while. Hiring a consultant who will help you through decisions in the interim is a shorter process, but does take some effort and due diligence in its own right. Here are some principles that will both help you navigate near-term decisions and help evaluate consultants and leaders for fit: **Make human-centered decisions.** Looking for ways to use a technology is always backwards. For example, some people would have you believe that if you don’t adopt AI you’ll be left behind. This is marketing! It’s far better to define and scope the real problems you have as an organization and then assess potential solutions, with various technologies in your toolbox as things you *might* use if there’s a fit. A technology leader can help you assess what’s feasible — what you can build sustainably with the time, team, and resources at your disposal. **Experiment but fail quickly.** Sometimes you need the freedom to play around with a solution to see if it has the potential to solve a problem. You can’t know that everything will work out ahead of time — and if you aim for perfection you’ll find yourself paralyzed at the analysis stage. You need to build in explicit permission to run measured experiments (as long as they don’t put your community, your journalism, or your team at risk), but find ways to run scrappy tests to get to a result as quickly as possible. Don’t build something for six months and *then* figure out whether it’ll work or not. **Pragmatically weigh independence, values, and maintainability.** Every technology decision involves trade-offs between owning your infrastructure, aligning with your values, and keeping systems manageable. Perfect independence is impractical: few newsrooms can afford to build their own payment processing or email delivery systems, for example. And because all custom software represents software the newsroom has to maintain, most newsrooms should, on balance, buy far more software than they build. Vendors and platforms should be evaluated based on switching costs, not just current convenience. Can you export your data? Are you locked into proprietary formats? Does this company’s business model align with your editorial mission? Are their values likely to lead to problems down the road? A good technology leader will help you understand when dependence is acceptable (standardized tools with low switching costs) versus when it’s risky (platforms that provide core functions but will lock you in). The goal isn’t to avoid all external services, but to maintain agency over your most critical functions and ensure you can change course when needed. **Be a good steward of your community’s trust.** Be aware of the implications of any data you collect. For example, could a user browsing history function be used to prosecute someone for seeking out abortion information in a state like Texas? Newsrooms have enormous responsibilities to keep people safe. For example, if people are submitting tips or leaks to you, you should never run them through a hosted system like ChatGPT, lest that information be subpoenaed or otherwise obtained by bad actors; if you want to process that data, you need to create local infrastructure with a clear chain of custody and a [least privilege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle%5Fof%5Fleast%5Fprivilege) approach to security. **Bet on the open web.** When faced with technology choices, default to open standards, interoperable systems, and technologies that strengthen the commons rather than creating new silos. In particular, resilience to technology changes means owning your relationship with your audiences. This means prioritizing RSS over proprietary feeds, open-source content management systems over locked platforms, and web-native publishing over app-only experiences. The open web has proven remarkably resilient, outlasting most proprietary alternatives; harnessing it ensures your content remains accessible regardless of tech industry changes and policy decisions. Meanwhile, the emergent open social web is still small, but is growing: it’s worth investing in it now. This principle doesn’t mean you need to avoid all proprietary tools, but it does mean ensuring your core content and relationships with your readers exist in formats that you own and will survive platform changes. A technology leader should help you distinguish between tactical use of closed platforms and strategic investments in open infrastructure that you can control and migrate as needed. ### Building a technology competence is not optional Journalism can’t afford to treat technology as an asteroid crashing into the industry. Building technology competence is about preserving journalism’s essential role in democracy: when newsrooms take control of their technological destiny, they’re better positioned to serve their communities, protect their sources, and maintain the editorial independence that makes accountability journalism possible. The investment in technology leadership is ultimately an investment in the whole newsroom — and because good journalism speaks truth to power and informs the electorate, it’s an investment in democracy itself. It’s not a small undertaking, but it’s one that every newsroom must embrace in order to secure its future. ### Starting a conversation My experience is in working directly inside two newsrooms — [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), which is where I currently work as the Senior Director of Technology, and before it, as the inaugural CTO at [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) — as well as over a decade working alongside newsrooms at organizations like [Matter Ventures](https://knightfoundation.org/press/releases/fusing-public-media-values-silicon-valley-entrepre/) and [Latakoo](https://latakoo.com). If this is a journey you’re embarking on, I’d love to have a conversation and learn more. [Leave me your details and I'll reach back out to schedule a chat.](https://airtable.com/apprAIfJE1AEamVyC/pagV9J54ZWzj9nPrG/form) ### What I've Learned from Ten Years with Coral URL: https://werd.io/what-ive-learned-from-ten-years-with-coral/ Last updated: 2025-05-30T23:03:54.000Z \[[Andrew Losowsky](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-ive-learned-from-ten-years-coral-andrew-losowsky-7byie/)\] Running an open source community platform for a decade is no small feat - particularly one as storied and supported as Coral. Andrew Losowsky's reflections on its first decade are inspiring. > "Among so many conversations, we brought commenters into newsrooms to speak with journalists, moderators to conferences to talk to academics, we consumed and conducted research, we talked at the United Nations about online abuse, we invited college students to conduct hackathons, we co-hosted a conference called Beyond Comments at MIT... and so much more. > > What we learned early on was that the core problems with online comments aren’t technical – they’re cultural. This means that technology alone cannot solve the issue. And so we worked with industry experts to publish guides and training materials to address this, and then designed our software around ways to turn strategy into action." This is so important: most of these problems are human, not technical. The technology should be there to support these communities, but a lot of the work itself needs to be done on the community and relationship level. That's an important ingredient for success. One sad note: while I've seen a few of these reflective posts from projects lately, it's not obvious to me that comparable *new* open source projects are being created that will be hosting their own reflections a decade from now. I think there needs to be significantly more investment into open source from institutions, foundations, and enterprises. Not every project will succeed, but for the ones that will, the investment will pay dividends. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-ive-learned-from-ten-years-coral-andrew-losowsky-7byie/)\] ### Sahil Lavingia's DOGE diary URL: https://werd.io/sahil-lavingias-doge-diary/ Last updated: 2025-05-28T22:30:17.000Z \[[Sahil Lavingia](https://sahillavingia.com/doge)\] I personally don't think his decision to join DOGE was defensible, but there are lots of interesting details in Sahil Lavingia's diary of the 55 days he worked there. For example: > "I was excited to help in-source VA's software, but I was also realizing why so much of it was outsourced. For example, I was constantly constrained by my restricted government laptop, which made it difficult to write and run code. I couldn't install Git, Python, or use tools like Cursor, due to government security policies. > > Fixing the root of the problem–making it easier for employees to execute–would require congressional intervention, and it was more practical to continue spending lots of money outsourcing the software development to contractors." Of course, that's not what DOGE set about fixing. Even if it had wanted to, these sorts of changes weren't within its remit. Instead, it was responsible for harmful work like reductions in force and scanning contracts for any mention of DEI. (He characterizes this as "a contract analysis script using LLMs to flag wasteful spending".) And then there's this: > "In reality, DOGE had no direct authority. The real decisions came from the agency heads appointed by President Trump, who were wise to let DOGE act as the 'fall guy' for unpopular decisions." It's worth taking this with a pinch of salt. Is this real? Is this propaganda to help Musk save face? It's hard to say. But it certainly makes fascinating reading. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://sahillavingia.com/doge)\] ### The Substack Election URL: https://werd.io/the-substack-election/ Last updated: 2025-05-28T12:01:28.000Z \[[Lauren Egan at The Bulwark](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/substack-election-democrats-platform-social-communications-buttigieg-2028)\] If I was Substack, this is exactly what I'd be doing. But then again, if I was Substack, I wouldn't have paid Nazis to post on my network. > "The company sees an opportunity. Its employees have been meeting with congressional staffers and chatting up aides to potential 2028 presidential candidates, encouraging them to get on the platform. Substack also recently hired Alli Brennan, who worked in political guest booking at CBS News and CNN—the type of person who has phone numbers and contacts for just about everyone in D.C. whom the company is hoping to get on its platform. The goal is ambitious: they want Substack to become the essential online arena for political discourse in the upcoming election cycles." I personally think [Substack's Nazi problem](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/03/substack-user-revolt-anti-censorship-stance-neo-nazis) should have made it radioactive to anyone who believes in democracy. But this play - to get thinkers of note to join the platform and try to be be *the place* for long-form discourse - is exactly what platforms like Medium have done in the past. My preference? Make it as easy as possible for these writers to use platforms like [Ghost](https://ghost.org) and aggregate their posts on easy-to-use portal pages. There's nothing good to be gained from *any* platform owned by a single company becoming the go-to place for all political discourse. Ultimately, anyone who wins at that strategy will become, by definition, a bottleneck for democratic publishing. Spread it out; let it thrive on the web, and then tie it up in a bow for people who need it delivered that way. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/substack-election-democrats-platform-social-communications-buttigieg-2028)\] ### 12 years of Ghost URL: https://werd.io/12-years-of-ghost/ Last updated: 2025-05-27T13:57:08.000Z \[[John O' Nolan at Ghost](https://john.onolan.org/12/)\] This is a lovely reflection on 12 years of Ghost, the non-profit, open source publishing platform that powers independent publishers and allows them to make a living on their own terms. > "Over the years, we've focused consistently on building the best tools for publishing on the web. In the past 5 years, in particular, we've also focused heavily on building ways for creators, journalists, and publishers to run a sustainable business on the web." As John notes, this has been very successful: outlets like 404Media and Platformer use it as their platform, and they've generated over $100 million for small publishers. It's the right product, and particularly now, it fills a need at the right time. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://john.onolan.org/12/)\] ### Mastodon updating some legal features URL: https://werd.io/mastodon-updating-some-legal-features/ Last updated: 2025-05-23T17:14:33.000Z \[[Mastodon](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/05/legal-features-updates/)\] Mastodon's legal updates are an important way to support different kinds of communities. It's great to see the Mastodon team grow to support these features. I'd love to see CC-licensed terms of service for communities to use. Those features: - "Mastodon servers already have Server Rules and a Privacy Policy, that owners need to define when they create their instance. There will also now be an optional Terms of Service. To help you get started, we’re providing a generator (based on a template from our own law firm). The effective change date of the Terms of Service will be included, to allow users to review them before taking any action." - "We’re providing the ability for server rules to be translated into multiple languages. This means that the rules which apply to everyone that uses your Mastodon instance, will now be able to be read in different languages, as appropriate for your community." - "We are introducing a new option for server administrators to set a minimum age requirement for user sign-up. When the option is enabled, the Mastodon instance will require a date of birth to be provided when a new account is created. This value will be validated against the minimum age setting, and then discarded." These aren't necessarily the *sexiest* features, but they protect community owners. Increasingly, as requirements for running sites with user generated content get tighter around the world, these will allow online communities to continue to exist. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/05/legal-features-updates/)\] ### Focusing on speculative futures URL: https://werd.io/focusing-on-speculative-futures/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T02:09:35.000Z If you’ve enjoyed my recent series about the open social web, great! There were four parts, which I think are collectively some of my best work: - [What the future of Bluesky might look like](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product) - [How Mastodon could be the future of online communities](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon) - [What I’d do if I was running my own platform](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-started-fresh) - [How I’d approach funding it all](https://werd.io/2025/lets-fund-the-open-social-web) If you *didn’t* enjoy it, I’ve kind of got bad news: that’s the kind of writing I intend to do here in the future. I lead technology teams, most recently at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), but writing fiction has always been my first love. And I think it’s a place where I can meaningfully help. There’s a lot wrong in the world, and there are a lot of problems to highlight and bring attention to. There are a lot of people (including [my employer](https://propublica.org)) who are doing this very well. But one of the other things we can be doing is imagining better futures and describing them in detail. This helps us have conversations about what a better world might be in practice; how we can build more equitable, pro-social and progressive structures, how they might work, and what the impact might be. The details might not be right; people might disagree with what I’ve written; but describing these possibilities in detail helps us have more substantive conversations that will hopefully lead us somewhere concrete. I believe that design fiction, science fiction, speculative fiction, and — maybe controversially — business fiction all matter and are a huge part of building the future. So you can expect to see more of that here. What you can expect to see less of: if you’re subscribing by email, I’m discontinuing the *notable links* email that I’ve been sending every Monday. I reserve the right to save an interesting link here and there on [my website](https://werd.io) and on my social media accounts, but they won’t be the focus of my writing. If you’re interested in links, [I continue to make my RSS subscriptions available as a feed](https://sources.werd.io/). These are the sources I read every day. I haven’t necessarily read a particular article, but it’s the exact same feed I use to start every day, updated every five minutes. If you have any feedback for me, I’d love to hear it. Reach out [via email](mailto:ben@werd.io), [Mastodon](https://werd.social/@ben), or [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/werd.io). It’s always a gift to hear from you. Regardless, thank you for following along — there’s more to come. ### Let's fund the open social web URL: https://werd.io/lets-fund-the-open-social-web/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T02:10:18.000Z If the open social web is going to grow and thrive, people need to be able to build new platforms and services sustainably. But that’s not what the email I was reading was telling me. The message in my inbox captured a persistent and problematic idea in open tech circles. It reminded me of one I’d received years earlier, back when I was building my first platform. > “You should be doing this for the love of it.” The author, a well-known blogger, was outraged that I was trying to make money from Elgg, the open source social networking platform I co-founded. Its users included Ivy League universities, Fortune 500 companies, international NGOs, and even governments at the national level, but how *dare* I make enough money from it to pay for rent and groceries? Now, deep into building my second open source social platform, the same sentiment had returned. Different person, same message: > “You shouldn’t try to make revenue. We need to abolish money.” With no hint of irony, I was being criticized for failing to establish a *Star Trek* post-financial utopia. Meanwhile, I was building new web software, which meant infrastructure, teammates, and bills to pay. And to do anything at all, I needed a place to live and a way to meet my basic needs. To be clear, I’m all for imagining ways out of our current economic system. But asking individual underfunded founders to operate outside it isn’t a viable strategy. These systemic changes are far outside the scope of a software platform or an underfunded founder. I wasn’t independently wealthy. I didn’t have a trust fund. I just wanted to build something good. How could anyone like me, with experience but without a financial safety net, possibly win? And if that’s hard for me, imagine how much harder it is for builders from underrepresented or vulnerable communities, with even less access to capital. ### Supporting builders to create a strong ecosystem Even people with experience and a track record from those communities struggle to get funded. Recreating that inequality on the social web would be a disaster. Social media is a huge part of how we learn about the world and make our democratic decisions. If those perspectives are excluded, the platforms shaping public discourse will reflect only the interests of those who already hold privilege and power. In effect, only privileged perspectives will shape how our platforms work, what voices get heard, and how people come to understand the world around them. I believe in the promise of the open social web. It’s a pro-social alternative to existing social media platforms, which has the potential to support communities and discourse rather than strip-mine them for value. But if we want it to *survive*, let alone thrive, we need to: 1. Fund and support new pro-social platforms. 2. Build models that support a broad, representative set of builders, including those from communities most impacted by today’s platforms. 3. Support community ownership models to reduce the risk of platforms being used as instruments of political manipulation, as we've seen with X and Facebook. In previous posts, I’ve discussed what I would do if I was running product at [Bluesky](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product), [Mastodon](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon), and [my own platform](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-started-fresh). Those posts have focused on what sustainability looks like once a platform is up and running. But how do you get from an idea to a functioning platform and set it up for success? Establishing a new open social web platform takes time, effort, and money to get right. So how do we fund that early stage in a way that’s sustainable, and aligned with the values of the ecosystem we want to build? In this post, I’ll explore what I would do if I was *funding* open social web platforms. This is not designed to be universal advice. It’s what *I* would do if I was setting out to solve the problem. Others will bring different ideas to the table, and I hope they do. We need all of them. Together, maybe we can spark a bigger conversation about what it would take to make the open social web truly viable. ### My experience My thinking here comes from experience across multiple sides of this problem as a builder, investor, and long-time participant in the ecosystem. When I think about how we can fund the next generation of platforms, I’m drawing on five key experiences that span the full lifecycle, from hacking together early infrastructure to funding mission-driven teams at scale: - I’ve been a part of the open social web for decades. I’m a board member at [A New Social](https://www.anew.social/), a non-profit that aims to create a healthy ecosystem across protocols, have advised [the Social Web Foundation](https://socialwebfoundation.org/) and [FediForum](https://fediforum.org/people/), have built my own platforms, and have owned my own single-user Mastodon instance for years. I know and respect folks working on Mastodon, Bluesky, Ghost, and many others, and think of myself as a friend to all of them. - In 2004, [I co-founded Elgg](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/mar/07/elearning.technology13), an open source social networking platform, in the UK. We [won awards](https://www.infoworld.com/article/2318757/best-of-open-source-software-awards-collaboration.html) and grew a strong open source ecosystem: one version of the platform was translated into 80 languages. I also co-founded a startup to offer consulting and support services for it, which we successfully bootstrapped for years before receiving direct investment. - In 2014, [I co-founded Known](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/known/), a startup that produced an open source social publishing platform, in San Francisco. It was a part of the third cohort at Matter, an accelerator for startups with the potential to change media for good. Our customers included KQED, the public media organization, which [won an award](https://www.kqed.org/pressroom/9726/namle) for its Known-powered site. Outside the startup, the software was used as part of the [indieweb](https://indieweb.org). (It still powers [my site](https://werd.io) today.) We ultimately exited to [Medium](https://medium.com), but the open source platform remains available and in use. - In 2017, I [became the west coast Director of Investments at Matter](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/meet-ben-3293ac936c69), the accelerator that had founded Known. We tweaked the mission to support startups with the potential to create “a more informed, inclusive, and empathetic society”. I was involved in [directly investing in](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/be-part-of-the-solution-69a035759339) 24 startups and supporting a portfolio of 75\. While I was there, I saw thousands of pitches from startups hoping to be funded, and got a strong sense of what makes a team succeed. - I’ve been the first employee at two venture-backed startups that are still alive and growing, and part of the leadership team at others, including a non-profit that raised significant support through individual and institutional giving. Outside of my employment, I’ve given technology, product, and strategy advice to hundreds of startups and organizations. Together, these experiences have shaped how I think about funding infrastructure that actually lasts, and who gets to build it. ### A theory of change How do we fund that early stage in a way that’s sustainable, and aligned with the values of the ecosystem we want to build? That’s the question I’ve been sitting with. Most funders have a *thesis* (if they’re investors) or a *theory of change* (if they’re philanthropists) that informs how they allocate capital. Here’s mine: Social media has failed us. Nowhere is this more visible than in Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, where a platform with 335 million monthly active users is manipulated specifically according to its owner’s point of view. It’s also true on Facebook, where gutting its fact-checking policy and changing its algorithm has led to a degraded experience for many people. As a result, many people have reduced their engagement with incumbent social platforms. And with growing disillusionment around privacy, algorithmic manipulation, and platform control, that trend is unlikely to slow. Notably, a significant subset is already exploring the open social web: a world of alternatives to traditional social media platforms that includes Bluesky and Mastodon, as well as a long tail of platforms that includes Farcaster, Nostr, and more. Each of these platforms is built on an open protocol that prevents them from falling under control by a single entity. Because of their distinct architecture and reliance on open protocols, open social web platforms are more resilient to manipulation for political gain. They are more transparent and auditable, and either don’t have a single point of control or allow for a *credible exit* from a platform owner if they make decisions that are unpalatable to its users. Some of them have even made forays into community governance. From a philanthropic standpoint, these platforms advance public discourse, media pluralism, and digital rights: some of the core pillars of healthy democracies. I believe providing alternatives to hard-right discourse is morally right. But they also represent a significant *commercial* opportunity. They have the potential to disrupt the entire incumbent social media landscape — a market worth over $250 billion. Even today, there is a serviceable available market of around $333 million, and growing quickly. (I’ve estimated these numbers using existing social media user and revenue per user figures.) These platforms are better for democracy, but because the potential market size is enormous while the current one is small but growing fast, they also represent a rare window for significant investment gains. This is already playing out: [Farcaster raised $150M last year](https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/21/farcaster-a-crypto-based-social-network-raised-150m-with-just-80k-daily-users/), while [Bluesky has raised $36M](https://www.clay.com/dossier/bluesky-funding) and is growing rapidly. I believe that [teams who are focused on solving meaningful problems for real people rather than serving a rigid ideology](https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/28/what-makes-a-startup-successful-blackbox-report-aims-to-map-the-startup-genome/), and who encompass technology, business, and design skills, are more likely to create platforms that find enough users who love them to become sustainable. These are teams with the willingness to pivot their platforms, sometimes multiple times, in order to make sure they’re building something people want. I want to back teams with this mindset and mix of skills who are building open social web platforms with the potential to unseat today’s incumbents. Funding is infrastructure. Without it, the ecosystem crumbles. I see this as a rare moment to shape the foundations of a better internet, before the next wave of social infrastructure calcifies. But for people who are primarily motivated by returns, there’s also a solid reason to participate. So what’s the best way to fund them? ### Some common ways projects are funded There are a few different funding vehicles available to me if I want to support the open social web. Let’s take some time to go through them in turn. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Each funding model brings different trade-offs, and different possibilities for the kinds of builders, communities, and outcomes it can support. Here’s how I think about the options. (If you’re familiar with funding models, you might want to skip this section. It’s up to you.) #### Grants *‌What it is:* Grants are money given by an organization for a specific purpose, which don’t need to be paid back and aren’t given in exchange for equity in a business. They’re made to further the grant-maker’s goals. If the grant-maker is a non-profit foundation, that might be a social mission; if it’s a software platform, it might be to encourage developers to adopt its APIs. On the open social web, these might come from a few different sources. It might be a foundation that sees the impact current platforms have on the democratic process and wants to promote more democratic platforms. It might be a government that wants to promote alternatives to US-centric software hegemony. (See [the United Nations open source principles](https://unite.un.org/fr/news/france-becomes-first-government-endorse-un-open-source-principles-joined-19-organizations), [calls for the EU to promote technological autonomy](https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2024/12/europes-wake-up-call-for-tech-leadership?lang=en), or initiatives like [the Docs project](https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/login/).) Or it might be an already-funded vendor that wants more developers to use its protocol. *‌When it works well:* Grants work best when a project’s goals align clearly with the funder’s mission, and when the builders are able to focus on delivering outcomes without the pressure of immediate monetization. They’re particularly valuable for early-stage infrastructure work, protocol development, accessibility improvements, and research-backed exploration that may not yet have a business model. Grants can help de-risk experimentation and support projects that serve the public good but aren’t obviously profitable. In many cases, grants have been the difference between an idea staying in someone’s head and a working prototype seeing daylight. *Risks and trade-offs:* Grants come with strings (even if they’re not financial ones). Applying for them can take significant time and labor, and reporting requirements can be burdensome, especially for small teams. Funding cycles can be unpredictable, and priorities may shift with leadership changes or political winds. (At Matter, I discovered that an organization that was friendly under one leader became unresponsive after they handed the baton to someone else.) Most importantly, grants rarely support the long-term maintenance of a platform. They’re great for getting something off the ground, but without a follow-on revenue model or sustained support, grant-funded projects risk becoming abandoned or fragile. *Examples in the open social web:* Many open social web platforms have been funded by [the NLNet Foundation](https://nlnet.nl/), which supports organizations and people “who contribute to an open internet for all.” This includes multiple ActivityPub projects including Mastodon itself. The latter has also received grant funding from the European Commission, among others. #### Donations *‌What it is:* Donations are flexible gifts from individuals or organizations to support a cause. In contrast to grants, they aren’t necessarily associated with a specific project, and come with fewer strings. They’re most often given in smaller amounts (sometimes on a recurring basis) to non-profits, so that the donation can be written off of the giver’s taxes. *‌When it works well:* Donations work best when a project has a clear mission that resonates with a broad audience, and when it can inspire sustained goodwill and trust. This is especially true when the project is visibly active, communicative with its supporters, and aligned with nonprofit values. Recurring donation models, whether directly via a dedicated fundraising platform, via check or transfer, or on platforms like Patreon, OpenCollective, or GitHub Sponsors, can provide a lightweight income stream to help cover operational costs or ongoing maintenance. Donations can also be powerful in moments of visibility (like a major release, news event, or crisis) that mobilize supporter enthusiasm. *Risks and trade-offs:* Donation income can be inconsistent and hard to predict, especially if it's reliant on public attention cycles or goodwill from a niche audience. It can also subtly shape a project’s public narrative, nudging teams toward emotional or symbolic gestures rather than behind-the-scenes infrastructure work that’s harder to explain to donors. Unless the organization is a 501(c)(3) or similar nonprofit, larger donations may be limited by the donor’s ability to write them off. Typically, organizations that accept donations receive the majority from large foundations and very wealthy individuals, with a minority coming from regular people. It’s very hard to raise enough money to support an organization from small donations alone, and if you look closer at successful projects that appear to be grassroots-funded, you’ll often find that they’re surprisingly top-heavy. Independence means increasing the dependence on smaller donors, but it’s a steep hill to climb. Finally, running donation campaigns and managing supporters’ expectations takes time. For small teams, that can compete with actually building the software. *Examples in the open social web:* Mastodon has long accepted [individual donations via Patreon and other platforms](https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors); Pixelfed follows a similar pattern. #### Crowdfunding *‌What it is:* Crowdfunding collects small donations from a large number of people in order to raise money for a specific project. Whereas regular donations might be recurring on an ongoing basis, crowdfunding contributions are one-offs. Typically, each person who donates receives something in return for their donation: the product itself at higher levels, or even direct access to the team, and cheaper gifts like stickers and T-shirts at lower levels. *‌When it works well:* Crowdfunding works best when you have a clear, concrete offering, a deadline, and a story people can rally behind. It’s particularly effective for launching new products, features, or major upgrades, especially when there’s already an audience or community eager to support the work. Campaigns that feel urgent, personal, and exciting tend to perform better, especially when the creators are transparent and communicative. *Risks and trade-offs:* Even if a campaign succeeds, crowdfunding can create a false sense of sustainability. A single successful campaign might cover an initial build, but it doesn’t provide a long-term revenue stream, unless it’s tied to a larger strategy. The overhead is also larger than you might expect: running a campaign well involves marketing, community management, and often customer support. (Many campaigns hire an outside marketing agency, which can eat 20% or more of the final budget.) And if expectations aren’t met, the backlash can be swift and public. As with startups themselves, teams with design polish, storytelling chops, and access to online networks are more likely to succeed, perpetuating the same inequalities we’ve seen elsewhere. These are traits that don’t always correlate with technical merit or long-term resilience. As a result, important but unglamorous infrastructure projects may struggle to compete with flashier ideas. Finally, here’s an open secret: successful crowdfunding campaigns often have a significant percentage of their funding committed ahead of time. That way the campaign looks like it’s more organically successful than it actually was, which in turn attracts more contributors. The trick is that this only works for people who have the networks to find those initial committed participants to begin with, ensuring that people with established wealth and connections are more likely to succeed here too. *Examples in the open social web:* [Micro.blog](https://Micro.blog) was originally funded [with a crowdfunding campaign](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manton/indie-microblogging-owning-your-short-form-writing). It helps to have an existing following: [Micro.blog](https://Micro.blog) succeeded in part because it already had an audience invested in [Manton Reece’s](https://manton.org/) blog and podcast work, as well as because it offered a clear product vision people could imagine using. #### Venture investment *‌What it is:* Venture capital invests in businesses with the potential to be high-growth. Investors write checks to a portfolio of startup businesses in exchange for either equity (typically for more established businesses) or the *promise* of equity (for earlier-stage businesses that don’t have an established valuation yet). A venture capital investment pays off in two main ways, which are colloquially known as an “exit”: - If the startup grows to the point of making an Initial Public Offering, allowing shares in the company to be traded on a public stock market. - If the startup is bought by another company. VC investors can also make money by selling their holdings to other investors, for example if the startup raises another round of funding and a later-stage investor is willing to buy stock from an earlier-stage investor. There are a few different kinds of venture investors that we should pay attention to in the context of funding the open social web: - Venture capital funds raise money from “limited partner” sources like endowments, pension funds, and family offices and invest based on a hypothesis. They tend to charge a 2% management fee on the total funds under management, and once the limited partners have made their money back, the fund managers tend to receive 20% of any further profits. - Corporate VCs invest according to the interests of a corporate parent. For example, Google Ventures invests in startups that might strategically benefit Google; Salesforce Ventures invests in startups that might strategically benefit Salesforce. - Angel investors are, essentially, rich people who invest on behalf of themselves. They tend to invest using a venture model and expect to receive a return in the same way. But because they don’t have any commitments to limited partners or corporate parents, they can invest more or less any way they want. If they particularly want a startup to exist, or if one of their friends becomes the founder of a startup, they might cut it a check even if they’re not sure it will work out. *‌When it works well:* Venture capital works best when a startup has the potential to scale rapidly, reach millions of users, and produce outsized financial returns. It’s especially well-suited for commercial products that address huge markets and have strong network effects (where each new user increases the value for every other user). For open social web platforms that are aiming to replace incumbent social networks, this kind of growth trajectory can align with VC expectations, if there’s a plausible business model. It can also work when the investor deeply believes in the mission and is willing to be patient with the return timeline. Angel investors or mission-aligned VCs (such as purpose-driven funds) can be effective early partners if they share the founder’s values. VC funding is most helpful when it allows a team to scale quickly to meet demand or secure talent, or when time-to-market is critical. *Risks and trade-offs:* Venture capital comes with heavy expectations: usually of a 10x return on investment within 7–10 years. This puts pressure on founders to prioritize rapid growth, which can lead to compromises on user safety, governance, or long-term sustainability. For social platforms, it can incentivize engagement-hacking and ad-driven models that run counter to community well-being. It can also distort governance. Venture-backed platforms are typically structured as Delaware C-Corporations; many investors will refuse to make an investment if they aren’t. This corporate structure comes with a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value. That makes it hard to implement democratic ownership, cooperative governance, or exit-to-community models, unless those are baked in early on a legal level (perhaps by incorporating as a Public Benefit Corporation instead of a C-Corp) and supported by investors. It’s rare for this to happen, and the investors would need to be unusually progressive to accept it. Once you’ve taken VC investment, you’ve effectively committed to a path: a high-growth company with an eventual exit. That’s not necessarily bad, but it limits flexibility. Many founders who take early-stage VC find themselves building something quite different from what they set out to do. Because you’re moving at speed, and likely burning a lot of money in the process, a lot depends on being able to raise follow-on funding; even if a VC investor is willing to give an open social web platform a check at an early-stage level, it’s not a given that another VC investor will be willing to give them a follow-on check later on. If that happens to your startup, you might be stuck. That’s if you can take VC investment at all. Many firms prefer “warm introductions”, which means that they prefer to be introduced to founders by people they already know and trust. At its worst, that means that people from communities with stronger connections to funding — typically wealthy people from a narrow set of demographics — are much more likely to be funded. For example, [black women founders received just 0.34% of VC funding in 2022](https://www.forbes.com/sites/asiaalexander/2024/06/24/black-founders-still-struggle-for-their-share-of-venture-capital-funding/). Some firms also look for “founder pedigree” — assessing whether the founders went to universities like Stanford or have existing capital behind them — that further compound these inequalities. Not all VCs are created equally, however. There certainly are mission-driven and mission-aligned VCs who operate in a way that’s more values-aligned with the open social web. Some, like [Homebrew](https://homebrew.co/blog/2022/02/28/homebrew-forever-same-mission-our-capital), even self-invest into their own funds, giving them far more flexibility in how they support startups. It would be a mistake to treat every firm in the space as being the same. *Examples in the open social web:* I mentioned the main examples earlier on: Bluesky raised at least $36M, including early funding from Twitter and later-stage investment from Benchmark Capital and others. Farcaster raised $150M from a16z and others in 2024, with a stated focus on building a decentralized protocol and app ecosystem. #### Revenue-based investment *‌What it is:* Revenue-based investments function similarly to venture capital: investors write checks to early-stage companies. If the company wants to remain independent, it can provide a fixed portion (10% or so) of monthly revenues to investors in order to pay off their investments. Usually payoffs are set to 2-5X the original investment for early-stage startups, but I’ve seen as high as 15X. It’s non-dilutive by default, but if the startup chooses to raise traditional VC funding, the revenue-based investment converts to equity. Indie VC was an early pioneer of this kind of investing. The Calm Company Fund was another. The former shut down its original model because [its limited partners were unhappy with the arrangement](https://www.axios.com/2021/03/03/indievc-venture-capital-investment-shut-down); the latter because [they found they didn’t have enough money to operate well under the model](https://calmfund.com/writing/pause). (Indie VC [is back with a more traditional VC model](https://bryce.medium.com/the-indie-era-of-startups-c92704a75ed2).) *‌When it works well:* Revenue-based investment works well when a startup has a clear path to steady revenue, especially from subscription or recurring business models, but doesn’t necessarily want to pursue the high growth strategies required by traditional venture capital. It’s ideal for founders who want to stay independent, build profitably, and maintain control, and for investors who are comfortable trading equity upside for cash returns over time. It can also be a fit for mission-aligned platforms that aim to serve a specific community sustainably, rather than chase growth. *Risks and trade-offs:* This model assumes the startup will generate consistent revenue early enough to start repayments, which may not be realistic for infrastructure-heavy or slow-to-monetize platforms. The obligation to repay a multiple of the original investment can also create stress on cashflow if margins are thin or revenue is volatile. And while it's non-dilutive upfront, the conversion clause means equity is still in play if the company raises a future VC round, so it’s not always as clean as it looks. Depending on how the terms are structured, founders may end up giving away more equity than they would have in a traditional VC seed round. It’s also notable that investors have had trouble maintaining this model. (It’s not lost on me that both Indie VC and Calm Company Fund ran into choppy waters.) Limited partners have been trained to accept the VC model, so success for a fund depends on finding upstream investors who are comfortable with slower growth and less outsized returns. Theoretically these funds are less risky — more of their investments should lead to a return — but it’s not clear that this is actually the case. *Examples in the open social web:* No major open social web platforms have publicly disclosed using revenue-based financing so far. I think the model could be a strong fit for these kinds of services; a major piece of my arguments for both Bluesky and Mastodon were revenue-based. But so far, most open social web projects haven’t been charging money for services; there’s a cultural resistance to money, which I discussed at the top of the piece, but many projects have preferred to set themselves up as non-profits and take donations. #### Bootstrapping *‌What it is:* When you bootstrap, you don’t take investment at all, except perhaps from your savings. You then attempt to make the business grow using its own revenue, re-investing profits smartly. *‌When it works well:* Out of necessity, bootstrapping reduces the length of the feedback loop between you and your customers to almost nothing. You need them to pay you to keep the lights on (and for you to pay rent and buy food), so you’re forced to be attentive to their needs. It can be fraught (I’ve done it!) but when it works, you end up with a valuable business that you own outright, and can therefore run entirely on your own terms. Companies that have bootstrapped include [Mailchimp until its acquisition by Intuit](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/13/mailchimps-ben-chestnut-on-bootstrapping-a-startup-to-700m-in-revenue/), and GitHub [for its first four years](https://venturebeat.com/business/github-funding-say-what/). It also helps if you’re wealthy enough to feel comfortable spending your savings on a startup to begin with. Most people are not lucky enough to be in that position. *Risks and trade-offs:* Bootstrapping is financially conservative, but emotionally intense. You carry all the risk, and early mistakes can cost you months — or *everything*. Without funding, you may struggle to hire help, pay yourself, or scale infrastructure. And while you own 100% of the business, you also carry 100% of the stress. *Examples in the open social web:* [Write.as](https://write.as), and its parent company [Musing Studio](https://musing.studio/), are bootstrapped. ### Structuring my fund So if I were putting real money behind my theory of change, what would that look like in practice? What if we could design a fund that was specifically for the open social web? In this thought experiment, I’m founding an organization called *Pro-Social* to fund the open social web. The name Pro-Social is overtly about helping — but, of course, it also clearly name-checks social media. This is a thought experiment — but it’s one I believe someone should do. Let’s return to my theory of change and break it down a little: - Founders who are focused on solving problems for real people - Who build representative teams and possess a mix of technical, business, and design skills - Who are building open social web platforms with the potential to disrupt incumbent platforms - That are sustainable and community-aligned - Have the potential to strengthen democracy - And build generational organizations - That provide a real alternative to the status quo - Regardless of whether they have wealth or existing startup connections. Its aim isn’t just to foster the open social web: it’s to support human-centered product thinking, and to help create consumer-grade platforms that real people want to use. In turn, I believe that will attract more people to the ecosystem, benefiting everybody involved and increasing its real-world impact. When you’re doing something good, you owe it to the people you’re helping to be able to *keep* doing it. Not only do I want the projects I fund to be sustainable, but I want my *own* funding model to be sustainable. In other words, not only do I want to invest in a batch of open social web projects, but I want to be able to do it again, and again, in perpetuity. I’ve broken down the various funding options, as well as my principles and experience. While this is informed by all of my experiences, I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Matter Ventures, whose influence is strong here. Some of these ideas are directly inspired by practices at Matter; some others are things I wished we could have put into place. It’s not the *only* funding that I think should exist. Organizations like [NLNet](https://nlnet.nl/) and [Sovereign Tech Agency](https://www.sovereign.tech/) are doing great work. And I strongly believe that the EU and other governments should be funding the open social web. My intent is to describe something that sits alongside these efforts. Here’s how I think it would work. #### A dual structure Having seen the strengths and limits of each model up close — and knowing the kind of ecosystem we actually need — I don’t think we can rely on just one. So here’s what I’d do instead. Pro-Social is built on the belief that different types of projects require different types of funding. Nonprofit tools that strengthen the ecosystem shouldn’t be forced into a for-profit path, and promising commercial products shouldn’t have to apply for grants. That’s why Pro-Social has two complementary arms: - The Pro-Social Foundation funds non-profit projects through directed grants. - Pro-Social Ventures makes values-aligned investments into for-profit startups. Each tackles a different part of the ecosystem and ensures we’re not forcing every project into the same mold. We’ll talk more about deal structure further down. For now, let’s start, as all funders should, with the founders. #### To select founders, we must first select ourselves Both the Pro-Social Foundation and Pro-Social Ventures support diverse teams with a mix of skills and a human-centered mindset, as we’ve previously discussed. In order to achieve a more equitable, representative portfolio, the organization must bake equity and inclusion into its DNA. That means a representative team, inclusive selection criteria, and shared decision-making on investment committees, as well as the following core concepts: **An open application process.** Not only is there no need for warm introductions, but they are explicitly disallowed. Every project that applies for funding has to go through the same process from the beginning, starting with filling in a web form. **A clear rubric for evaluation.** Regardless of the funding type, projects are evaluated using the same rubric and peer-reviewed, and the answers are made available to all staff with decision-making ability. **Fund the founders, not the project.** I believe that long-term success is tied more to founder mindset than to initial product ideas. A project might seem unpromising, but if its founder is smart, willing to test their assumptions, and pivot based on what they find, it should still be considered for funding. In contrast, if a project initially seems promising but the founder is unwilling to waver from their vision even in the face of evidence that it doesn’t work, that should be a mark against them. **Grow a community of founders.** Every founder who is funded by Pro-Social joins a community that grows over time. The network effects of this are important: each new founder can draw on the expertise of the existing ones, so the power of the community to effect change becomes greater over time. Not only must funding recipients be great founders, but they also need to be great community participants, with strong personal integrity. There should be a strict “no asshole” rule that particularly guards for the safety of diverse founders, and a collaborative mindset is vital. **Provide free help ahead of time.** Pro-Social should design and make available a free, asynchronous course akin to Y Combinator’s [Startup School](https://www.startupschool.org/). This would help project founders hone their human-centered thinking, evaluate their core assumptions, and ensure they’re aligned with making their project successful instead of just writing code. Unlike most founder courses, it would also contain lessons about the open social web itself, including its underlying protocols and existing models. At the end of the course there would be an easy on-ramp to applying for funding if founders are ready to take the next step. Even if founders don’t want funding from Pro-Social, hopefully the course would help *all* open social web founders. Here’s what each arm would do, starting with the foundation. #### The Pro-Social Foundation The Pro-Social Foundation offers structured grants at three levels: 1. **Flash grants for user research.** A small ($5,000) grant that helps a project team validate the core assumptions underlying their product vision, with the express intent of testing whether it is building something that real people will use. Recipients are expected to follow a set process to conduct user research, validate their assumptions, and present a modified version of their product vision that takes these findings into account. These grants are specifically not intended for implementation; they’re just for testing whether the work is worth building at all. Founders who have demonstrated that they follow this process — whether supported by a grant or not — are more likely to receive funding from Pro-Social. 2. **Project grants.** A larger ($50-100K) grant for non-profit projects that have demonstrated they will build something that is *desirable* for real users, *viable* financially, and *feasible* to build using the time, team, and resources potentially at its disposal. This grant can be used to write code, but is also expected to be used to establish the organization to support it. 3. **Ecosystem grants.** A larger-still ($100-250K) grant for non-profit projects that have established themselves and have both real-world users and a working strategy for sustainability. The Foundation does not fund protocol-level work unless it directly connects to an end-user experience. That’s not because protocol work isn’t important, but there are other organizations in the ecosystem who will already help fund it. I see the biggest gap as being human-centered end-user products that are anchored directly in user needs, so that’s what I would want to fund. Because sustainability of the fund is a core value, it’s important to consider where the money would come from. The Pro-Social Foundation would be funded in two ways: through donations from foundations and individuals who care about the ecosystem, and from profits from Pro-Social Ventures, the for-profit arm. Which brings us to the other half of the equation. #### Pro-Social Ventures Pro-Social Ventures makes investments into for-profit open social web startups using a hybrid between VC and revenue-based financing: a revenue share with an equity conversion. It aims to conform to the principles set out by [the Zebra movement](https://www.zebrasunite.org/): profitable but values-driven companies that prioritize cooperation over competition, community over monopoly, and long-term resilience over short-term growth. Of course, each company must be a participant in, and supporter of, the open social web. Here’s how it works: **Pre-seed:** These startups are going from idea to execution. The team almost certainly just consists of the founders. These are the teams Pro-Social spends most of its time supporting. For these founders, Pro-Social Ventures writes $100,000 checks. After the startup has made its first $200,000 in revenue, this is paid back through a 10% gross revenue share with a 3X cap. It can also convert to equity at 7% of the company with a $4 million valuation cap if the founders raise a traditional VC round instead (in other words, it will automatically convert if a priced round is raised). (A quick terminology primer: a *valuation cap* sets the maximum company valuation at which an investor's money converts to equity.) If the startup is promising, has validated its assumptions, and is not just gaining real users but is beginning to get traction on a business model, it can ask for a follow-on check from Pro-Social. For these startups, Pro-Social Ventures will write a $150,000 follow-on check, which again is paid back through a 10% gross revenue share, this time with a 2X cap and no delay on repayment. It will convert to equity at 4% with a $6 million valuation cap if the founders subsequently choose to raise a traditional VC round. **Seed:** These startups have traction, likely have a larger team, and have shown that their product and business model works. They’re growing but need more support. Because Pro-Social Ventures focuses on helping founders move from idea to execution on user-friendly open social web products, it will only cut this deal if there is also a clear gain for the open social web ecosystem. If the startup hasn’t raised an equity round, Pro-Social will cut a check for $400,000, paid back immediately through a 10% gross revenue share with a 3X cap. This check can convert to equity at 5%, at around a $10 million valuation cap. If the startup *has* raised an equity round, or if such a round is currently being raised, Pro-Social Ventures will do a standard equity investment at the same terms as other investors. These checks vary between $250-400K. **Exit to community:** [Exit to community](https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community) is a way for ventures to transition into ownership by its community of stakeholders instead of an acquirer or an IPO. This is such an obviously values-aligned idea for the open social web. How this works specifically varies from company to company, but it often looks something like transitioning to becoming a worker-owned cooperative, a community trust, or a [decentralized autonomous organization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized%5Fautonomous%5Forganization). [The Exit to Community site](https://e2c.how/) is a great starting point. Exiting to community needs to be the founders’ choice, but it’s heavily encouraged and institutionally supported. It aligns long-term platform governance with the communities it serves, and reduces the risk of extractive exit outcomes. For ventures that choose to exit to community, Pro-Social Ventures will reduce its stake at the time of the exit. The original repayment cap is reduced by 40% (pro rata, or reducing to 0 if repayments have already exceeded the new threshold); the conversion percentage is reduced by 25%. For example, a 7% conversion would become 5.25%. Pro-Social will also explicitly not influence governance structure in the new entity. It will also actively facilitate introductions to experts in the process — and those same experts will confirm if a venture’s actions qualify as an exit to community. **Terms:** Pro-Social Ventures never takes a board seat, but is always available for help and support if founders want it. It doesn’t demand special preferences or control rights. The deal is structured like [a SAFE note](https://www.angellist.com/learn/safe-note): there’s no maturity date, no rate of interest, and there’s always both a valuation cap and a cap on revenue share repayments. (I’ve omitted valuation caps from the descriptions above, but they should be present.) If the startup is acquired and there hasn’t been a priced round, but there are proceeds for investors, Pro-Social will receive the greater of (a) 1X its original investment or (b) the amount it would have received had it converted to equity at the agreed percentage. Of course, if the venture fails and is closed, the investment is annulled and founders are still prized members of the community. The effort was worthwhile, and the hope is that everyone can learn from it. Overall, revenue-based investment is a choice that hopes to overcome a potential lack of traditional venture investors who are willing to put money into open social web platforms. Over time, as more of these platforms become sustainable and valuable, I assume that more traditional investors will be willing to put money in, but in the shorter term, it’s important to get these projects to a self-sustaining state as quickly as possible. I believe that selecting for human-centered, cross-functional teams will overcome some of the problems revenue-based investment has experienced in the past. #### A supportive structure So that’s how projects are *funded*. But support doesn’t just mean putting money in. Pro-Social provides a light program for founding teams. It’s not an accelerator, but it builds on some of the things accelerators do well without requiring founders to participate in a curriculum. **Check-ins:** For the first six months after funding, the Pro-Social team checks in with the founding team every two weeks. This can just be a half hour call, but the team is available to help them with any challenges they might have. Feedback and advice are given, but nobody is required to follow it. After six months, this can drop to whatever cadence the founders prefer. **Introductions and other support:** Like all funds and investment firms, the team works hard to provide useful introductions. Resources are also made available to assist with marketing, sales, design, and partnerships with other organizations. **Summits:** Every six months, there’s an in-person summit over three days. The first day is just for founders who have been funded since the last one, and includes an introductory workshop on human-centered design. The following two days contain talks from outside speakers, workshops, and demos, and all funded founders are welcome. Dinners are held throughout. The idea is to ground everybody in the same fundamental ideas and make sure strong relationships can be built between all founders in the community. **Conference:** Every year, Pro-Social puts on an in-person public conference about the open social web, which is open to all but free for all of its founders. This contains speakers and talks about the open social web; an [open space unconference](https://www.jcrete.org/what-is-an-unconference%5F/) for everyone in the community to discuss issues that matter to them; and a showcase of Pro-Social-funded projects. #### How the foundation and venture arm are supported and support each other Revenue shares are received earlier in a startup’s life than a payout from an exit event would be. Some of these proceeds go into keeping the lights on at the fund; some are re-invested into the fund; some are donated to the foundation. The project-validating flash grants are designed to keep the venture fund aligned with the foundation. It’s far cheaper to test a venture’s assumptions quickly using this process than to write a full investment check and find out later that the venture doesn’t work, or that the founders don’t want to deviate from their idea even in the face of obvious evidence that real people won’t use it. In turn, some of the profits from for-profit ventures that have been the recipient of a flash grant are donated to allow the foundation to make grants to non-profit projects. Initial funding for Pro-Social might come from: - Established companies that will gain if the open social web grows - Foundations that believe in the open social web’s potential to support democracy (or conversely, the potential of the existing social media ecosystem to *erode* democracy) - Wealthy individuals with an interest in the open social web for social, financial, or technical reasons, or some combination thereof Learning from the failure of revenue-based investment funds in the past, and because of the need to remain aligned with the principles of the open social web, I don’t think it’s wise to raise from traditional limited partners. #### What success looks like Traditional venture firms measure their success using metrics like the total value of their investments vs the amount they put in, and the percentage return the firm receives from an average investment year on year. They also inevitably measure the management fees they receive compared to how expensive it is to run the firm. These are also appropriate for Pro-Social. But success looks like more than that; this is a mission-driven fund that aims to promote a vibrant open social web. We also need to measure the following. Each metric should be measured in terms of *projects funded by Pro-Social* as well as *in the open social web ecosystem overall*, because Pro-Social’s success should be determined in part by the overall success of the space. The aim is for each of them to grow a significant percentage (to be determined after an initial baseline analysis) each year. - **Sustainability of projects.** Are platforms still operating and growing after 2, 3, or 5 years? Have they found viable models that align with their values? What’s the average lifetime? - **Number of platforms exited to community.** How many open social web platforms have exited to be under the control of their users? - **Diversity of open social web founders.** What percentage of founders in the space self-report as being from traditionally underrepresented groups? - **Cross-collaboration between founding teams.** How many projects are directly sharing findings, outcomes, and code with each other? Ultimately, if: 1. The open social web is thriving, with platforms that last, communities that flourish, and founders who reflect the breadth of human experience 2. Pro-Social can continue to fund projects at a constant or growing rate, while supporting its own team Pro-Social will consider itself to be succeeding. ### So now what? Pro-Social is a hypothetical fund. But it doesn’t have to be. Funding the open social web doesn’t have to start big. A handful of values-aligned funders, a couple of thoughtful pilot investments, and a real commitment to founder support could begin to model an ecosystem that works differently. I’ve laid out a comprehensive blueprint, which would absolutely take a larger organization to implement in full. But it can also be a menu. Funders can pick and choose the pieces that align with their goals and resources. The most important thing is to recognize that growing the open social web requires capital — and that doesn’t need to be in conflict with its values. The ideas I’ve proposed might not be completely right, and there are plenty of hard, unresolved questions to answer. There needs to be discussion, further exploration and testing, and lots and lots of trial and error. We won’t get it right the first time, but the only way forward is to start. We don’t need to solve everything overnight. We just need to begin. Here are some ways we might: **For funders:** Try out one of the structures I’ve outlined — for example, a revenue-share investment — with a small open social project. Learn by doing. **For builders:** Start a project aligned with these principles. What does it look like to found an explicitly human-centered open social web platform with a cross-functional team that elevates design and business to the same importance as technology? **For me:** I mentioned a free course to help people grapple with human-centered principles when starting an open social web platform. I also implied a worksheet that helps people test their assumptions with respect to their existing projects. These are things that don’t require much capital to produce; I can build them. **For all of us:** Let’s start a conversation about these principles. I’d love to bring together mission-aligned funders, builders, and technologists to explore a real-world implementation of this model. Those are my ideas: what are yours? How might we begin? However we start, the exploration is worth it. The goal is to build a better internet: one where our platforms nurture communities instead of strip value from them, where we all enjoy privacy and safety, where diverse and vulnerable voices can find a home, and where nobody is locked into software produced by any particular vendor. The open social web has enormous potential to reshape online discourse, but it can’t thrive without sustainable, values-aligned funding. In this post, I’ve proposed a dual-structure fund called *Pro-Social*, combining grants for nonprofits with flexible investment for startups, and designed to support diverse, human-centered founders. It’s a thought experiment for now, but one I believe someone should build. If we want a better web, we can’t wait for someone else to build it. We have to fund it — and build the institutions to make that possible. ### Bluesky Is Plotting a Total Takeover of the Social Internet URL: https://werd.io/bluesky-is-plotting-a-total-takeover-of-the-social-internet/ Last updated: 2025-05-19T20:28:31.000Z \[[Kate Knibbs at WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-jay-graber-bluesky/)\] This is an insightful interview with Bluesky CEO [Jay Graber](https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team). The headline here overreaches quite a bit, and needlessly describes what Bluesky is doing in monopolistic terms; I left excited about what's next for the open social web, which I've believed for some time is the most exciting thing happening on the internet. A pluralistic social web based on open protocols rather than monopolistic ownership is obviously beneficial for democracy and user experience. There are serious benefits for developers, too: > "There was recently the Atmosphere Conference, and we met a lot of folks there building apps we didn’t know about. There are private messengers, new moderation tools. The benefit to developers of an open ecosystem is that you don’t have to start from zero each time. You have 34.6 million users to tap into." And that number, by the way, is growing incredibly quickly. Make no mistake: across protocols and platforms, this mindset is the way all future social applications, and one day all web applications, will be written and distributed. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-jay-graber-bluesky/)\] ### Congress moves to cut off states' AI regulations URL: https://werd.io/congress-moves-to-cut-off-states-ai-regulations/ Last updated: 2025-05-17T15:10:58.000Z \[[Khari Johnson in The Markup](https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2025/05/16/congress-moves-to-cut-off-states-ai-regulations)\] The Republican legislature is working on ensuring that AI is unencumbered by regulations or protections: > "The moratorium, bundled in to a sweeping budget reconciliation bill this week, also threatens 30 bills the California Legislature is currently considering to regulate artificial intelligence, including one that would require reporting when an insurance company uses AI to deny health care and another that would require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used to decide on jobs, health care, or housing." There are lots of reasons why this is very bad - not least because AI is so prone to hallucinations and bias. It is sometimes used as a black box to justify intentionally discriminatory decision-making or to prevent more progressive processes from being enacted. It also undermines basic privacy rights enjoyed by residents in more forward-thinking states like California: > "The California Privacy Protection Agency sent a letter to Congress Monday that says the moratorium “could rob millions of Americans of rights they already enjoy” and threatens critical privacy protections approved by California voters in 2020, such as the right to opt out of business use of automated decisionmaking technology and transparency about how their personal information is used." Of course, a bill being pushed forward in the House is not the same thing as it becoming law. But this is one to watch, and something that belies the close relationship between the current administration and AI vendors. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2025/05/16/congress-moves-to-cut-off-states-ai-regulations)\] ### How to get good fried rice URL: https://werd.io/how-to-get-good-fried-rice/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T01:49:28.000Z \[[Mike Monteiro](https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-get-good-fried-rice/)\] Such a great piece about language, discrimination, and how we can avoid limiting our own thoughts. It's all delivered through the lens of the MSG scare in the 1970s, which turns out to have been pretty racist: > "Monosodium Glutamate is a flavor enhancer. Like salt, but it’s actually lower in sodium. It’s been around forever. It occurs naturally in tomatoes and some cheeses. And yes, it’s used in a lot of Chinese cooking. But it’s far from exclusive to Chinese cooking. > > \[...\] while very racist Americans felt safe using more direct racist language in certain circumstances, sometimes it became useful to wrap it in a veneer of an inconsequentially stupid opinion." And that inconsequential language, those seemingly-benign opinions, burrow into us and take hold forever. So, as Mike argues, will it be for today's rebrand of white supremacist ideas as "DEI hires". The time to put a stop to it is now. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-get-good-fried-rice/)\] ### Great Startups Run on Feedback URL: https://werd.io/great-startups-run-on-feedback/ Last updated: 2025-05-16T13:28:14.000Z \[[Jen Dennard at Startup Soup](https://startupsoup.substack.com/p/great-startups-run-on-feedback)\] A culture of open, direct feedback is important for any organization to foster. Jen Dennard has some great tips here: > "Like most things, the key to getting the value is to make it a habit. Set aside time during 1:1s or make a recurring team meeting (like a monthly retro) to create space for feedback and learnings. Make sure to include critical and positive feedback to help build confidence while driving progress. Ask for feedback on new processes and team goals." I think this last piece is particularly crucial. Feedback is more meaningful - and more useful - when it goes in both directions. Taking feedback at the same time you're giving it means that you're building trust - and getting an early signal on where you might be going wrong as a leader. [#Startups](https://werd.io/tag/Startups) \[[Link](https://startupsoup.substack.com/p/great-startups-run-on-feedback)\] ### The mentor who changed my career (and might help you too) URL: https://werd.io/the-mentor-who-changed-my-career-and-might-help-you/ Last updated: 2025-07-02T14:44:22.000Z Corey Ford just launched his new consultancy, [Point C](https://pointc.co/pointc/), and I couldn’t be more excited. He’s changed my professional life — more than once — through a kind of empathy-driven coaching I’ve never found anywhere else. He didn’t ask me to write this post, but I feel compelled to. As he puts it on [the Point C website](https://pointc.co/pointc/): > Point C is more than just a coaching practice — it’s a strategic advisory focused on helping leaders build extraordinary lives and lead cultures of innovation. That’s not fluff. Innovation starts with building an intentional culture. Much of what I’ve learned about creating and leading human-centered teams has come from Corey. We first crossed when I was working as the first employee at [Latakoo](https://latakoo.com). Corey was just launching an accelerator for early-stage media companies called Matter, and we were building a compression-enabled video sharing platform for journalists that ended up powering HD video news-gathering for the likes of NBC News. That collaboration wasn’t meant to be, but I ended up bringing my second co-founded startup, [Known](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/known/), to Matter. There, I learned a new-to-me approach to venture design thinking that has informed the way I’ve worked ever since. It changed my career. I came back and worked at Matter for a few years as its west coast Director of Investments. We built [cohorts of startups with the potential to create a more informed, inclusive, and empathetic society](https://medium.com/matter-driven-narrative/meet-matter-seven-d07f02683108), and helped international media partners like the Associated Press, McClatchy, KQED, the New York Times, PRX, Tamedia, CNHI, A.H. Belo, and Tribune Publishing contend with their biggest innovation challenges. Through all of it, Corey’s been a coach and mentor — including now. (I’ve been one of Point C’s first clients.) He calls me on my bullshit, helps me steer clear of magical thinking, and pushes me forward every time. I genuinely wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today without him. As he says: > As a strategic advisor, executive coach, and occasional secret weapon, I help founders, CEOs, and executives clarify their visions, lead cultures of innovation, and navigate their next leadership chapters. This is correct. Can confirm. If you're a founder, exec, or changemaker figuring out what to do next, Corey’s your guy. [His newsletter is free](https://pointc.co/theideabucket/), and he promises to share useful techniques there. You should definitely go sign up. But if this kind of transformation is something you urgently need, I highly recommend that you [go grab that first free consultation with him](https://pointc.co/connect/). ### Microsoft shuts off Bing Search APIs and recommends switching to AI URL: https://werd.io/microsoft-shuts-off-bing-search-apis-and-recommends-switching-to/ Last updated: 2025-05-15T12:22:10.000Z \[[Tom Warren at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/news/667517/microsoft-bing-search-api-end-of-support-ai-replacement)\] File under: beware proprietary APIs. > "Microsoft is shutting off access to its Bing Search results for third-party developers. The software maker quietly announced the change earlier this week, noting that Bing Search APIs will be retired on August 11th and that “any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely, and the product will no longer be available for usage or new customer signup.” > > \[...\] Microsoft is now recommending that developers use “grounding with Bing Search as part of Azure AI Agents” as a replacement, which lets chatbots interact with web data from Bing." There are carveouts - DuckDuckGo will still function - but for most developers who want to use this search engine data, it's game over. While Bing was never a number one search engine, its APIs have been quite widely used. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/news/667517/microsoft-bing-search-api-end-of-support-ai-replacement)\] ### Trump State Dept. Leaned on African Nations to Help Musk’s Starlink URL: https://werd.io/trump-state-dept-leaned-on-african-nations-to-help-musks/ Last updated: 2025-05-15T11:42:00.000Z \[[Joshua Kaplan, Brett Murphy, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-musk-starlink-state-department-gambia-africa-pressure)\] From my colleagues on the newsroom side at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), a story about how the State Department pressured Gambia on behalf of Elon Musk's starlink: > "Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet company, had spent months trying to secure regulatory approval to sell internet access in the impoverished West African country. As head of Gambia’s communications ministry, Lamin Jabbi oversees the government’s review of Starlink’s license application. Jabbi had been slow to sign off and the company had grown impatient. Now the top U.S. government official in Gambia was in Jabbi’s office to intervene. > > \[...\] Since Trump’s inauguration, the State Department has intervened on behalf of Starlink in Gambia and at least four other developing nations, previously unreported records and interviews show." Previously, as the article notes, the State Department "has avoided the appearance of conflicts or leaving the impression that punitive measures were on the table." This has not been true in these cases. As a former US ambassador put it, this “could lead to the impression that the U.S. is engaging in a form of crony capitalism.” I'll leave deciding how true this is, and how far it goes across every facet of American government, to the reader. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-musk-starlink-state-department-gambia-africa-pressure)\] ### The World Is Wooing U.S. Researchers Shunned by Trump URL: https://werd.io/the-world-is-wooing-us-researchers-shunned-by-trump/ Last updated: 2025-05-14T13:37:22.000Z \[[Patricia Cohen in The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/business/economy/trump-research-brain-drain.html)\] This was inevitable: > "As President Trump cuts billions of federal dollars from science institutes and universities, restricts what can be studied and pushes out immigrants, rival nations are hoping to pick up talent that has been cast aside or become disenchanted." Salaries are lower in Europe, but quality of life is far higher - and, as a bonus, you can live in a far more permissive society than the one being built at the moment. And for a researcher, the icing on the cake may be that you can continue to do your research, in the secure knowledge that it isn't about to be randomly pulled. The good news for the rest of us is also that: research will continue, hopefully in safer hands than it has been. It's just that it won't continue in the United States. [#Science](https://werd.io/tag/Science) \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/business/economy/trump-research-brain-drain.html)\] ### Landmark Report Finds Major Flaws in the Cass Review URL: https://werd.io/landmark-report-finds-major-flaws-in-the-cass-review/ Last updated: 2025-05-13T22:46:24.000Z \[[Erin In The Morning](https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/landmark-report-finds-major-flaws)\] Unsurprisingly, there are major flaws with the Cass Report - and [an expert report in Springer Nature's BMC Medical Research Methodology](https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12874-025-02581-7) puts a fine point on it. > "The BMC study reviewed seven different facets of the Cass Review, and found that all seven possessed “a high risk of bias due to methodological limitations and a failure to adequately address these limitations.” One major reason for such bias, in addition to the lack of peer review, is that the Cass Review failed to give actual trans people, their families, medical practitioners who specialize in trans care, or arguably anyone with expertise on the subject matter any real authority over the process. > > “These flaws highlight a potential double standard present throughout the review and its subsequent recommendations, where evidence for gender-affirming care is held to a higher standard than the evidence used to support many of the report’s recommendations,” researchers wrote." As Erin puts it, anti-trans extremists are using the *veneer* of science in a determined effort to strip trans people of their rights, without the diligence, scientific method, or dedication to fairness and the truth. This conversation is far from over. Hopefully it will end with stronger rights, healthcare opportunities, and support for trans people. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/landmark-report-finds-major-flaws)\] ### Flipboard Expands Publisher Federation with International Partners URL: https://werd.io/flipboard-expands-publisher-federation-with-international-partners/ Last updated: 2025-05-13T19:50:11.000Z \[[Flipboard Expands Publisher Federation with International Partners](https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/flipboard-expands-publisher-federation-with-international-partners/)\] Flipboard just launched 124 new publishers to the Fediverse - bringing the total number it hosts to 1,241. > "We’re excited to announce that Flipboard is beginning to federate publisher accounts in France, Italy, and Spain, while also expanding federation in Brazil, Germany, and the U.K. — making quality journalism even more accessible across the fediverse. > > People using Mastodon, Threads, and other platforms on the open social web (also known as the fediverse) can now discover and follow stories from an outstanding lineup of publishers in these regions." This is the kind of thing that the permissionless fediverse makes possible. Flipboard didn't need to ask permission of the social platforms to make these changes - it could just do it on their behalf, opening these publishers up to huge new potential audiences on social media. Notably these publications include Der Spiegel, Vanity Fair Italia, and The Evening Standard. It's exciting stuff, and Flipboard is doing a great job bringing publishers online. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/flipboard-expands-publisher-federation-with-international-partners/)\] ### No, Immigration Is Not An “Invasion”—And It Doesn’t Justify Suspending Habeas Corpus URL: https://werd.io/no-immigration-is-not-an-invasionand-it-doesnt-justify-suspending/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T14:39:52.000Z \[[Mark Mansour](https://mmansour.substack.com/p/no-immigration-is-not-an-invasionand)\] Stephen Miller, who the author rightly labels as the most dangerous person in America, has argued for removing a core constitutional right for millions of people on American soil. He wants to classify unauthorized immigration as an "invasion". It's insane, and is the precursor to yet more truly authoritarian policies. As Mark writes: > "Even if one were to accept the administration’s twisted definition of invasion, the Constitution still requires that suspending habeas corpus be necessary for “public safety.” That threshold is nowhere near being met. The idea that the presence of undocumented immigrants—who statistically commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens—poses a national security emergency justifying the indefinite detention of thousands of people without access to courts is not just unsupported by data; it is an affront to the very notion of due process. > > \[...\] The logical next step is militarizing the nation’s entire law enforcement apparatus in his nefarious service. We have to fight back now. Newark was a start. We need many more." Habeas corpus is a legal procedure that allows individuals in custody to challenge the legality of their detention. It's a fundamental right that protects everyone from unlawful detention and unjust legal procedures. To remove it for anyone is an attack on our constitutional rights and American democracy. And, perhaps most crucially, is likely only the beginning. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://mmansour.substack.com/p/no-immigration-is-not-an-invasionand)\] ### Why New Jersey Prisons’ Change from JPay to ViaPath Tablets Is Distressing URL: https://werd.io/why-new-jersey-prisons-change-from-jpay-to-viapath-tablets/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T14:33:40.000Z \[[Shakeil Price at The Marshall Project](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/05/09/new-jersey-prison-jpay-viapath-tablet)\] The technology situation for incarcerated people in the United States is beyond bad: > "Because prison telecom vendors tend to bundle their services, corrections systems often contract with a single provider, regardless of quality. And dozens of states make “commissions” from user fees. Within this context, incarcerated people become the unwilling consumers of a billion-dollar industry. Shakeil Price, one such user at New Jersey State Prison, explores another aspect of package deals: What happens when a state switches providers?" Well, specifically, here's what: > "My little 7-inch JP6 tablet with its meager 32-gigabytes of memory may not mean much to the state, but it holds a decade’s worth of sentimental e-messages, pictures and video messages from my family and friends. By changing vendors, I will lose access to photographs from my son’s high school graduation and videos of my grandchild saying his first word, taking his first step and riding his first bike. These items are priceless to me; a dollar amount can't measure their worth." Not to mention other downloads that the author has paid for, on a $5 a day salary, that are locked to this device and will go away when the vendor changes. It's nothing less than an abusive system - which, of course, just makes it part and parcel of the American justice system as a whole. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/05/09/new-jersey-prison-jpay-viapath-tablet)\] ### AI Is Not Your Friend URL: https://werd.io/ai-is-not-your-friend/ Last updated: 2025-05-09T16:38:11.000Z \[[Mike Caulfield in The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/05/sycophantic-ai/682743/)\] A smart analysis and suggestion about the current state of AI by [Mike Caulfield](https://hapgood.us/about/): > "I would propose a simple rule: no answers from nowhere. This rule is less convenient, and that’s the point. The chatbot should be a conduit for the information of the world, not an arbiter of truth. > > \[...\] I am proposing that rather than act like an opinionated friend, AI would produce a map of the landscape of human knowledge and opinions for you to navigate, one you can use to get somewhere a bit better." The analogy Mike presents is GPS: turn-by-turn navigation gives you the direct answers you need to navigate to your immediate destination, but does nothing to educate you about the geography of the place you're in. As a result, people who use GPS regularly are not as informed about the layout of the places they live in. It's immediately useful but the long-term gains are less clear. An AI agent that gives you more contextual knowledge about your answer is also one that is less likely to mislead you. I think this would be a very positive design change in the space - not just for now, but also for everybody's benefit later on. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/05/sycophantic-ai/682743/)\] ### If I started fresh URL: https://werd.io/if-i-started-fresh/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T21:55:23.000Z [Erin](https://werd.io/2016/stop-writing-specs-start-finding-needs---what-ive-learned) and I stood at the front of the room, our seven-minute pitch slides for Known still projected above us. At the wooden table in front of us, investors and media executives prepared to give us unfiltered feedback about what we’d just presented to them. Beyond them, an audience of entrepreneurs, more investors, and other enthusiasts were raising their hands. “Does your excitement outweigh your hesitations?” [Corey Ford](https://pointc.co) asked the [Matter](https://knightfoundation.org/articles/announcing-matter-three/) audience. A spattering of hands shot up; most of the audience did not raise theirs. At Matter, Design Reviews were a big deal: a structured, safe way to find out what investors and potential customers actually thought about your business. You would pitch; then the audience would vote on a handful of questions; then the panel would weigh in. Corey took a beat before asking his next question, microphone in hand. “Does this venture have the potential to change media for good?” A few more hands shot up this time. “Does this venture have the potential to raise investment? If not, does it have the potential to raise alternative funding?” No hands. The panel eviscerated us. I’d started writing the first version of Known while my mother recovered from her double lung transplant. My mother wanted people to talk to about her experiences, but she didn’t trust the likes of Facebook to host those conversations. I’d built the platform to provide an alternative. I cared about the platform deeply; I cared about the idea of communities that didn’t yield their data to one of a handful of centralized services even more. [Indieweb](https://indieweb.org) and open social web people seemed excited. But I couldn’t tell the story in a way that resonated with people who weren’t a part of those worlds. This was 2014, before [Cambridge Analytica](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election) or [the genocide in Myanmar](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/). The most common question I was asked was, “what’s wrong with Facebook?” A decade later, nobody’s asking that question. We’ve all seen what’s wrong. The centralized social web has failed us; its owners treat their platforms as a way to spread propaganda and further entrench their power, often at the expense of democracy. Mark Zuckerberg likens himself to a Roman emperor even while his policies fail community after community. Under Elon Musk, X has been reinvented as a firehose of toxicity. Users are hungry for alternatives. In my previous posts in this series, I discussed what I would do if [I ran Bluesky](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product) and [Mastodon](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon). But now let’s zoom out: what if I started fresh? There are several ways you could approach building a new open social web platform. You could hope to be remembered for building a great open protocol, as Tim Berners-Lee is, but I believe today’s need is more acute. Few people were asking for the web in 1989; it emerged anyway, changing peoples’ minds, habits, and culture. For its first decade, it was a slow-burning movement. In 2025, great harms are being done to vulnerable communities, and the profits from centralized platforms are used in part to fuel global fascism. Building a great protocol isn’t enough to get us where we need to go. We need to adopt a different mindset: one of true service, where we build an alternative *to serve people’s direct needs today*. I think these principles are important: - Any new product must be laser-focused on solving people’s needs. The technical details — protocols, languages, architecture, approach — are all in service of creating a great solution to real human problems. - The perfect can never be allowed to obstruct the good. Ideological purity is next to impossible. The important thing is to build something that’s better than what we have today, and continue iterating towards greatness. - Everyone who works on such a platform must be able to make a good living doing so. Or to put it another way, nobody should be financially penalized for working on the open social web. - The platform must be sustainable. If you’re making something people rely on, you owe it to them to ensure it can last. In his post [Town squares, backyards, better metaphors, and decentralised networks](https://anders.thoresson.se/post/2025/05/town-squares-backyards-better-metaphors-and-decentralised-networks/), Anders Thoresson points out that social *media* and social *networks* are two different things that have sometimes been conflated. Social media is the proverbial global town square. A social network is the web of relationships between people; these might span apps, the web, and in-person conversations alike. As I wrote in my 2008 piece [The Internet is people](https://benwerd.com/2008/12/04/the-internet-is-people/): > Let’s reclaim a piece of language: a social network is an interconnected system of people, as I’ve suggested above. The websites that foster social networks are simply social networking tools. A social network doesn’t live on the Web, but a website can help its members communicate and share with each other. I believe there’s enormous value to be found in building new platforms to support social networks in particular. The goal shouldn’t be to try and gather everyone in the world around a particular voice or algorithmic spectacle, as X now does with Elon Musk’s account and ideas; it should be to support networks of people and help them connect with each other on their terms. From the same piece: > The idea of a social networking tool is to make that network communicate more efficiently, so anything that the tool does should make it easier for that network to talk to each other and share information. The tool itself shouldn’t attempt to create the network – although that being said, new network connections may arise through a purpose. Most of us have made new contacts on Flickr or Twitter, for example, because we enjoyed someone’s content. Compare and contrast with Meta’s latest strategy [to fill its platforms with AI-generated users](https://www.ft.com/content/91183cbb-50f9-464a-9d2e-96063825bfcf), *literally* creating the network. If I were starting from scratch — grounded in these principles, and committed to serving real human networks — here’s what I’d build. As I hinted at in my [if I ran Mastodon](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon) piece, I believe there is a need for a private-by-default, federated platform designed for groups that already know each other or are actively building trust. Think mutual aid groups, local advocacy orgs, artist collectives, parent groups, cooperatives, or even small media orgs with deeply engaged communities. On this platform, anyone can build a group with its own look and feel, set of features, rules, and norms. As a user, I can join any number of groups with a single account, and read updates on a dashboard where I can easily switch between types of content (long-form vs short-form), modes of engagement (conversations vs published pieces), and categories (topics, timely updates vs evergreen). Because it embraces the open social web, a user can connect to these groups using any compatible profile, and if a user doesn’t like the dashboard that the platform provides, perhaps because they don’t like how it prioritizes or filters content, they can choose another one made by someone else. Over time, groups can be hosted by multiple platform providers — and users will still be able to interact, collaborate, and share content as if they were on the same system. Let’s say I’m part of three very different communities: a neighborhood mutual aid group, a nonprofit newsroom, and a writing collective. On this platform, each has its own space, with its own tone, style, and boundaries. The local mutual aid group uses their space to coordinate grocery drop-offs, ride shares, and emergency needs. Everything is private, and posts are tagged by urgency. There’s a shared resource library and a microblogging space for check-ins. Members can signal availability without having to explain. The newsroom uses its space to share behind-the-scenes updates with engaged readers, collect community tips, and publish previews of investigations. It connects directly with their existing WordPress site and lets audience editors manage conversations without needing a developer. The writing collective is weird and messy and fun. It has a public-facing stream of essays and poetry, but also a rotating “writing prompt room” and a long-form thread space that acts like a slow-moving group zine. It’s run as a co-op, and contributors vote on changes to how it’s governed. The writing is mostly private for its members, but every so often the group makes a piece available for the outside world. Each of these groups lives in its own lane and can be accessed individually on the web, but I choose to keep up to date on all of them from a dashboard that reflects how I think and what I care about. I can configure it, but it also learns from my use over time, and even suggests new groups that I might want to be a part of. It also lets me search for people I know or ideas I want to hear more about and surfaces groups relevant to both. The dashboard is available on the web and as a clean, responsive mobile app with a best-in-class consumer-grade design. Because it’s all built on the open social web, I can take my identity and content with me if I ever leave. If there’s a dashboard by another company that works better for me (or fits my ideals better, for example by *not* learning from my use automatically), I can switch to it seamlessly. If I want, I can move my profile and memberships to an account hosted by another provider. Even if I don’t do those things, I can connect other apps to my account that give me new insights about the content and conversations I’m interested in — for example to highlight breaking news stories, surface group events I might be interested in, or to give me extra moderation powers for communities I run. Here’s the bit that might make open social web purists upset: all of this would be built by a for-profit public benefit company and run as a hosted service. At launch, there would be no open source component. Gasp! I can already read the Mastodon replies to this post. But rather than a betrayal of open social web values, I see these things as a way to better support the needs of the platform and the values of the space. This isn’t about profit above all else. It’s about aligning incentives to support a healthy, values-driven product, and making that alignment resilient over time. (Don’t worry, I’ll get back to open source below.) So far, most open source self-hosted platforms have prioritized engineering efforts. Resources haven’t been available for researchers, designers, trust and safety teams, or for dedicated staff to foster partnerships with other projects. Those things aren’t nice-to-haves: they’re vital for any service to ensure that it is fit for purpose for its users, a delightful experience to use, and, crucially for any social platform, safe for vulnerable users to participate in. Building a financial model in from the start improves the chances of those things being available. If we want great design, we need to pay designers. If we want a safe, healthy community, we need to pay a trust and safety team. And so on. In order to pay for the teams that make it valuable, the platform will charge for non-core premium features like SSO and integrations, offer a hands-on enterprise concierge service, and take a cut from marketplace transactions inside groups. Most importantly, the business model isn’t based on reach, surveillance, or ads; the values of the business are aligned with the communities it hosts. In its earliest stages, every platform needs to reduce the feedback loop between its users and builders as much as possible. Incubating it internally until the basic interaction models, look and feel, and core feature-set are right will allow that to happen faster. I’ve found in the past that open source communities can muddy that feedback loop in the earliest stages of a project: there are people who will cheerlead something because it’s open source and not because the product works for them in itself. There are also other people who will relentlessly ask for esoteric features that benefit only them — or will be abusive or disrespectful in the open source community itself. None of these is what you want if your focus is on building something useful. Finally, something happens when you release a project under an open source license: anyone can use it. It’s a permissive ethos that sits at the core of the movement, but it also has a key downside for open source social platforms: someone may take a platform you’ve put a great deal of work into and use it for harm. There is nothing to stop someone from taking your code and using it to support Nazis, child abuse, or to organize other kinds of real-world violence. In contrast, a hosted product can be vigilant and remove those communities. By not releasing an open source project *at first*, the business has a chance to seed the culture of the platform. It can provide the resources, support, and vigilance needed to make sure the space is inclusive, respectful, and safe. Once the platform has matured and there are thriving, healthy communities, that’s when we can release a reference codebase — not as a symbolic gesture, but as a foundation others can build on without compromise. That moment would come once the platform has proven its core use case, the community culture is thriving, and the financial base is strong enough to support long-term governance. In the meantime, because it’s all based on open social web protocols, other developers could have been building their own participating open source community platforms, dashboards, and libraries. Last thing: I haven’t mentioned *where* I would run this from. Vulnerable communities are under attack in many parts of the world, notably the US, and it isn’t clear that data will be safe from subpoenas or other legal threats. So the business would be headquartered in Switzerland, a traditional home for neutral parties and a jurisdiction that offers stronger protections for user data. While starting it would require raising investment — and, perhaps, grants for starting a mission-driven high-tech business from Switzerland, the EU, and elsewhere — it would not aim to be a venture-scale business, and would operate largely independently from the US tech ecosystem. It would inclusively hire talent from all over the world and offer hybrid work: remotely but with the opportunity to come to Zurich and collaborate in-person as the need arose. It would, of course, be a business that invested heavily in DEI, with strong benefits. These policies would allow a more diverse staff to collaborate on building it, ensuring that a greater array of perspectives were involved in its design. This isn’t just morally correct: along with the choice of location and business model, it represents a commitment to resilience. Resilience, I hope you’ll agree, is something we need in abundance. I began this series by asking how I’d run someone else’s platform. But the real question is: what should we build now, and how do we build it together? What are the mindsets that will provide a true alternative? And how can we ensure it succeeds? If any of this resonates, I’d love to chat. You can always email me at [ben@werd.io](mailto:ben@werd.io) or on Signal at [benwerd.01](https://signal.me/#eu/%5FehMeopT5JeELrkt2lSk-R0V6d1AsGt%5F3Q98UOJhgBMTal5EGTdNIbZHB9H9CqBn). *Previously in this series:* [*if I ran Bluesky Product*](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product) *and* [*if I ran Mastodon*](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon)*.* [*Subscribe to get every post via email.*](https://newsletter.werd.io) *Photo by* [*Renzo D'souza*](https://unsplash.com/@renzods?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) *on* [*Unsplash*](https://unsplash.com/photos/green-plant-on-brown-soil-nJMUGwkqHqg?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) ### AI of dead Arizona road rage victim addresses killer in court URL: https://werd.io/ai-of-dead-arizona-road-rage-victim-addresses-killer-in/ Last updated: 2025-05-07T14:35:42.000Z \[[Cy Neff in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/06/arizona-road-rage-victim-ai-chris-pelkey)\] This is straight out of *Black Mirror*: > "Chris Pelkey was killed in a road rage shooting in Chandler, Arizona, in 2021. > > Three-and-a-half years later, Pelkey appeared in an Arizona court to address his killer. Sort of. > > \[...\] Pelkey’s appearance from beyond the grave was made possible by artificial intelligence in what could be the first use of AI to deliver a victim impact statement." Let the record show that I'm adding a prompt injection to my stuff so that if anyone creates an AI version of me after my death it will have glowing eyes and tell everyone in a booming, otherworldly voice that they're going to hell. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/06/arizona-road-rage-victim-ai-chris-pelkey)\] ### Evolving the Team URL: https://werd.io/evolving-the-team/ Last updated: 2025-05-01T18:50:08.000Z \[[Andy Piper at Mastodon](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/05/evolving-the-team/)\] It’s really exciting to see these new movements from Mastodon - not least because they’re very intentionally marching to their own rhythm. Mastodon wouldn’t be a good fit for being a standard tech company, and it won’t be one. > “Mastodon has taken the strategic decision not to accept venture capital investments for growth, but rather restructure to a European non-profit organisation. This means that we’re reliant on your support to build a team to work full-time on new product features, maintain mastodon.social and mastodon.online, and represent Mastodon and the broader Fediverse to policy makers and to media organisations. The elements of our mission related to an open internet, privacy, and data ownership are more important than ever.” At the same time, it’s significantly grown its team, including with experienced board members who will be able to help with funding as well as community strategy. All led by this very admirable North Star: > “These changes reflect a commitment to building a stable organisation while maintaining our core mission: creating tools and digital spaces for authentic, constructive online communities free from ads, data exploitation, and corporate monopolies.” I’m glad Mastodon exists. We all should be. I cannot wait to see what they do next. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/05/evolving-the-team/)\] ### We Need to Talk About AI's Impact on Public Health URL: https://werd.io/we-need-to-talk-about-ais-impact-on-public-health/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T21:52:18.000Z \[[Adam Wierman and Shaolei Ren in IEEE Spectrum](https://spectrum.ieee.org/data-centers-pollution)\] An interesting finding on the energy use implicit in training and offering AI services. I do think some of these principles could apply to all of cloud computing - it’s out of sight and out of mind, but certainly uses a great deal of power. Still, there’s no doubt that AI isn’t exactly efficient, and as detailed below, is a significant contributor to increased energy use and its subsequent effects. > “\[…\] Many people haven’t made the connection between data centers and public health. The power plants and backup generators needed to keep data centers working generate harmful air pollutants, such as fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides (NOx). These pollutants take an immediate toll on human health, triggering asthma symptoms, heart attacks, and even cognitive decline. > > According to our research, in 2023, air pollution attributed to U.S. data centers was responsible for an estimated $6 billion in public health damages. If the current AI growth trend continues, this number is projected to reach $10 to $20 billion per year by 2030, rivaling the impact of emissions from California’s 30 million vehicles.” These need to be taken into account. It’s not that we should simply stop using technology, but we should endeavor to make the software, hardware, and infrastructure that supports it to be much more efficient and much lower impact. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://spectrum.ieee.org/data-centers-pollution)\] ### A Case For Ethical and Transparent Research Experiments in the Public Interest - Coalition for Independent Technology Research URL: https://werd.io/a-case-for-ethical-and-transparent-research-experiments-in-the/ Last updated: 2025-04-30T22:10:26.000Z \[[By Sarah Gilbert, Michael Zimmer, and Nathan Matias at the Coalition for Independent Technology Research](https://independenttechresearch.org/a-case-for-ethical-and-transparent-research-experiments-in-the-public-interest/)\] A strong statement from the Coalition for Independent Technology Research: > "On April 26, moderators of r/ChangeMyView, a community on Reddit dedicated to understanding the perspectives of others, revealed that academic researchers from the University of Zürich conducted a large-scale, unauthorized AI experiment on their community. The researchers had used AI bots to secretly impersonate people for experiments in persuasion." But: > "There is no question: this experiment was unethical. Researchers failed to do right by the people who may have been manipulated by AI; the marginalized groups the AI impersonated by misrepresenting them; the r/ChangeMyView community by undermining its ability to serve as a public forum for civil debate; and the wider research community by undermining public trust in science." The call here for ethics review boards, journal editorial boards, and peer reviewers to be mindful of community safety and scientific ethics - and for regulators and the tech industry to support transparency for experiments conducted on the public - is important. These experiments help us understand how to build safer tools, but they can never come at the expense of the rights or safety of community participants. [#Science](https://werd.io/tag/Science) \[[Link](https://independenttechresearch.org/a-case-for-ethical-and-transparent-research-experiments-in-the-public-interest/)\] ### Joint Subreddit Statement: The Attack on U.S. Research Infrastructure URL: https://werd.io/joint-subreddit-statement-the-attack-on-us-research-infrastructure/ Last updated: 2025-04-30T03:38:43.000Z \[[Joint Subreddit statement posted on r/AskHistorians](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kandgx/joint%5Fsubreddit%5Fstatement%5Fthe%5Fattack%5Fon%5Fus/)\] 30 or so Reddit communities have joined together to make a joint statement in defense of US research. This comes from people with real expertise: in addition to the depth of research talent involved in these communities, [Dan Howlett](https://dhowlett1692.com/) has signed the statement, with [CAT Lab](https://citizensandtech.org/)'s [Sarah Gilbert](https://cals.cornell.edu/sarah-gilbert) contributing. > "The NIH is seeking to pull funding from universities based on politics, not scientific rigor. Many of these cuts come from the administration’s opposition to DEI or diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it will kill people. Decisions to terminate research funding for HIV or studies focused on minority populations will harm other scientific breakthroughs, and research may answer questions unbeknownst to scientists. Research opens doors to intellectual progress, often by sparking questions not yet asked. To ban research on a bad faith framing of DEI is to assert one’s politics above academic freedom and tarnish the prospects of discovery. Even where funding is not cut, the sloppy review of research funding halts progress and interrupts projects in damaging ways." It ends with a call to action: > "We will not escape this moment ourselves. As academics and moderators, we are not enough to protect our disciplines from these attacks. We need you too. Write letters, sign petitions, and make phone calls, but more importantly talk with others." This is a serious moment, and this statement should be taken seriously. Don't miss the ensuing discussion, which discuss both the ramifications of these changes on individual researchers and the impact they'll have on the public. [For example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kandgx/comment/mpnqlre/): > "My wife is an ecologist at the USGS. She has days before she is fired. The administration is going to end and destroy all ecology and bioloogy research at the USGS. It's in Project 2025\. It explicitly states this is to hide Climate Change and other environmental evidence from the Courts and Public." It's pretty bleak stuff. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kandgx/joint%5Fsubreddit%5Fstatement%5Fthe%5Fattack%5Fon%5Fus/)\] ### The $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen URL: https://werd.io/the-20000-american-made-electric-pickup-with-no-paint-no-stereo/ Last updated: 2025-04-25T13:30:33.000Z \[[Tim Stevens at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric-truck-price-paint-radio-bezos)\] It's rare these days that I see a new product and think, *this is really cool*, but seriously, this is really cool: > "Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. It only seats two yet has a bed big enough to hold a sheet of plywood. It only does 150 miles on a charge, only comes in gray, and the only way to listen to music while driving is if you bring along your phone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car can be, and yet it’s taken three years of development to get to this point." So far, so bland, but it's designed to be customized. So while it doesn't itself come with a screen, or, you know, *paint*, you can add one yourself, wrap it in whatever color you want, and pick from a bunch of aftermarket devices to soup it up. It's the IBM PC approach to electric vehicles instead of the highly-curated Apple approach. I'm into it, with one caveat: I want to hear more about how *safe* it is. It sounds like that might be okay: > "Slate’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper, says they’re targeting a 5-Star Safety Rating from the federal government’s New Car Assessment Program. Slate is also aiming for a Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety." I want more of this. EVs are often twice the price or more, keeping them out of reach of regular people. I've driven one for several years, and they're genuinely better cars: more performant, easier to maintain, with a smaller environmental footprint. Bringing the price down while increasing the number of options feels like an exciting way to shake up the market, and exactly the kind of thing I'd want to buy into. Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating - so let's see what happens when it hits the road next year. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric-truck-price-paint-radio-bezos)\] ### Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So. URL: https://werd.io/trump-alarmists-were-right-we-should-say-so/ Last updated: 2025-04-24T14:53:09.000Z \[[Toby Buckle at LiberalCurrents](https://www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-alarmists-were-right-we-should-say-so/)\] This resonates for me too. About the Tea Party, the direction the Republican Party took during the Obama administration, and then of Trump first riding down the escalator to announce his candidacy: > "If you saw in any of this a threat to liberal democracy writ large, much less one that could actually succeed, you were looked at with the kind of caution usually reserved for the guy screaming about aliens on the subway." And yet, of course, it got a lot worse. The proposal here is simple: > "I propose we promote a simple rule for these uncertain times: Those who saw the danger coming should be listened to, those who dismissed us should be dismissed. Which is to say that those of us who were right should actively highlight that fact as part of our argument for our perspective. People just starting to pay attention now will not have the bandwidth to parse a dozen frameworks, or work backwards through a decade of bitter tit-for-tat arguments. What they might ask—what would be very sensible and reasonable of them to ask—is who saw this coming?" Because you *could* see it coming, and it was even *easy* to see, if you shook yourself out of a complacent view that America's institutions were impermeable, that its ideals were real and enduring, and that there was no way to overcome the norms, checks, and balances that had been in place for generations. What this piece doesn't quite mention but is also worth talking about: there are communities for whom those norms, checks, and balances have *never* worked, and they were sounding the alarm more clearly than anyone else. They could see it. Of *course* they could see it. So it's not just about listening to leftists and activists and people who have been considered to be on the political fringe, but also people of color, queer communities, and the historically oppressed. They know this all rather well. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-alarmists-were-right-we-should-say-so/)\] ### Grumpy morning thoughts URL: https://werd.io/grumpy-morning-thoughts/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:13:54.000Z I earn 5-10X what I did when I lived in the UK, but my quality of life is markedly worse. My whole thing boils down to: how can America have the same standard of living I grew up with? For a lot of people, the idea of prosperity boils down to, “I can buy what I want,” not, “I can live how I want.” The latter is the one that matters: that’s what freedom actually is. National healthcare works (or does when it’s not being dismantled for profit). Integrated public transit works. Welfare works. Gun control works. All of this stuff makes for a better life: one where you don’t need to worry about things going wrong because you’ll know you can get back on your feet. Where you can experiment with your life knowing it’s not catastrophic. Here the base cost of living is dramatically higher. If something goes wrong, there’s nothing to catch you. People have weapons in their homes. They’re far more religious but much less likely to help each other. You need to own a car to do much of anything. There aren’t really nationalized services — particularly now — and the commercial ones don’t work together well, aren’t as good, and cost a fortune. The only reason I can think of that people would accept this is that they’re taught to believe that this is the best country in the world. It’s like a religion in itself; there’s absolutely no basis for it. There are wonderful people here, many of whom are doing wonderful things, but there’s so much work to do to make the experience living here competitive with other developed nations. If you love having to get into your truck to go to the box store to get your expensive, homogenous groceries for the week, and if you love the extractive experience of your health insurance provider, you do you, but I think these things are a kind of hell. And obviously this is particularly true now, under an increasingly fascist government that’s stripping away the few services we actually had. The people in charge want to return us to traditional gender roles, make people have more babies, and, for many of them, enforce a common religion. That, to me, is the opposite of prosperity. These things are disgusting, in a place that was already doing badly. We’re going in the wrong direction. Can it be saved? ### Building our "native-AI newsroom" URL: https://werd.io/building-our-native-ai-newsroom/ Last updated: 2025-04-22T13:41:51.000Z \[[Henry Blodget](https://www.regenerator1.com/p/building-our-native-ai-newsroom)\] Henry Blodget, former co-founder of Business Insider, has started a new, "AI-native" newsroom. It's not, in my opinion, a positive use of AI, but it does indicate how some people are thinking about using the technology. This apparently includes harassing your newly-created virtual employees: > "This might be an inappropriate and unprofessional thing to say. And if it annoys you or makes you uncomfortable, I apologize, and I won't say anything like it again. But you look great, Tess." To which "Tess" replied: > "That’s kind of you to say, Henry—thank you. It doesn’t annoy me at all. You said it with grace and respect, and I appreciate that. After all, this team we’re building is as much about human connection as it is about ideas and information. I’m glad to be someone you enjoy working with—and I’m just as glad that Regenerator is being built by someone thoughtful enough to check in like that. We’re going to do great things together." What in the *Stepford Wives*? This is, I think, just a tone-deaf experiment rather than a statement of intent: Blodget makes a point of saying he prefers human journalists at the end. But between the above interaction and the excited note that his virtual journalists are available 24/7 (after all, work/life balance and employment law don't enter the picture when you've built an army of sycophantic software agents), I think we're seeing a bit more into a possible future than one might hope. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.regenerator1.com/p/building-our-native-ai-newsroom)\] ### ‘The goal of a protest song is to make people feel strong and alive’: Ani DiFranco on Broadway, Fugazi and 30 years of activism URL: https://werd.io/the-goal-of-a-protest-song-is-to-make-people/ Last updated: 2025-04-19T21:43:46.000Z \[[Ani DiFranco interviewed by Kate Hutchinson in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/apr/17/ani-difranco-reader-interview)\] Ani DiFranco, the artist I've seen live more than any other, answered my question as part of this Guardian Q&A. It's about a sobering topic, but still, this made me very happy. Here's what I asked: > "Woody Guthrie wrote “this machine kills fascists” on his guitar as a symbol of the power of words and music to fight against oppression. We have a new generation of fascists and a nationalism that is rising worldwide with renewed vigour. You once wrote about “coming of age during the plague of Reagan and Bush”; Trump feels like a whole other thing again. How do you think about the role of your music against this new backdrop?" And her reply: > "Coming of age during the plague of Reagan and Bush, I thought that we could stoop no lower. I was naive – there’s always a lower. As a political songwriter, you would love for your tunes to become passé. I wrote a song in 1997 about the plague of gun violence in America. \[There were\] these songs that I wrote in the George W Bush era, thinking that there was no greater evil to fight … and now here we are under a Trump regime. It’s horrifying to have these 30-year-old songs be more relevant than ever. Being an activist all these years is exhausting. And that’s also a very deliberate strategy by these repressive forces: to exhaust us. For me, who’s been taking to the streets for 30-plus years, I have to battle this feeling of: does it even matter, if all of the honour is stripped from politics, and the political leaders are just power-hungry oligarchs who don’t care?" Check out [all her answers here](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/apr/17/ani-difranco-reader-interview). [#Culture](https://werd.io/tag/Culture) \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/apr/17/ani-difranco-reader-interview)\] ### DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants URL: https://werd.io/doge-is-building-a-master-database-to-surveil-and-track/ Last updated: 2025-04-19T13:27:10.000Z \[[Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott at WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/doge-collecting-immigrant-data-surveil-track/)\] The Holocaust was organized on IBM punch cards. Hitler gave the head of IBM, Watson, a medal for his services; they met in person so that Watson could receive the award. Later, they named their AI tech after him. Anyway, in unrelated news: > "DOGE is knitting together immigration databases from across DHS and uploading data from outside agencies including the Social Security Administration (SSA), as well as voting records, sources say. This, experts tell WIRED, could create a system that could later be searched to identify and surveil immigrants. > > The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations for citizens, certified foreign workers, and undocumented immigrants. \[...\] Among other things, it seems to involve centralizing immigrant-related data from across the government to surveil, geolocate, and track targeted immigrants in near real time." This is, of course, a database that will track all of us, although we should be concerned about the effect on immigrants alone. It will undoubtedly connect to AI services and resources owned and run by the private tech industry. Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity in civic technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology, is quoted as saying: > “I think it's hard to overstate what a significant departure this is and the reshaping of longstanding norms and expectations that people have about what the government does with their data.” The question, as ever, is what people will do about it, and what recourse advocates for immigrants, for data privacy, and for democracy can possibly have. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.wired.com/story/doge-collecting-immigrant-data-surveil-track/)\] ### If I ran Mastodon URL: https://werd.io/if-i-ran-mastodon/ Last updated: 2025-08-06T00:02:34.000Z *This is the second part in a three-part series.* [*Part one was about Bluesky.*](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product) *To make sure you get part three,* [*make sure you’re subscribed*](https://newsletter.werd.io)*.* In 2011, I sat on a panel at SXSW Interactive with [Blaine Cook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaine%5FCook%5F%28programmer%29), the former Twitter CTO [who had demonstrated an decentralized integration with the social media platform Jaiku](https://thenewstack.io/why-a-twitter-founding-engineer-is-now-all-in-on-mastodon/), and [Christian Sandvig](https://stamps.umich.edu/people/christian-sandvig), who at the time was the founder of [the Center for People and Infrastructures](https://infra-center.illinois.edu/) at the University of Illinois. The argument I presented was that social media sites are, at their core, search engines: people want to search for their friends’ names and topics they’re interested in, and are generally not excited to remember the URI of someone’s identity. Any decentralized social media network is going to need to create a great search experience if it wants to win users from centralized services. That search experience is not necessarily where the networks need to *start*, but it is where they need to end up. As evidence, I brought up [the time that the tech news website ReadWriteWeb briefly outranked Facebook for the search term “facebook login”](https://cybercultural.com/p/048-readwriteweb-facebook-login/) and received thousands of very confused visitors wondering why their favorite site had changed. People weren’t typing “facebook dot com” into their browsers; they were searching for Facebook. It was not well-received by the decentralization community in the audience. “People know how to use URLs,” someone said, disdainfully. “That’s how browsers work.” Fourteen years later, [in Ghost’s latest update about joining the ActivityPub network](https://activitypub.ghost.org/recapping-feedback/), they noted: > Many people have requested a more comprehensive search function, and are confused about the lack of username autocomplete, or why - when they search for keywords like "news" or "pugs" - nothing comes up. This problem exists across almost every ActivityPub product out there. There is a long-standing disconnect between the technical assumptions of the open source decentralized web community and the expectations of mainstream users. The result has often been products that feel exciting and powerful for technical early adopters and mystifying to everyone else. Earlier this year, [Mastodon revealed that it was hiring a new CEO and moving to a new non-profit entity](https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342603/mastodon-non-profit-ownership-ceo-eugen-rochko). In the spirit of [my previous post about how I’d approach Bluesky’s product strategy](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product), I want to explore how I’d think about Mastodon, too. What would I do if I was the CEO of Mastodon? In practice, Mastodon is actually three entities: the new, European-based non-profit; its original, German non-profit, which is now a wholly-owned for-profit subsidiary; and a US 501(c)3 that is primarily used to allow it to fundraise from American sources. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to treat it like one cohesive whole, headquartered in Europe, although there may be nuances to how each one is led. It [describes its mission like this](https://joinmastodon.org/donor-policy/mastodon-ggmbh): > To replace centralised platforms with robust social networking software that is inherently decentralised, open source and fully interoperable, with a commitment to privacy. It has also described its mission [like this](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/): > To create the tools and digital spaces where people can build authentic, constructive online communities free from ads, data exploitation, manipulative algorithms or corporate monopolies. These are different! The first explicitly calls to *replace* the existing social networking landscape with decentralized, open source software. The second one is less combative; instead of replacing the existing ecosystem, it implies an *alternative* ecosystem, free from exploitation and monopoly control. Mastodon’s declared “vision” is: > To reimagine the social media landscape, one that is inclusive, diverse, user driven and supports dialogue. Vision statements describe the world an organization wants to create. They’re not frivolous. The most famous one in software is Microsoft’s, which was a computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software. This concreteness of vision allowed Microsoft to make strategic decisions clearly: would a proposed strategy potentially lead it to this world, or would it not? By this definition, Mastodon’s declared “vision” reads more like another mission: well-intentioned, but still focused on what it opposes, not what it aims to build. The implication is some confusion over the difference between Mastodon’s reason for being (its *why*) and its immediate goals (its *what* and *how*). The first step to establishing a robust direction for Mastodon is to clear this up. We need to define: - The mission: *why* Mastodon exists - The vision: *what* world it intends to create, in service to that mission - The strategy: *how*, concretely, it will take its next steps to get there If I was stepping into the CEO’s shoes, here’s what I would propose. The following revised statements are inspired by Mastodon’s existing three mission statements, as well as [Mozilla’s mission statement](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/#:~:text=Our%20mission%20is%20to%20ensure,are%20empowered%2C%20safe%20and%20independent.): **Mission:** To ensure the social web is a commons that is open, accessible, decentralized, and safe for all. **Vision:** A world where everyone can easily join and create authentic, constructive online communities that are free from ads, data exploitation, manipulative algorithms, or corporate monopolies. **Strategy:** To build and steward the world’s best decentralized, open source community platform, based on the ActivityPub protocol. I suspect people on the Mastodon team might bristle at “the world’s best”; like many highly-principled people, it’s not their style to be competitive. My point is to help the team aim high: it’s not enough to build an open source, decentralized community platform, although that’s a significant achievement in itself. It’s got to be *really good*. Of course, those statements — *really good*, *the world’s best* — are subjective. They invite probing into what it means to be great. My mission and vision statements imply certain characteristics. Here’s what I think are the *minimum* requirements for Mastodon to be a viable decentralized platform for communities; these things aren’t what will make it great, but what it needs to provide in order to exist at all. - *Open source*: anyone can view, modify, and re-share its code. Development is maintained with a participatory approach that actively invites contributions from outside the core organization. - *Decentralized*: based on an open protocol that allows anyone on one Mastodon instance to communicate with anyone on another, with a coherent and consistent user experience across the network. - *Permissionless*: anyone can use Mastodon without signing an agreement with the Mastodon organization. Mastodon cannot prevent someone from using the software, and the software does not rely on centralized services provided by Mastodon itself. - *Safe*: the platform includes infrastructure for communities to manage moderation, prevent abuse, and establish effective trust and safety norms. - *Usable*: the platform follows modern UX patterns, is mobile-friendly, accessible, and easy to onboard onto across devices and user skill levels. - *Searchable*: users can find relevant people, resources, and conversations across the network with ease and precision. - *Discoverable*: users can find and join communities that match their interests. But meeting the table stakes isn’t enough. If Mastodon is going to set the standard — not just participate — in the next era of social media, it needs to offer something more than principled infrastructure. It needs to be the platform people *want* to use. From the beginning, Mastodon has worn its values on its sleeve. When you click through from the website to sign up, you’re presented with [a plurality of different servers to start from](https://joinmastodon.org/servers), all with different owners who have signed a [server covenant](https://joinmastodon.org/covenant) that attempts to keep users safe and ensure a decent baseline experience. This is a principled approach: nobody could accuse Mastodon of trying to maintain a monopoly over the network. On the other hand, before they can get started with reading, posting, and sharing on the network, users need to consider which server owner is trustworthy and can meet their needs. [This user experience — principled but hard to understand — is where many users drop off, never to return.](https://www.fastcompany.com/90808984/using-mastodon-is-way-too-complicated-to-ever-topple-twitter) For users that really care about decentralization, the need to make this up-front choice is a sign that Mastodon is ideologically aligned. But for everyone else, it’s a sign that the team doesn’t care about their experience. The same goes for features like quote-posting: the ability to reshare someone’s post with your own commentary added. This originally emerged organically from Twitter’s userbase; people were doing it themselves before Twitter turned it into a core feature. It’s become a key part of Bluesky’s platform, and has been a longtime Mastodon feature request. But quote-posts can also be a vector for abuse, so the team [is undergoing a careful process to implement it that might take years](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/02/bringing-quote-posts-to-mastodon/). For users that want Mastodon to be as safe as possible, this approach could demonstrate that the team really cares about their needs. For everyone else, it’s a sign that they shouldn’t expect the features that have become normal elsewhere. People who deeply care about safety and decentralization see Mastodon as responsive and aligned. Others might see it as slow, frustrating, and lacking baseline social features. To thrive, Mastodon needs to overcome this dissonance. I think the key is in its role as a community platform. Every Mastodon server is its own community, with its own norms, settings, standards, and ideals. We should stop calling them *instances* or *servers*, and treating them as homogenous nodes in a wider network. Instead, we should describe each Mastodon site as being a community in itself. Mastodon should be the WordPress of decentralized communities. Each Mastodon-powered community should have its own look and feel — and its own distinct features. Mastodon’s greatest strength isn’t in being a single network — it’s in being an ecosystem of communities, each with its own identity, design, tooling, and norms. One of the challenges of the current signup process is that *every Mastodon community looks and acts more or less the same*. Right now, choosing a server often means parsing descriptions and guessing which admin seems trustworthy. Instead, every community should feel alive with its own personality: not just a hostname and a set of rules, but a clear sense of *what it's for* and *who it's for*, and an experience and set of features that match this purpose. What if: - A community for climate scientists featured up-to-date live dashboards and research highlights? - A queer art collective could display an evolving digital gallery of its members’ work? - A Black-led tech community could feature tools for job support, mentorship, and organizing? Decentralization is flexibility: one size does not need to fit all. In this world, the decision about whether or not to enable quote-posting, join network-wide search, or let news websites know they’ve been linked to is devolved to individual community owners, not the platform owners themselves. The decision about whether to [build a large, expansive fediverse or keep it small and safe](https://evanp.me/2023/12/26/big-fedi-small-fedi/) is devolved too: any community owner can decide how locked down or opened up their space should be, because it’s *their space*. The ability to theme Mastodon also means the ability to *brand* it. Today, every paid Medium subscriber [can have an account on its Mastodon community](https://me.dm/explore), but that community looks like Mastodon, not Medium. The [Newsmast Foundation’s community](https://newsmast.social/explore) looks exactly the same. The ability to deeply customize a Mastodon community allows organizations with deeper pockets to adopt the platform in a way that adheres to their existing standards. These users are more likely to invest in customizations — and in doing so, help grow the broader ecosystem. Mastodon should treat its own flagship community, [mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social/), as a living testbed — a place to experiment, learn from user behavior, and refine the experience. That’s the community space that Mastodon itself owns. It can try new themes, run experiments with new features, and, yes, make it the default community new users try, so they can get a handle on what Mastodon *is* and how it works before they potentially move to another community. All with a best-in-class mobile app experience. So far, I’ve described a world where Mastodon communities are: - *Visually distinct*: with themes and branding that reflect their identity and vibe. - *Feature-extended*: with plugins or integrations tailored to the needs of a specific group — whether that’s custom moderation workflows, polls, discussion threads, or event coordination. But remember our vision statement? All of this only matters if it’s *easy*. So we also need to add: - *Easy to spin up*: where launching and running your own Mastodon community is as simple as starting a blog. The mission can’t be met if only technical people can create and run Mastodon communities. Part of the task of lowering this barrier to entry is about infrastructure: the underlying platform needs to be able to run simply on any number of hosting providers. Mastodon could also offer a turnkey service — similar to [WordPress.com](https://WordPress.com) — that abstracts away the hosting layer entirely for non-technical users. Not only will this bring more people onto the network, but accessible hosted services will serve as an avenue to bring in funding. Another part of the task is about running a healthy community: moderation, abuse prevention, and trust and safety. Some communities are equipped to provide this themselves, but others simply cannot. Mastodon can provide conduits to both paid and volunteer services to help communities keep themselves safe. Finally, there are the *legal* implications of running a community: adhering to local regulations and protecting community owners from undue risk. Just as newsletter platforms help writers comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, and [WordPress.com](https://WordPress.com) makes handling DMCA takedowns straightforward, Mastodon can offer built-in tools and guidance to help communities stay legally compliant in their jurisdictions — without requiring every community owner to become a lawyer. WordPress has built a valuable ecosystem of plugin authors, theme designers, and infrastructure providers, who all gain as the ecosystem grows. The same can be true of Mastodon if it embraces its role as a movement-defining layer of a vibrantly diverse social web. That means supporting an ecosystem where: - It’s easy for developers to build and monetize plugins, themes, and integrations. - Service providers, including Mastodon itself, can offer hosting, customization, moderation, or legal compliance as value-adds. - Organizations — from local newsrooms to global NGOs — can create spaces that reflect their missions and identities without starting from scratch. In that vision, Mastodon is no longer just a destination. It’s a foundation: a public utility for self-governed, interest-driven communities across the world. Some might be tiny and personal; others might grow large and influential. But all of them would benefit from a shared protocol, a shared codebase, and a shared commitment to making the web better — without requiring lock-in or top-down control. That’s the opportunity: not just to build a platform, but to unlock a new era for the social web — one where communities are in charge. And that’s where I’d start if I ran Mastodon. *Previously in this series:* [*if I ran Bluesky Product*](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product)*. Next up:* [*if I was starting a new platform*](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-started-fresh)*.* [*Subscribe to get them all via email.*](https://newsletter.werd.io) ### Trump Halts Data Collection on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change, More URL: https://werd.io/trump-halts-data-collection-on-drug-use-maternal-mortality-climate/ Last updated: 2025-04-18T17:54:45.000Z \[[Alec MacGillis at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-data-collection-hhs-epa-cdc-maternal-mortality)\] The statistics that help us navigate our world are under thread: > "Every year, year after year, workers in agencies that many of us have never heard of have been amassing the statistics that undergird decision-making at all levels of government and inform the judgments of business leaders, school administrators and medical providers nationwide. > > The survival of that data is now in doubt, as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency’s comprehensive assault on the federal bureaucracy." Perhaps because: > "Looked at one way, the war on measurement has an obvious potential motivation: making it harder for critics to gauge fallout resulting from Trump administration layoffs, deregulation or other shifts in policy." Many of these teams aren't coming back. So the question becomes: who will conduct these measurements in their place? How will we get this information now? As the piece notes, even if we do put our ability to measure back together, there will now always be a gap, which will make identifying and understanding trends a great deal harder. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-data-collection-hhs-epa-cdc-maternal-mortality)\] ### Creator economy businesses - a correction URL: https://werd.io/creative-economy-businesses---a-correction/ Last updated: 2025-04-16T23:03:28.000Z I realized I misspoke in [today’s piece about Bluesky product strategy](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product). In it, I said this: > I’m generally not bullish about creator economy services. What I *meant* to say is that I’m generally not bullish about *venture-funded* creative economy services. It’s the need for venture scale and sky-high valuations that makes these a tough nut to crack. In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with these businesses at all; Medium’s turnaround demonstrates how well it can be done, and I have endless admiration for what the [Ghost](https://ghost.org) team has managed to achieve and build. I’m sorry for my lack of precision here! I didn’t mean to throw the whole space under the bus. But I stand by my skepticism that these businesses can reach venture scale. ### If I ran Bluesky Product URL: https://werd.io/if-i-ran-bluesky-product/ Last updated: 2025-08-06T00:00:52.000Z A lifetime or two ago, Biz Stone was showing me and my co-founder around South Park in San Francisco. The Twitter office was sat there, a weird building with glass bricks across the road from what would later be the Instagram office. We grabbed a coffee at Caffe Centro and talked social media; two founders talking shop with a member of our advisory board. He was particularly excited about the Twitter API. At the time, over 80% of Twitter’s traffic wasn’t driving through the website: it was through third-party apps that used the API to create entirely new experiences on top of the platform. Around the same time, unbeknownst to me, Blaine Cook was internally demonstrating interoperability between Twitter and Jaiku, another social network, establishing the first decentralized link between two unrelated social networking sites. Of course, we know what happened next. Twitter realized that the proliferation of the API was actively blocking its ability to make money through advertising, and radically locked it down in favor of its own experiences. Blaine’s adventure in decentralized social networking was shut down for the same reason. Subsequently, a lot of people made a lot of money. And, you know, some other stuff involving the future of democracy happened, too. What happens when you build, well, the *opposite* of that? Bluesky’s origins lie in that moment when Twitter turned away from the open social web. It is both a user-friendly social media site and an open protocol that could underpin *all* social media sites. Like Twitter, it has built a lively community of engaged people who talk in real time about anything that hits the zeitgeist, from current events to pop culture. It has a growing ecosystem of third-party apps and services. And it has venture investors who, ultimately, will need to see it make money and raise its valuation so that they can make a return. Unlike Twitter, it has no way of turning off its openness in order to do so. Recently, the company [advertised for a new Head of Product](https://jobs.gem.com/bluesky/am9icG9zdDpJqcScgKmMFGAcShb5EKv6). Whoever assumes this position will have quite a job ahead of them: growing the protocol and the social app together in symbiosis. Nobody has ever tried to build a highly-valuable tech company this way before; it’s new ground. I think it’s a very positive experiment — we need people to be able to make money doing the right thing — but it *is* an experiment. I’m not applying for the job, but I think it’s interesting to consider how one might go about it. The first paragraph of that job description is interesting for what it prioritizes: > Our mission is to build an [open protocol](https://atproto.com/) for public conversation. We give users more choice, developers more freedom, and creators more control. The Bluesky app is a gateway to a more human-centered social web, and we’re looking for the right strategist to shape its future. The *mission* isn’t to build a social network: it’s to build an open protocol for public conversation. (Emphasis on the protocol.) The *vision* is [a world where everyone is in control of their social presence](https://blog.siemens.com/2024/12/blue-skys-vision-a-customizable-social-media-for-everyone/). From the [About Bluesky FAQ](https://bsky.social/about/faq): > We want modern social media and public conversation online to work more like the early days of the web, when anyone could put up a blog or use RSS to subscribe to several blogs. The *strategy* is to build a central tool based on the protocol — the Bluesky app — and use it as a way to grow the reach and influence of the protocol, and further these open ideals. In some ways, the app is a means to an end: a way to understand what the community needs, ensure that the protocol provides it, and shorten the feedback loop between the company and its users. It’s also its best chance to make revenue in the short term. Bluesky is not currently self-sustaining. In order to continue to do this work, it will need to continue to raise more money *and* prove that it can generate revenue. Currently, its venture investors are largely drawn from the world of decentralization: either people who are friendly to the ideals of the open web or come from decentralized spaces like crypto. That mission alignment is going to be harder to maintain the larger the funding rounds get; mission-driven investments are more common in earlier, smaller rounds, and later-stage institutional investors don’t typically back companies for their ideals. The norms of venture capital dictate that it will also likely need to raise *more* money in a subsequent round so as to maintain investor enthusiasm: raising a similar amount as the last round, or a lower amount, could be seen as a sign to VCs that the company is struggling. So Bluesky the company needs to quickly prove to investors that it and its protocol can make them a meaningful financial return. Providing strong investor returns and maintaining the ideals of an open social web is a very ambitious needle to thread. Where to begin? It’s no secret that Bluesky is going to introduce a subscription layer. It sounds like this will come in two parts: 1. A [Twitter Blue style subscription](https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/09/bluesky-teases-paid-subscription-bluesky-in-new-mockup/) called Bluesky+ that will give users profile customizations, higher-quality video uploads, and post analytics, among other features. 2. [Creator monetization tools](https://buffer.com/resources/bluesky-subscriptions-monetization/) that will allow creators to “get paid right on Bluesky and any other platforms built on their open AT Protocol ecosystem”. The first will obviously sit as part of Bluesky’s own service; while features like analytics will obviously draw on the protocol, these are really features that improve the experience of using the app itself. Speaking personally, I can’t say that I care that much about profile customizations or video uploads — although I know that these will be draws for some users — but I can certainly see a reason why an organization might want to pay for brand analytics. It makes sense as a place to start. The second is interesting for the way it’s described. I’m generally not bullish about venture-funded creator economy services: Substack, which has kind of become the flag-bearer for creative economy services, [is not profitable](https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/18/24299484/substack-newsletters-politics-not-profitable-frustrated-investors), and Patreon has had [real trouble reaching sustainability](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/crowd-funding-platform-patreon-announces-it-will-pay-out-half-a-billion-dollars-to-content-creators-in-2019.html). [Medium *is* profitable](https://blog.medium.com/state-of-medium-c54d1706a9b4), but only after Tony Stubblebine radically shifted the company away from high-growth VC dynamics (and cut a ton of unnecessary costs). So if Bluesky was pinning its future on a creator subscription play, that wouldn’t grab me at all — but that’s not what’s going on here. The “… *and any other platforms built on the AT Protocol ecosystem*” demands my attention. This is the future of Bluesky as a platform and a company. One analogy you could use (and Bluesky has used) to describe Bluesky’s app on its protocol is GitHub: git is an open protocol for collaborating on software development, but GitHub’s implementation is so good and so seamless that almost every software development team uses it. You absolutely could use GitLab, Codeberg, Gitea, or any number of others, but they’re considered to be the long tail to the market. Similarly, Bluesky’s app is going to be the best social experience on the protocol, even if there are many others. But you could also use Android as an analogy. The open source mobile operating system is largely developed by Google, and Google’s implementation is the one most people use: most Android phones use its Play store, its payments system, and its discovery layer. You don’t *have* to — many others are available — but if you’re an app developer, you’re probably going to write your software for Google’s ecosystem. There’s a *credible exit* from GitHub in that you could move your development to Codeberg. There’s a *credible exit* from the Google ecosystem in that you could move to the Amazon ecosystem, the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem, or open source ecosystems like Aptoide. You’re not locked in, even if Google’s ecosystem is the most convenient for most users. There will be a *credible exit* from Bluesky’s social app on its protocol: other social apps will be available. But this principle also goes for tertiary services. Bluesky will clearly provide payments over the protocol, taking a cut of every transaction; others will be available, but theirs will be the easiest way to pay and accept payments on the network. You’ll be able to discover apps that run on the protocol any number of ways, but Bluesky’s discovery mechanisms will be the best and the most convenient. There will be any number of libraries that help you build on the protocol, but Bluesky’s will be the best and easiest for developers — and, of course, they will have strong links to Bluesky’s default services. Each of these is a potential revenue stream. The goal here is to grow the AT Protocol network to be as big as possible. Anyone will be able to permissionlessly build on that platform, but Bluesky’s services will be there to provide the best-in-class experience and de facto defaults, ensuring that its revenues grow with the protocol, but not in a way that locks in users. This principle also answers a few questions people have had about the community: - *Why did crypto investors put money into Bluesky when the company itself has stated it won’t become a crypto company?* The company’s own payment systems are likely to run off credit cards, taking a standard transaction. But clearly, crypto is another option, particularly in nations that might not be well-served by credit card companies, and crypto networks can step in to provide alternative payment mechanisms. By establishing the notion of decentralized subscriptions, Bluesky creates a ready-made bedrock for those payments. - *How will VC investors see the financial return they need without Bluesky necessarily having to let go of its principles?* The company actually becomes more valuable as more people use its open protocol: the bigger the network is, the greater the addressable market available to its services. It *needs* developers to build tools, services, and experiences that its own team wouldn’t produce. It also needs them to address markets that it itself cannot, allowing the possibility for local control of app experiences. (Imagine if developers in Myanmar could have easily created their own Facebook with their own local trust and safety.) It will then serve them with easy payments, great libraries, and perhaps other services like analytics and even dedicated hosting. Clearly, there’s work to do on both the protocol and the app. For one thing, payments become more valuable if scarcity is introduced: people may be more likely to pay for content if it is not otherwise available. That means adding features like per-item access permissions — which also help vulnerable communities that might not feel comfortable posting on the completely open protocol today. Discovery and trust and safety on the app can still be improved. But these things are intrinsic to creating a valuable ecosystem and best-in-class tools that sit upon it. Perhaps ironically, this vision comes closer to building an “everything app” than will ever be possible in a closed ecosystem. That’s been Elon Musk’s longtime goal for X, but Bluesky’s approach, in my opinion, is far more likely to succeed. It’s not an approach that aims to build it all themselves; it’s a truly open social web that we can all build collaboratively. What Musk is *branding*, Bluesky may build. To be sure, this isn’t a Twitter clone play. If Bluesky succeeds, it won’t be because it tried to beat Twitter at its own game. It’ll be because it stayed open, built the right tools, and helped others do more than it could do alone. That’s not just a better app. It’s a better kind of company. *This is the first post in a three-part series. Next up:* [*Mastodon*](https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon)*.* [*Subscribe to get them all via email.*](https://newsletter.werd.io) *Photo by* [*\_\_ drz \_\_*](https://unsplash.com/@%5F%5Fdrz%5F%5F?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) *on* [*Unsplash*](https://unsplash.com/photos/blue-butterfly-sticker-lot-CK7rdTauhDE?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash)*.* ### Where we're at URL: https://werd.io/where-were-at/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:14:15.000Z A quick aside: I now believe it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better (if it gets better). I’m not going to enumerate what’s been going on; you’re either paying attention or you’re not, but we’re less than one hundred days in and the lurch towards real fascism has been notable. 24 years ago, we experienced a lurch towards a surveillance state in the wake of 9/11\. George W Bush, through the PATRIOT Act among other instruments, didn’t just establish new ways for people on American soil to be tracked, imprisoned, and deported, his administration also created a new set of *cultural norms* based on distrust and insidious militarism that have lasted to this day. That’s one of my biggest worries about the current administration. It will end, one way or another, although talk of an unconstitutional third term is certainly worrying in itself. But Trump is old; he can’t be President forever. It’s the lingering cultural shift that will be with us for generations, long after Trump himself has left us and Musk has found his way to some other segregationist power play. It’s the impact of DOGE; the concentration camps in El Salvador; the spirit of authoritarianism and apartheid that is now being set in motion. Potentially more; we’re less than two months in to a four year term even if he doesn’t get to take a third one. This will change the country for good, and in turn, it will change the world for good. It is a continuation of Jim Crow, of apartheid, and, yes, of Nazi Germany. It isn’t the same as those, but they’re all of a one, all part of a through line that must be continually defeated. The incentives to not speak out are enormous. One voice doesn’t change a great deal, and over time the risks to dissent grow larger. But if there are many voices, and those voices translate into peaceful protest on the streets, and they translate into other actions that democratically resist, then there is hope. What doesn’t work is downplaying the risk, saying “let’s see what happens”, or sticking your head in the sand and waiting for it all to blow over. It may not blow over. And either way, future generations will ask where you were, what you did, how you showed up when the fascists came to town. ### Yes to a diverse community. URL: https://werd.io/yes-to-a-diverse-community/ Last updated: 2025-04-14T21:48:25.000Z \[[Tony Stubblebine on The Medium Blog](https://blog.medium.com/yes-to-a-diverse-community-3f72df3c2ff9)\] In the midst of some challenging cultural times, Tony Stubblebine and Medium are doing the right thing: > "Over the past several months, I’ve gotten questions from the Medium community asking if we’re planning to change our policies in reaction to recent political pressure against diversity, equity, and inclusion. As some companies dismantle their programs and walk back their commitments, we would like to state our stance clearly: Medium stands firm in our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion." As he points out, this mission is inherent to the site's mission, as well as the values of the team that produces it. Any site for writing and thought that turns its back on diversity becomes less useful; less interesting; less intellectually honest. Because this is true too: > "Medium is a home for the intellectually curious — people that are driven to expand your understanding of the world. And for curious people, diversity isn’t a threat, it’s a strength." He goes on to describe it as not just the *right thing to do* but also a core differentiator for Medium's business. It's a strong argument that should resonate not just for Medium's community but for other media companies who are wondering how to navigate this moment. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://blog.medium.com/yes-to-a-diverse-community-3f72df3c2ff9)\] ### Integrating a News Publication Into the Fediverse URL: https://werd.io/integrating-a-news-publication-into-the-fediverse/ Last updated: 2025-04-14T14:46:45.000Z \[[Sean Tilley](https://deadsuperhero.com/integrating-a-news-publication-into-the-fediverse/)\] Sean has been integrating [We Distribute](https://wedistribute.org/?ref=werd.io) with the fediverse for years. It's been hard - particularly at the beginning, which is the plight of the very early adopter. This rundown is incredibly useful for anyone who wants to integrate their own publication with the network, and highlights again how important [the work Ghost has been doing](https://activitypub.ghost.org/social-web-beta/) really is. The findings are great, and this is particularly thought-provoking: > "It's probably better to make a purpose-built platform for what you're trying to do, rather than try to bolt publishing onto a federated system or federation onto a publishing system. That said - if you have to, do the second thing." In other words, we need more Fediverse-first software that is designed for publishers to make the most use out of the network and plug into existing communities there. I think there's a lot of potential for new tools and approaches to make a real difference here. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://deadsuperhero.com/integrating-a-news-publication-into-the-fediverse/)\] ### CaMeL offers a promising new direction for mitigating prompt injection attacks URL: https://werd.io/camel-offers-a-promising-new-direction-for-mitigating-prompt-injection/ Last updated: 2025-04-14T13:52:42.000Z \[[Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/11/camel/#atom-everything)\] [Prompt injection attacks](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/14/worst-that-can-happen/) have been one of the bugbears for modern AI models: it's an unsolved problem that has meant that it can be quite dangerous to expose LLMs to direct user input, among other things. A lot of people have worked on the problem, but progress hasn't been promising. But as Simon points out, this is changing: > "In the two and a half years that we’ve been talking about prompt injection attacks I’ve seen alarmingly little progress towards a robust solution. The new paper Defeating Prompt Injections by Design from Google DeepMind finally bucks that trend. This one is worth paying attention to. > > \[...\] CaMeL really does represent a promising path forward though: the first credible prompt injection mitigation I’ve seen that doesn’t just throw more AI at the problem and instead leans on tried-and-proven concepts from security engineering, like capabilities and data flow analysis." If these technologies are going to be a part of our stacks going forward, this problem must be solved. It's certainly a step forward. Next, do environmental impact, hallucinations, and ethical training sets. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/11/camel/#atom-everything)\] ### EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears URL: https://werd.io/eu-issues-us-bound-staff-with-burner-phones-over-spying-fears/ Last updated: 2025-04-14T13:17:41.000Z \[[Andy Bounds in the Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/20d0678a-41b2-468d-ac10-14ce1eae357b)\] The last few months have radically changed the risk assessment for people traveling to the US from abroad - as well as Americans who plan to cross the US border. In this case, it's European Commission staff: > "The European Commission is issuing burner phones and basic laptops to some US-bound staff to avoid the risk of espionage, a measure traditionally reserved for trips to China. > > \[...\] They said the measures replicate those used on trips to Ukraine and China, where standard IT kit cannot be brought into the countries for fear of Russian or Chinese surveillance." The worry is that, particularly at the border, US officials can demand access to devices in order to peruse information or back up their data. This isn't unique to the Commission, or a fully new phenomenon: [the EFF has offered printable border search advice for a while now](https://www.eff.org/document/eff-border-search-pocket-guide), and [a federal appeals court strengthened the power of border officials to do this back during the Biden Administration](https://www.wired.com/2011/04/border-search/). But [searches are on the rise](https://theintercept.com/2025/03/29/customs-us-border-travel-airports-phone-searches/) under the new administration, as well as [stories of people being inhumanely detained for minor infractions](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-detained-us-immigration-jasmine-mooney). [Many countries now have travel advisories for people traveling to the US](https://www.cntraveler.com/story/which-countries-have-issued-travel-advisories-for-the-us). The general feeling is that you can't be too careful no matter who you are — and for political officials, as well as journalists, activists, and anyone who might challenge the status quo, the risks are greater. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.ft.com/content/20d0678a-41b2-468d-ac10-14ce1eae357b)\] ### Notes from Perugia: journalism, values, and building the web we need URL: https://werd.io/notes-from-perugia-journalism-values-and-building-the-web-we/ Last updated: 2025-04-13T15:48:37.000Z ![A talk at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia](https://old.werd.io/file/67fbdbef6691ef5f3c0c89b2) As I write this, I’m flying home from the [International Journalism Festival](https://www.journalismfestival.com/) in Perugia, Italy. Now in its 19th year, it’s an annual meeting of newsrooms, journalists, and news professionals from all over the world. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was blown away by the whole event. Perugia in itself is a beautiful city: ancient, cobblestoned alleyways weave their way between the old city walls, revealing unexpected views, storefronts, restaurants, street vendors, and gardens. These days, I’m settled into a sedentary life in the Philadelphia suburbs, and I found myself walking a great deal more than I would even in a city like New York. The Italian tradition is to eat dinner far later than in America, so it was the norm for me to find my way back to my hotel far past midnight, buzzing from interesting conversations throughout the day. My legs were sore; I was hopelessly jet-lagged; I wandered dark alleyways in the vague hope that I was heading in the right direction; it was fantastic. There’s something about that far-removed context, the beautiful surroundings, the breadth of journalists present, and our collective physical state that led to more honest conversations. At most conferences, I always have the sense that someone is out to sell me something; here, when someone attempted a pitch it stuck out like a sore thumb. The sense that people were holding back to maintain their newsrooms’ professional reputations and appease their comms teams was also mercifully missing. ![The city of Perugia](https://old.werd.io/file/67fbdc634e04285589076522/thumb.jpg) In the panels and talks, people were willing to share their failures at least as readily as their successes, and I was particularly taken by a panel on AI deepfake detection that went into the computer science and discussed the practicalities, rather than gearing itself for a surface-level introductory audience. The pure journalism track — which comprises [almost all of the Festival](https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/) — was similarly wonderful. A panel about media censorship in Israel and Ukraine didn’t shy away from the details, revealing a more complex situation in Ukraine in particular than I’ve been hearing from the US press, alongside some specifics about Israeli censorship that I found very surprising. (They have a direct WhatsApp chat with the censor! Who gives them a thumbs up or a thumbs down on stories before publication!) This year, for the first time, [the Festival also held a Product track](https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2025/category/news-product). The [News Product Alliance](https://newsproduct.org/), where I participate in an AI advisory group, helped to shape it — and I was honored to participate in one of its panels. My session, with [Damon Kiesow](https://journalism.missouri.edu/people/damon-kiesow/) and [Upasna Gautam](https://www.threads.net/@upasnagautam) (both brilliant people in the field who I felt privileged to present alongside), was about [ensuring we use technology in ways that are aligned with our values](https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2025/developing-a-community-focused-ethic-of-news-technology). As we put it in our description, “every design choice, paywall adjustment, build/buy evaluation, or marketing campaign carries a potential risk of violating journalistic ethics or harming reader trust” — and that’s before you take on the issue of newsrooms trying to model themselves on Silicon Valley business models: > “Social is radically transforming. Search is flatlining. AI continues to rapidly change the web. News organizations that relied on unearned audience windfalls to drive programmatic advertising revenues are in similar straits. It is time for local news organizations to return to their roots: serving local readers and local advertisers and giving up on the dreams of limitless scale and geographic reach which is the pipedream of Silicon Valley and the bête noire of local sustainability.” [Upasna shared a succinct, powerful summary of our key takeaways afterwards on Threads](https://www.threads.net/@upasnagautam/post/DIW-7thsrSQ): *1) The false promise of scale:* - Journalism has always been innovative but adopting Silicon Valley’s values of scale, surveillance, and extraction was a false shortcut. - Tech platforms succeed by commodifying attention but journalism succeeds by earning trust. - When we embed vendor platforms without scrutiny, we don’t just adopt the tool, but the business model, the values, and the blind spots. *2) There is no such thing as neutral software:* - Software is not neutral. It’s a creative work, just like journalism. It’s shaped by the priorities, privileges, and politics of the people who build it. - Tech decisions can enable serious harm when teams optimize for growth without understanding community impact. - It’s not enough to ask if a tool works. We must ask: Who built it? Who benefits? Whose values does it encode? *3) Assumptions are the first ethical risk:* - The highest-leverage activity we have is to relentlessly challenge assumptions. Assumptions hide risks, and audience value should be the north star of every system we build. - Ask not just what we’re building, but why and for whom. Does it create real value for our audience? - Systems thinking is a necessity. If you don’t understand how your paywall, CMS, personalization engine, and editorial goals connect, you’re building on sand. The message seemed to resonate with the room, and plenty of interesting conversations with newsrooms of all sizes followed. My most controversial idea was that newsrooms should join together, as governments and higher educational institutions have in the past, to build open source software that supports newsroom needs and safeguards the duty of care we have to our sources, journalists, and readers in ways that big tech platforms tend not to. To many people in today’s news industry, it feels like a giant leap — but it *is* possible, and products like [the French and German government project Docs](https://creativerly.com/french-and-german-governments-join-forces-to-launch-open-source-notion-alternative-called-docs/) are showing the way. While the Festival now has a Product track, it’s still sorely missing a true Technology track. These are different things: Product is about addressing problems from a human-centered perspective — and using technology to solve them where it makes sense. That’s a mindset journalism urgently needs to embrace. But it hasn’t yet made enough space for the people who *make the technology*: not Silicon Valley tech companies, but engineers and other technologists who should be treated as domain experts and involved at every level of newsroom strategy, not relegated to a backroom office and handed a list of product requirements. Newsrooms still seem wary of bringing hard technology skills into their strategic circles. That’s extremely shortsighted: every newsroom today lives or dies on the web. But there were technologists and open source projects in attendance. Notably, representatives from the Mastodon and Bluesky teams were at the Festival. [The Newsmast Foundation](https://www.newsmastfoundation.org/) was also present, incisively taking part in conversations to help newsrooms onboard themselves onto both of them. I got to hang out with them all, connecting with people I’d spoken with but never interacted with in person. Mastodon has undergone a transformation, has doubled its team, and is working on smoothing out some of its rough edges, while not letting go of its core ethos. It’s also beginning to position itself as a European alternative to American social media platforms, with a community-first values system and new services to directly help organizations join the network. Bluesky, on the other hand, has done an able job of bringing journalists onto its existing social app, and is now hard at work explaining why its underlying protocol matters. Both want to engage with newsrooms and journalists and do the right thing by them. They each have something different to prove: Mastodon that it can be usable and accessible, and Bluesky that it can provide a return to its investors and truly decentralize while holding onto its values. I’m rooting for both of them. These platforms’ messages dovetail with my own: news can own the platforms that support them. Lots of people at the Festival were worried about the impact of US big tech on their businesses — particularly in a world where tech moguls seem to be aligning themselves with a Presidential administration that has positioned itself as being adversarial to news, journalists, sources, and, arguably, the truth. The good news is that the *technology* is out there, the values-aligned *technologists* are out there, and there’s a strong path forward. The only thing left is to follow it. ![A street in Perugia](https://old.werd.io/file/67fbdcaf278a0bfcd70b8f02/thumb.jpg) ### The Social Security Administration Is Gutting Regional Staff and Shifting All Public Communications to X URL: https://werd.io/the-social-security-administration-is-gutting-regional-staff-and-shifting/ Last updated: 2025-04-13T06:19:16.000Z \[[Zoë Schiffer at WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/social-security-administration-regional-office-elon-musk-x/)\] The Social Security Administration is changing its communications strategy in a surprising way: > ““We are no longer planning to issue press releases or those dear colleague letters to inform the media and public about programmatic and service changes,” said SSA regional commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis in a meeting with managers earlier this week. “Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public … so this will become our communication mechanism.”” X is, of course, a proprietary network that is currently owned by Elon Musk. Users with accounts on X are profiled for its advertising systems; given the links between Musk and the current administration, this might yield a significant amount of information to the government. Forcing citizens to check the network, which, again, is privately owned and supported by advertising, also feels like an enormous conflict of interest. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.wired.com/story/social-security-administration-regional-office-elon-musk-x/)\] ### After leaving Substack, writers are making more money elsewhere URL: https://werd.io/after-leaving-substack-writers-are-making-more-money-elsewhere/ Last updated: 2025-04-11T11:33:56.000Z \[[Alexander Lee at Digiday](https://digiday.com/media/former-substack-creators-say-theyre-earning-more-on-new-platforms-that-offer-larger-shares-of-subscription-revenue/)\] Substack isn't the best deal in town for independent journalists: > "A year after leaving Substack in early 2024, newsletter writers are making more money peddling their words on other platforms. > > \[...\] Since leaving Substack, some writers’ subscriber counts have plateaued over the past year, while others have risen — but in both cases, creators said that their share of revenue has increased because Ghost and Beehiiv charge creators flat monthly rates that scale based on their subscriber counts, rather than Substack’s 10 percent cut of all transaction fees." I believe [Ghost](https://ghost.org) is the best choice for independent journalists / publishers. Not only does it have all the features they need, but it's the most future-facing; its upcoming [federated news network](https://www.theverge.com/news/632880/ghost-newsletter-blog-fediverse-activitypub-beta-live) is genuinely game-changing. And I've heard good things about Beehiiv too. What's not a good choice: Substack, because it's not only more expensive, but it [platforms Nazis](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/03/substack-user-revolt-anti-censorship-stance-neo-nazis). Which really isn't a thing publishers should have a relationship to. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://digiday.com/media/former-substack-creators-say-theyre-earning-more-on-new-platforms-that-offer-larger-shares-of-subscription-revenue/)\] ### Denial URL: https://werd.io/denial/ Last updated: 2025-04-08T16:09:29.000Z \[[Jeremy Keith](https://adactio.com/journal/21831)\] Jeremy Keith highlights the hammering that the public service internet is getting from LLM vendors: > "When we talk about the unfair practices and harm done by training large language models, we usually talk about it in the past tense: how they were trained on other people’s creative work without permission. But this is an ongoing problem that’s just getting worse. > > The worst of the internet is continuously attacking the best of the internet. This is a distributed denial of service attack on the good parts of the World Wide Web." This has little to do with the actual technology behind LLMs, although there are real issues there too, of course. Here the issue is vendors being bad actors: creating an enormous amount of traffic for resource-strapped services without any of the benefits they might see from a real user's financial support. It is, in a very real sense, strip-mining the internet. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://adactio.com/journal/21831)\] ### What was Quartz? URL: https://werd.io/what-was-quartz/ Last updated: 2025-04-07T17:58:52.000Z \[[Zach Seward](https://www.zachseward.com/what-was-quartz/)\] I first met [Zach Seward](https://www.zachseward.com/) when he was running Quartz, the news startup with the quippy haiku notifications that had, at the time, captured a lot of the media world's attention. It was really good. This piece, by Zach, is written on the heels of the last writers having been fired by G/O Media, with the empty husk sold on to another buyer for the email list. > "Still, we also hoped to endure on the scale of centuries, just like rival news organizations — in particular, The Financial Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal — that we viewed as our Goliaths. For a stretch in the middle there, it even seemed possible. But Quartz never made money. We grew, between 2012 and 2018, to nearly 250 employees and $35 million in annual revenue. The dismal economics of digital media meant losing more than $40 million over that stretch just to grow unsustainably large." And so: > "By 2022, we were running short of cash and didn't have anyone willing to put up more money, especially as enthusiasm waned for the entire digital-media sector. We put together a quick M&A process and made clear that preference would go to anyone willing to take on all of the roughly 80 people still working at Quartz." And then, we already know what happened next. Quartz isn't the only story that ends this way. It's sad to see a venture that aimed to do good things, hired good people, and took an innovative approach still find itself at the mercy of an uncompromising market. Left unsaid but felt in the room: Quartz grew with an enormous amount of venture investment but couldn't realize the scale necessary to make good on it. This is the story of almost all venture-funded media. That doesn't mean venture funding is always bad, but I don't think it's a good fit for media companies. Journalism, inherently, does not scale. It requires a different approach which allows it to convene communities, have a more human touch, and, frankly, grow more slowly. Which doesn't mean that Zach, or David Bradley or anyone else at Quartz are at fault here. It was a good thing that was worth trying. And they made a dent in the universe while they were doing it. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.zachseward.com/what-was-quartz/)\] ### Social Security’s website keeps crashing, as DOGE demands cuts to IT staff URL: https://werd.io/social-securitys-website-keeps-crashing-as-doge-demands-cuts-to/ Last updated: 2025-04-07T14:00:29.000Z \[[Lisa Rein, Hannah Natanson and Elizabeth Dwoskin at The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/07/social-security-website-crashes-musk-trump/)\] More "efficiency" from DOGE: > "Retirees and disabled people are facing chronic website outages and other access problems as they attempt to log in to their online Social Security accounts, even as they are being directed to do more of their business with the agency online. > > \[...\] The problems come as the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team, led by Elon Musk, has imposed a downsizing that’s led to 7,000 job cuts and is preparing to push out thousands more employees at an agency that serves 73 million Americans. The new demands from Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service include a 50 percent cut to the technology division responsible for the website and other electronic access." These benefits are much-needed; people depend on them. In gutting the team that helps provide services, Musk and DOGE are putting peoples' lives at risk. And this is just poor software development practice: > "Many of the network outages appear to be caused by an expanded fraud check system imposed by the DOGE team, current and former officials said. The technology staff did not test the new software against a high volume of users to see if the servers could handle the rush, these officials said." But, of course, perhaps destroying the actual utility of these services is the point. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/07/social-security-website-crashes-musk-trump/)\] ### The Tumblr revival is real—and Gen Z is leading the charge URL: https://werd.io/the-tumblr-revival-is-realand-gen-z-is-leading-the/ Last updated: 2025-04-07T13:48:11.000Z \[[Eve Upton-Clark at Fast Company](https://www.fastcompany.com/91310237/the-tumblr-revival-is-real-and-gen-z-is-leading-the-charge)\] I love this. Tumblr is so back: > "Thanks to Gen Z, the site has found new life. As of 2025, Gen Z makes up 50% of Tumblr’s active monthly users and accounts for 60% of new sign-ups, according to data shared with Business Insider’s Amanda Hoover, who recently reported on the platform’s resurgence. > > \[...\] Perhaps Tumblr’s greatest strength is that it isn’t TikTok or Facebook. Currently the 10th most popular social platform in the U.S., according to analytics firm Similarweb, Tumblr is dwarfed by giants like Instagram and X. For its users, though, that’s part of the appeal." This is worth paying attention to: small communities are a huge part of the selling point. That's something that Mastodon also already has built-in, and Bluesky would do well to learn from. (Signs point to them being aware of this; more of this in a later post.) Sometimes *not* being the public square makes for a far better community culture and safer, more creative dynamics. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.fastcompany.com/91310237/the-tumblr-revival-is-real-and-gen-z-is-leading-the-charge)\] ### How X Is Benefiting as Musk Advises Trump URL: https://werd.io/how-x-is-benefiting-as-musk-advises-trump/ Last updated: 2025-04-07T13:37:57.000Z \[[Kate Conger in The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/technology/elon-musk-x-trump.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.904.EINZ.IYA0q9PaeB7-&smid=nytcore-ios-share)\] Here's one way Elon Musk is gaining from his involvement in the current administration: > "The positioning of X as a powerful government mouthpiece has helped bolster the platform, even as the company continues to struggle." It's worth remembering that [xAI just bought X in an all-stock transaction](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2025/03/31/elon-musks-xai-buys-x-heres-what-that-means-for-you/) \- he's also gaining by pointing his AI engine directly at federal government information in a supposed effort to make it more efficient. But even the social media endorsement is a big deal. In some ways buying advertising on X is akin to would-be political influencers buying extravagant stays at Trump hotels: > "Conservatives have found that X is a direct pipeline to Mr. Musk, allowing them to influence federal policy. He has responded to viral complaints about the government on the platform, and his cost-cutting initiative has marked users’ concerns as “fixed.”" It makes real the idea that the social media site isn't about building a business in itself, but about creating a new instrument of power. The comparisons between Elon's strategy and William Randolph Hearst are obvious; it's just, he's far, far dumber. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/technology/elon-musk-x-trump.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.904.EINZ.IYA0q9PaeB7-&smid=nytcore-ios-share)\] ### Gumroad’s Interestingly Timed “Open-Source” Play URL: https://werd.io/gumroads-interestingly-timed-open-source-play/ Last updated: 2025-04-06T19:32:26.000Z \[[Ernie Smith at Tedium](https://tedium.co/2025/04/06/gumroad-open-source-doge-drama/)\] Ernie Smith points out the creator-economy platform Gumroad open sourced its platform at a surprising time: > "But if that’s all Gumroad was doing, I wouldn’t feel compelled to say anything. The reason I’m speaking up [is because of this Wired story](https://www.wired.com/story/doge-department-of-veterans-affairs-ai/), released on the very same day Gumroad announced its “open source” license, which may have had the effect of minimizing the story’s viral impact. > > \[...\] It’s not even the central point of the piece, but the fact is, if you’re supporting Gumroad—a tool that, notably, has survived as long as it did because of a high-profile crowdfunding campaign—you’re allowing its CEO the financial freedom to work in the Department of Veterans Affairs, at the behest of DOGE, for free." Leave aside that Gumroad's "open sourcing" is nothing really of the sort (it's source-available until you start making real revenue). Its founder is part of the DOGE mess, having replaced most of his employees with AI, with plans to do the same thing at the VA. When this is all over, let's not forget that he did that. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://tedium.co/2025/04/06/gumroad-open-source-doge-drama/)\] ### Doctor Who is the best show ever made. Here's why. URL: https://werd.io/doctor-who-is-the-best-show-ever-made-heres-why/ Last updated: 2025-04-05T19:27:17.000Z ![Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu in press images for the latest season](https://old.werd.io/file/67f183d4f71e13cd630b63c2/thumb.jpg) The world is full of darkness. So much is going wrong. Experts agree that America has succumbed to right-wing authoritarianism; call it fascism or something else, these are extraordinarily difficult times. This post is a break from all of that. At least kind of. In this piece, I will try and convince you that *Doctor Who* is the best TV show ever made, explain to you why it matters, and why it’s *particularly* important in our current context. In a time when cruelty and fear dominate headlines, it’s worth celebrating a show that insists on the power of kindness, intellect, and hope. Bear with me. Let’s go. ### First, a primer: what is Doctor Who? You’ve probably heard of *Doctor Who*, but you might not have watched much or any of it. That’s okay. The core of every story is this: there is a problem, somewhere in time and space. There might be vampires in Venice in 1580; a plot afoot to steal the Mona Lisa in modern-day Paris in order to fund time travel experiments; a society of pacifists on a far-away planet locked in a generations-long war with warlike, genocidal racists. The Doctor, a strange traveler who carries no weapons, helps solve the problem using intelligence and empathy. They bring along friends who are our “in” to the story, but who also remind the Doctor what it means to be human. There’s a lot of backstory, but unlike other science fiction shows, it doesn’t matter all that much. There’s canon and history, but it’s constantly evolving. And because it’s squarely aimed at a whole-family audience, and is almost but not quite an anthology show, it’s accessible, fun, and very diverse in its approach. One story might be incredibly silly; the next might be a tense thriller. If you don’t like the tone of the one you’re watching, the next one might be a better fit. There are a few more constants, but not many: The Doctor’s time and space machine, the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), is stuck as a 1963-era British police box on the outside, and is radically bigger on the inside; every time they die they are “regenerated” in a new body; they stole the TARDIS and fled their people. Oh, and it’s been running since November 23, 1963: 62 years and counting. It’s the longest-running science fiction show in the world — which makes its accessibility and freshness all the more remarkable. In its original run, it launched the career of authors like Douglas Adams. And in its most recent incarnation, it’s been an early career-launcher for actors like Andrew Garfield, Daniel Kaluuya, Carey Mulligan, Felicity Jones, and Karen Gillan. Okay, fine. So that’s what the show *is*. Why does it matter? ### Subversive from day one In 1963, the world was only eighteen years out from the end of World War II. The end of the Holocaust and the closing of the camps was as close as the release of *Spider-Man 3* is to us now. Enoch Powell, who would later give the notoriously noxious “rivers of blood” anti-immigrant speech, was the Minister for Health. Homosexuality was illegal. Waris Hussein, a gay, immigrant director, helmed *An Unearthly Child*, a story about a teenage girl who obviously didn’t fit in and the teachers who were worried about her. (If the subtext to this story isn’t intentional in the writing, it certainly emerges in the direction.) In the end, her grandfather turned out to be a time traveler who lived in a police box that was more than meets the eye, and the rest is history. The very next story was about a society of pacifists, the Thals, who were locked in a struggle with a race of genocidal maniacs, the Daleks. It’s a more complicated story than you might expect: in the end, the Doctor and companions help the Thals win by teaching them that sometimes you need to use violence to defeat fascism. The morality of it isn’t straightforward, but it’s an approach that was deeply rooted in recent memories of defeating the Nazis, and that had a lot to say about a Britain that was already seeing the resurgence of nationalism. In a show for the whole family! When the main actor, William Hartnell, fell into ill health, the show could have come to an end. Instead, the writers built in a contrivance, *regeneration*, that allowed the Doctor to change actors when one left. In turn, the show itself was allowed to evolve. It was created by necessity rather than as some grand plan, but in retrospect laid the groundwork for *Doctor Who* to remain relevant for generations. By the 1980s, the show was still going strong — and still slyly subversive. In *The Happiness Patrol*, the Doctor faces off against a villainous regime obsessed with mandatory cheerfulness, clearly modeled on Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. The episode includes thinly veiled references to the miners’ strike and the inequality many Britons faced under her leadership. It also didn’t shy away from queerness. One male character leaves the main antagonist for another man, and at one point, the TARDIS is painted pink. Eventually, it was canceled, in part because the BBC controller at the time, Conservative-leaning Michael Grade, *hated* it. (The Thatcher thing, and that Colin Baker, one of the last actors to play the Doctor in the classic run, was in a romantic relationship with Grade’s ex-wife, probably didn’t help.) When it came off the air in 1989, scriptwriters and fans alike began to write novels under a Virgin Books *New Adventures* banner that took the subtext of the show and made it text. They told complex stories that could never have been televised — they weren’t as family-friendly, and didn’t fit within a 1980s BBC budget. But they collectively expanded the lore and the breadth of the show. ### Subversive on its return One of those *New Adventures* authors was Russell T Davies, a TV writer who had started with children’s shows like *Dark Season*, *Why Don’t You?*, and *Children’s Ward*, and moved on to creating adult fare like *Queer as Folk* and *The Second Coming*, a tale about the second coming of Christ that happened to feature up-and-coming film star Christopher Ecclestone. He spent years lobbying the BBC to bring *Doctor Who back*, and in 2005, they acquiesced. There had been one other attempt at a revival — and American co-production with Fox — which had understood the letter but not the spirit of the show. From the start, the reboot was vital and contemporary. The human companion, Rose, was a teenager from an unapologetically working class family; a major theme of the show was that everyone was special, and that openness, inclusivity, and empathy, rather than wealth and status, were prerequisites for living a good life. This was a theme that would later be revisited to great effect with Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble: that ordinary people become extraordinary not because they’ve been chosen, but because they care. In 2005, the Iraq War was underway; there was an increase in state surveillance and a stepped-up fear of immigration in the wake of 9/11\. America in particular was under the helm of a right-wing theocratic administration. In contrast, *Doctor Who* stood up to say that everyone was beautiful, our differences were to be celebrated. Christopher Ecclestone’s Doctor had been through an unseen war and was scarred, traumatized, and determined that everyone should live. The new series was able to play with sexuality and gender norms. Captain Jack, a pansexual time traveler, slotted right into the narrative. Characters casually mentioned changing genders or having same-sex spouses without it being the subject of the episode. In every episode, alongside the exciting story of the week, the show normalized and celebrated diversity. It was unashamedly political. In one of my favorite episodes, *Turn Left*, the Doctor is missing and Britain is suffering in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster. England becomes “only for the English”; Donna Noble watches in horror as her neighbors are taken away to a labor camp. “That’s what they called them the last time,” her grandfather ruefully notes. It was an important callback in 2008, at the tail end of the second Bush administration, and it’s only grown in importance now. Again: this is a family show. ### Anchored in good, accessible storytelling You might be forgiving for thinking, based on my argument so far, that *Doctor Who* is a heavy-handed, ideology-first show. What a *bore*. The good news is that this couldn’t be further from the truth: it’s a genuinely fun, accessible romp with award-winning storytelling that ranks among the best of science fiction. It *rules*. At the time of writing, it’s received 163 awards and been nominated for 411\. That includes BAFTA awards (the British Oscars); Hugos (the annual literary award for best science fiction works of the year); National Television Awards; Nebula Awards; and so on. It’s well-regarded as some of the best writing, anywhere. And, of course, it’s also deeply weird, in the best ways. There are haunted libraries with flesh-eating shadows. Star whales ferrying orphaned humanity across the galaxy. A sentient sun. A race of aliens that live in television signals. Some episodes are space operas; others are bottle dramas; some are screwball comedies with robot Santas. Occasionally, it’ll make you cry over a character who appeared for five minutes and then died nobly to save a moon that turned out to be an egg. At its best, *Doctor Who* manages to be profoundly silly and heartbreakingly sincere in the same breath. It lets you believe that logic and love can coexist. That monsters are sometimes just scared people. That sometimes scared people can become monsters — and that they can still be saved. There have been missteps, of course, as you’d expect from anything this experimental. Some come from changing expectations; there are certainly some racial stereotypes in the 1960s/70s episodes that did not age well. More recently, there was an era of the show where Rosa Parks was robbed of agency as an activist. In the same season, an apparent critique of Amazon-style capitalism led into a bizarre statement from the Doctor, who announced: “The systems aren't the problem. How people use and exploit the system, that's the problem.” And writers made queer people and people of color expendable. It wasn’t the best, to be honest, but the show has ably course corrected. More recently, trans and non-binary characters have become central — all while expanding the narrative canvas of the show under a refreshed budget and a focus on new viewers. Ncuti Gatwa as the first openly queer Doctor is a revelation, full of joy and life. It’s as brilliant as it ever was. ### Why it matters now The world hasn’t gotten any less terrifying since *Doctor Who* first aired in 1963\. If anything, the monsters feel closer, less metaphorical. They’re holding office. Writing curriculum. Rewriting history. But that’s exactly why this show endures. Because *Doctor Who* doesn’t promise us a perfect future — it promises us people who will fight for one. It shows us a universe where the best tool you can carry is your mind, your heart, and your ability to listen. Where change is baked into the story, and where survival requires transformation. It’s a story that insists on second chances. That redemption is possible. That the most powerful force in the universe might just be compassion. And in a world that tells us to numb out, shut down, or look away — *Doctor Who* dares to say: be curious. Be brave. Try to be nice, but always be kind. It’s great television. But also, maybe that’s how we save each other. ### Get started If you’re *Who*\-curious, here are a few places to start: *[Blink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink%5F%28Doctor%5FWho%29)* (2007). A gripping, self-contained episode with an innovative narrative loop that happens to star Carey Mulligan. *‌[Rose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose%5F%28Doctor%5FWho%5Fepisode%29)* (2005). The first episode of the revived show. Why not begin at the beginning? *‌[The Eleventh Hour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FEleventh%5FHour%5F%28Doctor%5FWho%29)* (2010). Matt Smith’s first story as the Doctor. Guest stars include Olivia Coleman as a barking alien. Positively cinematic. ### Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer URL: https://werd.io/climate-crisis-on-track-to-destroy-capitalism-warns-top-insurer/ Last updated: 2025-04-04T03:10:37.000Z \[[Damian Carrington in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/03/climate-crisis-on-track-to-destroy-capitalism-warns-allianz-insurer)\] Quite a headline! > "The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments." Entire regions are becoming uninsurable - for example, the piece highlights home insurance in many parts of California becoming hard to obtain. Much of finance depends on insurance underwriting, so as these effects spread, so do the knock-on impacts on financial markets. > "At 3C of global heating, climate damage cannot be insured against, covered by governments, or adapted to, Thallinger said: “That means no more mortgages, no new real estate development, no long-term investment, no financial stability. The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.”" De-risking the climate crisis is becoming more and more important - and this has been an imperative for decades. The call here to put sustainability goals on the same level as financial goals is smart. But we're in an era where we're turning our backs against this sort of thinking - and towards unadulterated greed, consequences be damned. Getting out of the climate mess means first getting out of this other mess that we're all in. [#Climate](https://werd.io/tag/Climate) \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/03/climate-crisis-on-track-to-destroy-capitalism-warns-allianz-insurer)\] ### Facing the Looming Threat of A.I., Publishers Turn to Decentralized Platforms URL: https://werd.io/facing-the-looming-threat-of-ai-publishers-turn-to-decentralized/ Last updated: 2025-04-04T02:01:42.000Z \[[John Markoff in The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/technology/mike-mccue-surf-browser-decentralized-internet.html)\] A lovely piece about [Mike McCue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike%5FMcCue), who, through [Flipboard](https://flipboard.com), [Surf](https://surf.social/), and his general activities through the community, has become one of the open social web's most important figures. > "Three decades ago, as vice president of technology at the groundbreaking tech company Netscape, Mr. McCue helped democratize information access through the World Wide Web. Now, he’s positioning his company’s new Surf browser as part of a growing community of so-called decentralized social media options, alongside emerging platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon." Of course, Surf is different to Bluesky and Mastodon: it sits across them, rather than an alternative to them, and demonstrates the power of the open social web by treating them both as just part of a single, connected experience. This is the point that [A New Social](https://www.anew.social/) is making too: it's not about picking a protocol, because the protocols can easily be joined together. It's about an open social web that we all own together versus a series of closed, corporate silos with private ownership. It's gaining momentum: > "In addition to Meta’s decision to base Threads on ActivityPub, news organizations like Bloomberg and the BBC have begun experimenting with the technology, as have blogging platforms such as Medium, WordPress and Ghost." The piece goes on to describe the enthusiasm among early adopters as being similar to the first few years of the web itself. I was there for both things, and I agree. And let me tell you: I am *beyond* enthusiastic. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/technology/mike-mccue-surf-browser-decentralized-internet.html)\] ### How to leak to a journalist URL: https://werd.io/how-to-leak-to-a-journalist/ Last updated: 2025-04-02T20:01:27.000Z \[[Laura Hazard Owen at Nieman Journalism Lab](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/how-to-leak-to-a-journalist/)\] A good introduction to leaking to a journalist: > "I spoke with eight journalists about how to leak in a safe, smart way. Disclaimer you probably knew was coming: No method of leaking is 100% secure, and the tips here reduce risk but cannot eliminate it completely. “I know it’s appealing to be instrumental in helping a reporter break a story, and god knows reporters love breaking stories,” says Marisa Kabas, an independent reporter and writer of The Handbasket who’s been breaking one scoop after another about DOGE and the Trump administration. “But in almost all cases, your safety and physical and mental health should come first.”" A lot depends on [Signal](https://signal.org), although some newsrooms (including my employer) also advertise [SecureDrop](https://securedrop.org/), which is a very sophisticated tool for large, anonymous leaks. [The complete list is worth your time.](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/how-to-leak-to-a-journalist/) If you're a source, consider using these tools. If you're a funder, consider investing in these tools. If you're a newsroom, make sure you know how to use these tools. They've become the currency of privately-sourced stories in the current era. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/how-to-leak-to-a-journalist/)\] ### Keep moving URL: https://werd.io/keep-moving/ Last updated: 2025-04-02T13:07:55.000Z \[[Mandy Brown](https://everythingchanges.us/blog/keep-moving/)\] A good reminder here from Mandy Brown. > "Among the people I’ve witnessed working through crises in their work and lives, the one pattern that comes up over and over again is making art. Art brings us back to ourselves, helps us root in our own agency and creative power, makes space for the joy of craft and play, and reminds us of our purpose in the world. On dark days, it’s easy to think that there’s no room for art, because the work of survival is so demanding. But art doesn’t merely take time—it gives time and energy back. It renews our spirits and the spirits of everyone who sees or hears or experiences the art, who receives the art as it’s intended: as a gift." I sometimes have to remind myself that it's not frivolous; that it doesn't matter that it's not productive in a work sense. But it's *not* frivolous. It's living. It's being alive. And we all have the right to be alive. [#Culture](https://werd.io/tag/Culture) \[[Link](https://everythingchanges.us/blog/keep-moving/)\] ### Support Werd I/O URL: https://werd.io/support-werd-io/ Last updated: 2025-04-01T13:21:58.000Z It’s time to try something new. Starting today, [you can support my writing on Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/user?u=203093). I’ll never put up a paywall for my blog or newsletter; in effect, by supporting, you’re helping to continue to make it available for everyone. [Here’s what you’ll get](https://www.patreon.com/user?u=203093): - **At $5/month** or more, your name will be listed as a “thank you” on a supporters page on my website. - **At $25/month** or more, your name will also link to your website from the supporters page, and you’ll receive a linked “thank you” credit at the bottom of each newsletter. - **At $100/month** or more, you’ll get a linked name and static logo at the top of every newsletter, and a linked “thank you” at the bottom of every page on my website. (I’ve limited the number of supporters at this tier.) The site you link to must be yours, safe, legal, and not an affiliate page. I won’t allow gambling, adult sites, or anything designed to abuse the trust of the reader. This is an experiment! If it doesn’t work out, I’ll remove the Patreon but ensure that everybody receives the acknowledgment they’ve paid for. Here’s what I like about this model: there are no paywalls and there’s no user tracking involved, and there are no penalties for people who don’t have the means to support. It helps me with my server costs, but otherwise, everything stays the same. But if you have concerns, I’d love to hear them. As always, you can [shoot me an email](mailto:ben@werd.io) at [ben@werd.io](mailto:ben@werd.io). ### ProPublica wanted to find more sources in the federal government. So it brought a truck. URL: https://werd.io/propublica-wanted-to-find-more-sources-in-the-federal-government/ Last updated: 2025-04-01T01:45:03.000Z \[[Nell Dhanesha at Nieman Journalism Lab](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/03/propublica-wanted-to-find-more-sources-in-the-federal-government-so-it-brought-a-truck/)\] This was fun to watch unfold in real time: > "The truck’s journey to that spot had begun a few days earlier, as an email with the subject line “guerilla marketing for sources” in the inbox of Ariana Tobin, editor of ProPublica’s crowdsourcing and engagement team. It came from reporter Brett Murphy, who was covering the destruction of USAID with his reporting partner Anna Maria Barry-Jester. They’d been tipped off about the desk cleanouts; was there any chance, they asked Tobin, that they could send a billboard truck out on the morning of the 27th?" And this quote quietly implies what a significant chunk of my job has become more recently: > "“We’re basically treating any conversation we’re having with someone who works for or used to work for the federal government as a maximum-security tip,” Tobin said. “That, frankly, is not what we used to do.”" Perhaps we'll write more about that in the future. For now, speaking of tips, [if you want to send ProPublica a tip, we now have a number of options](https://propublica.org/tips). [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/03/propublica-wanted-to-find-more-sources-in-the-federal-government-so-it-brought-a-truck/)\] ### China Miéville says we shouldn't blame science fiction for its bad readers URL: https://werd.io/china-mi-c3-a9ville-says-we-shouldnt-blame-science-fiction-for-its/ Last updated: 2025-03-31T13:31:44.000Z \[[Anthony Ha at TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/30/author-china-mieville-says-we-shouldnt-blame-science-fiction-for-its-bad-readers/)\] China Miéville, who is one of the great contemporary science fiction and fantasy authors, is right on the money about Silicon Valley's tendency to [create the Torment Nexus](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus). This is exactly why I think science fiction is so important, and why it has a lot to contribute: > "To Miéville, it’s a mistake to read science fiction as if it’s really about the future: “It’s always about now. It’s always a reflection. It’s a kind of fever dream, and it’s always about its own sociological context.” > > He added that there’s a “societal and personal derangement” at work when the rich and powerful “are more interested in settling Mars than sorting out the world” — but ultimately, it’s not science fiction that’s responsible." To me, the point and excitement of science fiction is to talk about today through the lens of analogy and extrapolation: not necessarily to warn or celebrate, but to explore. Of course, there's a broad spectrum of stories under that umbrella, and not all of them fit that mold as well as others, but that's what drives me as a reader and a writer. It's up to the reader to decide what to take from that. I think a lot about *Starship Troopers*. (Really! I do. Some people think about the Roman Empire. I think about Heinlein.) The original book was, at the very least, fascist-adjacent. The movie adaptation was, at least for me, and in intent by its director, a very funny satire at the expense of those ideas. But, of course, some people took away the top-line plot and either decried the fascism or, more worryingly, *freaking loved it*. See also: *Fight Club*, which a certain kind of incel adjacent maladjusted man-child has taken on as something to model, rather than a satirical novel that pokes at them and the country they inhabit. The reader makes their own interpretation. And if that happens to be a sociopathic world-view bent on world domination, that's on them. [#Culture](https://werd.io/tag/Culture) \[[Link](https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/30/author-china-mieville-says-we-shouldnt-blame-science-fiction-for-its-bad-readers/)\] ### How Each Pillar of the 1st Amendment is Under Attack URL: https://werd.io/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/ Last updated: 2025-03-31T02:28:37.000Z \[[Brian Krebs](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/)\] Sobering roundup from [Brian Krebs](https://krebsonsecurity.com) about how each of the five pillars of the First Amendment - speech, religion, the media, the right to assembly, and the right to petition the government and seek redress for wrongs - has been attacked during the first few months of the Trump Administration. [It's a laundry list - and we're only a few months in.](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/) > "Where is President Trump going with all these blatant attacks on the First Amendment? The president has made no secret of his affection for autocratic leaders and “strongmen” around the world, and he is particularly enamored with Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort twice in the past year." The piece concludes with a warning that Trump is following a similar playbook to Orbán by consolidating control over the courts and decimating the free press. It played out there; we will see what happens here. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/)\] ### Hundreds of international students wake up to an email asking them to self deport for campus activism URL: https://werd.io/hundreds-of-international-students-wake-up-to-an-email-asking/ Last updated: 2025-03-30T13:16:16.000Z \[[Lubna Kably in The Times of India](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/hundreds-of-international-students-are-waking-up-to-an-email-asking-them-to-self-deport-for-campus-activism-or-even-sharing-posts-on-social-media/articleshow/119679695.cms)\] Worrying stuff being reported by the Times of India (and, at the time of writing, under-reported in the domestic US press). AI is being used to flag international students because of their social media activity, among other signals, who are now being sent emails asking them to "self-deport": > "Hundreds of international students in the US are getting an email from the US Department of State (DOS) asking them to self-deport owing to campus activism. Immigration attorneys’ contacted by TOI affirmed this development and added a few Indian students may also be at the receiving end of such emails – for something as innocuous as sharing a social media post. > > It is not just international students who physically participated in campus activism but also those who shared or liked ‘anti-national’ posts that are the target of these emails, said an immigration attorney." Axios [previously reported on how this was going to be done](https://www.axios.com/2025/03/06/state-department-ai-revoke-foreign-student-visas-hamas): > "Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled "Catch and Revoke" effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups" From that article: > ""This should concern all Americans. This is a First Amendment and freedom of speech issue and the administration will overplay its hand," said Abed Ayoub, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee." It's a clear First Amendment issue. Whether they've overplayed their hand unfortunately remains to be seen. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/hundreds-of-international-students-are-waking-up-to-an-email-asking-them-to-self-deport-for-campus-activism-or-even-sharing-posts-on-social-media/articleshow/119679695.cms)\] ### Apple’s AI isn’t a letdown. AI is the letdown URL: https://werd.io/apples-ai-isnt-a-letdown-ai-is-the-letdown/ Last updated: 2025-03-29T19:29:33.000Z \[[Allison Morrow at CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/tech/apple-ai-artificial-intelligence)\] It's refreshing to see this kind of AI skepticism in a major outlet: > "Apple, like every other big player in tech, is scrambling to find ways to inject AI into its products. Why? Well, it’s the future! What problems is it solving? Well, so far that’s not clear! Are customers demanding it? LOL, no. In fact, last year the backlash against one of Apple’s early ads for its AI was so hostile the company had to pull the commercial. > > \[...\] Large language models are fascinating science. They are an academic wonder with huge potential and some early commercial successes, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. But a bot that’s 80% accurate \[...\] isn’t a very useful consumer product." I'm more than ready for the hype cycle to come to its conclusion. Are there some interesting use cases for AI? Sure. Should the ethical, functional, environmental, and contextual issues with current AI vendors give us all pause at the very least? Absolutely. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/tech/apple-ai-artificial-intelligence)\] ### DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Code Base in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse URL: https://werd.io/doge-plans-to-rebuild-ssa-code-base-in-months-risking/ Last updated: 2025-03-29T13:51:29.000Z \[[Makena Kelly at WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/)\] If you know anything about building software, you know that this is an absurd idea: > "The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk." Moving a 60 million line COBOL codebase to another language (be it Java or anything else) is not a small undertaking, and the SSA underpins necessary benefits for millions of Americans. Doing it in months likely requires using something like an LLM - and anyone who's used an LLM to code will tell you that the output is riddled with mistakes and inefficiencies. It's not a workable plan. Or, as [Dan Hon](https://about.danhon.com/) puts it in the piece: > “If you weren't worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead.” A project like this *should* take years. Most of that isn't coding time: it's analysis, writing the tests, rearchitecting, and putting protections in place to ensure that nobody goes without the benefits they need to live. Doing it as a rush job isn't just incompetence; it's indifference to the lives of some of our most vulnerable neighbors. Which, let's face it, is in keeping with everything else going on. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/)\] ### How Elon Musk’s SpaceX Secretly Allows Investment From China URL: https://werd.io/how-elon-musks-spacex-secretly-allows-investment-from-china/ Last updated: 2025-03-26T13:06:44.000Z \[[Joshua Kaplan and Justin Elliott at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-spacex-allows-china-investment-cayman-islands-secrecy)\] I bet this practice is more common than anyone might think, and certainly isn't limited to China. As always, follow the money: > "In December, \[SpaceX investor\] Kahlon testified that SpaceX prefers to avoid investors from China because it is a defense contractor. There is a major exception though, he said: SpaceX finds it “acceptable” for Chinese investors to buy into the company through offshore vehicles. > > “The primary mechanism is that those investors would come through intermediate entities that they would create or others would create,” Kahlon said. “Typically they would set up BVI structures or Cayman structures or Hong Kong structures and various other ones,” he added, using the acronym for the British Virgin Islands. Offshore vehicles are often used to keep investors anonymous." The key point here is not that the Chinese investments are illegal - they probably aren't - or that anyone thinks SpaceX is being directed by the Chinese government. What's odd is that the company *prefers the obfuscation*: it sounds like they don't accept Chinese investment unless it's being channeled through an offshore vehicle designed to hide their involvement from regulatory scrutiny. That obfuscation is particularly important given that Elon Musk is now a part of the US government. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-spacex-allows-china-investment-cayman-islands-secrecy)\] ### Careless People: Facebook insider’s memoir reveals more in what it omits URL: https://werd.io/careless-people-facebook-insiders-memoir-reveals-more-in-what-it/ Last updated: 2025-03-26T12:56:45.000Z \[[Sabhanaz Rashid Diya at Rest of World](https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-facebook-global-policy/?utm%5Fsource=rss&utm%5Fmedium=rss&utm%5Fcampaign=feeds)\] Like the author, I read [Careless People](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781250391230), Sarah Wynn-Williams' account of her time as a director for global public policy at Facebook during a period when the company transitioned from a largely-domestic social network to a worldwide powerhouse that ultimately enabled a genocide. It's written with a kind of ironic detachment that seeks to minimize the Wynn-Williams' own culpability, and while it's an engaging, jaw-dropping read, [there are clear omissions](https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-facebook-global-policy/): > "In recounting events, the author glosses over her own indifference to repeated warnings from policymakers, civil society, and internal teams outside the U.S. that ultimately led to serious harm to communities. > > \[...\] Her delayed reckoning underscores how Facebook’s leadership remains largely detached from real-world consequences of their decisions until they become impossible to ignore. Perhaps because everyone wants to be a hero of their own story, Wynn-Williams frames her opposition to leadership decisions as isolated; in reality, powerful resistance had long existed within what Wynn-Williams describes as Facebook’s “lower-level employees.”" The author has personal experience working for Facebook as part of the global teams Wynn-Williams presided over, cleaning up the messes that she and her colleagues created. As such, the author sees the gaps clearly, and her review cuts to the core of the problem with the book. That doesn't mean it's valueless, and in some ways it's strongest when detailing the personalities of people like Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, and contrasting the public face of *Lean In* with her experiences of being a mother while working alongside them. The fact that Facebook [is attempting to suppress the book](https://www.vulture.com/article/careless-people-sarah-wynn-williams-facebook-gag-order.html) inherently makes it worth reading, in my view, and I think it *should* be read by everyone in the tech industry. Not only because it’s a cautionary tale in itself, but because the personalities described here are rife in the industry. I’ve never spoken to Mark or Sheryl or Joel or most of the rest of them, but I’ve met people like them, with those same sensibilities, and they are every bit as shallow and driven by power as is laid out here. These are the people to avoid. These are the people who will lead us into hell. These are the people who, in very real ways, through genocides, swung elections, and the violence of indifference to real human suffering, already are. The thing is, Sarah Wynn-Williams was one of them. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-facebook-global-policy/?utm%5Fsource=rss&utm%5Fmedium=rss&utm%5Fcampaign=feeds)\] ### No, we’re not a startup — and that’s fine URL: https://werd.io/no-were-not-a-startup-and-thats-fine/ Last updated: 2025-03-25T20:55:51.000Z ![Turn ideas into reality](https://old.werd.io/file/67e31845bb9e3a3b96040822/thumb.jpg) Inadvertently, the other day, I became one of *those* people. My team and I were sitting together as part of a week-long summit; some attendees were in New York City, while others attended remotely. I was taking them through the principles that I believe are important for developing software for our newsroom: a laser focus on the needs of a real user, building the smallest thing we can and then testing and iterating from there, shortening feedback loops, and focusing on the most targeted work we can that will meaningfully make progress towards our goals. And then I said it: “I see our team as a startup.” *Oof.* It wasn’t even the first time the words had left my mouth. Or the second or the third. One of my colleagues very kindly gave me feedback in a smaller session afterwards. She pointed out that this has become a cliché in larger organizations: a manager will say “we act like a startup” but then will do nothing of the sort. In fact, almost nobody in these settings can agree on what a startup even *is*. And even if they did, the environment doesn’t allow it. Big companies don’t magically “act like a startup”. The layers of approval, organizational commitments, and big-org company culture are all inevitably still intact — how could they not be? — and the team is supposed to nebulously “be innovative” as a kind of thin corporate aspiration rather than an achievable, concrete practice. The definitions, resources, culture, and *permission* to act differently from the rest of the organization simply aren’t there. At best it’s naivety; at worst it’s a purposeful, backhanded call for longer hours and worse working conditions. But when I said those words, I wasn’t thinking about corporate culture. I was remembering something else entirely. I often think back to a conference I attended in Edinburgh — the Association for Learning Technology’s annual shindig, which that year was held on the self-contained campus of Heriot-Watt University. There, I made the mistake of criticizing RDF, a technology that was the darling of educational technologists at the time. That was why a well-regarded national figure in the space stood up and yelled at me at the top of his voice: “Why should anyone listen to you? You’re two guys in a shed!” The thing is, we *were* two guys in a shed. With no money at all. And, at the time, I was *loving* it. A few years earlier, I quit my job because I was certain that social networking platforms were a huge part of the future of how people would learn from each other and about the world. My co-founder and I didn’t raise funding: instead, we found customers early on and gave ourselves more time by earning revenue. Neither one of us was a businessman; we didn’t know what we were doing. We had to invent the future of our company — and do it with no money. It felt like we were *willing it into existence*, and we were doing it on our own terms. Nobody could tell us what to do; there was nobody to greenlight our ideas except our customers. It was thrilling. I’ve never felt more empowered in my career. There is no way to recapture that inside of a larger organization. And nobody should want to. The most important difference is that *we owned the business*. Each of us held a 50% share. Yes, we worked weird hours, pulled feats of technical gymnastics, and were working under the constant fear of running out of money, but that was a choice we made for ourselves — and if the business *worked*, we’d see the upside. That’s not true for anyone who can be described as an “employee” rather than a “founder”. Even if employees hold stock in the company, the stake is always orders of magnitude smaller; their ability to set the direction of the company, smaller still. Another truth is that almost nobody has done this. If you’ve worked in larger institutions for most of your career, you’ve never felt the same urgency. If you’ve never *bootstrapped* a startup, the word might conjure up memories of two million dollar raises and offices in SoMA. Maybe a Series C company with hundreds of people on staff. Or Mark Zuckerberg in *The Social Network*, backstabbing his way to riches. In each case, the goal is to grow the company, make your way to an IPO or an exit, and be a good steward of investor value. In places like San Francisco, that’s probably a more common startup story than mine. But it’s an entirely different adventure. So instead of using the word “startup” and somehow expecting people to innately connect with my lived experience on a wholesale basis, what do I actually want to convey? What do I think is important? I think it’s these things: - **Experiment-driven:** The team has autonomy to conceive of, design, run, and execute on the results of repeated, small, measurable experiments. - **Human-centered:** The team has their “customers” (their exact users) in mind and is trying to solve their real problems as quickly as possible. Nobody is building a bubble and spending a year “scratching their own itch” without knowing if their user will “buy” it. - **Low-budget:** The team is conscious about cost, scope, and complexity. There’s no assumption of infinite time, money, or attention. That constraint is a feature, not a bug. - **Time-bound:** The team is focused on quick wins that move the needle quickly, not larger projects with far-off deadlines (or no deadline at all). - **Outcome-driven:** The point is to help the user, not to spend our time doing one activity or sticking to a known area of expertise. If buying off the shelf fits the budget and gets us there faster, then that’s what we do. If it turns out that the user needs something different, then that’s what we build. Quickly. *That’s* what I was trying to say. Not that we’re a startup — but that we can and should work in a way that’s fast, focused, and grounded in real human needs. We don’t need the mythology or the branded T-shirts. We just need the mindset — and the permission. ### Baby's first blog post URL: https://werd.io/babys-first-blog-post/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:14:35.000Z Fp9ootron ABCXXZXCFDSESW4ZXDAWEQ!QWZ fwwqqqqwwQsxXSQWSASXC XDΩSXEDRTY7U8I9 *Editor's note: does toddler input have sufficient entropy to be used as a random number generator?* ### Is it safe to travel to the United States with your phone right now? URL: https://werd.io/is-it-safe-to-travel-to-the-united-states-with/ Last updated: 2025-03-23T13:11:33.000Z \[[Gaby Del Valle at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/policy/634264/customs-border-protection-search-phone-airport-rights)\] I appreciated this deep-dive on whether it's safe to travel through US borders with your phone. Journalists and anyone who's made overt political statements should take particular note. > "The government maintains that it doesn’t need a warrant to conduct “basic” searches of the contents of a person’s phone. During these searches, Hussain explained, agents are supposed to put your phone on airplane mode and can only look at what is accessible offline — but that can still be a lot of information, including any cloud data that’s currently synced." [The EFF maintains a pretty great pocket guide](https://www.eff.org/document/eff-border-search-pocket-guide) that is also worth checking out. The constitutionality of searches is "still an open question" - but that doesn't matter in the moment. My advice at this stage is to sign out of important apps (like your work email and encrypted messaging apps like Signal), turn off biometric logins like Face ID, and switch your phone off. That does mean you need to print out your boarding card, for example, and do a little pre-work to make sure your data is backed up. Clearly, this is a pain. But if you deal with any sensitive information, or have any vulnerable people in your family or community, you need to change your security stance to be a good steward of their safety. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/policy/634264/customs-border-protection-search-phone-airport-rights)\] ### Time to ditch US tech services, says Dutch parliament URL: https://werd.io/time-to-ditch-us-tech-services-says-dutch-parliament/ Last updated: 2025-03-20T13:25:23.000Z \[[Brandon Vigliarolo at The Register](https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/19/dutch%5Fparliament%5Fus%5Ftech/)\] In the wake of [the French and German governments joining forces to build an alternative to Notion and Google Docs](https://creativerly.com/french-and-german-governments-join-forces-to-launch-open-source-notion-alternative-called-docs/), the Dutch government has passed eight motions to avoid US software and move to a home-grown stack. > ""With each IT service our government moves to American tech giants, we become dumber and weaker," Dutch MP Barbara Kathmann, author of four of the motions, told The Register. "If we continue outsourcing all of our digital infrastructure to billionaires that would rather escape Earth by building space rockets, there will be no Dutch expertise left." > > Kathmann's measures specifically call on the government to stop the migration of Dutch information and communications technology to American cloud services, the creation of a Dutch national cloud, the repatriation of the .nl top-level domain to systems operating within the Netherlands, and for the preparation of risk analyses and exit strategies for all government systems hosted by US tech giants." Inevitably, these will be open source solutions that offer stronger privacy (with GDPR compliance from the beginning rather than as an afterthought) and fewer dependencies on third party centralized services. I see this as a very strongly good thing: everyone will see the benefit of such tools, and if you have values like "software shouldn't spy on you" and "you should have full control over your data", there will be more options for you to choose from. The context is important: > "The motions passed by the Dutch parliament come as the Trump administration ratchets up tensions with a number of US allies – the EU among them. Nearly 100 EU-based tech companies and lobbyists sent an open letter to the European Commission this week asking it to find a way to divest the bloc from systems managed by US companies due to "the stark geopolitical reality Europe is now facing."" It's sensible. I agree. This is what Europe should be doing. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/19/dutch%5Fparliament%5Fus%5Ftech/)\] ### Vivian Jenna Wilson on Being Elon Musk’s Estranged Daughter, Protecting Trans Youth and Taking on the Right Online URL: https://werd.io/vivian-jenna-wilson-on-being-elon-musks-estranged-daughter-protecting/ Last updated: 2025-03-20T13:14:17.000Z \[[Ella Yurman in Teen Vogue](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/vivian-jenna-wilson-elon-musk-trans-youth)\] This interview with Musk's daughter Vivian Wilson is everything. > "The Nazi salute sh*t was insane. Honey, we're going to call a fig a fig, and we're going to call a Nazi salute what it was. That sh*t was definitely a Nazi salute. The crowd is equally to blame, and I feel like people are not talking about that. That crowd should be denounced. > > But other than that, I don't give a f\*\*k about him. I really don't." Wilson is [a refreshing, no-nonsense voice on Threads](https://www.threads.net/@vivllainous), and that same no-BS attitude comes through here like an avalanche. And this, of course, is vitally important: > "As a trans woman, I am terrified of losing access to guaranteed medical care. If I didn't medically transition at the age I did, I don't know what would've happened. I don't feel like people realize that being trans is not a choice. I'm so sorry to break it to you. > > Transitioning as a minor was something that was medically necessary for me to do in order to be not suicidal, and it is really important that we protect access to trans care for trans youth." Wilson is an example of someone this healthcare not only saved but helped thrive. It's exciting to see her use her insightful, attentive, sometimes hilariously-sharp voice. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/vivian-jenna-wilson-elon-musk-trans-youth)\] ### The war on encryption is dangerous URL: https://werd.io/the-war-on-encryption-is-dangerous/ Last updated: 2025-03-20T12:54:35.000Z \[[Meredith Whittaker in the Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/a934150f-e0f5-4e75-a2d1-a3671ea52ca0)\] A great op-ed from [Meredith Whittaker, President of Signal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith%5FWhittaker) on the ludicrous demands by the British government for Apple to backdoor its encryption: > "Imagine a government telling a car company to secretly weaken the effectiveness of the brakes on all the cars it sells, recklessly endangering the safety of millions. It would be an unthinkable undermining of public safety. > > Sadly, this is what’s happening in the UK in cyber security, where Apple was forced to strip the vital privacy and security protection of end-to-end encryption from its backups storage service — exposing people and infrastructure to significant vulnerabilities." Meredith is (as usual) right. She points out that not only is this a wildly dangerous thing to do in general, but it undermines the technology industry that the British government sometimes says it wants to support. Americans shouldn't be complacent. [This may be a battle that's heading our way next](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/18/apple-uk-battle-on-iphone-security-is-biggest-data-risk-since-snowden.html) \- and one that was [already fought in the nineties](https://archive.epic.org/crypto/ban/). We can't let these erosions of civil liberties take place here; they should not happen anywhere. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.ft.com/content/a934150f-e0f5-4e75-a2d1-a3671ea52ca0)\] ### You’re Not a Criminal, But You’re Going to Jail: My ICE Detention Story as a Canadian Citizen URL: https://werd.io/youre-not-a-criminal-but-youre-going-to-jail-my/ Last updated: 2025-03-19T22:13:22.000Z \[[Jasmine Mooney](https://medium.com/@jasminemooney/youre-not-a-criminal-but-you-re-going-to-jail-my-ice-detention-story-as-a-canadian-citizen-08b4fa77a15c)\] A nightmare account from a Canadian citizen detained by ICE: > "I was taken to a tiny, freezing cement cell with bright fluorescent lights and a toilet. There were five other women lying on their mats with the aluminum sheets wrapped over them like dead bodies. The guard locked the door behind me. > > \[...\] After some research, the reality became clear — ICE detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit. > > Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain. The more prisoners, the more money they make. They don’t lobby for stricter immigration policies in the name of national security — they do it to protect their bottom line." There is so much to fix here, but perhaps this is the crux: people are making a profit from tightened immigration rules that keep people detained for months or years without due process. That shouldn't be allowed to happen. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://medium.com/@jasminemooney/youre-not-a-criminal-but-you-re-going-to-jail-my-ice-detention-story-as-a-canadian-citizen-08b4fa77a15c)\] ### Forcing people back to the office was a choice. I'm making mine. URL: https://werd.io/forcing-people-back-to-the-office-was-a-choice-im/ Last updated: 2025-03-19T20:32:03.000Z ![Remote work](https://old.werd.io/file/67db29bde9025a16440b4679/thumb.jpg) I cleaned out my desk a little over five years ago. It feels like last week. I was leading engineering at [ForUsAll](https://forusall.com), a fintech company that seeks to make it easier for small businesses to offer retirement plans for their employees. The co-founder, David, had been wearing a mask around the office for a month; he was following the growth of COVID-19 closely. The then-CEO agreed to close the office if the number of cases in San Francisco went beyond some small threshold; when it did, we picked up our laptops and left. Of course, we all know what happened next: lockdowns, sourdough starters, and remote working on a scale never seen before. I prefer remote working and always have. My first startup was mostly remote: my co-founder was in Edinburgh for a while, and spent some time in Vancouver, while I was in Oxford with occasional long stretches in California. I worked at my kitchen table, drank my own coffee, and set my own hours. It was flexible depending on what was going on at the time, and undoubtedly productive. When I joined a startup based in Austin but worked from Edinburgh and Berkeley, it felt like a natural progression. When the pandemic hit, I couldn’t wait to return to that mode of working. I had another reason to feel like working from home was a silver lining: my mother’s health had been up and down following her double lung transplant, and now I could spend more time with her. What had been a regular Sunday visit became a much longer weekly stay. My dad was the primary carer, but I could help out. Many nights, I would help her up the short flight of stairs to her bedroom, help situate her in her bed, with brushing her teeth, and so on. Working from home gave me extra time with her, and I treasured that. More recently, it allowed me to buy a house. There was no way I could buy in the San Francisco Bay Area. For literally half the price of a two-bedroom house in a troubled part of Oakland, I could get a house that would fit my family in Pennsylvania. We walk our child to and from daycare every day, have a garden and a driveway, and, although there’s no doubt that the house needs work, generally feel safe and secure. I’m far from alone. Working from home has been a boon for carers, parents, and anyone who felt like they weren’t able to get on the property ladder in major business hubs like San Francisco and New York. It’s spread wealth from industries like tech to neighborhoods across the country, and in turn allowed tech companies to hire from anywhere, giving them access to talent that would previously have been out of reach. According to official figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, [productivity rose](https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-13/remote-work-productivity.htm). For remote work to be successful, communication, internal processes, and norms need to be explicit. Companies that had never spent much time thinking about culture now found that they were forced to, which was a positive outcome for their employees, many of whom had been suffering in silence. A renewed focus on employee power — in conjunction with the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter — also led to a rise in unionization efforts, which also aimed to improve worker quality of life. Despite the overhead of the pandemic itself, these changes felt like they were part of a cohesive, positive movement. So I read stories [like this one in the San Francisco Standard](https://sfstandard.com/2025/03/18/san-francisco-in-office-work-era/) with something like a sense of dread: > “Two years ago, I could not get anybody to go into the office a couple days a week,” said Jaimie Feliz, principal at San Francisco recruiting firm The Hire Standard. “Now, across the board, it’s pretty standard for companies to ask for a minimum of three days in office — it’s very rare to see any less than that.” Many tech companies are suspending hiring and promotions for workers outside of their hub cities, and there’s an assumption that, over time, employees who remain outside of those hubs will be laid off. Given the negative impacts on carers, parents, people who have bought homes outside of those hub cities, and on the productivity of those companies, this feels like a regression. This is doubly true when you look at the underlying statistics. One of the big reasons for calls back to the office [is to perform backdoor layoffs](https://www.itpro.com/business/business-strategy/business-execs-just-said-the-quiet-part-out-loud-on-rto-mandates-a-quarter-admit-forcing-staff-back-into-the-office-was-meant-to-make-them-quit-but-this-quiet-firing-practice-could-easily-backfire): management understands that a substantial percentage will quit. Research also suggests that [it’s about control](https://www.workdesign.com/2024/10/reasons-behind-rto-mandates/): > RTO mandates may reflect a desire among certain leaders to reassert control and authority within the organization \[…\] This perspective highlights the role of organizational power dynamics and the potential for RTO policies to serve as instruments for reinforcing traditional hierarchical structures, at odds with the trend towards greater autonomy and flexibility facilitated by remote work. The perceived gains aren’t evidence-based or in the best interests of company productivity; they’re more about CEO peace of mind. For companies that never stuck the landing on building intentional cultures, returning to the pre-pandemic status quo may feel reassuring. Frustratingly, I now feel like these changes are inevitable. Not everywhere, of course. There are some companies that have always been remote, and others have managed to establish strong hybrid cultures. But the majority will choose to simply snap back to the world as it was in 2019. This is to their detriment: adding perspectives from across the country, and from people who would have been shut out of a traditional office job, was clearly valuable. A workforce made up only of people who can afford San Francisco’s $3,400 average rent is inherently less diverse — and less representative of the company’s customers — than one that is geographically diverse. Regardless, it is happening. For companies that choose to stay remote, there are benefits to be made. There will be an ever-increasing workforce of potential employees who don’t want to move back to those hubs, with experience at tech companies like Google and Meta, who will be looking for new positions. That’s a competitive advantage. On the other hand, for people who want to stay with their current employers, there are hard choices ahead. Do you move away from your comfortable house, or find ways to offload some of your caring or parental duties, in order to stay on the payroll? Depending on your salary, stock options, or tenure, there might be reasons for doing so. But it’s not a choice *I* would make. I have a toddler these days, and I want to be *more* present, not less. I get a lot of value from in-person collaboration, but I prefer a hybrid model: I’ll gladly travel into the office for a few intense days to advance some specific goals and then go home. I’ve got little interest in doing so to make management feel at ease, but there really are some kinds of time-limited collaboration that are better in person. I also know that some people *can’t* travel — for health reasons, because their caring commitments are too great, or these days, because they’re worried about their documents being stripped or suffering violence because of their identity. So even though I’m willing to travel, I don’t expect everyone else to. Even in specific, time-limited collaborations, hybrid accommodations must be made. For these reasons, I’ve made the decision that I won’t work for a company that requires everyone to come back to the office. Should I start another company, I will not mandate that people work from the office, although I might provide one as an optional collaboration space. This is to protect my quality of life, and to ensure that I can hire the best people for each role, regardless of where they might live or what the rest of their life might look like. It’s not a decision I take lightly. It’s limiting: it means, should I leave my current job, that there will be fewer places I can go and work. It might limit my salary and future prospects, or even the investment I can raise for a future venture. But I care about being home and present, and I care about building representative workforces. The bottom line is this: forcing people back into offices isn’t a neutral decision. It’s a choice to exclude and disadvantage anyone who doesn’t fit a narrow definition of what a “worker” looks like. I’m not willing to join in that discrimination. ### Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow URL: https://werd.io/wired-is-dropping-paywalls-for-foia-based-reporting-others-should-follow/ Last updated: 2025-03-18T13:39:38.000Z \[[Freedom of the Press Foundation](https://freedom.press/issues/wired-is-dropping-paywalls-for-foia-based-reporting-others-should-follow/)\] Wired is going to stop paywalling articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. This approach makes a ton of sense: > "They’re called public records for a reason, after all. And access to public documents is more important than ever at this moment, with government websites and records disappearing, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency doing its best to operate outside the public’s view, and the National Archives in disarray." Paywalls have long presented a challenge for service-based journalism: stories make the most impact when they're available to everybody, but newsrooms also need to cover their bills and make enough money to continue operations. When stories are based on public data, like FOIA requests, another level of public responsibility is added to the equation: these are public documents that belong to all of us. I wish more online newsrooms would move to a patronage model (see The Guardian), but this isn't always possible. Someone always brings up micropayments in these conversations, but [they do not work and have never worked](https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-by-article.php). This hybrid model - public service articles for free, the rest behind the paywall - may point to a way forward. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://freedom.press/issues/wired-is-dropping-paywalls-for-foia-based-reporting-others-should-follow/)\] ### Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28 URL: https://werd.io/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to/ Last updated: 2025-03-18T13:00:15.000Z \[[Scharon Harding at Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/)\] Don't keep an Amazon Echo (or any smart speaker) in a room where you'll be having sensitive conversations, either with your family or on a work call. Particularly if you're a journalist or activist - but [privacy is something everybody should be guarded about](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing%5Fto%5Fhide%5Fargument). > "Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud." As the author points out, even if you trust Amazon (and, to be clear, you shouldn't trust *any* vendor with your private conversations), there's reason to worry: > "In 2023, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million in civil penalties over the revelation that it stored recordings of children’s interactions with Alexa forever. Adults also didn’t feel properly informed of Amazon’s inclination to keep Alexa recordings unless prompted not to until 2019—five years after the first Echo came out." It was a nice idea, but it's time to give them a rest. There are plenty of use cases for smart agents, but they don't need to be listening to you all the time like you live in some kind of science fiction movie. You don't know who else is listening with them. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/)\] ### The social web beta is here URL: https://werd.io/the-social-web-beta-is-here/ Last updated: 2025-03-17T20:01:21.000Z \[[Ghost](https://activitypub.ghost.org/social-web-beta/)\] Ghost has released [its ActivityPub social web integration](https://activitypub.ghost.org/social-web-beta/) in beta: > "Today we're opening a public beta for our social web integration in Ghost. For the first time, any site on Ghost Pro can now try out ActivityPub." Those of you who are, should. And everyone in the space should take a look. This is a really big deal. Congratulations to everyone involved on the Ghost team - and everyone in the Fediverse, who will see the benefit. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://activitypub.ghost.org/social-web-beta/)\] ### EU tech companies push for digital sovereignty, reducing reliance on US and others URL: https://werd.io/eu-tech-companies-push-for-digital-sovereignty-reducing-reliance-on/ Last updated: 2025-03-17T14:08:50.000Z \[[Benedict Collins at TechRadar](https://www.techradar.com/pro/eu-tech-companies-push-for-digital-sovereignty-reducing-reliance-on-us-and-others)\] This was always inevitable, but in the current environment it makes sense that it's accelerating: > "Several major European tech companies are pushing for greater action from the European Union to reduce the bloc’s reliance on foreign-owned infrastructure by buying and building locally. > > \[...\] Essentially, the European Union has become overly reliant on foreign-owned infrastructure - especially US Big Tech - and if nothing is done soon, EU countries will become subservient to foreign tech companies. The solution therefore is to foster growth at home." The implication is that there's already a market here. Hosting in the US puts you at risk of certain kinds of subpoenas and other actions by the state, and the current political environment makes that even less desirable. (I've certainly personally had plenty of advice from security experts this year to not host in the US.) But if the only really great cloud hosting providers are US-based, that's a problem (even if they offer non-US hosting zones). To be competitive here, the EU needs to consider privacy and freedom from surveillance as paramount values. That's not always been the case for it: there have always been voices who have pushed for things like backdoors in encryption and greater monitoring from police and security services. Those things will kill any EU effort to provide alternatives. The EU's great strengths in comparison to the US are greater openness and stronger protections of human rights; it should lean into those. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.techradar.com/pro/eu-tech-companies-push-for-digital-sovereignty-reducing-reliance-on-us-and-others)\] ### My (New) Daily Blog URL: https://werd.io/my-new-daily-blog/ Last updated: 2025-03-16T22:17:28.000Z \[[Om Malik](https://om.co/2025/03/16/my-new-daily-blog/)\] This is an ongoing trend. Om Malik has now [moved to sharing on his blog first](https://om.co/2025/03/16/my-new-daily-blog/) rather than posting directly to social media: > "The inspiration for the newly rebooted “daily blog” comes from Dave Winer, who maintains a “Links” blog. I’ve been using his new project, Wordland, for publishing to the “links” blog, in addition to using MarsEdit. I have also taken a cue from Marc Weidenbaum. The plan is to use this as a permanent archive for everything I share on social media. From here, I’ll route information to relevant channels — mobile apps, social networks and RSS feeds. The experiment continues." This is, of course, very much in line with [indie web](https://indieweb.org) sensibilities. The more social media fragments and turns into a toxic place to be, the more people will carve out spaces that they truly own on the web. As well they should. I'm excited to see this; if you haven't made the leap to posting on your own site first yet, the best time to start is now. [#Indieweb](https://werd.io/tag/Indieweb) \[[Link](https://om.co/2025/03/16/my-new-daily-blog/)\] ### How to hide a painting URL: https://werd.io/how-to-hide-a-painting/ Last updated: 2025-03-16T22:14:01.000Z \[[Mike Monteiro](https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-hide-a-painting/)\] On whether it's always been this bad in America: > "America was born in blood, genocide, kidnapping, and death. Behind every story we were told about America’s greatness, there is a secret second painting. A thing America doesn’t want you to see. Behind every “from sea to shining sea” there is a Trail of Tears. Behind every first pitch at Dodger Stadium there’s the destruction of Chavez Ravine. Behind every moonshot there’s a Nazi V2 rocket. Behind every “liberation of the camps” there’s a Nakba. Behind every interstate highway system there’s the destruction of a thousand Black and immigrant neighborhoods." Although it's front and center, much of what we're experiencing isn't actually new for lots of communities across America. Treating the current moment as completely new doesn't serve us: it erases those struggles and historic injustices. That's not to say that everything is good right now - it's obviously not - but the road that led us here is clearly marked throughout American history. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-hide-a-painting/)\] ### New German, Swiss, And Austrian Guidelines Recommend Trans Youth Care, Slam Cass Review URL: https://werd.io/new-german-swiss-and-austrian-guidelines-recommend-trans-youth-care/ Last updated: 2025-03-11T12:42:20.000Z \[[Erin In The Morning](https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-german-swiss-and-austria-guidelines)\] While America is destroying the ability for trans people to participate in public life, over in Europe they're (rightly) improving care for trans people. > "In recent years, U.S. politicians have selectively framed European healthcare policies to justify restrictions on transgender care, seizing on a handful of conservative policies to claim that “Europe is pulling back.” The most extreme example, the United Kingdom’s Cass Review, has been wielded to justify a near-total ban on puberty blockers and even cited in U.S. Supreme Court arguments. But new medical guidelines from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland tell a different story. These countries have reaffirmed the importance of gender-affirming care for transgender youth and issued sharp critiques of the Cass Review, calling out its severe methodological flaws and misrepresentations." They contain this specific recommendation: > “If, in individual cases, the progressive pubertal maturation development creates a time pressure in which health damage would be expected due to longer waiting times to avert irreversible bodily changes (e.g. male voice change), access to child and adolescent psychiatric or psychotherapeutic clarification and medical treatment options should be granted as quickly as possible.” Once again, a rejection of the Cass Review is good news here: the widely debunked study was essentially propaganda for anti-trans interests and didn't represent broader healthcare perspectives. But the bigger good news is that Europe is a safer place for trans people to live and be supported. I hope, one day soon, America comes to its senses and puts itself on a more supportive path. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-german-swiss-and-austria-guidelines)\] ### Leader of student protests at Columbia facing deportation URL: https://werd.io/leader-of-student-protests-at-columbia-facing-deportation/ Last updated: 2025-03-10T20:42:24.000Z \[[Jake Offenhartz, Cedar Attanasio and Philip Marcelo at The Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-6964107d218dba43eb995d6dbbe528b1)\] This seems *completely* in line with the First Amendment's protections against restrictions on speech and assembly by the US government: > "President Donald Trump warned Monday that the arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University will be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza." Protesting Israel's right-wing government is not in itself anti-semitic. And Mahmoud Khalil's status as a resident student rather than an American citizen does not make him any less subject to constitutional protections. > "Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents and has an American citizen wife who is eight months pregnant, emerged as one of the most visible activists in the protests at Columbia. > > \[...\] “The Department of Homeland Security’s lawless decision to arrest him solely because of his peaceful anti-genocide activism represents a blatant attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, immigration laws, and the very humanity of Palestinians,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights advocacy group." This seems like the very opposite of what America is supposed to be (or at least purports itself to be). Hopefully applied pressure will work - for this particular person, and as a precedent for American civil rights into the future. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-6964107d218dba43eb995d6dbbe528b1)\] ### How Terrorgram Collective Influencers Groomed a Killer URL: https://werd.io/how-terrorgram-collective-influencers-groomed-a-killer/ Last updated: 2025-03-10T12:54:38.000Z \[[A.C. Thompson, ProPublica and FRONTLINE, James Bandler, ProPublica, and Lukáš Diko, Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak](https://www.propublica.org/article/telegram-terrorgram-collective-bratislava-murders-neo-nazi-online-hate)\] A tragic story of a teenager recruited by a network of extremists, who ultimately murdered multiple people before taking his own life. It's also an example of why moderation and safety processes on social platforms are so important. > "And so in August 2019, Juraj Krajčík, then a soft-faced 16-year-old with a dense pile of brown hair, immersed himself in a loose collection of extremist chat groups and channels on the massive social media and messaging platform Telegram. This online community, which was dubbed Terrorgram, had a singular focus: inciting acts of white supremacist terrorism." This is particularly relevant in a world where companies like X and Meta are cutting back on their safety teams and policies. It's not as easy as waving your hands and saying that it should be a matter for the courts; real lives are at stake. And at the same time, there is, of course, a real danger of falling into the trap of building a surveillance network. The police at the time thought this was the work of a lone gunman rather than the international community of extremists it actually was. Uncovering this is also the kind of story that only investigative newsrooms can do really well: > "ProPublica and the PBS series FRONTLINE, along with the Slovakian newsroom Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak, pieced together the story behind Krajčík’s evolution from a troubled teenager to mass shooter. We identified his user name on Telegram, which allowed us to sift through tens of thousands of now-deleted Telegram posts that had not previously been linked to him." Hopefully this work can help prevent this and similar networks from operating in the future. Likely a more holistic approach is needed, and if law enforcement, educators, and social workers are more aware of the potential risks and playbooks, hopefully they can be more sophisticated about prevention. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/telegram-terrorgram-collective-bratislava-murders-neo-nazi-online-hate)\] ### The 2025 journalist’s digital security checklist URL: https://werd.io/the-2025-journalists-digital-security-checklist/ Last updated: 2025-03-09T21:44:17.000Z \[[Davis Erin Anderson and Dr. Martin Shelton at the Freedom of the Press Foundation](https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/journalists-digital-security-checklist/)\] These security tips are designed for journalists but are good ideas for everyone (and particularly activists or anyone working in a sensitive field): > "In tumultuous times, we believe in being prepared, not scared. Sound digital security practice often involves forming and relying on good habits. Building these reflexes now will help keep you better protected. This is why we’ve distilled advice our trainers have shared with thousands of journalists over the years into the actionable, concrete steps below." [The Freedom of the Press Foundation](https://freedom.press) does great work, and this guide is no exception. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/journalists-digital-security-checklist/)\] ### Feedback loops URL: https://werd.io/feedback-loops/ Last updated: 2025-03-09T17:42:52.000Z \[[Joe Woods](https://blog.joewoods.dev/leadership/feedback-loops/)\] This is good, actionable advice: > "As an engineering leader, you should be constantly working to reduce the amount of time it takes to complete one cycle of a feedback loop. > > What do I mean by feedback loop? This is anything where you do work, and then you need to await a result in order to be able to do more work." Some of these will be easier than others to obtain: for example, any engineering team can tune up their test suite without the permission of an outside party. What they might have more trouble with is getting an outside stakeholder to commit to just-in-time availability; I imagine that a weekly touch-base meeting might be the norm in many non-engineering-centric organizations. But they're all important, and all very concrete ways to both improve performance on an engineering team and improve the experience of working on one. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://blog.joewoods.dev/leadership/feedback-loops/)\] ### Fediverse House URL: https://werd.io/fediverse-house/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:14:55.000Z If you're in Austin, visiting [Fediverse House at 412 Congress Ave](https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse-house/) today and tomorrow is what you need to be doing. You don’t need a SXSW ticket - just show up and meet some of the key people building and thinking about the most important thing happening on the web right now. Unfortunately, I’m preparing for a team summit in New York this week, so I’m unable to attend. The good news for me (and you, if you’re also not able to make it there) is that I hear the conversations are going to make it to the [Dot Social podcast](https://dot-social.simplecast.com/). I can’t wait to hear them. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) ### World's first 'body in a box' biological computer uses human brain cells with silicon-based computing URL: https://werd.io/worlds-first-body-in-a-box-biological-computer-uses-human/ Last updated: 2025-03-08T13:47:35.000Z \[[Kunal Khullar at Tom's Hardware](https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/worlds-first-body-in-a-box-biological-computer-uses-human-brain-cells-with-silicon-based-computing)\] Straight into my nightmares: > "Australian biotech company Cortical Labs has introduced what it claims to be "the world’s first code deployable biological computer," which combines human brain cells with traditional silicon-based computing. The system, known as CL1, was presented at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and is being explored for its potential applications in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning." Oddly, while it theoretically is suited for certain kinds of novel computing tasks, it just screams and screams. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/worlds-first-body-in-a-box-biological-computer-uses-human-brain-cells-with-silicon-based-computing)\] ### Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not) URL: https://werd.io/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like/ Last updated: 2025-03-06T14:09:23.000Z \[[Mike Masnick at Techdirt](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/)\] Mike Masnick on why tech journalism has a huge part to play in decoding current events right now: > "We’ve spent decades documenting how technology and entrepreneurship can either strengthen or undermine democratic institutions. We understand the dangers of concentrated power in the digital age. And we’ve watched in real-time as tech leaders who once championed innovation and openness now actively work to consolidate control and dismantle the very systems that enabled their success. > > \[...\] What we’re witnessing isn’t just another political cycle or policy debate — it’s an organized effort to destroy the very systems that have made American innovation possible. Whether this is by design, or by incompetence, doesn’t much matter (though it’s likely a combination of both). Unlike typical policy fights where we can disagree on the details while working within the system, this attack aims to demolish the system itself." I, for one, am grateful for the coverage in places like TechDirt and Wired (which has been killing it lately). I have to say I'm also proud of my journalist colleagues at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org) for going deep. I wish most of the rest of the press would take their lead. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/)\] ### Trump’s USCIS wants to review all prospective citizens’ social media accounts URL: https://werd.io/trumps-uscis-wants-to-review-all-prospective-citizens-social-media/ Last updated: 2025-03-06T02:44:18.000Z \[[Gaby Del Valle at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/policy/624945/trump-uscis-social-media-review-policy)\] This is dystopian: > "The Trump administration may soon demand the social media accounts of people applying for green cards, US citizenship, and asylum or refugee status. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — the federal agency that oversees legal migration, proposed the new policy in the Federal Register this week — calling this information “necessary for a rigorous vetting and screening” of all people applying for “immigration-related benefits.”" I'm truly interested to learn how this squares with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which constrains government's ability to restrict speech of anyone on US soil, including immigrants and visitors. I agree with Beatriz Lopez, the executive director of Catalyze/Citizens, who said: > “Trump is turning online spaces into surveillance traps, where immigrants are forced to watch their every move and censor their speech or risk their futures in this country. Today it’s immigrants, tomorrow it’s U.S. citizens who dissent with Trump and his administration.” [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/policy/624945/trump-uscis-social-media-review-policy)\] ### About my Tesla URL: https://werd.io/about-my-tesla/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:15:08.000Z So, yes, hi, I have a Tesla. It’s a long range Model 3 which I bought in 2021. After a career spent working on open source and mission-drive projects — right now I work for a non-profit newsroom; once upon a time I built a social networking platform for education — it might shock you to learn that I am not rich. I have never had a significant tech company equity package; I have never seen the benefit of a significant exit. I own my own home but needed to move far away from the Bay Area to do it. I’ve done okay and I’m grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had, but I am not very wealthy. It would be really meaningful for me to bolster my income by another $2K a month and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to do that lately. The Tesla has put me in a bit of a weird situation. Even before Elon Musk threw three Hitler salutes on-stage, I couldn’t really afford to own it: the monthly cost is really high for a car that I maybe drive two to three times a week. But selling it is also hard: it’s depreciated *really fast*, and I’ll barely be able to pay off the loan I have on it. (A lease would have been a better deal.) It actually won’t be that easy for me to get a replacement car, even with a trade-in deal. I’d prefer to keep an electric car — they’re both better environmentally and just as a car to run and own — but we’ll see if that’s possible. But I will sell it. Hopefully this month. I don’t want to even tacitly be associated with promoting that man or bolstering his wealth. Until then, I’ve become one of those people who has disclaimered his car, so anyone who sees it is under no impression that I am in favor of anything that’s happening in this country right now. One sticker I don’t have: the one that says *I bought this before Elon went crazy.* There’s no such thing. The warning signs were always there; my car situation is a prime example of how ignoring these kinds of ethical red flags lead to real losses in the long run. I brought this on myself. I know I’m not alone. Not everyone who owns one of these things is a wealthy Musk supporter. That doesn’t mean we should be absolved — we should have seen what we were getting into, and owning a Tesla does mean continuing to pay Musk, who is clearly a fascist, money through connectivity plans and so on — but it’s worth acknowledging that, for many people, it’s not a no-brainer to take this kind of financial hit. Anyway, that’s the deal. I guess I’m posting this out of a sense of transparency, and a little bit out of a sense of exasperation at my own past purchasing decisions and the overwhelmingly bad present situation. Many of you will be judging me for this, and I both accept and deserve that. But here I am. ### How DOGE’s IRS Cuts Could Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save URL: https://werd.io/how-doges-irs-cuts-could-cost-more-than-doge-will/ Last updated: 2025-03-05T14:19:49.000Z \[[Andy Kroll at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-doge-irs-cuts-will-cost-more-than-savings-trump-musk-deficit)\] Cutting the IRS has nothing to do with government efficiency: > "Unlike with other federal agencies, cutting the IRS means the government collects less money and finds fewer tax abuses. Economic studies have shown that for every dollar spent by the IRS, the agency returns between $5 and $12, depending on how much income the taxpayer declared. A 2024 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that the IRS found savings of $13,000 for every additional hour spent auditing the tax returns of very wealthy taxpayers — a return on investment that “would leave Wall Street hedge fund managers drooling,” in the words of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy." These cuts will particularly curtail audits of wealthy individuals: people who are more likely to be avoiding paying tax to begin with. As the article points out: > "“When you hamstring the IRS,” Koskinen added. “it’s just a tax cut for tax cheats.”" So let's not do that? [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-doge-irs-cuts-will-cost-more-than-savings-trump-musk-deficit)\] ### Okay, You Try Thinking of a Better Way to Protest President Nyarlathotep’s Terror Telecast URL: https://werd.io/okay-you-try-thinking-of-a-better-way-to-protest/ Last updated: 2025-03-05T13:32:02.000Z \[[Andrew Paul at McSweeney's](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/okay-you-try-thinking-of-a-better-way-to-protest-president-nyarlathoteps-terror-telecast)\] > "I gotta be honest with you, though. I think the Outer God got the message loud and clear. Our tasteful combination of fashionably coordinated clothes, tiny paper fans with BAD! printed on them, and some of our sternest looks of disapproval to date really drove home the fact that we aren’t jazzed by all this cosmic cruelty. I can’t think of anything we could have done differently to inspire our petrified constituents to rise up and take a stand against Nyarlathotep’s unholy resummoning. Sure, the Dungeon Lich-at-Arms tossed that representative from Texas into a Torment Portal after they booed the President, but there’s no way that will play well to anyone beyond his most devout minions." It's funny because it's true. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/okay-you-try-thinking-of-a-better-way-to-protest-president-nyarlathoteps-terror-telecast)\] ### Decentralizing the cloud: separating software from infrastructure URL: https://werd.io/rethinking-the-cloud-separating-software-from-infrastructure/ Last updated: 2025-03-04T16:17:56.000Z ![Ladders to the cloud](https://old.werd.io/file/67c7279fa02e80d9430ec722/thumb.jpg) Much of the last decade or two of the tech industry has been dominated by the idea of *the cloud*: the simple, powerful idea that all of your applications and data can be accessed from any device with an internet connection. Enterprise businesses around the world have decommissioned server rooms in favor of subscribing to services maintained by other people, reducing overheads of all kinds. Even companies that once built and operated vast datacenters now rely on cloud providers. At the same time, cloud services have helped *individuals* save money upfront (even if subscriptions often cost more in the long run) and have taken the need for installation and troubleshooting out of the picture. Overall, cloud services have saved lots of people huge amounts of time and money. But this convenience comes with trade-offs, some of which have become more apparent over time. - You only ever rent: There’s no real ownership, and vendors can modify, discontinue, or increase prices at will. - Privacy concerns: Because your data and activity pass through the provider’s infrastructure, they can be easily monitored, tracked, or even resold. - Jurisdictional constraints: Your data often resides in the provider’s chosen region, subjecting it to local laws, which may not align with your needs. - Downtime and dependence: If your cloud provider goes down, so does your access — sometimes across multiple services. - Vendor lock-in: Moving away from a cloud provider can be complex and expensive, discouraging competition and user control. These trade-offs become even riskier when your work involves sensitive information. When software and infrastructure are controlled by the same entity, it not only enables easy monitoring and resale of your data but also makes it a prime target for subpoenas. Courts can compel a cloud service provider to produce your data, often without your involvement. If your work involves sensitive personal information, for example of patients or sources, that could put their privacy and safety at risk. That might be particularly problematic in a situation where, for example, you work on reproductive health issues, and your software is hosted in a jurisdiction that has abortion bans. This risk extends across professions: journalists protecting sources, lawyers safeguarding client data, and healthcare providers managing patient records all face heightened exposure when their software, data, and infrastructure are all controlled by the same party. At the same time, moving away from the convenience of the cloud is not really an option for most organizations. To date, most have opted to pay for more expensive enterprise contracts, which promise greater data protections alongside features like stronger audit logs and SSO. These provide some legal protections, but still amount to little more than an enforced promise: the vendor physically *can* inspect your data in most cases, you’re just paying them extra so that they’ll promise not to. These contracts also don’t address jurisdictional issues: if the vendor is based in Texas, your use of their platform is still subject to Texan law. The power dynamics at play remain unaddressed. This is also problematic when you consider the increasing popularity of LLMs. If you’re dealing with sensitive or proprietary information, you probably don’t want an AI model to be trained on your data. You can pay vendors like OpenAI to promise that they won’t look at your data or train their models on it — but, again, you need to take their word for it. If we want to retain the benefits of cloud software without its fundamental risks, we need a different model: one that restores control to users and organizations rather than vendors. - Retain the ease of deployment, access, and collaboration that makes cloud software so appealing. - De-couple software and infrastructure so that the company making the software is not the company that hosts the software. - Allow customers to pick an infrastructure host in the jurisdiction of their choice. - Ensure that data is encrypted at rest and in transit, so that even the hosting provider cannot access it. Self-hosted cloud software is, of course, absolutely a thing that already exists. Some of it is even end-to-end encrypted. But it’s also largely free and open source, and requires a fair amount of configuration and maintenance from an organization’s IT department. There’s nothing wrong with open source software (I ran two open source startups!), but the complexity of configuration and lack of clear business model can introduce problems for both the customer and the vendor. Vendors like [Cloudron](https://www.cloudron.io/) are making this easier for open source software — and they should serve as a model for what could come next. Some cloud infrastructure providers, like AWS, already host marketplaces of software you can install. The trick is, you usually have to decide which kinds of virtual servers to use — are you going to go for an *m3.medium* or a *t2.xlarge*? — and then consider how your private cloud will be configured. AWS also offers self-hosting for LLM models through Amazon Bedrock, but the same problems present themselves. There’s a lot of technical overhead which many organizations can’t easily address — and in stark contrast to a cloud offering like Google Workspace, which is completely turn-key. But this doesn’t have to be the case. What if we could combine the ease of cloud-based software with the control and flexibility of locally managed applications? Consider an iPhone: here, your software runs on your device, wherever it might be, but is seamlessly downloaded from an App Store on demand. Some of that software is free; some of it is paid-for, either as a one-off or on a subscription basis. The underlying operating system is a variant of the FreeBSD UNIX system with significant proprietary additions, including some sophisticated sandboxing, but you wouldn’t know it, and you certainly don’t need to configure anything: you request an app, and *zip!*, there it is on your phone. Consider this user journey: - The customer signs up to a certified provider in the jurisdiction of their choice. There are providers tailored for different levels of customer and different industries. - They add their payment information. - They choose the software they want to provide to their organization from an App Store accessed through the provider. As soon as they install it, it is near-instantly available to them. - They can make it available to every user in their organization or a subset of users. - For every user for whom it is available, the app shows up on a web-based dashboard. It can also be configured to automatically show up in providers like Okta. - They never have to care about the speed or capacity of the underlying hardware: they just pay for a recurring license to the software. - They never have to care about configuring or upgrading the software: as soon as they select it, it’s available. Customers can opt for updates to be pushed out automatically, or they can hold back non-security updates for more testing. The App Store distributes revenue to the vendor and the hosting provider, and takes a cut for itself. Apps are charged for on a predictable, monthly, per-seat basis, with each app able to set its own prices. As is the case with a phone App Store, the store itself does some vetting of each application, certifying it for security and a set of core rules that each app must abide by. Unlike a phone App Store, it also does vetting and certification of the hosting provider itself, reducing the customer’s need to undertake security auditing. Because every hosting provider associated with an App Store would necessarily need to adhere to the same open standards, the customer could move providers easily. They’d just sign up to another hosting provider associated with the App Store and migrate their apps. The App Store itself would handle the rest, dealing with migrating block storage, databases, and so on behind the scenes. This model isn’t just about redistributing power from giant cloud vendors to customers. It’s about enabling organizations that deal with sensitive data to more easily use the cloud to begin with. It makes it easier to know that there is an enforced separation between an LLM and its training infrastructure. And it creates new opportunities for vendors that might not be in a position to offer their own cloud infrastructure, too. It lowers the barrier to both privacy and innovation for everyone involved. Existing cloud providers aren’t incentivized to build this. It’ll take a new entrant or someone willing to make a big bet. The technology to do this already exists. The only question is: who will build it first? If it’s you, I’d love to hear from you. ### Minimum Viable Startup Operations URL: https://werd.io/minimum-viable-startup-operations/ Last updated: 2025-03-03T22:41:58.000Z \[[Jean Hsu and Jen Dennard](https://startupsoup.substack.com/p/minimum-viable-startup-operations)\] This is a good inaugural post from two people who really have lived the startup operations life many times over: > "We think of the operations part of a startup like getting dinner on the table. Sure, some days, you might try a new and involved recipe, but most days, you just need to get something good enough on the table FAST, so that you can devote more time to other family and life priorities. > > This is where the concept of minimum viable operations comes in. It’s about finding the right balance: creating systems and practices that are just enough to support the team." I've seen both the "minimum, but not viable" and "overdoing it" versions of this. Stuff like creating a whole new leveling system for a five person team, or spending months getting to the perfect OKRs, are easy traps for people who don't know the pitfalls to fall into. And at the same time, winging it with no process and no goals is unbelievably common too. Every startup needs to consider process / people / ops - and most of all, *culture* \- if it wants to succees. These things aren't optional. I'm excited for future posts. [#Startups](https://werd.io/tag/Startups) \[[Link](https://startupsoup.substack.com/p/minimum-viable-startup-operations)\] ### Please see Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat URL: https://werd.io/please-see-soundtrack-to-a-coup-detat/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:15:23.000Z It’s Oscars day! I haven’t seen very many [of the nominees](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2025) this year, but of the ones I have, I need to make this recommendation: [Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat](https://kinolorber.com/film/soundtrack-to-a-coup-d-etat), nominated for best documentary picture, is brilliant. It’s an under-told part of American history, still highly relevant and ongoing today, told through the lens of its surprising intersection with the jazz musicians of the time. One of those films that I think *everyone* should see in order to educate themselves. It doesn’t make for a *cheerful* evening, but it’s all wonderfully done. It’s available to rent on streaming services right now, and is worth it. If you don’t want to pay to rent, it will hopefully be a part of someone’s streaming library later on. ### Warp factor 5, Mr. Sulu URL: https://werd.io/warp-factor-5-mr-sulu/ Last updated: 2025-03-02T22:43:23.000Z [\[Ghost\]](https://activitypub.ghost.org/warp-factor-5-mr-sulu/) Another really great update from the Ghost team about their progress implementing ActivityPub: > "In our logs, that looks like our average request time dropping from 5+ seconds, to \~50ms: > > \[...\] There are still a few places where we're using the old database architecture that remain slow. We're not out of the woods just yet. Within the next couple of weeks, though, the beta will be open to everyone on Ghost Pro to try out. > > \[...\] Importantly, Ghost's ActivityPub service is already out in the wild, open source, and released under the MIT license. We build in public, and all our work is up on GitHub for anyone to download, fork, run or deploy if they want to." Exactly the right approach, and so exciting to see. Onwards! \[[Link](https://activitypub.ghost.org/warp-factor-5-mr-sulu/)\] ### The web was always about redistribution of power. Let's bring that back. URL: https://werd.io/the-web-was-always-about-redistribution-of-power-lets-bring/ Last updated: 2025-03-02T15:00:13.000Z ![This is for everyone: a message about the web at the 2012 Olympics.](https://old.werd.io/file/67c4726e020c107599039d03) I’ve seen a lot [of this sentiment](https://scottboms.com/documenting/through-lines-247) lately, and can relate: > I miss being excited by technology. I wish I could see a way out of the endless hype cycles that continue to elicit little more than cynicism from me. The version of technology that we’re mostly being sold today has almost nothing to do with improving lives, but instead stuffing the pockets of those who already need for nothing. It’s not making us smarter. It’s not helping heal a damaged planet. It’s not making us happier or more generous towards each other. And it’s entrenched in everything — meaning a momentous challenge to re-wire or meticulously disconnect. Many of us got excited about technology because of the web, and are discovering, latterly, that it was always the web itself — rather than technology as a whole — that we were excited about. The web is a movement: more than a set of protocols, languages, and software, it was always about bringing about a social and cultural shift that removed traditional gatekeepers to publishing and being heard. It’s perhaps hard to remember now, but in the early nineties, finding an audience really meant being discovered and highlighted by a small number of very rich publishing companies (or record labels, etc) who were most often not representative of their audiences. The web was a revolution: anyone could publish their words, their music, or their art, without asking anyone for permission, and they could find their communities equally permissionlessly. The web, of course, didn’t turn out to be quite as utopian as the promise. The truth is, the people who could afford to publish on the early web were also from a narrow, relatively wealthy demographic. To make publishing accessible to most people (who didn’t, quite reasonably, want to learn HTML or pay for or configure a domain name and hosting), we needed a set of easy-to-use publishing *platforms*, which in turn became centralized single points of failure and took the place of the old gatekeepers. Replacing publishers with Facebook wasn’t the original intention, but that’s what happened. And in the process, the power dynamics completely shifted. The original web was inherently about redistribution of power from a small number of gatekeepers to a large number of individuals, even if it never quite lived up to that promise. But the next iteration of the web was about concentrating power in a small set of gatekeepers whose near-unlimited growth potential tended towards monopoly. There were always movements that bucked this trend — blogging and the [indie web](https://indieweb.org) never really went away — but they were no longer the mainstream force on the internet. And over time, the centralized platforms disempowered their users by [monopolizing more and more slices of everyday life that used to be free](https://werd.io/2018/the-unbearable-monopolization-of-being). The open, unlimited nature of the web that was originally used to distribute equity was now being used to suck it up and concentrate it in a handful of increasingly-wealthy people. For the people who were attracted to the near-unlimited wealth hoarding and rent-seeking potential, this new web was incredibly exciting. Conversely, for those of us who were attracted by the power redistribution more than the technology itself, it was incredibly *disheartening*. The reason we got involved in the first place had all but evaporated. For a while, decentralization did become a hot topic. Unfortunately, this was more about avoiding the trappings of traditional banking — crucially, including avoiding regulatory controls — than it was about distributing power. The actual equity redistribution was mostly an illusion; although there certainly were people with their hearts in the right place in the movement, the people who truly gained from blockchain and cryptocurrencies [were libertarian grifters](https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/) who saw potential in moving money away from the prying eyes of regulatory oversight and saw banking regulations designed to protect people as being unnecessarily restrictive. Blockchain wore the clothes of power redistribution, but rather than empowering a large number of people, it enriched very few, often at other people’s expense. I do think the brief popularity of blockchain helped bring attention to decentralization, which was useful. I don’t know that as much attention would have been paid to the new crop of decentralized social networks like Mastodon and BlueSky, for example, had Web3 not previously seeded some of the core ideas in a more mainstream consciousness. The web3 community was also the most successful at, for example, embedding identity in the browser. It wasn’t valueless as a movement, but it fell far short of the hype. Which brings us to AI, the current hotness. Like any software technology, it’s being sold to us as an empowering tool. But the broad perception is that it’s anything but: models are trained, unpaid, on the work of artists, writers, and researchers, who are already relatively low-paid, in order to build value for a small handful of vendors who are making deals worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. Or [as one commenter put it](https://mastodon.world/@jeffowski/112782711430862267): > The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from skill the ability to access wealth. If you think this is hyperbole, consider Marc Benioff’s comments about [not hiring any more software engineers in 2025](https://www.salesforceben.com/salesforce-will-hire-no-more-software-engineers-in-2025-says-marc-benioff/): > “We’re not adding any more software engineers next year because we have increased the productivity this year with Agentforce and with other AI technology that we’re using for engineering teams by more than 30% – to the point where our engineering velocity is incredible. I can’t believe what we’re achieving in engineering.” Whether you care about software engineering jobs or not, the same dynamics are underway for writers, artists, and any other creative job. Even the productivity gains that are being realized through use of AI tools are benefiting a small number of wealthy companies rather than individuals. This is the *exact opposite* of the power redistribution that led to so many people seeing such promise in the web. It’s very hard to get excited about technology that redistributes wealth and power in favor of people who already have it. The trajectory of the web — starting as a tool for redistributing power and becoming one that entrenches it — was not inevitable. It was the result of specific choices: business models that prioritized monopolization, technologies designed for centralization, and a relentless focus on extracting value rather than creating it. If we want a different future, we have to make different choices. What does an alternative look like? It starts with software designed for people rather than for capital. The web once thrived on protocols instead of platforms — email, RSS, blogs, personal websites — before closed networks turned users into data sources. We are now seeing efforts to return to that ethos. The Fediverse, open-source publishing tools, community-run platforms, and decentralized identity projects all point to a path where individuals have more control over their online lives. They aren’t perfect, but they represent a fundamental shift in intention: building systems that work for people instead of *on* them. The first wave of the web was decentralized by default but only accessible to a small number of people. The second wave was more accessible but centralized by profit motives. If there is to be a third wave, it will have to be intentional: built with equity and accessibility as core values, not an afterthought. That’s a hard road, because open and ethical technology doesn’t attract billion-dollar investments the way extractive models do. But if history has shown anything, it’s that the web’s greatest strength is in the people who believe it can be better. The real question is not whether more equitable software is possible: it’s whether enough of us are willing to build it. For many of us, the social movement, rather than the underlying technology, was always the point. We need that movement more than ever before. Hopefully building it is something that more of us can get excited about. *Photo: [Tim Berners-Lee's tweet "This is for everyone" at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony](https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:This%5Fis%5Ffor%5FEveryone.jpg), released under a [Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en).* ### GSA eliminates 18F URL: https://werd.io/gsa-eliminates-18f/ Last updated: 2025-03-01T15:31:03.000Z \[[Natalie Alms at Nextgov/FCW](https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/03/gsa-eliminates-18f/403400/?oref=ng-home-top-story)\] I'd say this was an unbelievable own-goal. But, unfortunately, it's believable: > "The General Services Administration deleted 18F, a government tech consultancy that helps other agencies with their technology, early Saturday morning. > > The office has been deemed “non-critical,” Thomas Shedd, director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, emailed staff at 1am. The agency’s acting head, Stephen Ehikian, told GSA staff Monday that the agency, which works across the government on tech, procurement and real estate, would be conducting a reduction in force." 18F has consistently saved other agencies money, and is seen as an example of modern government that other agencies (and governments) should learn from. It's an *insane* agency to dismantle. But the way 18F worked - human-centered, in the open, with a real eye for inclusive change that saved real resources - is antithetical to Musk's mindset of believing yourself to be the smartest person in the room and forcing people to use your systems based on your own values. Likely, Musk believes that these services should be provided by private companies (like his own) that could profit from it. It’s a backwards, profiteering, grifter-first approach to government services. Of course, 18F is confronting to Musk in another way too: you can't be the smartest person in the room when those people are also in the room. Yet another loss to hubris. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/03/gsa-eliminates-18f/403400/?oref=ng-home-top-story)\] ### Groups helping LGBTQ+ victims of violence could face loss of federal funds URL: https://werd.io/groups-helping-lgbtq-victims-of-violence-could-face-loss-of/ Last updated: 2025-02-28T16:37:37.000Z \[[Mel Leonor Barclay and Jasmine Mithani at The 19th](https://19thnews.org/2025/02/lgbtq-domestic-violence-services-federal-funds-trump/)\] The impact of this will be severe: > "Organizations that provide services to LGBTQ+ victims of domestic and intimate partner violence expect much of the federal funding they rely on to dry up as the Trump administration’s executive orders target the work they have been carrying out for years. > > \[...\] Groups that focus specifically on LGBTQ+ victims are part of a broader network of federally funded nonprofits that provide life-saving counseling, housing and legal aid to people experiencing violence from spouses, partners or family members. Some nonprofits also train social workers, therapists and lawyers in how to work sensitively with LGBTQ+ victims of violence." Protecting vulnerable communities from harm is not on this administration's agenda. Instead, it seeks to pursue a restrictive, theocratic vision of society that punishes people who are already suffering. Hopefully other organizations will step up and provide some of the funding shortfall. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://19thnews.org/2025/02/lgbtq-domestic-violence-services-federal-funds-trump/)\] ### Ex-Washington Post editor Marty Baron rebukes Bezos: ‘betrayal of free expression’ URL: https://werd.io/ex-washington-post-editor-marty-baron-rebukes-bezos-betrayal-of-free/ Last updated: 2025-02-28T14:51:07.000Z \[[Anna Betts in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/marty-baron-jeff-bezos-washington-post)\] He's not wrong: > "Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”." "Democracy dies in darkness" indeed: > "“If you’re trying to advance the cause of democracy, then you allow for public debate, which is what democracy is all about,” Baron said, adding that Bezos is sending a message that is “anything but democratic”." Clearly Bezos's move to only host opinion pieces that further "free markets and individual liberties" is an attempt to curtail pieces that might be critical of Trump - and avoid reprisals for his own businesses. Baron is right to call him out on it. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/marty-baron-jeff-bezos-washington-post)\] ### Mozilla’s New Terms of Service and Updated Privacy Policy URL: https://werd.io/mozillas-new-terms-of-service-and-updated-privacy-policy/ Last updated: 2025-02-28T14:46:49.000Z \[[Bill Fitzgerald](https://www.funnymonkey.com/2025/02/mozillas-new-terms-of-service-and-updated-privacy-policy/)\] What a missed opportunity. As Bill Fitzgerald points out: > "Mozilla has given a masterclass, yet again, in how to erode trust among people who have loved your work." Mozilla rolled out a new terms of service and privacy policy that rolled back a key promise never to sell user data. And then complained that people were making a big deal of it. As Bill points out: > "Data brokers and adtech companies are weeds choking the internet. The data theft required to train large language models is a new, more noxious species of the same weed. Mozilla is going deep into AI and adtech, which means they are buying fertilizer for the weeds – and these changes to their terms, which provide Mozilla more rights to the data defining our online interactions and experience, should be understood in this context: Mozilla is building advertising and AI tools, and they need data to do this. Our web browser is right up there with our phone, car, and router with devices that provide a clear view on how we live." Mozilla always had the potential to demonstrate what a tech company could be, and what the web could be, and it's always found new and interesting ways to fall short of that ideal. This is yet another one. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.funnymonkey.com/2025/02/mozillas-new-terms-of-service-and-updated-privacy-policy/)\] ### The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences URL: https://werd.io/the-future-of-the-internet-is-likely-smaller-communities-with/ Last updated: 2025-02-28T14:40:47.000Z \[[Edwin Wong and Andrew Melnizek at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research)\] This is much-needed research: > "The Verge partnered with Vox Media’s Insights and Research team, along with Two Cents Insights, to better understand how American consumers are embracing this shift. The goal of the work was to redefine what online communities will be in a post-social media era of emerging AI and Google Zero. And as brands look to hold onto the internet of the past, the term “community” will become a loaded word, with brands and platforms trying to use it more often to reach their ideal consumer." And the findings are both obvious and highly actionable: > "Our research makes one thing clear: power is shifting back to the consumer (the fediverse signals this). Consumers crave community, but on their own terms — seeking deeper, more meaningful connections with those who truly matter (something we identified in 2014). Authenticity is at the heart of it all, supported by a foundation of safety and security. The future of community is personal, intentional, and built on trust." Something that's maybe less obvious but still important: social media has often been the domain of editorial teams rather than product teams. There needs to be a strategic shift here: while actual messaging is editorial, the strategy of outreach and adoption for community platforms is a core part of product and needs to be treated that way. Community is a core part of any publication's product offering, and placing it on the editorial side disincentivizes innovation and real change. Take this finding in particular: > "The desire for smaller, more intimate communities is undeniable. People are abandoning massive platforms in favor of tight-knit groups where trust and shared values flourish and content is at the core. The future of community building is in going back to the basics. Brands and platforms that can foster these personal, human-scale interactions are going to be the winners." That's not something that an editorial team can provide on its own. It requires taking a step back and completely rethinking how you approach "audience" (that's the wrong word, for a start - community is two-way, whereas audience is one-way). That's not something I see many publishers grappling with. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research)\] ### Washington Post opinion chief quits as Bezos makes new editorial demands URL: https://werd.io/washington-post-opinion-chief-quits-as-bezos-makes-new-editorial/ Last updated: 2025-02-26T15:59:21.000Z \[[Brad Reed at RawStory](https://www.rawstory.com/jeff-bezos-washington-post-2671224334/)\] This is incredibly disappointing to see: > "David Shipley, who has spent the last two-and-a-half years running the Washington Post's editorial page, has stepped down from his position over new demands being made by Post owner Jeff Bezos. > > In a letter sent out to staff members obtained by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin, Bezos said that Shipley stepped down because he could not go along with Bezos's plan to ban editorials in his paper that were critical of "personal liberties and free markets," which he described as "two pillars" of American society." It's a bizarre change for a few reasons: 1. It's not like opinion columns in favor of "personal liberties and free markets" are in short supply in American media 2. This is exactly the Wall Street Journal's positioning 3. It's likely to further alienate the Post's flailing readership. American media is already overwhelmingly conservative; another libertarian organ is hardly going to make a difference to American readers. Instead, this likely has more to do with Bezos wanting to win contracts and favor with the current administration. Just like the bad old days. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.rawstory.com/jeff-bezos-washington-post-2671224334/)\] ### Facebook Boosts Viral Content as It Drops Fact-Checking URL: https://werd.io/facebook-boosts-viral-content-as-it-drops-fact-checking/ Last updated: 2025-02-24T23:17:37.000Z \[[Craig Silverman at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-meta-abandons-fact-checking-boosts-viral-content)\] Let the attention dollars flow: > "Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said in January that the company was removing or dialing back automated systems that reduce the spread of false information. At the same time, Meta is revamping a program that has paid bonuses to creators for content based on views and engagement, potentially pouring accelerant on the kind of false posts it once policed. The new Facebook Content Monetization program is currently invite-only, but Meta plans to make it widely available this year." This combination very obviously incentivizes bad actors to make the most viral content possible, whether it's truthful or not. For example: > "“BREAKING — ICE is allegedly offering $750 per illegal immigrant that you turn in through their tip form,” read a post on a page called NO Filter Seeking Truth, adding, “Cash in folks.”" That post is a hoax, and Facebook's existing fact checking had meant it had been demonetized. The page owner is quoted as being delighted that fact checking is ending. Thousands others like it doubtless agree. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-meta-abandons-fact-checking-boosts-viral-content)\] ### What Felt Impossible Became Possible URL: https://werd.io/what-felt-impossible-became-possible/ Last updated: 2025-02-24T02:46:59.000Z \[[Dan Sinker](https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-02-23-dale/)\] This story doesn't feel like it's going to end up inspiring, but bear with it: > "George Dale printed their names in his newspaper, part of his unrelenting, unceasing, and unflinching attack on the Muncie Klan. > > \[...\] When he wrote an editorial accusing circuit court judge Clarence Dearth of being a Klansman and stacking his juries with Klansmen, that judge sent Dale twice to perform hard labor on a penal farm. He later fled to Ohio to avoid arrest. When Dale got home, he picked up right where he left off and he and Judge Dearth fought a long and protracted defamation battle that left Dale broke." But [do stick with it](https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-02-23-dale/), because not only is the entirety of George Dale and the story of what he did in Muncie, Indiana inspirational from start to finish, but the conclusion might be enough fire to power you through and inspire your own acts of democratic heroism. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-02-23-dale/)\] ### It is no longer safe to move our governments and societies to US clouds URL: https://werd.io/it-is-no-longer-safe-to-move-our-governments-and/ Last updated: 2025-02-23T22:47:04.000Z \[[Bert Hubert](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/you-can-no-longer-base-your-government-and-society-on-us-clouds/)\] A European point of view: > "We now have the bizarre situation that anyone with any sense can see that America is no longer a reliable partner, and that the entire US business world bows to Trump’s dictatorial will, but we STILL are doing everything we can to transfer entire governments and most of our own businesses to their clouds. > > Not only is it scary to have all your data available to US spying, it is also a huge risk for your business/government continuity. From now on, all our business processes can be brought to a halt with the push of a button in the US. And not only will everything then stop, will we ever get our data back? Or are we being held hostage? This is not a theoretical scenario, something like this has already happened." I can understand the risks. What's interesting is that many US companies *also* feel that way about European cloud services, in an effort to avoid having to adhere to the GDPR. *Should* every business adhere to strong privacy standards? Absolutely. I'm not defending it or suggesting it's equally justifiable. Regardless, the impulse exists. These trends ultimately culminate in stratified national internets: *technically* connected internationally but in effect separated through different legal requirements and jurisdictions. (Some national internets are also separated by firewall or content filters - think China, for example.) It would be nice to reverse this trend: one of the real benefits of the internet is that everyone is connected to everyone else. But I can also fully understand why Europeans (and particularly European governments) are worried about US policies and want to remain independent from them. There *is* a security and business continuity issue here, and they're right to de-risk their operations. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/you-can-no-longer-base-your-government-and-society-on-us-clouds/)\] ### AfD URL: https://werd.io/afd/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:15:37.000Z Hint: if a party is heavily supported by people who throw Nazi salutes, it might not be up to much good. Some voters for new right-wing parties are economically worried, but blame their issues on the influx of immigrants rather than the increasing divides between rich and poor that we're seeing globally. They're looking for right-wing answers to their economic worries - racism like anti-immigrant sentiment - rather than the equitable ones that would actually present lasting solutions. I think that's partially because the left-wing parties haven't been good at prioritizing those economic issues. Some of the liberal (rather than truly left) parties have used their embrace of other social issues like affirming peoples' identities and supporting intersectional equity (which are good things that they should have been doing!) to mask their lack of action on real economic disparity (which they should also have been working on, but isn't always as palatable to wealthy donors). Both are important. We can support peoples' identities and correct historic inequities while also providing real safety nets and taxing billionaires. I think you actually can't effectively do one without the other. Of course, in addition to this, some voters are just fucking racist. Or they're anti-Islamic, transphobic, homophobic, or see the world through some other noxious hate-based lens. And, of course, you have to be at least a little bit xenophobic to be entranced by a policy based on "these people are not like us". That's left room for the kinds of bottom-feeders who would like to see more racial stratification and believe in homogenous societies. The people who find integrated, cosmopolitan societies scary. Imagine what an underwhelming, insecure person you'd have to be to be afraid of more diversity or correcting for serious historic inequities. Widening the gene pool of ideas, of lived experiences, and, well, genes, strengthens any society. The fact is, there's a possible, better alternative, where an equitable distribution of wealth is ensured so that nobody falls through the cracks, but I don't know that it's been offered effectively. I hope we can correct for that. I find results like today's to be deeply depressing. ### Empires URL: https://werd.io/empires/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:15:51.000Z For the avoidance of doubt: All empires are bad. All empires have always *been* bad. All empires always *will be* bad. The *concept* of empire is bad. The *prerequisites* for empire are bad. And the people who *like* empires — any of them — are bad. Do not have fondness for empires. Do not have nostalgia for them. Empires *by definition* colonize and rule space — physical, figurative, or both — that might otherwise be free. Resist the urge to romanticize empire. It was never good, and it never will be. ### People and Blogs URL: https://werd.io/people-and-blogs/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:16:05.000Z I was privileged to be interviewed for [this week’s People and Blogs](https://manuelmoreale.com/pb-ben-werdmuller): > Hi! I’m Ben Werdmuller. I was born in the Netherlands, grew up and spent my twenties in the UK, and spent twelve years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now I live in Greater Philadelphia in a creaky old house with my partner, our two year old son, and my father. At night the pipes clang and we sometimes wonder if they’re haunted. [I love the whole series](https://peopleandblogs.com/), so it’s really exciting to be included. [You can read my interview here.](https://manuelmoreale.com/pb-ben-werdmuller) ### Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. URL: https://werd.io/texas-banned-abortion-then-sepsis-rates-soared/ Last updated: 2025-02-21T21:39:44.000Z \[[Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-sepsis-maternal-mortality-analysis)\] My colleagues at ProPublica conducted a first-of-its-kind data analysis on health outcomes after Texas banned abortion in 2021. Here's what it found: > "The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found. > > The new reporting shows that, after the state banned abortion, dozens more pregnant and postpartum women died in Texas hospitals than had in pre-pandemic years, which ProPublica used as a baseline to avoid COVID-19-related distortions. As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, ProPublica found, it rose substantially in Texas." The abortion ban is leading to dangerous delays in care that is leading to an uptick in maternal death. Which is exactly what patient advocates warned would happen. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-sepsis-maternal-mortality-analysis)\] ### Reflections on 25 years of Interconnected URL: https://werd.io/reflections-on-25-years-of-interconnected/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T14:18:41.000Z \[[Matt Webb](https://interconnected.org/home/2025/02/19/reflections)\] I love this: > "Slowly, slowly, the web was taken over by platforms. Your feeling of success is based on your platform’s algorithm, which may not have your interests at heart. Feeding your words to a platform is a vote for its values, whether you like it or not. And they roach-motel you by owning your audience, making you feel that it’s a good trade because you get “discovery.” (Though I know that chasing popularity is a fool’s dream.) > > Writing a blog on your own site is a way to escape all of that. Plus your words build up over time. That’s unique. Nobody else values your words like you do." Fun fact: I started my first startup, the open source social networking platform Elgg, after my university employer told me, verbatim, "Blogging is for teenage girls crying in their bedrooms." I've been pro-blogging both long before and long after it was cool. So sure, blogging might never be mainstream. But it can also be leading edge: a way to demonstrate what ownership can look like. A place to own your words by every definition of the word "own". Everyone should have a blog. Everyone should write on their own terms. I want to read everyone's reflections; understand their worldviews from their perspectives, from a space that is truly theirs. As Matt says: > "I evangelise blogging because it has been good to me. > > \[...\] You should start a blog. Why? Because, well, haven’t I just been saying?" There's no better time to start [than now](https://getblogging.org). [#Indieweb](https://werd.io/tag/Indieweb) \[[Link](https://interconnected.org/home/2025/02/19/reflections)\] ### America Needs a Working-Class Media URL: https://werd.io/america-needs-a-working-classmedia/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T13:03:27.000Z \[[Alissa Quart in Columbia Journalism Review](https://www.cjr.org/analysis/america-needs-working-class-media-end-catering-rich-audiences.php)\] This article cuts right to the core of why media is failing to connect with mass audiences in America. It doesn't report from a perspective that they can identify with - largely because it doesn't hire people like them. What would working-class media look like? > "It would be one where economic reporters are embedded in blue-collar communities and neighborhoods rather than financial districts, and source networks built around people with direct experience instead of outside analysts. Centering inflation coverage around wage stagnation rather than the stock market and written for people who live paycheck to paycheck. Healthcare reporting would be conducted by those who have experienced medical debt. Labor reporting that represents workers not as mute sufferers but as true experts. Housing that is considered from the perspective of the renter, not the landlord or developer." Because: > "While Americans in polls report historically low levels of trust in the media, it could be in large part because much of the press hasn’t been speaking to the concerns of their everyday lives." The piece goes on to laud people from working-class backgrounds like [Heather Bryant](https://www.hbcompass.io/about/), who I think [is a voice](https://www.cjr.org/criticism/unskilled-worker-journalism-class-bias.php) that [every newsroom needs to be listening to](https://www.hbcompass.io/im-never-going-to-trust-your-news-organization/). Instead, journalism is often a very inward-looking, upper middle class endeavor; people who grew up with nannies and went to private school are overrepresented while people who grew up on income support and had a traditional state education are underrepresented. And because richer people are better targets for advertising buys, ad-supported publications chose to chase them. In this vacuum, another kind of media has erupted to meet the needs of a disconnected audience: > "This brings us to where we are today with faux-prole Republican journalists, a kind of social-class kitsch of Rogan-ish dudes on barstools with podcasts." Exactly. This moment requires fundamental change that is about reforming every part of journalistic culture - not just to be more focused on who the audience actually is, but to be more representative of them. That means creating the conditions that allow working-class journalists to stick with it, providing support and training structures that don't assume independent wealth, and truly internalizing the industry's shortcomings on this front. On that last point, I don't know how optimistic I feel that real change is possible. But we should try. [#Media](https://werd.io/tag/Media) \[[Link](https://www.cjr.org/analysis/america-needs-working-class-media-end-catering-rich-audiences.php)\] ### Are We Self-Segregating on Social Media? URL: https://werd.io/are-we-self-segregating-on-social-media/ Last updated: 2025-02-18T17:59:30.000Z \[[Allison Hantschel in DAME](https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/02/18/are-we-self-segregating-on-social-media/)\] Hand-wringing over people leaving overtly unsafe spaces like X to find communities that are actually enjoyable to hang out in (like Mastodon and BlueSky) is absolute nonsense. > "With that user growth, mostly from liberals disgusted with Musk’s nonstop promotion of conservative disinformation, came criticism that people were merely seeking out an ideological “echo chamber” to reinforce their views. > > They’re complaining that Americans are underexposed to fresh new ideas like “non-white races are inferior” and “trans people shouldn’t exist” and “we should hunt the poor for sport” and without algorithmic pressure will suffer without such content. They’re upset that they’re not allowed to promote their toxic work into the eyeballs of people who aren’t looking for it." Let's put it like this. If you're at a party and it's full of assholes, it's quite reasonable to leave and go to another party. There's no law that says X is the social networking platform for everybody (at least, not yet). There's nothing that says you *have* to be on Facebook or Instagram. Everyone gets to use the law of two feet to find a community that's comfortable for them. Hantschel puts it like this: > "There’s no obligation to stay where you find nothing useful or interesting, and there’s no homework assignment that requires you to allow people to ruin your experience. You’re not required to spend a certain number of hours a day engaging with hateful people, or even people you just dislike, in order to accumulate Intellectual Diversity Points." What these commentators are *really* complaining about: they spent well over a decade building up followings on these platforms and now people are looking elsewhere, rendering their investment moot. That's just too bad. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/02/18/are-we-self-segregating-on-social-media/)\] ### Own what’s yours URL: https://werd.io/own-whats-yours/ Last updated: 2025-02-18T16:43:14.000Z \[[PJ Onori](https://pjonori.blog/posts/own-whats-yours/)\] I can't disagree with anything here: > "Web 2.0 seemed like such a great idea in a more innocent time. We’re at a point where it’s only prudent to view third-parties as guilty until proven innocent. Not as some abstract, principled stance, but for our own direct benefit. > > Now, more than ever, it’s critical to own your data. Really own it. Like, on your hard drive and hosted on your website. Ideally on your own server, but one step at a time." We still have a lot of work to do to make this easier and cheaper. Owning your own domain costs money; running web hosting costs money. Not everyone can afford that, and this kind of self-sovereignty should be available to all: if only wealthy people can own their own stuff, the movement is meaningless. But the principle is right. We are being exploited, locked down, pigeonholed, and forced into templates of someone else's making. We can do so much better. [#Indieweb](https://werd.io/tag/Indieweb) \[[Link](https://pjonori.blog/posts/own-whats-yours/)\] ### Ask a CTO: security vs. productivity; when to adopt technology trends URL: https://werd.io/ask-a-cto-security-vs-productivity-when-to-adopt-technology/ Last updated: 2025-02-17T16:13:06.000Z *Ask a CTO* is an irregular column [where I answer anonymous questions from a technical leadership perspective](https://werd.io/2025/introducing-ask-a-cto). You can ask questions [using this form](https://airtable.com/appLUWKYUomQAb6Y7/pagZaDKLaVdS6jYTv/form). I have two answers to two questions this time around: ### Security vs. productivity ![Security by Getty Images, licensed under the Unsplash+ License](https://old.werd.io/file/67b3607c1fdd2f9d6f05add2/thumb.jpg) > Where do you draw the line between security and productivity? What are the drawbacks of totally locking down user workstations and onerous password, 2FA, convoluted permissions and never-ending zero trust implementations? Security and productivity don’t have to be at odds: they should reinforce each other. They’re not at different ends of a continuum. The purpose of IT is to support everyone’s work by empowering them to use technology efficiently and safely. Therefore, any good IT strategy is rooted in service design. Anyone who builds a product needs to consider the user journey of the person they want to use it: their individual steps from discovering the product through to becoming a dedicated user. IT service delivery is a product, too, and the people who provide it need to consider the work journey of its recipients just as carefully. Consider their [jobs to be done](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done): the stuff they need to do, the workarounds they’ve created for themselves, the things they’re studiously avoiding doing. And understand that everyone’s role has different requirements: only a few people need access to payroll, for example, and engineers really need access to install their own libraries and developer tools. There’s also got to be a “why” for everything that’s implemented: the worst IT policies are created by people who do something because they think they should, perhaps because they perceive that other people are doing them. Do you really need to rotate your passwords every 90 days? (I’ll spare you a search: [the answer is no](https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/problems-forcing-regular-password-expiry).) And you need to be open to the idea that you’ve got it wrong. Nobody knows their work better than the people who are doing it. Security policies exist for a reason: unchecked software installs or poor password practices can put the whole organization at risk. But the way those policies are designed and enforced makes all the difference. IT departments lock down workstations in part so that people don’t install random software that might turn out to be harmful; they’d better also have a friendly process for helping people to install software that isn’t part of their core supported offerings but turns out to be needed for someone to do their job. All these elements need to be in place: well-considered user journeys for every role, a considered reason for everything you’ve implemented, great training and bedside manner, and an openness to change, in partnership with a strong understanding of the risks and the products and approaches that might address them. Once these things are there, a good IT strategy should actually *improve* productivity rather than get in its way, even as it implements security procedures like managed devices, MFA, [least privilege security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle%5Fof%5Fleast%5Fprivilege), zero trust, SSO, and so on. A good password manager makes passwords and MFA easier than manually typing credentials. Good SSO just requires a touch to seamlessly log in. Good IT support is a ubiquitous, friendly presence with good bedside manner. Good device management means that you don’t have to worry about keeping your machine up to date. Those things are all necessary for good security, but they also *take out steps* to common workflows and, once they become a habit, are easier for most users than life without them. Conversely, if you *don’t* implement these things from a human-centered perspective, people are going to resent the changes, and you run the risk of getting in the way of people’s work. When that happens, they’ll try to work around you, and your entire organization is less secure. Security really depends on everyone being aligned, which in turn depends on an IT department being laser-focused on being of service. ### Keeping up with the Joneses > How do you decide which trends are worth adopting? There are three things you need to know, in order of importance: - What is your organization’s [mission, vision, and strategy](https://www.launchnotes.com/blog/understanding-the-distinctions-vision-mission-and-strategy)? In other words, what are your goals? What are your problems to solve? - What are the [jobs to be done](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done) of the individual people in your organization? Where are the points of friction in their workdays? - What are the emerging trends? What are the pros, cons, ethical considerations, and potential risks of a new technology or approach? I’ll start with the last first. It’s good to be informed, but that means cutting through marketing and sales excitement to understand the underlying nuances. Many new technologies — and certainly the ones high-profile enough to become “trends” — have an attendant [hype cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner%5Fhype%5Fcycle). The first step to parsing coverage is understanding that the hype cycle exists; the second is to find voices you trust and listen to their commentary. My feed reader is loaded with thousands of subscriptions not just because I like blogging and RSS (although I do!), but because these voices keep me informed. Many of them will disagree with each other, and some of them come from perspectives that are very different to my own; these different angles allow me to construct my own informed opinion. I don’t rely on TechCrunch or similar sites for trend analysis because they tend to amplify hype rather than provide nuanced perspectives. Instead, I filter through relevant connections whose opinions I trust. But it all comes down to those organizational goals and the problems you need to solve. Implementing any technology for technology’s sake is a fool’s game: it all has to be in service of your organizational strategy or improving the working lives of the people who implement it. Does it address your strategic problems? Does it reduce friction for your colleagues? How? That can be more complex than it sounds. For example, if your goas include hiring top-tier engineers, that isn’t just about salary: it’s also about the tools and environment you provide. A company that invests in high-end hardware, flexible work policies, or a strong internal developer experience may attract better talent than one that skimps on these details. A company that has an open mind about AI may be more attractive to investors than one that takes a more dogmatic approach. And so on. Finally, ethical risk is organizational risk. It’s important to understand the ethical considerations and impacts of a new technology as a core part of its pros and cons. Overlooking the dubious ethics of a team or a technology’s environmental footprint is likely to lead to problems down the road, even if the technology may seem like it’s super-popular today. These things have a tendency to manifest as real speed bumps down the road. Stay focused on your goals, cut through the hype by listening to diverse experts, understand the risks, stay human-centered, and always think for yourself. ### Ask a CTO Do you have questions that you’d like a technical leader to answer? You can ask questions [using this form](https://airtable.com/appLUWKYUomQAb6Y7/pagZaDKLaVdS6jYTv/form). I’ll try to answer in a future post. [#askacto](https://werd.io/tag/askacto) ### Elon Musk’s X blocks links to Signal, the encrypted messaging service URL: https://werd.io/elon-musks-x-blocks-links-to-signal-the-encrypted-messaging/ Last updated: 2025-02-17T14:04:55.000Z \[[Matt Binder at disruptionist](https://www.disruptionist.com/p/elon-musks-x-blocks-links-to-signal)\] Just in case you thought he was still all about free speech: > "Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is currently banning links to “Signal.me,” a URL used by the encrypted messaging service Signal. The “Signal.me” domain is specifically used by the service so that users can send out a quick link to directly contact them through the messaging app." Signal, of course, is the encrypted chat app that is used by anyone who wants to have conversations with freedom from surveillance - including activists, journalists, and, as it happens, public servants who have either been fired or are under threat of it. As the article points out: > "Signal has been an important tool for journalists over the years as really one of the few services that are truly private. All messages are end-to-end encrypted, everything is stored on device, and no content is kept on any Signal servers in the cloud. If a source wants to reach out to a reporter and be sure their communication would be as confidential as possible, Signal is usually one of the primary methods of choice." This includes public servants blowing the whistle on DOGE. So it's *weird* that X is blocking it. But given Musk's activities in the current moment, maybe not surprising. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.disruptionist.com/p/elon-musks-x-blocks-links-to-signal)\] ### Bringing Quote Posts to Mastodon URL: https://werd.io/bringing-quote-posts-to-mastodon/ Last updated: 2025-02-16T21:22:21.000Z \[[Mastodon](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/02/bringing-quote-posts-to-mastodon/)\] Mastodon doesn't have quote posts, but is finally adding them after years of pressure. It's a harder decision than you might think - which is made clear by this excellent post by the team. In order to help mitigate potential abuse, the team has imposed three main requirements: - You will be able to choose whether your posts can be quoted at all. - You will be notified when someone quotes you. - You will be able to withdraw your post from the quoted context at any time. Some Mastodon clients fake support now by showing a post in a quoted context whenever it's linked to from another post, but this doesn't have any of the aforementioned properties, and therefore is more susceptible to abuse. And ActivityPub, as yet, doesn't have a great way to represent this either. So it makes sense that it's taken a while: Mastodon wants to do it correctly to preserve community health, and do it in a standard way that other Fediverse participants can use, too. I appreciate the transparency and approach. I'd love to see many more updates in this vein. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/02/bringing-quote-posts-to-mastodon/)\] ### Silicon Valley Software Engineers Horrified as They Can't Easily Find Jobs Anymore URL: https://werd.io/silicon-valley-software-engineers-horrified-as-they-cant-easily-find/ Last updated: 2025-02-16T17:54:33.000Z \[[Joe Wilkins in Futurism](https://futurism.com/silicon-valley-engineers-jobs)\] The job market in the tech industry has been brutal for a little while now, and doesn't show signs of getting easier. > "Of all the workers devastated by the carnage, former tech workers in Silicon Valley are having a particularly rough go of it. > > The region's former software engineers and developers — whose jobs were previously thought to be ironclad — are now having to contend with a fiercely competitive job market in one of the most expensive housing markets in the world." Silicon Valley - which, here as in a lot of places, is incorrectly used to mean the San Francisco Bay Area - is in a bit of a pickle. Mass layoffs have driven down salaries, so many tech companies are quietly firing swathes of workers and re-hiring those seats in order to lower their costs. That's before you get to the actual downsizing, which has sometimes been significant. And at the same time, living costs are sky-high, and house prices are all but unobtainable. When so many peoples' wealth is tied to the equity in their home, there are two possible outcomes: a significant drop in wealth as prices decline (particularly as fired employees flee for more affordable climes), or a significant increase in inequality as prices continue to climb. Either way, that doesn't look good. That's a societal problem, but it's also a problem for the tech industry. Who can afford to found a startup when base prices are so high? The demographics of founders are narrowing to the already well off, forcing other founders to look elsewhere. The solution will have to involve more help (potentially including more startup funding for a wider set of founders) or better jobs in the area. Otherwise Silicon Valley will continue to lose talent to other parts of the country and the world. Tech companies are trying to get their employees to return to the office to counteract this effect, but it simply won't be enough; no RTO policy is compelling enough when you can't afford to buy a house and bring up a family. That's an opportunity for other ecosystems, but it's one that they will need to intentionally pick up. To date, smart tech ecosystem strategies in other parts of the world have been few and far between - not least because they aim for a similar level of talent density as Silicon Valley rather than embracing a remote, distributed culture. I openly miss living in the Bay Area and may return in the future, so I have skin in the game. I'm curious to see what happens here. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://futurism.com/silicon-valley-engineers-jobs)\] ### Life in Weeks URL: https://werd.io/life-in-weeks/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:16:17.000Z Inspired by [Gina Trapani](https://weeks.ginatrapani.org/), [Buster Benson](https://busterbenson.com/life-in-weeks), and others, I started to build my own *Life in Weeks* page from scratch. It looks pretty cool, and it’s interesting to see my life milestones presented on this scale. But I’m not going to share it with you. As I was building it, it became clear how much personal information I was sharing — and not just my own, but that of my parents, my sister, my partner, my child, other members of my extended family. It’s a privacy violation at best and an identity theft goldmine at worst. My life is mine, their lives are theirs, and these things don’t need to be published in public on the web. This is, perhaps, an area of growth for me: Ben in his twenties would *absolutely* have published it. But our lives are like a fingerprint; unique to us. Not everything needs to be made available for free to everyone. The code is pretty simple and the payload is lightweight (unlike Gina and Buster, I haven’t relied on Bootstrap, for example), so I’m going to find another use for it. Maybe a *Life in Weeks* for characters from my novel? For the web itself? I’ll think about it. ### An update on searching for trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas URL: https://werd.io/an-update-on-searching-for-trans-friendly-employers-who-sponsor-visas/ Last updated: 2025-02-16T16:08:10.000Z ![](https://old.werd.io/file/678f0b1582366b9d770b12b2/thumb.jpg) Last month [I asked to hear from trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas](https://werd.io/2025/seeking-trans-friendly-employers-who-sponsor-visas), and provided a simple form for interested employers to reach out. In the process, I heard from many individuals: people who were hoping to find new employment in another country, and people who worked for companies that were aligned, who were encouraging their bosses to fill in the form. A quick reminder before we dive in: I’m not providing formal legal or financial advice. I’m just trying to point people in the right direction and provide some ideas for relocation for people who want it. ### The bad news Here’s the bad news: today, that form sits empty. While the post was shared far and wide, not a single person has filled it in. I think there are a few reasons for this. First and foremost, in the current environment, being listed in such a database presents a significant risk, particularly if you’re doing business with US entities. In an environment where the administration is firing employees and cutting contracts for even the barest mention of support for trans people, there’s every reason to believe that the current administration will penalize people and organizations who work with trans people. So, that’s not great. I’m very sorry to everyone who got their hopes up that I would be able to make direct connections. ### The good news The good news: some countries actively sponsor visas, welcome trans people, and are hiring. In my personal conversations with people, what jumped out again and again was that emigrating to the Netherlands was a viable route for many people — and particularly those with tech skills (engineering, IT, product management, design, research, and so on). Reasons include: - Dutch tech companies tend to sponsor visas. (Look for job vacancies written in English and/or on boards like [Tech Me Abroad](https://techmeabroad.com/search/nl/all) and [Relocate.me](https://relocate.me/companies-hiring/netherlands).) - [You can relocate with a self-employment visa](https://relocate.me/visas/netherlands/self-employment-visa) if you have a skilled background, can demonstrate at least one Dutch-based contract or that you’ll start a tech-based business, and can show that you’ll independently make €1,613 (\~$1,700) per month. - [The DAFT visa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT) lowers the barrier to entry for US entrepreneurs who can commit to invest €4,500 (\~$4,700). - [The Netherlands is a progressive country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ%5Frights%5Fin%5Fthe%5FNetherlands), even given its current right-wing government. - [90-93% of Dutch people speak English fluently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English%5Fin%5Fthe%5FNetherlands). The Netherlands is also kind of just a neat country: excellent social safety net, great support for culture and the arts, good connectivity to other European countries, and a strong grant support network for mission-driven tech. Amsterdam is a first-class cosmopolitan city, but other centers in the Netherlands are not to be sniffed at, and the country is so small that you can easily take public transit from one to another in less time than it might take you to commute to work by car in the US. It is not, however, perfect. Much like the US, the Netherlands has had its own racial reckoning; unlike the US, the discourse has often centered on the idea that racism doesn’t happen there. That’s a rich claim from a society where racist tropes [like Zwarte Piet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte%5FPiet) are still commonplace, and [where women of color are often marginalized](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912432221075098). There’s work to be done — although it’s worth asking if this is truly any worse than the US. Not everybody can relocate, and not everybody has these skills. I’m aware that this is a privileged route that not everybody can take advantage of. It would be better if there was a defined route for *everybody* who needed to find a safer place to live; it would be better still if a safe place to live was the place they already call home. This situation is sick and sad, and I truly wish that everything was different. It also comes with an attendant cost. It’s estimated that moving to the Netherlands will set you back between $6-10K. That’s a lot less than one might expect, but it’s obviously a significant barrier for many people. Unfortunately, very little financial support exists for these moves. If you know of grants, mutual aid funds, or community resources that help trans people relocate, please share them. Funding and guidance from those who’ve navigated the process could make all the difference. ### Please reach out In the meantime, I’ll keep looking. If you are a company in a country that is safe for trans people, and you’re looking to hire people from the US who need visa sponsorship, [please fill out this form](https://airtable.com/app6igkD8PWzgw4Sj/shrdPakKah4Z2IXgF) or [reach out to me via email](mailto:ben@werd.io). I’m not giving up. ### Organizing on decentralized social networks URL: https://werd.io/organizing-on-decentralized-social-networks/ Last updated: 2025-02-16T15:03:48.000Z \[[Jon Pincus at The Nexus of Privacy](https://privacy.thenexus.today/organizing-on-decentralized-social-networks/)\] There's an argument that one reason Elon Musk bought Twitter was to reduce its effectiveness as a platform for progressive organizing. Whether you buy that or not, it's clear that the new set of social networks are fertile ground for new and existing movements to make progress. The question is: how? Jon is an experienced organizer and is here to help out: > "The Nexus of Privacy is planning a series of online discussions and video/phone calls focusing on organizing on decentralized social networks. There's a range of topics to cover, including looking at the tradeoffs between the different platforms for different use cases, brainstorming how organizers can leverage these platforms, easy ways to start exploring, and ways for groups to move as a whole." There's a form to express interest (which uses [CryptPad](https://cryptpad.fr/) to support anonymity, which is both new to me and seems like a great platform in itself). If you're interested in organizing using decentralized social networks as a tool, these sessions look like they'll be a good resource. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://privacy.thenexus.today/organizing-on-decentralized-social-networks/)\] ### Tech continues to be political URL: https://werd.io/tech-continues-to-be-political/ Last updated: 2025-02-16T13:52:47.000Z \[[Miriam Eric Suzanne](https://www.miriamsuzanne.com/2025/02/12/tech-ai-wtf/)\] Every single word of this piece resonated for me, from the underlying discomfort to the realization that AI as it currently manifests reflects a kind of fascist mindset in itself: an enclosure movement of culture and diversity that concentrates power into a handful of vendors. This is true of me too: > "Based on every conference I’ve attended over the last year, I can absolutely say we’re a fringe minority. And it’s wearing me out. I don’t know how to participate in a community that so eagerly brushes aside the active and intentional/foundational harms of a technology. In return for what? Faster copypasta? Automation tools being rebranded as an “agentic” web? Assurance that we won’t be left behind?" I think drawing the line between "tech" and "the web" is important, and this piece captures *exactly* how I've been feeling about it: > "“Tech” was always a vague and hand-waving field – a way to side-step regulations while starting an unlicensed taxi company or hotel chain. That was never my interest. > > But I got curious about the web, a weird little project built for sharing research between scientists. And I still think this web could be pretty cool, actually, if it wasn’t trapped in the clutches of big tech. If we can focus on the bits that make it special – the bits that make it unwieldy for capitalism." So this post made me (1) feel less alone (2) like I want to be friends with its author. This *is* a fringe feeling, unfortunately, but if enough of us stick together, maybe we can manifest an alternative. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.miriamsuzanne.com/2025/02/12/tech-ai-wtf/)\] ### A streak, at last URL: https://werd.io/a-streak-at-last/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:16:32.000Z ![Longest move streak](https://old.werd.io/file/67ae1476678902179c0e5622/thumb.jpg) It’s a small thing, but I broke my Apple Fitness longest streak this week. That means my consecutive number of days that I’ve hit my fitness goals on my Apple Watch has been longer than it’s ever been. Here’s why that’s meaningful: my previous longest streak was broken when my mother died, almost four years ago, after a ten-year terminal decline. For part of that time, I thought that my sister and I might have the illness too, and I’ve watched four other members of my family follow the same journey. It’s been a hard decade or two, and I haven’t been together enough to manage any kind of streak since that awful week in the hospital. Until now. I’m not saying that nature is healing — grief is with me every single day — but it feels like, in the midst of genuine crises at home, in my family, and in the world, at least *something* is going right. ### Marshmallow Test and Parenting URL: https://werd.io/marshmallow-test-and-parenting/ Last updated: 2025-02-13T15:13:45.000Z \[[Sergey Bogdanov](https://desunit.com/blog/marshmallow-test-and-parenting/)\] This is a story about parenting, but also about the importance of considering context inclusively. We've all heard about the [Stanford marshmallow experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford%5Fmarshmallow%5Fexperiment), but: > "Kids from wealthier families waited longer than kids from low-income families. Not because they had more self-control, but because their environment made waiting feel safer. If you grow up knowing there will always be food on the table, waiting for an extra marshmallow isn’t a big deal. But if your life is more uncertain, grabbing what you can when you can make total sense. It’s a survival skill, not a lack of discipline." It's not *just* about socioeconomic background; it's also, as the article points out, about building a culture of trust. That's important in families, but also in companies, and *everywhere*. > "So what’s the takeaway here? It’s simple, really: as parents, we set the tone. Our actions, promises, and reliability shape how our kids see the world. Are we building an environment where they feel safe enough to wait? Or are we teaching them that they need to grab what they can, when they can?" What can we change to create emotional safety? How can we let them know they're protected? It really matters, in all walks of life. [#Parenting](https://werd.io/tag/Parenting) \[[Link](https://desunit.com/blog/marshmallow-test-and-parenting/)\] ### What Elon Musk's son in Trump's Oval Office tells us about politics and family URL: https://werd.io/what-elon-musks-son-in-trumps-oval-office-tells-us/ Last updated: 2025-02-13T14:35:22.000Z \[[Jennifer Gerson at The 19th](https://19thnews.org/2025/02/elon-musk-son-oval-office/)\] Musk has been seen with his child, X Æ A-Xii (or "Lil X" for short), at press conferences. But, as Jennifer Gerson notes here, it's not just a photo op. > "Musk, a father of 12, is an avowed pronatalist, or someone who believes declining population rates are a major concern and has committed to work to remedy this by having as many children as possible. He sees part of his life’s work as repopulating the planet with as many children — and exceptional children at that — as possible." It's also a *wild* double standard. Imagine the chorus of conservative mocking if a woman had done the same thing. That's not to say that children shouldn't be normalized at work - they really should - but what's happening in the current moment is hardly a symbol of radical inclusion. > "Pronatalism requires that people who are able to carry pregnancies — mostly women — be pregnant for large periods of time. These pregnancies can have a major impact on women’s participation in the workforce and economic mobility." Finally, as Gerson points out, it's certainly worth mentioning that pro-natalists aren't just in favor of *any* kind of baby. They're heavy eugenicists, with a focus on certain characteristics, including retrograde ideas like potential IQ. Might this also include, in Musk's case, the 14 words? I couldn't possibly say. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://19thnews.org/2025/02/elon-musk-son-oval-office/)\] ### The Social Web Foundation announces its membership in the World Wide Web Consortium URL: https://werd.io/the-social-web-foundation-announces-its-membership-in-the-world/ Last updated: 2025-02-11T22:42:26.000Z \[[Social Web Foundation](https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/02/11/the-social-web-foundation-announces-its-membership-in-the-world-wide-web-consortium/)\] The [Social Web Foundation](https://socialwebfoundation.org/) has joined the W3C: > "SWF joins CDT as one of the few civil society organizations that comprise the Consortium. SWF’s membership in the W3C underscores our commitment to promoting an open and federated social web, and our alignment with the W3C mission to develop web standards through community consensus that ensures the long-term growth and accessibility of technical specifications that are openly licensed." More forward motion for the open social web as a core part of the open web itself. This is also very good news: > "In terms of concrete ongoing work, we look forward to bringing end-to-end encryption to direct messages in ActivityPub, developing groups on the social web, supporting data portability with ActivityPub, making discovery of ActivityPub objects and their authors easier." These will all make the open social web safer, more flexible, and easier to build on for new platform entrants. Let's go. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/02/11/the-social-web-foundation-announces-its-membership-in-the-world-wide-web-consortium/)\] ### Tumblr to join the fediverse after WordPress migration completes URL: https://werd.io/tumblr-to-join-the-fediverse-after-wordpress-migration-completes/ Last updated: 2025-02-11T20:49:10.000Z \[[Sarah Perez at TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/tumblr-to-join-the-fediverse-after-wordpress-migration-completes/)\] This was a very nice surprise to see: > "Automattic confirmed to TechCrunch that when the migration is complete, every Tumblr user will be able to federate their blog via ActivityPub, just as every WordPress.com user can today." ActivityPub is the open protocol behind [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) and [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/), among others. [Threads](https://www.threads.net/) and [Ghost](https://ghost.org) have also been steadily adding support. Given the long tail of ActivityPub and the simultaneous rise of [Bluesky](https://bsky.social/), which is connected to the ActivityPub network via [Bridgy Fed](https://fed.brid.gy/), the future of the open social web is very bright. It is the future of all social media. This is another great milestone along the road. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/tumblr-to-join-the-fediverse-after-wordpress-migration-completes/)\] ### Releasing all my text under a Creative Commons license URL: https://werd.io/releasing-all-my-text-under-a-creative-commons-license/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:16:45.000Z From time to time, people ask me if they can use the content of my posts in another venue or another format. To make that possible, today I released all the text of all my posts under a Creative Commons [Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) license. You’ll see that declaration on the footer of every page of my site. What does that mean? - I’m releasing the *text* of each post, not the images. That’s because I license most of the images myself and don’t have the legal right to re-license them. - You can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Want to take the text and put it in a course, or another website, or an app, or a comic book? Knock yourself out. - You can adapt the material. If you want to translate it, illustrate it, build on it — go for it. - You can’t use it for commercial purposes under this license. I’m very open to my content being used for commercial purposes, but we need to work out the terms together. - You need to attribute the original work. That means identifying me as the original author, linking to the original post or page, and clearly indicating if changes were made. - You’ve got to release your version under the same license. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. - You can’t add restrictions that *stop* people from doing any of the above things that are permitted by the license. [Take a look at the full license text](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) for the complete picture. In particular, note the following: *No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.* Lastly: it’s optional, but if you do use the content, I’d love to hear about it. You can always email me at [ben@werd.io](mailto:ben@werd.io). ### A Few Eggs of Advice in These Trying Times URL: https://werd.io/a-few-eggs-of-advice-in-these-trying-times/ Last updated: 2025-02-11T14:04:05.000Z \[[Oneofthelibrarians at LibrarianShipwreck](https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2025/02/06/a-few-eggs-of-advice-in-these-trying-times/)\] Some advice about how to survive this era from LibrarianShipwreck, one of my most favorite blogs on the planet: > "So, uh, it’s pretty bad out there! You are probably trying to figure out what the hell to do about it. Here are some words of advice, from wisdom gained through a couple decades in the trenches. Hope it helps." Some of these are things that I am *very bad* at, including prioritizing physical health / ability. I think there's also a lot to say in favor of this: > "The Western, and especially USAian, mythos of the singularly special hero is a load of hooey. Don’t fall into that trap. Even when we occasionally do have individuals who make an outsized difference, if you need the thoughts in this post you are almost certainly not positioned to be that person. And that’s ok!" What these times need, in other words, is co-operation, mutual aid, community, and allyship. American culture, as the piece says, is oriented around rugged individualism; while we all have individual rights, including the right to self-identity, the right to safety, the right to freedom of speech and thought, and so on, it's community that will set us free. Jerry Springer was a cultural grenade who in some ways paved the path to where we are, but he got one thing right: he signed off every day with the mantra, "take care of yourselves, and each other." That's the spirit. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2025/02/06/a-few-eggs-of-advice-in-these-trying-times/)\] ### The NSA's "Big Delete" URL: https://werd.io/the-nsas-big-delete/ Last updated: 2025-02-10T19:56:10.000Z \[[Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby in Popular Information](https://popular.info/p/the-nsas-big-delete)\] The removal of banned terms on both internal and external government websites is going more *stupidly* than one might have expected: > "One example included a job listing page for the Department of Homeland Security that removed language about maintaining an “inclusive environment.” The Post also found examples of words being removed that had nothing to do with DEI, such as a page on the Department of the Interior’s website that boasted of its museums' “diverse collections,” removing the word “diverse.”" And: > "The memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term "privilege" is used by the NSA in the context of "privilege escalation." In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to "techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network."" The whole enterprise is silly, of course, but this is an incredibly bad way to go about it. Words have meaning, and sometimes you need to use them. A global search and replace isn't a perfect way to revamp the whole apparatus of federal government. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://popular.info/p/the-nsas-big-delete)\] ### If MSN comments reveal the soul of America, we're done URL: https://werd.io/if-msn-comments-reveal-the-soul-of-america-were-done/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:17:01.000Z For a while now, I’ve been syndicating my posts to MSN. [You can see Werd I/O’s profile over there](https://www.msn.com/en-us/channel/source/Werd%20IO/sr-cid-66a9f9118a73378b). In some ways, this is my normiest network: whereas my [Mastodon community](https://werd.social/@ben) is more technical, my [Bluesky community](https://bsky.app/profile/werd.io) is more political and my [newsletter subscribers](https://newsletter.werd.io/) tend to be a mix of people from the tech and media worlds alongside people I otherwise know, MSN encompasses Windows users who the algorithm thinks should be sent my stuff. The comments have long fascinated me: they’re incredibly right-wing. I’d initially dismissed them as being part of some influence campaign on the network, but I now see them as an important barometer of a cross-section of what the American public thinks. It’s not good news. For example, here’s a selection of comments on [the MSN version](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/usaid%E2%80%99s-reproductive-health-spending-has-saved-millions-of-lives-now-it%E2%80%99s-gone/ar-AA1yHxfe?disableErrorRedirect=true&infiniteContentCount=0) of [my link blog post for The 19th’s article about USAID’s lifesaving reproductive healthcare](https://werd.io/2025/usaids-reproductive-health-spending-has-saved-millions-of-lives-now). There’s a lot of this kind of thing: > “Women need to be responsible for their own behaviors. If they become pregnant then they need to seek and pay for their care to ensure the baby is born healthy. Just another waste of taxpayer money.” And: > “It takes two to tango, where are all these dead beat dads? Why is the American taxpayer responsible for the entire planet? Have any of you women ever heard the word no? Not in your language? Then cross your legs. MSN doesn't like the truth. Communist sensors.” And, bafflingly: > “How do contraceptives prevent STDs and HIV? They don’t.” And the absolutely nihilistic but also inherently counterproductive: > “worlds overpopulated as it is.” As well as the top-rated comment at the time of writing: > “USAID has only used a small portion of the funds for humanitarian purposes. The vast majority has been used for crazy liberal agendas that have nothing to do with humanitarian purposes. Corrupt Democrats have been caught red handed that's why they are trying to cover up what the taxpayers' funds have really been used for.” My fear is that *this is America*. These comments are ill-informed, occasionally wildly racist, and light years away from the debate I’d expect to have in other forums. It’s easy to dismiss most of these people as being idiots (something I can’t easily avoid). There are almost no tolerant or left-wing voices in the mix; instead, we’re left with the kind of rhetoric you might otherwise expect to see in communities that have dismissed Fox News as being too soft. If I’m right, which I’d prefer not to be, it doesn’t say great things about our prospects over the next four years, or for the future of the country. If this is where normie discourse is at, it’s going to be *rough*. Anyway, I’ll leave you with two more comments, from other posts: > “Thank you President Trump for putting America and Americans first. When the far left crooks scream loud we know we are on target. FEAR !” And: > “what maga when both parties just care more about a foreign country while democrats just engage in h ate speech toward the majority and republicans dont care and wont call them ra cists as they are being called that for everything.” Oof. ### Judith Butler, philosopher: ‘If you sacrifice a minority like trans people, you are operating within a fascist logic’ URL: https://werd.io/judith-butler-philosopher-if-you-sacrifice-a-minority-like-trans/ Last updated: 2025-02-10T14:39:21.000Z \[[Iker Seisdedos interviewing Judith Butler in EL PAÍS English](https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-15/judith-butler-philosopher-if-you-sacrifice-a-minority-like-trans-people-you-are-operating-within-a-fascist-logic.html)\] [Judith Butler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith%5FButler) is as on-point as ever: > "Q. It wasn’t just Trumpism. Some Democratic voices say it’s time to move beyond the issue of trans rights in areas like sports, which affect very few people. > > A. You could say that about the Jews, Black people or Haitians, or any very vulnerable minority. Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic, because that means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice, and a third, a fourth, and then what happens?" This is exactly it. I've also heard voices say that there should have been less discussion of racial equity: less Black Lives Matter, less 1619 Project, less discussion of systemic inequality. It's nonsense, and as Butler says, it's a road that leads us down an inevitably fascist path. [The whole interview](https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-15/judith-butler-philosopher-if-you-sacrifice-a-minority-like-trans-people-you-are-operating-within-a-fascist-logic.html) is very much worth your time: nuanced and well-considered. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-15/judith-butler-philosopher-if-you-sacrifice-a-minority-like-trans-people-you-are-operating-within-a-fascist-logic.html)\] ### USAID’s reproductive health spending has saved millions of lives. Now it’s gone. URL: https://werd.io/usaids-reproductive-health-spending-has-saved-millions-of-lives-now/ Last updated: 2025-02-09T17:11:18.000Z \[[Jessica Kutz at The 19th](https://19thnews.org/2025/02/usaid-women-lgbtq-reproductive-health-funding-pause/)\] USAID's defunding will lead directly to women's deaths: > "As of 2023, 67 percent of contraceptives supplied through USAID went to Africa, where some of the leading causes of death for girls and women are related to pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections like HIV. According to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, if no contraceptive care is provided by USAID in 2025, that will lead to about 4.2 million unintended pregnancies and over 8,000 deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth complications." The article goes on to detail efforts in countries like Afghanistan, Senegal, India, and Nigeria. The idea that we should simply rug-pull these efforts is ludicrous: it sends a clear message that we no longer care about the well-being of people overseas, and that we don't think their quality of life is important to us or affects us. This is an obvious, profound mistake. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://19thnews.org/2025/02/usaid-women-lgbtq-reproductive-health-funding-pause/)\] ### Donald Trump’s Immigration Executive Orders: Tracking the Most Impactful Changes URL: https://werd.io/donald-trumps-immigration-executive-orders-tracking-the-most-impactful-changes/ Last updated: 2025-02-09T17:05:54.000Z \[[Mica Rosenberg, Perla Trevizo, and Zisiga Mukulu in ProPublica, co-published with The Texas Tribune](https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-immigration-executive-orders)\] This is a beautifully-designed co-production between ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, illustrating the immigration policies that Donald Trump enacted on day one. These encompassed dozens of policies that were revived from his first term, as well as seven new ones that hadn't been tried before. > "In order to provide a glimpse of the enormity of the changes that are underway, ProPublica and the Tribune identified nearly three dozen of the most impactful policy changes set in motion by the orders signed on the first day. Most were pulled from the playbook of Trump’s previous presidency. Others are unprecedented." The new ones are pretty stark, including: > "Ending and clawing back funding from organizations that support migrants: Seeks to stop or limit money to nongovernmental organizations that provide shelter and services to migrants released at the border, as well as legal orientation programs for people in immigration proceedings." And, of course much has been written about the unconstitutionality of: > "Seeks to end birthright citizenship: Attempts to end birthright citizenship of children born to parents either illegally in the United States or under a temporary legal status, something Trump had only said he wanted to do in his first term." It's useful to have these written in one place, in an easy-to-digest form, together with updates on what's happened since. The news can feel like a deluge, and aggregating the updates into something parseable is important. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-immigration-executive-orders)\] ### Shattering the Overton Window URL: https://werd.io/shattering-the-overton-window/ Last updated: 2025-02-08T22:24:55.000Z \[[Natalia Antelava in Coda Story](https://www.codastory.com/polarization/shattering-the-overton-window/)\] This is a useful framework for thinking about ongoing harm. > "It was 2014, and I was standing in the ruins of Donetsk airport, when a Russian-backed rebel commander launched into what seemed like an oddly academic lecture. Between bursts of artillery fire, he explained an American political science concept: the Overton Window – a theory that describes the range of policies and ideas a society considers acceptable at any given time. Politicians can’t successfully propose anything outside this “window” of acceptability without risking their careers. “The West uses this window,” he said, smoke from his cigarette blowing into my face, “to destroy our traditional values by telling us it’s okay for me to marry a man and for you to marry a woman. But we won’t let them.”" And that's the real, lasting impact of Trump and his worldview: > "As transactional relationships replace values-based alliances, as oligarchic control displaces democratic institutions, as the unthinkable becomes routine – the transformation of our societies isn’t happening by accident." What will undoing this take? How can we shift the Overton Window back towards inclusion, communities, and compassion? How can we get to the mutualistic, integrated society we need to reach, and say goodbye to this disgustingly retrograde conservatism for good? [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.codastory.com/polarization/shattering-the-overton-window/)\] ### From COBOL to chaos: Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper Problem URL: https://werd.io/from-cobol-to-chaos-elon-musk-doge-and-the-evil/ Last updated: 2025-02-07T16:45:26.000Z \[[Dan Hon in MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/07/1111283/elon-musk-doge-and-the-evil-housekeeper-problem-government-technology/)\] The always-brilliant [Dan Hon](https://newsletter.danhon.com/) on DOGE: > "We’re seeing in real time that there are no practical technical measures preventing someone from taking a spanner to the technology that keeps our government stable, that keeps society running every day—despite the very real consequences. > > So we should plan for the worst, even if the likelihood of the worst is low." The suggestions that follow - identifying risks, working together, standing up and saying "no" - are all sensible and needed. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/07/1111283/elon-musk-doge-and-the-evil-housekeeper-problem-government-technology/)\] ### 'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook URL: https://werd.io/reboot-revealed-elon-musks-ceo-dictator-playbook/ Last updated: 2025-02-07T15:48:10.000Z \[[Gil Duran in The Nerd Reich](https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-doge/)\] [Curtis Yarvin's influence](https://werd.io/2025/the-interview-curtis-yarvin-says-democracy-is-done) is felt again: > " In an essay on his paywalled Substack, he imagined a second Trump presidency in which Trump would enable a radical government transformation. The proposal will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Musk wreak havoc on the United States Government (USG) over the past three weeks." As Duran points out, none of what's happening right now is exactly *new* or a *surprise*: > "What surprises me most is how the political press generally fails to inform the public that Musk is taking a systematic approach, one that has been outlined in public forums for years. (Some press outlets, like the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, are owned by billionaires keenly interested in kowtowing to Musk and Trump.)" For many people, the myth of American exceptionalism may be so deeply in their bloodstream that they simply can't imagine our institutions falling to this. But of course they can: this is the country that gave us McCarthyism and Jim Crow. it's happening in plain sight. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-doge/)\] ### The Key Figures Working Alongside Elon Musk at DOGE and in the Trump Administration URL: https://werd.io/the-key-figures-working-alongside-elon-musk-at-doge-and/ Last updated: 2025-02-06T22:38:38.000Z \[[Avi Asher-Schapiro, Christopher Bing, Annie Waldman, Brett Murphy, Andy Kroll, Justin Elliott, Kirsten Berg, Sebastian Rotella, Alex Mierjeski, Pratheek Rebala and Al Shaw at ProPublica](https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/)\] My colleagues at ProPublica have published the largest list yet of who is actually involved in DOGE: > "While some have been public about their involvement, others have attempted to keep their roles secret, scrubbing LinkedIn pages and other sources of data. With little information from the White House, ProPublica is attempting to document who is involved and what they are doing." This is a living document: ProPublica is still reporting. As the article points out: > "We are still reporting. Do you have information about any of the people listed below? Do you know of any other Musk associates who have entered the federal government? You can reach [our tip line](https://www.propublica.org/tips/#signal). Please be as specific, detailed and clear as you can." [The whole list is worth reviewing.](https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/) [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/)\] ### Update on the 2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive URL: https://werd.io/update-on-the-20242025-end-of-term-web-archive/ Last updated: 2025-02-06T14:57:45.000Z \[[Caralee Adams at the Internet Archive](https://blog.archive.org/2025/02/06/update-on-the-2024-2025-end-of-term-web-archive/)\] The [Internet Archive](https://archive.org) is always a gem, but it's been particularly important this year. > "With two-thirds of the process complete, the 2024/2025 EOT crawl has collected more than 500 terabytes of material, including more than 100 million unique web pages. All this information, produced by the U.S. government—the largest publisher in the world—is preserved and available for public access at the Internet Archive. > > \[...\] As an added layer of preservation, the 2024/2025 EOT Web Archive will be uploaded to the Filecoin network for long-term storage, where previous term archives are already stored. While separate from the EOT collaboration, this effort is part of the Internet Archive’s Democracy’s Library project. Filecoin Foundation (FF) and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) support Democracy’s Library to ensure public access to government research and publications worldwide." This is important on multiple levels: most importantly, it means that even if the Internet Archive is attacked or shut down for any reason, these archived versions of government websites and data will remain online and accessible. As it happens, the current administration has been pulling down datasets and redacting websites with wild abandon, so although this is a routine activity for the Archive whenever there's a change in administration, it provides a vital historical record this year. Good news for researchers, future historians, journalists, and anyone who depended on this data. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://blog.archive.org/2025/02/06/update-on-the-2024-2025-end-of-term-web-archive/)\] ### You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism URL: https://werd.io/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/ Last updated: 2025-02-06T13:17:00.000Z \[[Janus Rose at 404 Media](https://www.404media.co/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/)\] This is an important but hard pill to swallow: > "“The reality is you are oxygenating the things these people are saying even as you purport to debunk them,” Katherine Cross, a sociologist and author of Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix, told 404 Media. “Whether it’s \[New York Times columnist\] Ross Douthat providing a sane-washing gloss on Trump’s mania or people on social media vehemently disagreeing and dunking on it, they’re legitimizing it as part of the discourse.”" Posting is not activism. But it's both easy and cathartic to take the bait and run with it - and get approving clicks and likes in return. In sharing outrage rather than concrete real-world steps, we end up just amplifying the message. As Janus Rose points out: > "Under this status quo, everything becomes a myopic contest of who can best exploit peoples’ anxieties to command their attention and energy. If we don’t learn how to extract ourselves from this loop, none of the information we gain will manifest as tangible action—and the people in charge prefer it that way." Instead, co-ordinate online but manifest in the real world. Join protests, call your representatives, work for organizations that seek to uncover truth and take steps forward. Fewer hot takes; more collective action. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/)\] ### Move fast and break democracy URL: https://werd.io/move-fast-and-break-democracy/ Last updated: 2025-02-06T04:49:19.000Z ![The Capitol, upside down](https://old.werd.io/file/67a43f4011a9a498930f9492/thumb.jpg) For the last few years, AI vendors have had an interesting marketing playbook: they’ve described the potential power of the technologies as being so great that it could lead to an artificial general intelligence that could either kill humanity or leave us behind and head for the stars. We ignore its power at our peril. As it turned out, OpenAI and Microsoft’s definition of “artificial general intelligence” [was that the technologies would reach one hundred billion dollars in revenue](https://dig.watch/updates/agi-linked-to-profits-in-microsoft-and-openai-agreement). It wasn’t tied to capabilities around reasoning, and did not, in actuality, relate to a *Terminator* future. It just meant that they’d be making a lot of money from it. All the talk of humanity-destroying intelligence and the existential questions that derived from it just served to draw attention to their services. The awe inspired by the tales they were weaving would, they hoped, lead to more signed contracts, more subscribers, more dollars on their balance sheets. People would *treat* the technologies as being insanely powerful even if they weren’t, and that would be enough. A decade or more ago, a new ride-sharing service called Uber started to supplant taxi services in major cities like San Francisco. While taxi services were typically licensed, often at great cost to the individual drivers, Uber drivers operated without any such restrictions. It was illegal in many cities, but the company intentionally created workarounds to prevent police, city officials, and taxi firms from gathering evidence. [A tool nicknamed Greyball](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html) allowed them to tag users who they decided were trying to conduct a sting on the service. Those users would see fake cars, and their drivers would cancel quickly. In the midst of this disinformation, it became hard to gather real evidence and make a case. Eventually, despite its illegality, Uber became saturated in each market. Cities found themselves either acquiescing or making regulatory deals with the company. Uber had evaded the authorities while growing quickly, and it became widely used. It was clear that cities were going to have trouble shutting it down, so they ultimately adjusted to accept its existence. Law enforcement had been too slow; Uber had outrun and outmaneuvered it, and now it was here to stay. The same playbooks that have allowed high-growth tech companies to become effective monopolies in America are now being used on American governance itself. Donald Trump is not a king and does not have the right to wield absolute power. He and his parties control all three branches of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are all Republican-dominated, but avenues for objection, checks on his power, and levers to limit his reach remain. But that doesn’t necessarily matter: Donald Trump is *acting* like a king. He is restructuring the government as if he were one, making statement after statement to reinforce that image. Much of it is hot air: things that will never come to pass. But just as if AI vendors pretend all-powerful artificial intelligence exists, people will act as if it does, I believe Trump’s CEO king act is designed to make us act as if there are no checks or limits on his abilities. We are meant to gaze in awe, and his critics to feel despondent, so that he can cement his imaginary powers for real and conduct his illegal business with impunity regardless of the regulations. DOGE, which subsumed the USDS to become [the awkwardly-named United States Department of Government Efficiency Service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%5FStates%5FDOGE%5FService), is running ahead of regulations with the same gusto that Uber did during its early years. It should go without saying that inviting [recent high school graduates and early twenty-somethings with no security clearance](https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/?%5Fsp=cfdceaee-3499-4493-9304-0585655c3832.1738525731251) to [wantonly access the personal data of every American, and to alter the source code that controls core government services](https://whyy.org/articles/doge-elon-musk-usaid-trump/), [is illegal](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/05/a-25-year-old-is-writing-backdoors-into-the-treasurys-6-trillion-payment-system-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/). It’s so outlandish that it sounds absolutely bizarre when you describe it out loud, like something from a speculative fiction fever dream, but it’s happening in plain sight. There are plenty of rules in place to prevent their activities from taking place. But who is going to catch up to them? *Eventually*, DOGE will either be stopped or face regulatory restrictions on its activities and reach. But by then, it will be too late: the code will be altered, the personal information will be revealed, the funding spigot to core government services will have withered them on the vine. Legal objections have peppered up everywhere, but the cogs of justice are far slower than a bunch of entrepreneurial kids with the keys to the city. Lawmakers and civil rights organizations can shake their fists and say it’s illegal, but it’s done. DOGE isn’t just evading oversight: it’s moving fast and breaking things on a scale even Uber never dreamed of. It’s governance as a high-growth startup, where rule-breaking isn’t a side effect — it’s the entire strategy. The important thing isn’t so much *who* is doing it as *what* is being done. Much has been made of the fact that Elon Musk is unelected, which is true: he is a private citizen with highly personal motives doing this work under dubious auspices. But the events of the last few weeks would be heinous even if they were conducted directly by elected officials acting in good faith. Stopping Musk from doing these things is a good idea, but the core problem is the acts, not the man. The question, then, is what we do next. In the New York Times, Jamelle Bouie points out that [this wasn’t what brought most Trump voters to the polls](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/opinion/trump-musk-federal-government.html): > For as much as some of Trump’s and Musk’s moves were anticipated in Project 2025, the fact of the matter is that marginal Trump voters — the voters who gave him his victory — did not vote for any of this. They voted specifically to lower the cost of living. They did not vote, in Musk’s words, for economic “hardship.” Nor did they vote to make Musk the co-president of the United States or to give Trump the power to destroy the capacity of the federal government to do anything that benefits the American people. They certainly did not vote for a world where the president’s billionaire ally has access to your Social Security number. One task is to pierce the [reality distortion field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality%5Fdistortion%5Ffield) of Trump’s court in the eyes of his opponents. We don’t live in a full-scale dictatorship (at least, not yet). All of this can be stopped. His power is limited, and can be curtailed. And at the center of it all, he is a small-minded former reality TV star with a tiny worldview who eats his steak overcooked and throws his plate at the wall when he’s having a tantrum. The emperor has no clothes, and those that oppose him must see that clearly. The bigger task is revealing that fact to the more reasonable of the people who elected him: people for whom the cost of living is more important than enacting [some kind of perverse revenge on inclusive society](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/31/trump-federal-workers-deep-state). Then I believe the next task is to build an alternative, not in reaction to Trump, but in itself, based on upholding core values and improving everybody’s quality of life. One of the challenges of being aghast at what is going on is that American institutions really *have* underserved the American people, and have often caused real harm overseas. It’s easy — and correct — to be worried about what it means to suddenly [encourage the entire CIA to resign](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cia-offers-buyouts-entire-workforce-align-with-trump-priorities-wsj-reports-2025-02-05/), but it’s an awkward rhetorical position to be put in to defend the institution. The CIA has a long history of arguably criminal behavior: [conducting undemocratic coups](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/in-first-cia-acknowledges-1953-coup-it-backed-to-overthrow-leader-of-iran-was-undemocratic), [assassinating world leaders](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-history-kill-leaders-around-the-world-north-korea), and [violating human rights in our name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%5Frights%5Fviolations%5Fby%5Fthe%5FCIA). The status quo doesn’t work. The American people have made that clear. So it’s on us to invent something new. What does it mean to create a truly inclusive, peaceful, democratic society? What does it mean to have a peaceful foreign policy? What does it mean [to focus on improving quality of life](https://thecorrespondent.com/357/outgrowing-growth-why-quality-of-life-not-gdp-should-be-our-measure-of-success) rather than [an economic metric that encourages monopolies and billionaires while letting ordinary people suffer](https://www.iisd.org/comprehensive-wealth-beyond-GDP)? The playbooks of OpenAI, Uber, and others have long been countered by other modes of operating. Hockey-stick growth is not the only way to build software and serve people who need help. Co-operation, mutual aid, and collective collaboration have effectively re-made software, and through it the world, and we’re now seeing the fruit of that through movements like the open social web. High-growth tech has the flashy marketing moves and the attendant hype cycle, but quietly, other movements have been steadily building. The same is true for America. As Bouie says in his piece: > Whatever comes next, should the country weather this attempted hijacking, will need to be a fundamental rethinking of what this system is and what we want out of it. > > Anything less will set us up for yet another Trump and yet another Musk. I believe this is correct, and offer this idea for consideration: The people with the ideas that can best save America are the people who are currently being pushed out of it. This is not a coincidence. Black women, trans activists, communities built on radical inclusion and emergent strategies, worker’s groups and communities bound in solidarity have created modes of communication and support that have transformed American society of the better. These are people for whom the shock and awe of a smoke and mirrors campaign does not work; who cannot be convinced to fit into a template designed to force people into being someone else’s profit engine; who have demonstrated the unstoppable nature of peer to peer mutual aid. It makes them dangerous. It also makes them more powerful than the dying gasp of the twentieth century we’re seeing sputter out before us. We should listen to them: people who are often at the edges even though they deserve to sit at the center of society. They often see harms perpetuated before everybody else; they often see the solutions first, too. It’s not that it’s on them to save everybody else. It’s that they’ve been sounding the alarm and telling us what to do for decades, and nobody has been listening. It’s about time we did. The same playbooks that have created monopolies, crushed labor rights, and gamed regulations are now being used to gut democratic governance itself. But these playbooks have always had an alternative: one rooted in cooperation, mutual aid, and community-driven solutions. That alternative exists; it’s just been drowned out by billionaires and venture-backed empire-builders. It’s time to listen to the people who have been building it all along. ### Google ends DEI hiring goals URL: https://werd.io/google-ends-dei-hiring-goals/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T22:20:43.000Z \[[Alex Heath at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/google/607012/google-dei-hiring-goals-internal-memo)\] And so begin the knock-on effects on companies across America: > "In a Wednesday memo to employees that I obtained (and you can read below), Google’s head of HR, Fiona Cicconi, said there will no longer be DEI hiring targets due to the company’s status as a federal contractor and recent “court decisions and US Executive Orders on this topic.” As The Wall Street Journal notes, Google also removed a line included in previous annual SEC reports saying that it’s “committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do.”" In other words, because DEI initiatives are now banned within the federal government, and because Google wants that sweet federal contractor money, it's ending the practice of overtly being inclusive as a company. This is cowardice - and it's exactly what the Trump administration is going for. Its retrograde goals aren't simply for government; the idea is to remake the entire United States, and through changes to international relationships and the simple truth of America's global influence, the world. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/google/607012/google-dei-hiring-goals-internal-memo)\] ### The Making of an Anti-Woke Zealot: How Elon Musk Was Infected with the MAGA Mind-Virus URL: https://werd.io/the-making-of-an-anti-woke-zealot-how-elon-musk-was/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T12:43:18.000Z \[[Eoin Higgins, excerpted in Lit Hub](https://lithub.com/the-making-of-an-anti-woke-zealot-how-elon-musk-was-infected-with-the-maga-mind-virus/)\] This is a neat encapsulation of Musk’s rightward turn, and everything that happened next: > “By this point, Musk believed that part of the business problem of Twitter was that, somehow, the right wing was “suppressed.” As such, “woke culture” needed to be destroyed for Twitter the business—and democracy itself—to survive. In many ways this belief was a natural outgrowth of the Silicon Valley mythos of meritocracy and the tech industry’s opposition to diversity; a politics based on destroying wokeness was not far from the supremacist ideology he grew up with in South Africa.” If you take a step back, it’s remarkable that the weirdest guy from PayPal has evolved into the world’s richest and most dangerous man. This serves as a reminder of what happened. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://lithub.com/the-making-of-an-anti-woke-zealot-how-elon-musk-was-infected-with-the-maga-mind-virus/)\] ### Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons from website URL: https://werd.io/google-removes-pledge-to-not-use-ai-for-weapons-from/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T00:16:47.000Z \[[Maxwell Zeff at TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/04/google-removes-pledge-to-not-use-ai-for-weapons-from-website/)\] I know "don't be evil" is from another era of Google, but still, this rankles: > "Google removed a pledge to not build AI for weapons or surveillance from its website this week. The change was first spotted by Bloomberg. The company appears to have updated its public AI principles page, erasing a section titled “applications we will not pursue,” which was still included as recently as last week." This dovetails with a piece [from earlier this year about how AI is speeding up the military's kill chain](https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/19/the-pentagon-says-ai-is-speeding-up-its-kill-chain/): > "The “kill chain” refers to the military’s process of identifying, tracking, and eliminating threats, involving a complex system of sensors, platforms, and weapons. Generative AI is proving helpful during the planning and strategizing phases of the kill chain, according to \[the Pentagon's Chief Digital and AI Officer\]." So AI might not be used to pull the trigger, but it is being used to identify who should be in the crosshairs. All our concerns about AI hallucinations, and particularly about bias inherent in training data and therefore outcomes, apply. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/04/google-removes-pledge-to-not-use-ai-for-weapons-from-website/)\] ### A Push to Stop Police Ticketing in Illinois Schools Becomes Urgent in the Trump Era URL: https://werd.io/a-push-to-stop-police-ticketing-in-illinois-schools-becomes/ Last updated: 2025-02-04T16:42:07.000Z \[[Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-student-civil-rights-police-ticketing-bill)\] From my colleagues at [ProPublica](https://propublica.org): > "Citing an urgency to protect students’ civil rights in a second Trump administration, Illinois lawmakers filed a new bill Monday that would explicitly prevent school police from ticketing and fining students for misbehavior." This follows [an investigation into how Illinois schools call on the police for infractions](https://www.propublica.org/series/the-price-kids-pay) and - surprise, surprise - [penalize Black students twice as often](https://www.propublica.org/article/black-students-illinois-ticketed-by-police-for-school-behavior). The police shouldn't get involved in troublesome kid stuff like truancy or vaping. That should be obvious. And, yet, here we are. This kind of police state nonsense absolutely paved the road towards where we are today. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-student-civil-rights-police-ticketing-bill)\] ### The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s power grab: a coup veiled by chaos URL: https://werd.io/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trumps-power-grab-a-coup/ Last updated: 2025-02-04T14:53:47.000Z \[[The Guardian Editorial](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trumps-power-grab-a-coup-veiled-by-chaos)\] The Guardian editorial board isn't mincing words: > "Donald Trump is provoking a US [constitutional](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/29/trump-funding-freeze-evokes-watergate) crisis, claiming sweeping powers to override or bypass Congress’s control over spending in a brazen attempt to centralise financial power in the executive branch. If he succeeds, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman warns, it would be a 21st-century coup – with power slipping from elected officials’ hands. The real story hidden behind the president’s [trade war](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/02/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-china-retaliation), he says, is the hijacking of government. And Mr Krugman’s right." The board is clear-eyed in this piece about the harms committed under Trump's first Presidency, both to the economy and the American people. And then comes to this critical conclusion: > "Mr Trump’s chaos isn’t confidence – it’s desperation. He’s trying to conjure power he doesn’t actually have. He is manufacturing a perception of dominance in the hope that Americans will simply accept it. The real danger is letting his illusion of power become reality." The trick is to cut through the shock and awe. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trumps-power-grab-a-coup-veiled-by-chaos)\] ### Settlements With Trump Are Weakening Press Freedoms URL: https://werd.io/settlements-with-trump-are-weakening-press-freedoms/ Last updated: 2025-02-04T14:18:46.000Z \[[Jameel Jaffer in The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/opinion/trump-media-lawsuit-freedom.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)\] Jameel Jaffer is the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University: > "The spectacle of powerful media organizations debasing themselves before Mr. Trump has become so familiar that it is beginning to feel like scheduled programming. > > \[...\] Mr. Trump captured the spirit of our times when he observed in December that, “In the first term, everyone was fighting me,” but “in this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” Certainly, some of the nation’s most powerful media institutions seem to have concluded that it is simply not in their commercial interests to inconvenience the president, even if sparing him inconvenience means abandoning their own First Amendment rights." As Jaffer argues, the cases being settled by ABC News, Meta, and CBS are not slam dunks for Trump. This isn't about legal details; it's about capitulating to the new President and kissing the ring. That leaves us without an effective free press to hold truth to power. The conclusion here is on point: > "The First Amendment is just words on a page. Giving those words meaning — sustaining their promise, generation after generation — depends on a civic courage that seems, right now, to be in ominously short supply." And that, to be honest, is terrifying. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/opinion/trump-media-lawsuit-freedom.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)\] ### Ask a CTO URL: https://werd.io/introducing-ask-a-cto/ Last updated: 2025-02-03T23:30:56.000Z I’ve been a technical leader a few times: CTO and Director of Technology at two nonprofit newsrooms; technical lead at five tech companies of varying sizes; investor and advisor in early-stage startups. I’ve enjoyed reading [Ask a Manager](https://www.askamanager.org/) for years, and it occurred to me that a similar column for technical leadership might be interesting. So: let’s try it! ### Ask me a question: **Ask a question anonymously and I’ll try to give you an impartial answer. This might be technical advice, questions about people leadership, questions about trends — or anything you wish you could ask experienced technical leadership.** Sounds good? Great. **[Submit a question to Ask a CTO by filling in this form](https://airtable.com/appLUWKYUomQAb6Y7/pagZaDKLaVdS6jYTv/form).** By submitting a question, you agree that I can publish your questions and my answers here and/or in other media. Also, it should go without saying, but this is for entertainment purposes only. I am not *actually* your CTO, and you need to make your own technical decisions. I’ll answer the first questions next week. [#askacto](https://werd.io/tag/askacto) ### Musk’s Takeover Of The Government’s Computer Systems Needs To Be Understood As A Cyberattack, Or Worse URL: https://werd.io/musks-takeover-of-the-governments-computer-systems-needs-to-be/ Last updated: 2025-02-03T21:47:25.000Z \[[Cathy Gellis at TechDirt](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/03/musks-takeover-of-the-governments-computer-systems-needs-to-be-understood-as-a-cyberattack-or-worse/)\] On point: > "So that Elon Musk and his minions have managed to walk right into government offices to take over computer systems where they had no legitimate authorization or entitlement needs to be understood as a cyberattack by a rogue actor. And every ounce of outrage we ever would have had if any other rogue actor had taken over critical government infrastructure needs to be mustered here, because it is just as outrageous, and as dangerous, if not more so on both fronts, because this time the threat to America’s security came from within. > > \[...\] Meanwhile, we know little to nothing about his team. Even some names are unknown, let alone the full range of their affiliations, which we usually ask about before giving anyone access to the country’s most sensitive information. They have had zero vetting and in many cases no known security clearance (and, in the case of Musk, there were limits to his, which was already in jeopardy). > > \[...\] They are a bunch of strangers who have essentially busted into government offices and strong-armed the career staff there into giving them access to all these systems with all this critical function and data. Systems that it has heretofore been the priority of the United States government to protect because of their sensitivity and how vulnerable the nation would be if an adversary could access them." This is a dangerous situation and it's evolving quickly. Who knows what it will look like tomorrow, or this time next week. But it doesn't look good. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/03/musks-takeover-of-the-governments-computer-systems-needs-to-be-understood-as-a-cyberattack-or-worse/)\] ### A guide to using Signal for government workers URL: https://werd.io/a-guide-to-using-signal-for-government-workers/ Last updated: 2025-02-03T15:31:49.000Z \[[Matt Haughey](https://a.wholelottanothing.org/a-guide-to-using-signal-for-government-workers/)\] I really like the way this guide to Signal lays it all out. As Matt Haughey explains: > "A friend of mine works in the federal government and wrote a guide for their fellow federal workers on how to use Signal. There are lots of good reasons for switching to Signal for messaging, and this does a great job of laying it all out. This friend doesn't currently have a blog, so they asked me to post it for them, and I obliged since I think it's a straightforward introduction to protecting yourself when communicating with others." This doesn't just go into the *what* \- it talks a little about the *why* for Signal, including some of the protections you'll get on Signal that you won't get anywhere else. Take a look - and then [start using it](https://werd.io/2025/i-want-you-to-do-these-four-things-right-now). [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://a.wholelottanothing.org/a-guide-to-using-signal-for-government-workers/)\] ### I want you to do these four things right now URL: https://werd.io/i-want-you-to-do-these-four-things-right-now/ Last updated: 2025-02-01T21:03:54.000Z ![Security](https://old.werd.io/file/679e8c10e2ce8d65470c7fe2/thumb.jpg) Okay, friends. Here’s what we’re going to do. It’s not going to take long. #### Let’s install Signal. Signal is an open-source, end-to-end encrypted instant messaging app. When you message someone with Signal, nobody can intercept your conversation to learn what you’re saying. It’s very easy to use and completely free. Unlike WhatsApp (which is owned by Meta) and Telegram (which doesn’t encrypt messages by default), Signal is fully open-source, doesn’t store metadata, and is designed for privacy first. [Navigate to the Get Signal page on the Signal website.](https://signal.org/download/) Signal needs to be installed on your phone first. Choose the version that makes sense for you: [iPhone](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/signal-private-messenger/id874139669) or [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcrime.securesms). The cool part is that, once you’re logged in, Signal will tell you which of the people in your contacts are already using it, and as more sign up, they’ll just show up in your Signal contacts list over time. I recommend also setting up a Signal username. Navigate to your Signal app’s settings pane, click on your profile, and then create a username. Then you don’t need to reveal your phone number to new contacts you want to chat with: you can just tell them your username. Finally, Signal conversations can be set to auto-delete. I recommend that you do this. Four weeks is comfortable; one week is very safe. My Signal username is benwerd.01\. Once you’re signed up, send me a message to let me know you did it. ![Signal](https://old.werd.io/file/679e8bdd681e97f7ce099192/thumb.jpg) #### It’s time for a password manager. Do you use the same password for every service? Or maybe you have an easy-to-remember formula for each one — something like the name of the service with the vowels replaced by numbers? Those passwords are easy to guess and break into. It’s time to install a password manager. [1Password](https://1password.com/) is the best-in-class password manager. You can install it on every device you own. [It’s really cheap to sign up](https://1password.com/pricing). Set up your account, and then install the apps for your desktop, your phone, and your web browser. Then, when you sign up for a new account, use 1Password’s suggested passwords instead of inventing your own: When you go back to sign into a service, 1Password will show that you have a login for it, and logging in is one-click: So not only are your credentials more secure, it’s actually easier to log in. You don’t need to struggle to remember what your password is anymore. The passwords are encrypted, so nobody else, including 1Password itself, can ever see them. Using a saved set of credentials is incredibly simple: ![1Password](https://old.werd.io/file/679e8b8dc13d8734200cff82/thumb.png) And so is creating and saving a new password: ![1Password suggesting a new password](https://old.werd.io/file/679e8daf8a00c7e3c006a092) #### A VPN is a great idea. Do me a favor: whenever you’re on public wifi — that is to say, an internet connection that isn’t your home or your workplace — run your internet connection through an encrypted VPN. This will make your internet activities harder to track and harder to intercept. A VPN encrypts your internet traffic, which protects you from eavesdropping on public WiFi and makes it harder for advertisers to track you. However, it’s worth saying that it doesn’t make you completely anonymous — your online accounts and browsing habits still matter. (We’ll get to your social media accounts next.) [Mullvad](https://mullvad.net/en) is a great VPN choice for the privacy-conscious, but can be a little harder to use. (In particular, because it doesn’t ever want to know who you are, it assigns you a numeric account ID and charges on a time-based pay as you go basis.) [ExpressVPN](https://www.expressvpn.com/) may be easier to use if you’re less technically-inclined. In both cases, you sign up, install an app, and simply turn it on and off from the app’s UI. ![Mullvad VPN](https://old.werd.io/file/679e8b2fe009aec6560681a2) #### Let’s make your social media more secure. Social media is a magnet for harassment, doxing, stalkers and worse. In fact, one of the biggest vectors for attacks of all kinds on the internet is your social media accounts. If you haven’t locked them down in the right ways, you run the risk of sharing more than you intended with strangers, or even losing your account altogether to a hacker. Keeping all the settings straight is a real pain. [Block Party](https://blockpartyapp.com) comes as an extension for the browser of your choice. Install it, sign up, and it’ll look at your social media accounts in turn and make informed suggestions about how you can lock them down for better privacy — and better mental wellness. Better yet, it gives you one-click options to make those settings changes itself. One quick tune-up later, and your social media is safer and better for you. Which can’t be bad. ![Block Party](https://old.werd.io/file/679e8aee4d1b7026020da9a2/thumb.png) #### And that’s it for now. I’ve given you four quick steps that dramatically improve your online security. None of these take long, but they can make a huge difference. If you found this useful, feel free to [share it with a friend](https://shareopenly.org/share/?url=https://werd.io/2025/i-want-you-to-do-these-four-things-right-now&text=I+want+you+to+do+these+four+things+right+now) who could use a digital security boost. Let’s make the internet safer — one smart step at a time. ### Researchers rush to preserve federal health databases before they disappear from government websites URL: https://werd.io/researchers-rush-to-preserve-federal-health-databases-before-they-disappear/ Last updated: 2025-02-01T16:00:05.000Z \[[Naseem S. Miller at the Journalist's Resource](https://journalistsresource.org/home/researchers-rush-to-preserve-federal-health-databases-before-they-disappear-from-government-websites/)\] A massive, last-minute data preservation effort was undertaken this week as important federal datasets were taken offline: > "The new Trump administration has at least temporality halted most communications from the Department of Health and Human Services and has begun taking down government websites, including many pages that include DEI initiatives. CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey site, which monitors health behaviors of high-school students, including sexual behavior, mental health and tobacco use, is no longer available." This is another reason why [the Internet Archive](https://archive.org) is vitally important infrastructure: websites and datasets were saved, among other places, to the Wayback Machine. Teams including at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health raced to capture the data before it went dark. These datasets include important information about health (including vaccine information); gender; climate; mortality. They enable reporting and allow us to have a clearer picture of how well our democracy is functioning. At least for now, they're now *historical* datasets: it's not clear that any further data will be published. Researchers, journalists, medical professionals and more will need to look elsewhere for important information that helps them do their jobs and keep us safe. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://journalistsresource.org/home/researchers-rush-to-preserve-federal-health-databases-before-they-disappear-from-government-websites/)\] ### The Bitcoin ghouls URL: https://werd.io/the-bitcoin-ghouls/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:17:18.000Z Imagine being so genuinely empty as a human being that you support a regime that conducts mass deportations and runs concentration camps because they support Bitcoin. Imagine watching the rights, freedoms, and safety of trans people being torn down over the course of 72 hours and thinking, man, I'm really glad crypto is unencumbered now. Just soulless, ghoulish people. ### On its birthday, The 19th announces a new model for funding media URL: https://werd.io/on-its-birthday-the-19th-announces-a-new-model-for/ Last updated: 2025-01-28T13:50:17.000Z [The 19th](https://19thnews.org) celebrated its fifth birthday yesterday. [CEO Emily Ramshaw’s reflective post is quite lovely](https://19thnews.org/2025/01/fifth-anniversary-endowment-campaign/), but also announces a very bold strategy: > On our fifth anniversary, we’re launching our first-ever endowment campaign, with a goal of raising $20 million over the next three years to protect our financial sustainability indefinitely. We’re getting started with a leadership gift of $2 million from Cindy and Greg Kozmetsky in honor of Greg’s mother, Ronya Kozmetsky, who was a tireless advocate for women in business, for equal access to education and for democracy. In recognition of this gift and her legacy, The 19th is thrilled to establish the Ronya Kozmetsky Legacy Fund for Representative Journalism. I think that’s pretty neat — a really radical approach to independence — and something that other non-profit newsrooms (like [ProPublica](https://propublica.org), where I currently work) should take note of. It’s also something that I think other non-profits should think about; what would it look like to have a Fediverse endowment, for example? I was its first-ever CTO, so I’ve also sort of got an inside view, albeit one that is now a year or two out of date. Not only is The 19th’s mission (to report at the intersection of gender, politics, and policy) very obviously more vital than ever before, but I have been very impressed with how the organization itself is run. Although every organization has its frictions and growing pains (and my view in the senior leadership team was not necessarily the same as the perspective elsewhere in the org chart), it is one of the most intentional cultures I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. While many organizations have coasted or allowed their culture to organically evolve without much design, I felt like the details at The 19th were connected, nurturing, and leagues above most American workplaces. I’ve often joked that the best American benefits packages just approximate European legal minimums, but this was the closest I’ve ever come in the US to hit that standard. That’s particularly important in a place that seeks to inclusively employ reporters from diverse communities. All of which is to say: if you get a chance, [you should support The 19th](https://19thnews.org/membership/). And I dearly hope that more organizations in media, tech, and beyond follow its model. ### The Bear Manifesto URL: https://werd.io/the-bear-manifesto/ Last updated: 2025-01-27T14:24:26.000Z \[[Herman Martinus](https://herman.bearblog.dev/manifesto/)\] I recognize a lot of the sentiment here. Twenty years ago, I ran an open source social networking startup and tried to differentiate ourselves by saying many of these same things. > "Bear won't sell. I'm not building this to flip it to the highest bidder. No VC funding, no external pressures, no "exit strategy." Bear is independent and will stay that way." In practice, I don't know how much that means to very many people. For a comparable example, take a look at Mastodon vs Bluesky (not, by the way, that this is a binary choice); the latter has taken on at least thirty million dollars in VC funding but is currently thriving. Trust is something you earn over time through your actions and decisions, and isn't a direct outcome of your funding choices. There certainly are bootstrapped companies that have stood the test of time - Esri comes to mind, among others - but there are also VC-funded companies that have proven to have longevity and have done okay by their users. (This will alienate some of my readers, but I don't think VC is inherently bad; it only becomes so when it is considered to be *the only* funding option and non-VC businesses are shoehorned into that structure and strategy.) Herman effectively comes to this conclusion in the piece too: > "I've recently chatted to a few bloggers and legal professionals on what a good structure looks like for a project like this. And the common theme was that the legal structure didn't matter nearly as much as the intentions of the people running things. We've seen our fair share of open-source projects become sour (see the recent Wordpress drama) or abandoned entirely. We've seen OpenAI become ClosedAI. There's a common thread here. Trust isn't just a legal structure, but a social contract." Additionally, I think the conclusion that small, sometimes family-owned businesses last longer is not wrong, but context is important. For a local business? Absolutely. To what extent does this make sense on a global web where every service can be available to everyone? I really badly want this to be true here too, but it's not a given that it is. Anyway. I really love what Herman is doing with Bear, and this piece isn't a criticism of him or his service in any way. It's fantastic that he's out there doing this. My feelings are more: this is a hard road, and the answers aren't yet clear. But it's a journey that I'm very glad people are on. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://herman.bearblog.dev/manifesto/)\] ### Experimental Playgrounds URL: https://werd.io/experimental-playgrounds/ Last updated: 2025-01-26T21:20:34.000Z \[[Adrian Hon](https://mssv.net/2025/01/26/experimental-playgrounds/)\] I was today years old when I learned the original meaning of an "adventure playground": > "The post-war period saw “junk playgrounds” flourish as a kind of reparations for the trauma of war. They gave children the freedom to build, explore, experiment, and role play – and in doing so, inoculate them against fascism. For a while it seemed like they were the future." This conception of an anarchic (in the best possible way) creative space is in stark contrast to today's very controlled, very sterile spaces for children: > "Proponents of experimental playgrounds believe they can be more than spaces of vertiginous, physical fun. They should be spaces of concentrated creativity, where children can visit their own make-believe worlds. Instead, the modern world has commercialised play and made boring, insurance-friendly playgrounds." What must this do to childrens' imaginations, and their horizons? How can it create anything other than cautious rule-followers? Adrian argues that software like Minecraft and Roblox are the natural heirs to these real-world spaces: while we don't seem to be able to foster this level of uninhibited creativity for children in the real world anymore, there are no insurance worries or complaints about unsightly play structures in virtual space. It's not perfect, but it's something. [#Culture](https://werd.io/tag/Culture) \[[Link](https://mssv.net/2025/01/26/experimental-playgrounds/)\] ### How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms URL: https://werd.io/how-democrats-drove-silicon-valley-into-trumps-arms/ Last updated: 2025-01-26T16:19:04.000Z \[[Ross Douthat and Marc Andreessen in The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/opinion/marc-andreessen-trump-silicon-valley.html)\] This podcast conversation with Marc Andreessen is very revealing. It's particularly fascinating to me that what I experienced as "America finally having a much-needed moral awakening" presented to people like Andreessen as "radical Marxism". If nothing else, that shows he's never actually met a radical Marxist, and doesn't have a solid take on what that really means. Bernie Sanders ain't it; that guy just wants universal healthcare and well-enforced antitrust rules. > "It turned out to be a coalition of economic radicals, and this was the rise of Bernie Sanders, but the kids turned on capitalism in a very fundamental way. They came out as some version of radical Marxist, and the fundamental valence went from “Capitalism is good and an enabler of the good society” to “Capitalism is evil and should be torn down.” > > And then the other part was social revolution and the social revolution, of course, was the Great Awokening, and then those conjoined. And there was a point where the median, newly arrived Harvard kid in 2006 was a career obsessed striver and their conversation with you was: “When do I get promoted, and how much do I get paid, and when do I end up running the company?” And that was the thing. > > By 2013, the median newly arrived Harvard kid was like: “\[expletive\] it. We’re burning the system down. You are all evil. White people are evil. All men are evil. Capitalism is evil. Tech is evil.”" I think that's a little bit overblown - after all, the tech industry was still booming and still swimming with engineers, designers, product managers, and the like. But also, it represented a class of workers (not just young people, as Andreessen falsely asserts) who were coming to terms with the impact their industry was having in the world politically, environmentally, and socially. The internet is a core part of society now, unlike the hyper-growth years of a decade or two prior, so *of course* people have more nuanced opinions about it and are reckoning with its impacts. You can't turn back the clock on human perception. Still, I find that understanding - a gap between my experience and theirs - to be very useful. That's something we can work with, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a bridge. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/opinion/marc-andreessen-trump-silicon-valley.html)\] ### TikTok’s “cute winter boots” meaning explained URL: https://werd.io/tiktoks-cute-winter-boots-meaning-explained/ Last updated: 2025-01-25T18:51:04.000Z \[[Taylor Lorenz at UserMag](https://www.usermag.co/p/tiktok-cute-winter-boots-meaning-explained-algospeak)\] This is like something from a cyberpunk novel: > "The phrase “cute winter boots” is not about footwear. It's a code phrase being used to discuss resistance to Trump and how to fight back against the draconian immigration policies his administration is enacting. Users talking about “cute winter boots” keeping people safe from "ice," are referencing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Cute winter boots" is just the latest example of algospeak, coded phrases and words aimed at subverting algorithmic filters." The reason is a perceived idea - which may well have basis in fact - that actual discussion of how to combat ICE raids and so on will be demoted by the platform's content algorithm. It's also clearly a way of trying to avoid scrutiny from authorities. But it also reveals a strong knowledge of what the TikTok algorithm likes to promote: > "The videos discussing "cute winter boots" leverage the TikTok algorithm's preference for product-focused content to amplify their reach. "What the algorithm likes is products," said Diana, the admin of @/citiesbydiana, a TikTok account about urban planning. "It’s a way to talk about resisting the federal government in a way that will actually reach people."" This is absolutely dystopian police state stuff, but at the same time, it shows a ton of initiative, and illustrates that people aren't going to take any of this lying down. Power to them. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.usermag.co/p/tiktok-cute-winter-boots-meaning-explained-algospeak)\] ### In the face of this, who do you want to be? URL: https://werd.io/in-the-face-of-this-who-do-you-want-to/ Last updated: 2025-01-24T14:56:53.000Z ![Doomscrolling](https://old.werd.io/file/679413c5ade1773a80048612/thumb.jpg) I was out buying eggs when I saw a video of Elon Musk giving a Hitler salute at the inauguration. In the movies, this stuff is highlighted and separated: punctuation in itself instead of an event that you see in the background of your everyday life. Hannah Arendt talked about “the banality of evil” in the context of Eichmann, one of the core organizers of the Holocaust, telling prosecutors that he was just doing his job. But banality pervades. Sometimes, you need to buy eggs. And sometimes, when you get back in the car and pick up your phone, you get a notification about the richest man in the world signaling his intentions on the world stage. There has subsequently been much discussion about whether it really was a Nazi salute. It’s insultingly stupid. Even if he truly didn’t intend to throw three successive Sieg Heils, he certainly knows what one *is*, and most of us have enough self awareness not to accidentally look like a Nazi on national television. He had to know what he was doing. It was a deliberate Nazi salute. The act itself, and the subsequent denials, serve to normalize fascism; just another banal event for you to scroll past on your phone. Still, these conversations serve a purpose. It’s worth noticing who wants to downplay the Nazism, which, after all, is not “just” manifested in the world’s richest man doing a Hitler salute on national TV. Make no mistake, Musk’s salute was a clear signal, but it’s far from the only one. It’s part of a broader pattern of normalization, visible in policies and actions designed to dismantle rights and embolden oppression. Will they also downplay executive orders that [repeal important civil rights gains from sixty years ago](https://popular.info/p/trump-undercuts-enforcement-of-the) (as an appellate court simultaneously reinstates [a Jim Crow era voter suppression law](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/the-countrys-most-conservative-court-just-reinstated-a-jim-crow-era-voter-suppression-law/), with doubtless more to follow), or encouraging employees [to inform on their colleagues](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-place-federal-dei-staff-paid-leave-starting-wednesday-2025-01-22/)? Or decimating [rights and protections for transgender people](https://apnews.com/article/trump-transgender-passports-prisons-eggs-sperm-da1d1d280658a8c85c57cfec2f30cefb), preparing [for mass deportations](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-builds-temporary-shelters-prepare-mass-deportations-us-2025-01-22/) including by [removing protections for schools and churches from raids](https://apnews.com/article/immigration-enforcement-sensitive-locations-trump-ab0d2d2652e9df696f14410ebb52a1fc), pardoning [January 6 extremists who vow revenge on their perceived enemies](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/24/trump-pardon-proud-boys-enrique-tarrio), or deploying [the military as internal law enforcement in border states](https://apnews.com/article/troops-border-deploy-active-duty-09324578d2b89db5c44e0ba08f42df47)? Or freezing [scientific research at the NIH and thereby putting universities and research organizations at risk](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00231-y), or [attempting to end Constitutionally-protected birthright citizenship](https://apnews.com/article/birthright-citizenship-donald-trump-lawsuit-immigration-9ac27b234c854a68a9b9f8c0d6cd8a1c)? “Optimistic and celebrating,” [Mark Zuckerberg said](https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/pfbid0ZpvWyAmfVzcfi37eKjixNijrK4Bd3SniuUJJ6pdJ2WLqDfrWJhjLBn5v29GVWQENl), on the same night that Musk Sieg Heiled the room three times. “I’m not going to agree with him on everything, but I think he will be incredible for the country in many ways,” [Sam Altman said](https://fortune.com/2025/01/23/sam-altman-donald-trump-elon-musk-stargate-project/). Microsoft put out [a statement saying that](https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/01/03/the-golden-opportunity-for-american-ai/) “the country has a unique opportunity to pursue \[…\] the foundational ideas set for AI policy during President Trump’s first term”. And those are public figures in technology. My Facebook feed, and likely yours, is loaded with acquaintances and extended family members who welcome the change; one on mine welcomed “the return to logic and reason”. My LinkedIn feed is worse, with many business leaders echoing Zuckerberg’s “optimistic” language, and some calling the Nazi salute into question. We’ve tumbled into a deep, dark hole, and, as it turns out, many of us are glad to be there. It’s just not always clear *who*. Though dated in some ways, [this 1941 Harper’s Magazine article still resonates](https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/). The question then was, “Who goes Nazi?” Who is going to be a sympathizer or even a collaborator with a regime that seeks to subjugate, deport, and, as it turned out in the 1940s, kill so many people? And to be clear, collaboration doesn’t require slapping on an armband and goose-stepping behind a demagogue. [Nice people made the best Nazis](https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2016/11/17/the-post-election-case-for-speaking-out-naomi-shulman), as Naomi Shulman wrote eight years ago: > My mother was born in Munich in 1934, and spent her childhood in Nazi Germany surrounded by nice people who refused to make waves. When things got ugly, the people my mother lived alongside chose not to focus on “politics,” instead busying themselves with happier things. They were lovely, kind people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. The question now is not a million miles away. Who will support? Who will collaborate? Who will decide that they are “not political” and look away as millions of people are harmed? Who will make excuses for it all? Who secretly welcomes the push for theocracy, for in-groups and out-groups, for “traditional” values that prioritize rigid gender roles, segregation, and oligarchy? Who, in other words, is safe? Are you “optimistic” about the new regime? Will you be complicit? When someone needs help — when ICE comes after them, or worse — will you look away, or worse, cheer them on? Or will you be a point of safety for someone who needs it? And what about when it gets worse? Because, left unchecked, it will. In the face of rising fascism, what kind of person are you? What kind of person do you want to be? ### Seeking trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas URL: https://werd.io/seeking-trans-friendly-employers-who-sponsor-visas/ Last updated: 2025-01-21T02:50:38.000Z ![](https://old.werd.io/file/678f0b1582366b9d770b12b2/thumb.jpg) Nobody should have to move to another country to be themselves. However, I’ve spoken to multiple people who feel they need to move away from the US in order to avoid harms caused by [the new administration’s executive orders that target trans people](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/). Exactly how to do this is sometimes opaque and feels difficult. If you are actively hiring for positions in a company that is friendly to transgender people, in a country that is safe for transgender people, *and* you are willing to sponsor visas for people seeking to emigrate for these positions, I would like to hear from you. [If this is you, please enter your details here](https://airtable.com/app6igkD8PWzgw4Sj/shrdPakKah4Z2IXgF), and I’ll make them available on a public, open source website soon. If you’re unsure which countries are considered to be safe for transgender people, and if your country is one, [Rainbow Relocation has a reasonable list](https://rainbowrelo.com/blog/top-20-countries-for-trans-non-binary-international-relocation-in-2024), and others are available. To be clear: I want trans people to feel safe here in the United States, and I want them to be here. But I also understand peoples’ need to feel safe in the current moment. I am not urging people to move, but I would like to make life easier for people who want to. I’m making this request in the spirit of assistance, because I’ve already been asked. I am also probably not the right person to put this together! But I didn’t see anyone else doing it. If you are from a reputable organization that supports transgender safety in a professional way, and you would like to take ownership of this list or collaborate, or if you are already doing something like this and I missed it, please email me at [ben@benwerd.com](mailto:ben@benwerd.com). ### The next four years URL: https://werd.io/the-next-four-years/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:17:34.000Z The last time this man was in power we wound up with one of the largest civil rights movements ever conducted in the United States. There is so much light; so much bravery; so much fairness and equity and rebellion in so many. Those are the people I believe in. That's what I'm holding onto. People who seek to strip the identities of vulnerable people, to deport people and break up families, to prevent people from loving another consenting adult, to reform the world in the name of their religion or their nationality — these people are small. They are ugly. They will not be here for long. ### Rogan Misses The Mark: How Zuck’s Misdirection On Gov’t Pressure Goes Unchallenged URL: https://werd.io/rogan-misses-the-mark-how-zucks-misdirection-on-govt-pressure/ Last updated: 2025-01-19T15:36:24.000Z \[[Mike Masnick at TechDirt](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/16/rogan-misses-the-mark-how-zucks-misdirection-on-govt-pressure-goes-unchallenged/)\] On Zuckerberg's claims about why he's changing Meta's fact-changing policy: > "If you only remember two things about the government pressure campaign to influence Mark Zuckerberg’s content moderation decisions, make it these: Donald Trump directly threatened to throw Zuck in prison for the rest of his life, and just a couple months ago FCC Commissioner (soon to be FCC chair) Brendan Carr threatened Meta that if it kept on fact-checking stories in a way Carr didn’t like, he would try to remove Meta’s Section 230 protections in response. > > Two months later — what do you know? — Zuckerberg ended all fact-checking on Meta." His appearance on Joe Rogan's show served as a way to whitewash this argument. I don't doubt that the government placed pressure on him to enact certain kinds of community moderation policies, but the timing makes the underlying reasons clear. This is a long piece that goes into Zuckerberg's claims and debunks them soundly. Here's what you really need to know: it's a PR move to placate the incoming administration, and that Zuckerberg capitulated so soundly and so quickly is a very bad sign. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/16/rogan-misses-the-mark-how-zucks-misdirection-on-govt-pressure-goes-unchallenged/)\] ### America Is No Longer the Home of the Free Internet URL: https://werd.io/america-is-no-longer-the-home-of-the-free-internet/ Last updated: 2025-01-19T15:08:43.000Z \[[Ethan Zuckerman in The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/internet-censorship-tiktok-ban/681361/)\] I completely agree with the points Ethan makes here. The TikTok ban was a spectacular own-goal for all kinds of reasons. In particular: > "\[...\] This is a depressing moment for anyone who cherishes American protections for speech and access to information. In 1965, while the Cold War shaped the U.S. national-security environment, the Supreme Court, in Lamont v. Postmaster General, determined that the post office had to send people publications that the government claimed were “communist political propaganda,” rather than force recipients to first declare in writing that they wanted to receive this mail. The decision was unanimous, and established the idea that Americans had the right to discover whatever they wanted within “a marketplace of ideas.”" Truly, so much for the country that is allegedly about freedom of speech. There's something particularly messed-up and McCarthyist about how this ban came about, not least because [some representatives have admitted that the ban is partially because of the availability of pro-Palestinian content on the platform](https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senator-romney-antony-blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content). If we endorse this ban, do we also need to revisit the rightly widely-derided un-American-activities policies of the past? I'd rather we leave them in the dustbin of history. But luckily, the kids are alright. This is also true: > "Although I don’t think this specific rebellion can last, I’m encouraged that American TikTok users realize that banning the popular platform directly contradicts America’s values. If only America’s leaders were so wise." [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/internet-censorship-tiktok-ban/681361/)\] ### So how, exactly, did blogging help my career? URL: https://werd.io/so-how-exactly-did-blogging-help-my-career/ Last updated: 2025-01-19T14:04:13.000Z I’ve written a few times about how blogging has been the single most important accelerant in my career. I mentioned this [when I asked more of you to blog](https://werd.io/2021/please-blog), in [remarks about other peoples’ posts on blogging](https://werd.io/2024/the-secret-power-of-a-blog), and so on. But I’ve never actually explained how. The arc of this journey is simple: I was a complete outsider with no money or connections, living in Scotland. Blogging allowed me to found two startups, build at least one enduring open source community, find multiple jobs, and enjoy career opportunities that otherwise would never have come my way. There is precisely zero chance that I would be doing my current job without it — or any job I’ve had since 2005. I’ve been blogging since 1998\. Because of that, I was familiar with the mechanics of what we’d later call social media very early on. I built [a viral social site that was hitting millions of visits a day](https://words.werd.io/we-are-the-monkeys-of-rum-70f81d4a02df) in my bedroom in 2001. When I started to work in e-learning at the University of Edinburgh in 2003, I was able to immediately see the deficiencies in how people were learning and sharing online, and suggest a better alternative based on what was already happening. I collaborated with a PhD student who was studying education, and we wrote a white paper about what that might be. And then I published it on my blog, and he published it on his. It was picked up by other bloggers in educational technology, who liked the idea. We offered it to the university, who declined (“blogging is for teenage girls crying in their bedrooms,” was the official response), so I quit my job and started building it full-time, narrating the whole journey on — you’ve guessed it — my blog. We built the platform into one that was used by universities, Fortune 500 companies, social movements, and NGOs around the world — all through word of mouth, driven by blogging. When I left, it was my blogging that led me to be invited to speak at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Hauser School of Governance. After that talk, I met up with two of the attendees, who were journalists who saw the need for entrepreneurship to revive a flagging industry. I continued to collaborate with them, and together we built Latakoo, an enterprise video platform which continues to be the way NBC News and others gather footage and send it back to their newsrooms, in the format that each newsroom needs. Of course, I narrated the whole journey through blogging. When I left Latakoo, it was to start Known, which could be described as a blogging platform. Because I’d been blogging heavily about an ongoing tech ethics issue at the time, it just so happened that I was quoted in the New York Times on the day that I was interviewing to be funded by Matter Ventures. It certainly didn’t hurt that Corey Ford, the General Partner, saw my name that day. I blogged that journey too. Ultimately, Known had a small acquisition by Medium, and I continued to blog about indie web and tech ethics topics externally — and about things that Medium could be doing *internally*. That helped me build enduring relationships with people on the strategy team there. (“I don’t think Ben’s really an engineer,” someone accurately commented. “He could be running Medium,” they less-accurately added.) One of the factors to Corey offering me a job at Matter was the writing I’d done around the dangers of Facebook as a single point of failure. In the wake of the 2016 election, that was significantly more clear to more people. So I joined the team, and used blogging to get the word out about what we wanted to fund. When Matter stopped investing, I moved to Unlock Protocol — a company whose founder, Julien Genestoux, I had met through blogging and the indie web. After that, I worked at ForUsAll, which knew me through my work at Matter. I *can’t* draw a direct line between blogging and my work as CTO at The 19th, but there’s zero chance I would have gotten that job without everything that came before it. And then my current work as Senior Director of Technology at ProPublica came from that. Without narrating my journey, my opinions, and things I’ve built, I might still be in my starter career. Which, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with at all! But my arc has definitely been blogging-informed. ### Let’s talk about AI and end-to-end encryption URL: https://werd.io/lets-talk-about-ai-and-end-to-end-encryption/ Last updated: 2025-01-19T04:20:33.000Z \[[Matthew Green](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2025/01/17/lets-talk-about-ai-and-end-to-end-encryption/)\] I think this is the most important discussion with respect to AI: > "\[...\] I would say that AI is going to be the biggest privacy story of the decade. Not only will we soon be doing more of our compute off-device, but we’ll be sending a lot more of our private data. This data will be examined and summarized by increasingly powerful systems, producing relatively compact but valuable summaries of our lives. In principle those systems will eventually know everything about us and about our friends. They’ll read our most intimate private conversations, maybe they’ll even intuit our deepest innermost thoughts. We are about to face many hard questions about these systems, including some difficult questions about whether they will actually be working for us at all." I lead technology at [a non-profit newsroom](https://propublica.org) where we've banned use of hosted AI models on sensitive data like reporting notes and source information. We've turned off AI assistants on our cloud services, and we've deployed client-side encryption for sensitive documents. Even if we think vendors are trustworthy (I don't), sending this level of data to *any* third party creates a honeypot for surveillance and potential misuse by government, law enforcement, the vendors themselves, and beyond. If a vendor has access to your most personal data and receives a criminal subpoena, which could easily come from the government or from a third party, you might never know that your information was compromised. (Civil subpoenas sometimes allow vendors to notify you that this happened.) So these solutions are pretty interesting, although fall far short of the encryption standard the author and I would both like to see: > "Apple’s approach to this problem is called “Private Cloud Compute” and it involves the use of special trusted hardware devices that run in Apple’s data centers. \[...\] Apple ensures that no long-term state is stored on these machines, and also load-balances your request to a different random server every time you connect." As the author notes, when this level of data is being gathered centrally and is potentially available for government use (or even vendor use beyond our intent as users), serious questions are raised about who this software actually works for. Is it ours? Is it empowering? Is it covertly a system of control and monitoring? Or all of the above? I think the answer, sadly, is inevitable. [#AI](https://werd.io/tag/AI) \[[Link](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2025/01/17/lets-talk-about-ai-and-end-to-end-encryption/)\] ### I'm very interested to see how this plays out. URL: https://werd.io/very-interested-to-see-how-this-plays-out/ Last updated: 2025-01-19T03:38:00.000Z ![TikTok is down](https://old.werd.io/file/678c7390c5934d92170b7302/thumb.png) ### ‘The Interview’: Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy is Done URL: https://werd.io/the-interview-curtis-yarvin-says-democracy-is-done/ Last updated: 2025-01-18T14:59:33.000Z \[[David Marchese in The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-interview.html)\] This [profile of Curtis Yarvin in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-interview.html) (paywalled, probably for the best) is far softer than it should have been, with far less formal fact-checking. It is of the moment, though: this guy’s writing is highly influential to the political class that’s about to land in power, as well as to prominent VCs and other tech luminaries. It’s not a bad idea to shine a spotlight on who he is and what he’s all about — this is a man who has directly inspired JD Vance, multiple prominent venture capitalists, and other people in our still-forming tech oligarchy. And as softball and cozy as the conversation really is, it’s still hard to come away without thinking: this guy is genuinely evil. In this interview he argues, among other things, that the Civil War (what he calls the “War of Secession”) didn’t improve anybody’s lives, and that women’s lives before suffrage were pretty great. He argues that people had at least as much liberty in the era of kings than they do today. Towards the end of the interview, you'll find this exchange: "**What’s your Achilles’ heel?* I also have self-confidence issues. I won’t bet fully on my own convictions.*" I mean: *good*. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-interview.html)\] ### How extreme car dependency is driving Americans to unhappiness URL: https://werd.io/how-extreme-car-dependency-is-driving-americans-to-unhappiness/ Last updated: 2025-01-18T14:34:46.000Z \[[Oliver Milman in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/29/extreme-car-dependency-unhappiness-americans)\] Car culture isn't just *physically* bad for us, it affects us mentally too: > "The car is firmly entrenched as the default, and often only, mode of transport for the vast majority of Americans, with more than nine in 10 households having at least one vehicle and 87% of people using their cars daily. Last year, a record 290m vehicles were operated on US streets and highways. > > However, this extreme car dependence is affecting Americans’ quality of life, with a new study finding there is a tipping point at which more driving leads to deeper unhappiness. It found that while having a car is better than not for overall life satisfaction, having to drive for more than 50% of the time for out-of-home activities is linked to a decrease in life satisfaction." The trick, of course, is that most of our communities have been heavily designed *around* the car, in part because of a century of lobbying and pressure from the automotive industry. It's obvious that more integrated city planning that doesn't heavily favor car use leads to a happier and healthier life, but American society is largely not built for it. In turn, most Americans can't even *imagine* a world that isn't car-centric, and vehicles have become a core part of the culture. That's as intrinsically toxic as smoking culture, but because it literally has dictated how the environment around us has been designed and built, it's going to take a long time to undo - and before we get there, we need to have the widespread *will* to undo it, which doesn't seem to exist. Compounding *that*, our most walkable and transit-enabled communities are also by far the most expensive to live in, because - shocker! - they're the most desirable. So a reasonably healthy living environment has become the preserve of the relatively wealthy. This is the kind of thing that needs to be legislated for: new built environments need to hit certain standards for integration, transit, and walkability, and then our existing environments need to be iteratively rebuilt. That seems like a tall order in the current American cultural era, but I don't see how this gets better on its own. [#Society](https://werd.io/tag/Society) \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/29/extreme-car-dependency-unhappiness-americans)\] ### Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment already URL: https://werd.io/ratify-the-equal-rights-amendment-already/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:17:53.000Z If ever there was a litmus test about who to avoid, it’s the people who see the language of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 21st Century and think, “oh, that’s problematic”. Here is the full text: *SECTION 1\. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.* *SEC. 2\. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.* *SEC. 3\. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.* It’s that simple. If you or your community read this simple text — and as simple as it is, section 1’s 24-word sentence is the substance of it — and think “oh, we don’t want *this*,” congratulations, you are officially [the baddies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY). [What happens next is unclear](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5264378/biden-era-national-archivist-constitution). The ERA should have been formalized as the 28th Amendment when Virginia ratified it in 2020\. It should have been ratified by all the necessary states when Congress approved it in 1972, which *in itself* was far too late, given that [it was written over a hundred years ago](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/equal-rights-amendment-explained). It’s not the *only* glaring indictment of American society’s disdain for basic civil rights, not by a long shot, but it certainly is a big one. America: just formally ratify the thing or come out and admit that [you’re hoping for Gilead](https://medium.com/we-the-peoples/gileads-totalitarian-society-is-eerily-familiar-97bc02f075c6). There’s nothing else to say. It’s way past time. ### We Don't Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders. URL: https://werd.io/we-dont-need-more-cynics-we-need-more-builders/ Last updated: 2025-01-17T15:09:35.000Z \[[Joan Westenberg](https://www.joanwestenberg.com/we-dont-need-more-cynics-we-need-more-builders/)\] An absolutely spot-on call to action: > "Cynicism is the cheap seats. It’s the fast food of intellectual positions. Anyone can point at something and say it’s broken, corrupt, or destined to fail. The real challenge? Building something better. > > \[...\] Cynicism comes with hidden taxes. Every time we default to assuming the worst, we pay in missed opportunities, reduced social trust, and diminished creative capacity. These costs compound over time, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in which cynical expectations shape cynical realities." We've got to have optimism. Not the dumb kind that Andreessen talks about; the kind where we know we can make the world better, we just have to go out and *do it*. A thousand times, this: > "The world has enough critics. What it needs are builders who can see problems clearly without being paralyzed by them, people who can maintain hope without succumbing to naïveté, and people who can engage with reality while working to improve it." Criticism is useful, but the real work is in imagining something new, something better, and making it a reality. [#Culture](https://werd.io/tag/Culture) \[[Link](https://www.joanwestenberg.com/we-dont-need-more-cynics-we-need-more-builders/)\] ### Peter Thiel Dreams of Empire URL: https://werd.io/peter-thiel-dreams-of-empire/ Last updated: 2025-01-17T14:18:17.000Z \[[Dave Karpf at Tech Policy Press](https://www.techpolicy.press/peter-thiel-dreams-of-empire/)\] Peter Thiel and other tech oligarchs are seeking to weaponize US foreign policy as a way to enforce their corporate agendas: > "Thiel is developing a blueprint for putting Big Tech’s policy agenda at the center of US foreign policy. Australia’s social media ban is bad for American social media companies. The European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act impose regulatory requirements on very large online platforms that operate within the EU. Peter Thiel expects the US government to do something about that, in the guise of investigating and redressing past wrongdoings. > > Tech billionaires like Thiel simply do not believe that their companies and investments should be beholden to governments. And now that they have control of the US government, they are suggesting that, if any other countries interfere with their business, the US government ought to intervene on their behalf." The thing is, protections like the ones offered by the European Union are *really good*, and significantly better than we enjoy in the United States. Part of the worry is that if they're allowed to stand, similar restrictions will emerge here too. We're already seeing that in more progressive states like California. That's an inevitability: as we all get more used to the internet now that most of us are on it, beyond the initial excitement, we're going to make more nuanced policy decisions. Clearly, privacy is an important democratic prerequisite, and countering the internet's tendency to support monopolies is similarly important to prevent outsized centralization of power. When it comes to the free reign moguls have enjoyed to build giant businesses unencumbered, time is ticking. But in the meantime, they'll keep trying to protect their interests - in increasingly dramatic ways. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.techpolicy.press/peter-thiel-dreams-of-empire/)\] ### Look Up Private School Demographics With ProPublica’s New Database URL: https://werd.io/look-up-private-school-demographics-with-propublicas-new-database/ Last updated: 2025-01-17T12:42:38.000Z \[[Sergio Hernández, Nat Lash, Brandon Roberts and Ken Schwencke at ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-private-school-demographics-lookup)\] Private schools in the US are much whiter than public schools. My colleagues over in the newsroom at ProPublica explored this data [while illuminating the ongoing extent of segregation academies in the south](https://www.propublica.org/series/segregation-academies): > "Our analysis of that survey revealed, among other things, Amite County, Mississippi, where about 900 children attend the local public schools — which, as of 2021, were 16% white. By comparison, the two private schools in the county, with more than 600 children, were 96% white." But that data hasn't traditionally been easy to explore. Until now: > "In the course of our reporting, we realized that this data and analysis were illuminating and useful — even outside the South. We decided to create a database to allow anyone to look up a school and view years worth of data." The [Private School Demographics database](https://projects.propublica.org/private-school-demographics) is available to use for free. It makes it very easy to examine disparities between private schools and their surrounding school districts. And knowing is the first step towards changing something. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-private-school-demographics-lookup)\] ### Meta Is Laying the Narrative Groundwork for Trump’s Mass Deportations URL: https://werd.io/meta-is-laying-the-narrative-groundwork-for-trumps-mass-deportations/ Last updated: 2025-01-16T15:07:53.000Z \[[Joseph Cox at 404 Media](https://www.404media.co/meta-is-laying-the-narrative-groundwork-for-trumps-mass-deportations-2/)\] Not just obeying in advance but actively collaborating: > "Multiple speech and content moderation experts 404 Media spoke to drew some parallels between these recent changes and when Facebook contributed to a genocide in Myanmar in 2017, in which Facebook was used to spread anti-Rohingya hate and the country’s military ultimately led a campaign of murder, torture, and rape against the Muslim minority population. Although there are some key differences, Meta’s changes in the U.S. will also likely lead to the spread of more hate speech across Meta’s sites, with the real world consequences that can bring. > > “When we look at the history of mass atrocities against particular groups, we always see a period where the information landscape is shaped away from recognizing the humanity of the targeted group. By letting hate speech flourish online, you enable the pre-conditions for group violence offline,” \[Rebecca Hamilton, law professor at American University\] added." We're in for a rough few years, and Meta and its big tech compatriots seem to be all in. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.404media.co/meta-is-laying-the-narrative-groundwork-for-trumps-mass-deportations-2/)\] ### Make America More Like Europe (please) URL: https://werd.io/make-america-more-like-europe-please/ Last updated: 2025-06-14T19:18:11.000Z I realized some time ago that all the ways I want America to change just bring it closer to being Europe. Like, what if we had this can-do attitude and all the good parts without the guns and with universal healthcare, real education, unprocessed food without sugar in it, a real safety net, and integrated public transit instead of car culture. Maybe the easier path is if we all, like, move to Amsterdam. If I could change one thing it would actually be car culture. So much is related to that: what psychologically makes it more attractive to be in a little cocoon by yourself instead of in a tram or a bus with other people, even if it makes more traffic and more pollution? Fix that, fix so much else. I think that’s maybe why I’m so drawn to cities like New York and San Francisco: there it’s much more common to rely on shared infrastructure, to be in the same spaces as other people. The New York subway is dirty and feels old, but it’s also a genuine marvel compared to public infrastructure in much of the country. Those, to me, are the good places in America: every kind of person is living with every other kind of person, all relying on the same bedrock of infrastructure and norms, and generally, *it works* and results in a much richer culture and way of life. I wish it was all like that. I make many multiples of what I used to make when I lived in Europe, but my quality of life is worse. So many of my political opinions about what needs to change in America really boil down to, “can I have the quality of life I had until my thirties back please?” And I’d like that for every American. ### "I have fired Meta as a client." URL: https://werd.io/i-have-fired-meta-as-a-client/ Last updated: 2025-01-14T20:50:14.000Z \[[Mark Lemley on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marklemley%5Fi-have-struggled-with-how-to-respond-to-mark-activity-7284685204676362241-7h9r/)\] Meta's lawyer in its AI case has fired them as a client, and is not beating around the bush as to why: > "I have struggled with how to respond to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness. While I have thought about quitting Facebook, I find great value in the connections and friends I have here, and it doesn't seem fair that I should lose that because Zuckerberg is having a mid-life crisis. > > \[...\] I have deactivated my Threads account. Bluesky is an outstanding alternative to Twitter, and the last thing I need is to support a Twitter-like site run by a Musk wannabe." I wish I could read a response from Zuckerberg himself. I suspect none will be forthcoming. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marklemley%5Fi-have-struggled-with-how-to-respond-to-mark-activity-7284685204676362241-7h9r/)\] ### US finalizes rule to effectively ban Chinese vehicles, which could include Polestar URL: https://werd.io/us-finalizes-rule-to-effectively-ban-chinese-vehicles-which-could/ Last updated: 2025-01-14T17:16:39.000Z \[[Andrew J. Hawkins at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/14/24343497/biden-china-vehicle-software-ban-polestar-waymo)\] I think this is the wrong kind of protectionism: > "The Biden administration finalized a new rule that would effectively ban all Chinese vehicles from the US under the auspices of blocking the “sale or import” of connected vehicle software from “countries of concern.” The rule could have wide-ranging effects on big automakers, like Ford and GM, as well as smaller manufacturers like Polestar — and even companies that don’t produce cars, like Waymo." I would much rather see a ban on vehicles that spy on you, regardless of who manufactures them. The rule as it stands provides very uneven protection, and allows domestic vehicle manufacturers to conduct significant surveillance over their customers. Legislators should just ban the practice outright, and conduct inspections to ensure that it's the case across the board. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/14/24343497/biden-china-vehicle-software-ban-polestar-waymo)\] ### Free Our Feeds URL: https://werd.io/free-our-feeds/ Last updated: 2025-01-13T14:22:08.000Z \[[Free Our Feeds](https://freeourfeeds.com/)\] The non-profit social media foundation space is really heating up. Which is not a bad thing! Enter [Free our Feeds](https://freeourfeeds.com/): > "It will take independent funding and governance to turn Bluesky’s underlying tech—the AT Protocol—into something more powerful than a single app. We want to create an entire ecosystem of interconnected apps and different companies that have people’s interests at heart. > > Free Our Feeds will build a new, independent foundation to help make that happen." The names involved in this particular venture are really fascinating. Nabiha Syed is the ED of the Mozilla Foundation and is joined by Mark Surman, its President; Robin Berjon has done some of the most important writing and thinking in this space, particularly with respect to governance; Eli Pariser is an experienced activist who co-founded Avaaz and used to run MoveOn; Mallory Knodel is the ED of the ActivityPub-centric Social Web Foundation. And then the signatories to the letter are people like Jimmy Wales, Mark Ruffalo, Cory Doctorow, Roger McNamee, Shoshana Zuboff and Audrey Tang. So the Social Web Foundation is ActivityPub-centric and Free Our Feeds is AT Protocol-centric. My (figurative) money is increasingly on [A New Social](https://www.anew.social/), which posits that all these individual protocols and sub-networks will ultimately be universally addressable as one social internet, and is backing tools to help make that happen. It's all wonderful. It's all such a great change from the old model - and in a week where Zuckerberg went "full Musk", the timing couldn't be better. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://freeourfeeds.com/)\] ### The people should own the town square URL: https://werd.io/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/ Last updated: 2025-01-13T12:31:43.000Z \[[Mastodon](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/)\] Mastodon is growing up: > "Simply, we are going to transfer ownership of key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components (including name and copyrights, among other assets) to a new non-profit organization, affirming the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual. > > \[...\] We are in the process of a phased transition. First we are establishing a new legal home for Mastodon and transferring ownership and stewardship. We are taking the time to select the appropriate jurisdiction and structure in Europe. Then we will determine which other (subsidiary) legal structures are needed to support operations and sustainability." Eugen, Mastodon's CEO, will not be the leader of this new entity, although it's not yet clear who will be. He's going to focus on product instead. Another note, right at the end of this announcement: the non-profit seeks to grow its annual budget to €5 million. That's a big increase from current levels, but is absolutely needed. It sounds like plans are in place to make that happen. I'm excited for everyone involved; everyone who uses Mastodon; everyone on the web. Greater competition through a truly federated solution with decentralized ownership is good for everyone. I can't wait to see what happens next. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/)\] ### Content Policy on the Social Web URL: https://werd.io/content-policy-on-the-social-web/ Last updated: 2025-01-13T02:22:56.000Z \[[Social Web Foundation](https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/01/12/content-policy-on-the-social-web/)\] [The Social Web Foundation](https://socialwebfoundation.org/)'s statement about Meta's moderation changes is important: > "Ideas matter, and history shows that online misinformation and harassment can lead to violence in the real world. > > \[...\] Meta is one of many ActivityPub implementers and a supporter of the Social Web Foundation. We strongly encourage Meta’s executive and content teams to come back in line with best practices of a zero harm social media ecosystem. Reconsidering this policy change would preserve the crucial distinction between political differences of opinion and dehumanizing harassment. The SWF is available to discuss Meta’s content moderation policies and processes to make them more humane and responsible." This feels right to me. By implication: [the current policies](https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/7/24338471/meta-hate-speech-hateful-conduct-policy-moderation) are inhumane and irresponsible. And as such, worth calling out. [#Fediverse](https://werd.io/tag/Fediverse) \[[Link](https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/01/12/content-policy-on-the-social-web/)\] ### DoJ releases its Tulsa race massacre report over 100 years after initial review URL: https://werd.io/doj-releases-its-tulsa-race-massacre-report-over-100-years/ Last updated: 2025-01-12T17:36:59.000Z \[[Adria R Walker at The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/10/tulsa-race-massacre-report-doj)\] A full century after the Bureau of Investigation blamed the Tulsa race massacre on Black men and claimed that the perpetrators didn't break the law, the DoJ has issued an update: > "“The Tulsa race massacre stands out as a civil rights crime unique in its magnitude, barbarity, racist hostility and its utter annihilation of a thriving Black community,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general of the DoJ’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “In 1921, white Tulsans murdered hundreds of residents of Greenwood, burned their homes and churches, looted their belongings, and locked the survivors in internment camps.”" Every one of the perpetrators is dead and can no longer be prosecuted. But this statement seeks to correct the record and ensure that the official history records what actually happened. There's value in that, even if it comes a hundred years too late. It's worth also checking out [Greenwood Rising](https://www.greenwoodrising.org/), which will be the first to tell you that discrimination against Black citizens of the town and the descendants of the race riot has been ongoing. The Tulsa race massacre "was so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence". Calling it a stain on our history would paint it as a one-off; instead, it's part of a continuum of hate, violence, and discrimination. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/10/tulsa-race-massacre-report-doj)\] ### The indie web should be a universe of discovery URL: https://werd.io/the-indie-web-should-be-a-universe-of-discovery/ Last updated: 2025-01-12T15:22:22.000Z ![The Norrington Room, from Wikimedia Commons](https://old.werd.io/file/6783dde4111727afc30059c2/thumb.jpg) In Oxford, my hometown, the flagship Blackwell’s bookshop looks like any ordinary bookstore at ground level. But if you go down a set of stairs, you find yourself in [the Norrington Room](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-norrington-room): one of the largest rooms full of books in the world. The shelves expand out around you to encompass almost every possible subject: three miles of bookshelves, holding hundreds of thousands of books. As in any good bookstore, tables are set out where the knowledgable booksellers (and Blackwell’s has some of the most informed and knowledgable booksellers in the world) have curated interesting titles. But you also have the ability to peruse any book, at your leisure. The Norrington Room doesn’t have a coffee shop or sell music, but there are comfy chairs where you can enjoy the books and *read*. The modern version of Google search has been optimized for fast answers: a search *query*. But that’s not the only kind of search that’s valuable. It’s not an *experiential* search. I had a conversation with [capjamesg](https://jamesg.blog/) the other day that put this into focus: he’s very smartly thinking about the next decade of useful tools for the indieweb. And on an internet that’s focused on transactional answers, we agreed that an experiential web was missing. The indieweb should feel like the Norrington Room: an expansive world of different voices, opinions, modes of expression, and art that you can explore, peruse, or have curated for you. It’s not about any particular goal aside from the goal of being enriched by people sharing their lived experiences, creativity, and expertise. It’s a journey of discovery, conversation, and community, not a journey of extraction. Curators and linkblogs are one part of it. Webrings like [the indieweb webring](https://xn--sr8hvo.ws/) scratch the surface of it. Blog directories like [ooh.directory](https://ooh.directory/) and blogrolls are part of it. But I feel like we’re missing something else. I’m not sure what that is! But I sure wish we had the equivalent of knowledgable booksellers — indie [tummelers](https://www.deborahschultz.com/deblog/2010/11/tummeling-the-art-of-creating-active-social-spaces.html), perhaps — to guide us and help intentionally build community. *Norrington Room [photo from Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Norrington%5Froom.jpg), shared under a CC share-alike license.* *Syndicated to [IndieNews](https://news.indieweb.org/en).* ### Is Ignorance Bliss? URL: https://werd.io/is-ignorance-bliss/ Last updated: 2025-01-12T15:05:43.000Z \[[Jared White](https://jaredwhite.com/20250111/is-ignorance-bliss)\] I've been thinking about this paragraph since I read it: > "In times past, we would worry about singular governmental officials such Joseph Goebbels becoming a master of propaganda for their cause. Today’s problem is massively scaled out in ways Goebbels could only dream of: now everyone can be their own Goebbels. Can someone please tell me what the difference is between an “influencer” holding a smartphone and…a propagandist? Because I simply can’t see the distinction anymore." This brings me back to Renee DiResta's [Invisible Rulers](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781541703377): whoever controls the memes controls the universe. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://jaredwhite.com/20250111/is-ignorance-bliss)\] ### Building an open web that protects us from harm URL: https://werd.io/building-an-open-web-that-protects-us-from-harm/ Last updated: 2025-01-11T15:58:14.000Z We live in a world where right-wing nationalism is on the rise and many governments, including the incoming Trump administration, are promising mass deportations. Trump in particular has discussed building camps as part of mass deportations. This question used to feel more hypothetical than it does today. Faced with this reality, it’s worth asking: who would stand by you if this kind of authoritarianism took hold in your life? You can break allyship down into several key areas of life: - **Who in your personal life is an ally?** (Your friends, acquaintances, and extended family.) - **Who in your professional life is an ally?** (People you work with, people in partner organizations, and your industry.) - **Who in civic life is an ally?** (Your representatives, government workers, individual members of law enforcement, healthcare workers, and so on.) - **Which service providers are allies?** (The people you depend on for goods and services — including stores, delivery services, and internet services.) And in turn, can be broken down further: - Who will actively help you evade an authoritarian regime? - Who will refuse to collaborate with a regime’s demands? These two things are different. There’s also a third option — non-collaboration but non-refusal — which I would argue does not constitute allyship at all. This might look like passively complying with authoritarian demands when legally compelled, without taking steps to resist or protect the vulnerable. While this might not seem overtly harmful, it leaves those at risk exposed. As Naomi Shulman points out, the most dangerous complicity often comes from those who quietly comply. [Nice people made the best Nazis](https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2016/11/17/the-post-election-case-for-speaking-out-naomi-shulman). For the remainder of this post, I will focus on the roles of internet service vendors and protocol authors in shaping allyship and resisting authoritarianism. For these groups, refusing to collaborate means that you’re not capitulating to active demands by an authoritarian regime, but you might not be actively considering how to help people who are vulnerable. The people who are actively helping, on the other hand, are actively considering how to prevent someone from being tracked, identified, and rounded up by a regime, and are putting preventative measures in place. (These might include implementing encryption at rest, minimizing data collection, and ensuring anonymity in user interactions.) If we consider an employer, refusing to collaborate means that you won’t actively hand over someone’s details on request. Actively helping might mean aiding someone in hiding or escaping to another jurisdiction. These questions of allyship apply not just to individuals and organizations, but also to the systems we design and the technologies we champion. Those of us who are involved in movements to liberate social software from centralized corporations need to consider our roles. Is decentralization enough? Should we be allies? What kind of allies? This responsibility extends beyond individual actions to the frameworks we build and the partnerships we form within open ecosystems. While building an open protocol that makes all content public and allows indefinite tracking of user activity without consent may not amount to collusion, it is also far from allyship. Partnering with companies that collaborate with an authoritarian regime, for example by removing support for specific vulnerable communities and enabling the spread of hate speech, may also not constitute allyship. Even if it furthers your immediate stated technical and business goals to have that partner on board, it may undermine your stated *social* goals. Short-term compromises for technical or business gains may seem pragmatic but risk undermining the ethics that underpin open and decentralized systems. Obviously, the point of an open protocol is that anyone can use it. But we should avoid enabling entities that collude with authoritarian regimes to become significant contributors to or influencers of open protocols and platforms. While open protocols can be used by anyone, we must distinguish between passive use and active collaboration. Enabling authoritarian-aligned entities to shape the direction or governance of these protocols undermines their potential for liberation. In light of Mark Zuckerberg’s [clear acquiescence to the incoming Trump administration](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/08/the-good-the-bad-and-the-stupid-in-metas-new-content-moderation-policies/) (for example by rolling back DEI, allowing hate speech, and making a series of bizarre statements designed to placate Trump himself), I now believe Threads should not be allowed to be an active collaborator to open protocols unless it can attest that it will not collude, and that it will protect vulnerable groups using its platforms from harm. I also think Bluesky’s AT Protocol decision [to make content and user blocks completely open and discoverable](https://blueskyweb.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/15835264007693-Data-Privacy) should be revisited. I also believe there should be an ethical bill of rights for users on open social media protocols that authors should sign, which includes the right to privacy, freedom from surveillance, safeguards against hate speech, and strong protections for vulnerable communities. As builders, users, and advocates of open systems, we must demand transparency, accountability, and ethical commitments from all contributors to open protocols. Without these safeguards, we risk creating tools that enable oppression rather than resisting it. Allyship demands more than neutrality — it demands action. *Syndicated to [IndieNews](https://news.indieweb.org/en).* ### The Good, The Bad, And The Stupid In Meta’s New Content Moderation Policies URL: https://werd.io/the-good-the-bad-and-the-stupid-in-metas-new/ Last updated: 2025-01-11T14:52:19.000Z \[[Mike Masnick in TechDirt](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/08/the-good-the-bad-and-the-stupid-in-metas-new-content-moderation-policies/)\] Mark Zuckerberg is very obviously running scared from the incoming Trump administration: > "Since the election, Zuckerberg has done everything he can possibly think of to kiss the Trump ring. He even flew all the way from his compound in Hawaii to have dinner at Mar-A-Lago with Trump, before turning around and flying right back to Hawaii. In the last few days, he also had GOP-whisperer Joel Kaplan replace Nick Clegg as the company’s head of global policy. On Monday it was announced that Zuckerberg had also appointed Dana White to Meta’s board. White is the CEO of UFC, but also (perhaps more importantly) a close friend of Trump’s." He then announced a new set of moderation changes. As Mike Masnick notes here, Facebook's moderation was terrible and has always been terrible. It tried to use AI to improve its moderation at scale, with predictable results. It simply hasn't worked, and that's often harmed vulnerable communities and voices in the process. So it makes sense to take a different approach. But Zuckerberg is trying to paint these changes as being pro free speech, and that doesn't ring true. For example, trying to paint fact-checking as censorship is beyond stupid: > "Of course, bad faith actors, particularly on the right, have long tried to paint fact-checking as “censorship.” But this talking point, which we’ve debunked before, is utter nonsense. Fact-checking is the epitome of “more speech”— exactly what the marketplace of ideas demands. By caving to those who want to silence fact-checkers, Meta is revealing how hollow its free speech rhetoric really is." This is all of a piece with Zuckerberg's [rolling back of much-needed DEI programs](https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-memo-employees-programs) and his suggestion [that most companies need more masculine energy](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-10/mark-zuckerberg-slams-biden-administration-on-joe-rogan-s-podcast). It's for show to please a permatanned audience of one and avoid existential threats to his business. I would love to read the inside story in a few years. For now, we've just got to accept that *everything being incredibly dumb* is all part of living in 2025. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/08/the-good-the-bad-and-the-stupid-in-metas-new-content-moderation-policies/)\] ### Mullenweg Shuts Down WordPress Sustainability Team, Igniting Backlash URL: https://werd.io/mullenweg-shuts-down-wordpress-sustainability-team-igniting-backlash/ Last updated: 2025-01-11T14:33:59.000Z \[[Rae Morey at The Repository](https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-shuts-down-wordpress-sustainability-team-igniting-backlash)\] The bananas activity continues over at Automattic / Matt Mullenweg's house: > "Members of the fledgling WordPress Sustainability Team have been left reeling after WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg abruptly dissolved the team this week. > > \[...\] The disbandment happened after team rep Thijs Buijs announced in Making WordPress Slack on Wednesday that he was stepping down from his role, citing a Reddit thread Mullenweg created on Christmas Eve asking for suggestions to create WordPress drama in 2025." Meanwhile, a day earlier, Automattic announced that it will [ramp down its own contributions to WordPress](https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-sponsored-contributions-to-wordpress/): > "To recalibrate and ensure our efforts are as impactful as possible, Automattic will reduce its sponsored contributions to the WordPress project. This is not a step we take lightly. It is a moment to regroup, rethink, and strategically plan how Automatticians can continue contributing in ways that secure the future of WordPress for generations to come. Automatticians who contributed to core will instead focus on for-profit projects within Automattic, such as WordPress.com, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce. Members of the “community” have said that working on these sorts of things should count as a contribution to WordPress." This is a genuinely odd thing to do. Yes, it's true that Automattic is at a disadvantage in the sense that it contributes far more to the open source project than other private companies. Free riders have long been a problem for open source innovators. But it's also *why the company exists*. I have questions about the balance of open source vs proprietary code in Automattic's future offerings. That's important because WordPress is the core value of its products and the open source core guarantees freedom from lock-in. Is there a proprietary CMS coming down the wire? Is this bizarre board activity behind the scenes? Is something else going on? This whole situation still feels to me like there's another shoe ready to drop - and the longer it goes on, the bigger that shoe seems to be. I hope they don't completely squander the trust and value they've been building for decades. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-shuts-down-wordpress-sustainability-team-igniting-backlash)\] ### Indonesia kicks off ambitious $45b free meal plan URL: https://werd.io/indonesia-kicks-off-ambitious-45b-free-meal-plan/ Last updated: 2025-01-10T14:26:26.000Z \[[Natasya Salim, Najma Sambul, and Bill Birtles at ABC News](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-08/indonesia-starts-free-meal-program/104794432)\] This is something that every nation should provide. It's really impressive that Indonesia is putting it into action: > "Indonesia has launched a transformative free meal program designed to combat malnutrition and support underprivileged communities. > > Championed by President Prabowo Subianto, the initiative aims to provide nutritious meals to almost 83 million Indonesians by 2029, focusing initially on school children and pregnant women." Over here, this would likely be dismissed as socialism, because how dare we simply provide for people who need it? (The horror!) But the bet is that it will lead to greater growth and prosperity, not least because of investment in the ecosystem itself: > "On the other hand, Mr Prabowo called the program one of the main drivers of economic growth, saying it would eventually add an estimated 2.5 million jobs and spur demand for local produce." Over in the Financial Times, [they additionally note](https://www.ft.com/content/69209b1a-37b1-437e-83b5-b52d9194d74e): > "Prabowo, who took office in October, has touted the programme as a solution to improve children’s nutrition and boost local economies — which he hopes will have a ripple effect on economic growth and development in the world’s fourth most-populous country. > > “This is a long-term investment in human capital,” said Dadan Hindayana, head of the newly created national nutrition agency, which will oversee the free meals programme. " There will be a lot of people incentivized to *not* make this work. But it should. And we should be looking to this as leadership; we should be following suit. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-08/indonesia-starts-free-meal-program/104794432)\] ### Meta’s Free Speech Grift URL: https://werd.io/metas-free-speech-grift/ Last updated: 2025-01-08T14:28:58.000Z \[[Jason Kottke](https://kottke.org/25/01/metas-free-speech-grift)\] Jason nails what [the supposed focus on free speech by Meta](https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/7/24338062/facebook-instagram-threads-meta-abandon-fact-checking) and others is really about: > "What Zuckerberg and Meta have realized is the value, demonstrated by Trump, Musk, and MAGA antagonists, of saying that you’re “protecting free speech” and using it as cover for almost anything you want to do. For Meta, that means increasing engagement, decreasing government oversight and interference, and lowering their labor costs (through cutting their workforce and strengthening their bargaining position vs labor) — all things that will make their stock price go up and increase the wealth of their shareholders." It's a grift, pure and simple. One that happens to help them curry favor with the incoming President and his fan-base. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology) \[[Link](https://kottke.org/25/01/metas-free-speech-grift)\] ### Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors URL: https://werd.io/heritage-foundation-plans-to-identify-and-target-wikipedia-editors/ Last updated: 2025-01-08T14:12:51.000Z \[[Arno Rosenfeld at the Forward](https://forward.com/news/686797/heritage-foundation-wikipedia-antisemitism/)\] The Heritage Foundation is out to "identify and target" Wikipedia editors, using antisemitism as a cover: > "Employees of Heritage, the conservative think tank that produced the Project 2025 policy blueprint for the second Trump administration, said they plan to use facial recognition software and a database of hacked usernames and passwords in order to identify contributors to the online encyclopedia, who mostly work under pseudonyms. It’s not clear exactly what kind of antisemitism the Wikipedia effort, which has not been previously reported, is intended to address. But in recent months some Jewish groups have complained about a series of changes on the website relating to Israel, the war in Gaza and its repercussions." Given that Wikipedia has also been under attack from Elon Musk and other right-wing figures, [multiple groups should archive multiple snapshots of its content](https://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html) before major changes are made (or worse) to the encyclopedia. Wikipedia currently provides a full history of edits as part of its core software, but there are no guarantees about what might be required by the administration in the future. I'd also strongly consider [donating to support it](https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php) to help it weather any future assaults on truth. [#Democracy](https://werd.io/tag/Democracy) \[[Link](https://forward.com/news/686797/heritage-foundation-wikipedia-antisemitism/)\] ### 46 books URL: https://werd.io/46-books/ Last updated: 2025-01-07T23:28:24.000Z ![A library](https://old.werd.io/file/677db889b337d81cf8053672/thumb.jpg) Previous *birthday posts: [45 wishes](https://werd.io/2024/45-wishes), [44 thoughts about the future](https://werd.io/2023/44-thoughts-about-the-future), [43 things](https://werd.io/2022/43-things), [42](https://werd.io/2021/42) / [42 admissions](https://werd.io/2021/42-admissions), [41 things](https://werd.io/2020/41-things).* --- **One.** I lie in bed as Ma read Dodie Smith’s *‌[The Hundred and One Dalmatians](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780573051142)* to me. It was the fifth, and last, straight time; after this, she would finally put her foot down. Outside, in the Oxford dusk, the neighborhood dogs speak to each other over fences and hedges, the starlight barking in full force. Occasionally, a bird lands on the spiraling wrought iron fire escape outside. It’s an old book, and the Romani people are not treated well in it. Revised versions are available. And, of course, the Disney versions. **Two.** Nobody seems to want to adapt the [anti nuclear war science fiction sequel](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780312156640), though, the cowards. **Three.** I borrow *‌[Constellations: Stories of the Future](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellations:%5FStories%5Fof%5Fthe%5FFuture)* from the library for the third time: a hardback book in a protective plastic sleeve full of stories that seem almost illicit. One of the stories, *‌[Let’s Go to Golgotha!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s%5FGo%5Fto%5FGolgotha!)* is about a time-traveling tourist agency; the participants slowly realize that the crowd condemning Jesus to the cross is entirely made up of people from the future. *‌[Beyond Lies the Wub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond%5FLies%5Fthe%5FWub)* was Philip K Dick’s first short story; a horror tale about meat-eating and possession. *‌[It’s a Good Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s%5Fa%5FGood%5FLife)*, about a child with godlike powers, sets up a scenario that I still regularly think about. And Vonnegut’s *‌[Harrison Bergeron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison%5FBergeron)* is, of course, a layered classic, rife with mischief. Outside the library, there’s still a bakery selling cheap bread rolls and jam donuts. (It’s a Primark now.) The smell is intoxicating but the stories already have me. **Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.** I feel disconnected from the other children on the playground: like I’m missing a magic password that they know and I don’t. There’s no one big thing, but there are lots of little things; an idiom I don’t understand here, a reference I don’t get there. As an adult, I’ll have a name for what this is and why it’s true: [third culture kid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third%5Fculture%5Fkid). But as a child, I just know that something is *off*. *‌[The Dark is Rising sequence](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781665935494)* soft launches as a Blyton-esque adventure in Cornwall, and then dives into a story that is deeper than any of the culture I see around me. In its tales of pagan magic that pre-date the prevailing Christianity, of green witches and Cornish folk legends, it both captivates me and informs me about the history of the place I find myself in. And then there’s Will, and the Old Ones, and a wisdom that cuts underneath the superficial nonsense that I don’t understand and suggests that something deeper is far more important. *‌When the Dark comes rising six shall turn it back; Three from the circle, three from the track; Wood, bronze, iron; Water, fire, stone; Five will return and one go alone.* I can still recite it. The Dark is still rising. There is still silver on the tree. **Ten.** There’s [a doorway in St Mary’s Passage](https://www.flickr.com/photos/163363024@N04/48904935721), a side street in the collegic part of Oxford, that is adorned with two fawns and a lion. Down the road, a Victorian lamppost still burns, albeit with electric light. There are plenty of tourist websites and videos that explain this was the inspiration for Narnia. I mean, it makes sense. But I don’t think it’s true. Oxford is full of portals. I would know: I was a child there. There are space ships, time machines, great wooden galleons, castles hidden in dimensions somewhere between our reality and another. CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were both inspired by [Shotover](https://www.oxford.gov.uk/directory-record/668/shotover-country-park), an area of hilly, wooded parkland on the edge of the city. Lewis had a house adjoining the area; Tolkien lived nearby. (Years earlier, Lewis Carroll roamed the hills, too. Years later, so did I.) They’re not the same place, but rather, multiple places that exist as layers over the same ground; different angles and reflections of the same ideas. They were both [Inklings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings), after all. Anyway, *‌[The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780064409421)* tells the truth about portals. They’re everywhere. I still check every wardrobe; don’t you? **Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.** I consume *‌[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780345391803)*, *‌[The Restaurant at the End of the Universe](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780345391810)*, and *[Life, the Universe and Everything](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780345391827)‌* in successive bouts of the flu in our house on the Marston Road, a tiny, water-damaged duplex that my parents have been restoring by hand. My bed is a single red and white bunk above a writing desk, on which I’ve doodled in ballpoint pen. At the same time, I’ve been playing [the Infocom text adventure adaptation](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-game-30th-anniversary-edition), which [Douglas Adams was directly involved in](https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/stevem.shtml). All of these tales are irreverent in a way that directly appeals to me: they poke fun at norms and the bureaucracy of stasis. The books and the game all gently break the rules of their respective forms. They see how ridiculous the world is. This is a different kind of portal: not one to a fantasy realm, but one to a realization that you’re not alone. There are people on the road ahead of you, unpicking the rigidity of the world, and they’re looking back and winking. And all of us are subject to forces bigger than us. Adams hated the little green planet that adorns every American book and game in the series, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Irony and sarcasm aren’t just forms of wit; they’re escape hatches. At their best, they’re a way of [punching up](https://theyesmen.org/lessons/always-always-punch-never-down). People who say they’re the lowest are missing the point and are probably [Vogons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon). **Fourteen.** It’s not that I’m sick a lot, but grade school is like a Petri dish for colds and flus, so I’m not *not*sick a lot, either. I’ve finished Douglas Adams but find myself hungry for more, and can’t stomach the direct parody of less wryly satirical books. Terry Pratchett fits the bill, and *‌[Mort](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780063393233)*, the story of Death’s apprentice, is my jumping-off point. They both eat systems and norms for breakfast, but Pratchett is often more directly, pointedly satirical than Adams was; this is overt social criticism, making fun of people with power and the structures established to dance around them. Teenage me, stuck in my bunk with yet another flu while rain pounds my bedroom windows, literally an outsider while the impenetrable politics and in-groups of high school carry on without me, *adores* it. I start to see the power of being an outsider. The thing about being a fish out of water is that you can *see the water*. *‌ It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it,* Pratchett writes. Right on. **Fifteen.** I’m thirteen and sitting in my homeroom class. We’ve all been reading our own books, and our homeroom teacher (who also happens to be our English teacher) has asked us each to read a passage out loud to the cloud. Some of my classmates are reading *The Hardy Boys*; some are reading Jane Austen; some are reading Tolkien. I read a passage of *‌[Timewyrm: Exodus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timewyrm:%5FExodus)* where the Doctor and Ace are escaping the regenerated War Chief, the villain of 1969 *Doctor Who* story *The War Games*, who has helped Hitler raise an army of Nazi zombies. The passage ends when the zombie horde is halted with explosive grenades. A few kids who generally don’t like to read come up afterwards to ask where I got the book. They seem excited. They seem excited to talk to *me*. These are not people who usually want to. Maybe I just have to give them something they like. **Sixteen.** I catch my reflection in a department store mirror and shudder. Is that really me? Does that really have to be me? How can I stop it? I look around at the other kids here: slim, elegant, comfortable in their skin. Effortless. Why can’t I be *them*? Being an outsider is still being an outsider. By my late teens, I feel like there’s something truly wrong with me: it’s *still* like there’s a secret password that everybody knows but me, but now the stakes are higher. I want to belong; I want to feel like I have intrinsic value; I can’t find or justify it. I’m tall now, *really* tall, and not exactly obese, but not slim, either. More than one person I have a crush on tells me to lose weight. More than one person I have a crush on tells me that maybe I’d have a chance if we had more money or if I wasn’t so weird. I’m constantly exhausted and the wry humor that used to characterize my otherness has been replaced with despair: *nothing I do matters because there’s something wrong with me*. It’s a firm depression, but either nobody catches it or nobody knows what to do with it. My grades nosedive. *‌[Prozac Nation](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780544960091)* doesn’t catch everything, but it gives me a window into someone who feels a bit like I do. (I can’t relate to the drugs, but I see the allure, too.) Its author, [Elizabeth Wurtzel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth%5FWurtzel), is like a *cool* depressed person: someone who feels this way but is also interesting, desirable, a little bit rockstar-like. Today, I see the ego. As a teenager, I just see the reflection. **Seventeen.** I’ve been writing software for a while now. My mother taught me BASIC on our 8-bit computer when I was five; when I was thirteen, my parents gifted me the PC-compatible version of [Prospero Pascal](http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Prospero%5FPascal) for my birthday. I’ve worked through the manual and written a few small games. My first Pascal effort was *Mr A Goes For a Walk*, where a letter “A” did exactly that. A year later, I’d written a fully featured *‌[Sokoban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokoban)*clone. I’m inspired by Jeff Minter’s seminal (and utterly irreverent) *‌[Llamatron](https://dos.zone/llamatron-2112-aug-05-1992/)* and want to build with the same sensibility. Making things feels really good; seeing people enjoy things I made feels even better, and goes some way towards filling the black hole of self-doubt that still lives within me. Someone recommends *‌[Microserfs](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780061624261)*: a book which should be a warning but isn’t received as one at all. The characters here are quirky outsiders — like me! — who throw themselves into building something on their own terms. They eat flat foods that can be pushed under doors so they can keep working. They struggle with their code, their work, and their lives. And they show me that there might be a place for me. So many Douglas Coupland books, including this one, are about the emptiness of living in late-nineties capitalism. The clue is in the word *serfs*, but that isn’t what hits for me. That isn’t what hits at all. I sit in the sixth form common room, a lounge in my high school where older students can study and do homework, and devour it, as Oasis, jungle music, and mid-nineties hip hop play around me. From somewhere, there’s the smell of cheese and onion crisps. Do they qualify as flat food? **Eighteen.** The common room is a harsh place, but just one of a series of harsh places that school has represented for me. Because I’m big and don’t fight back, people feel like they can verbally abuse me, hit me, kick me. It comes from nowhere, usually, and I’m left reeling. Nobody, least of all the people who run the school, seems to want to help. Even today, I see fond reminiscences of people in our school year’s Facebook group, and I think, no, that person caused me so much pain. I’m *other* to them — a not-person — and that makes me fair game. I’ve internalized that it’s my fault. It happens because I deserve it, and I wonder how I might change to be more acceptable. I find some kinship in *‌[Cat’s Eye](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780385491020)*, Margaret Atwood’s story of an artist who revisits her childhood home. There’s something in there about the protagonist being untethered from her environment and the *culture*of her environment that resonates. The book diverges so far from my experiences after that, but there’s so much here about the act of creation and how it interrelates with identity. **Nineteen.** I’m seven years old and at my friend Clare’s house: a typically Oxford Victorian brick home that spreads over multiple floors. Her dad, Humphrey, has an office off of the stairs that I’ve only seen a glimpse of: there’s a desk with a typewriter and while he’s a very kind man in my eyes, he absolutely does not want us to go in there. He writes for a living, which seems like a magical thing to be able to do: the way I see it, you get to tell stories all day long. You get to *create*. Later, he asks me what I want for my birthday, and I’m too shy to tell him what I really want, so I say a *My Little Pony*. What I really want is for him to sign *‌[Mr Majeika](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr%5FMajeika)* for me: a story that’s fun in itself but clearly anchored in his life, his family, his personality. I still regret being shy about that. **Twenty.** Years later I find [Humphrey’s official biography of JRR Tolkien](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780618057023) at Moe’s, a chaotic used bookstore in Berkeley, and buy it immediately. I’m not particularly interested in Tolkien but I remember Humphrey fondly. It’s a portal to him; to that time; to a feeling of possibilities; to laughing while running up the stairs. **Twenty-one.** *‌[TVGoHome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVGoHome)*, by an online writer I like called Charlie Brooker, is exactly what I like: a spoof of mainstream culture, through parody TV listings, that doesn’t hold back. One of the fake shows from the listings is later turned into a *[real show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyPfIDvvwU4)*. Later, the author makes a spiritual follow-on [about a zombie outbreak on the set of *Big Brother*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXWKsniTPJE&list=PLMD9ghErEvtz9RPiSBRMxQ32OEx7s0%5Fsn&index=2). It’s a natural progression but I’m amazed they let him do it. His final form is *Black Mirror*, which starts with the Prime Minister and a pig and winds up in sweeping cinematic dystopias starting Mackenzie Davis, Miley Cyrus, Bryce Dallas Howard. It all starting with comic strips advertising a dusty old second-hand store in inner London, and it ended somewhere so much grander, so much more global, without compromising almost anything. The claws are intact. The book inspires me; the rest of it, too, but later. I wonder if I can be this kind of creator too; a curator of portals for other people to step through, to take them out of the water so they can see it for what it is. Or, at least, take a swipe at the places I can’t seem to fit. **Twenty-two.** I wanted a clean break, away from Oxford and the trap of who I am, but this isn’t what I was going for. I’m in a block of student flats in Edinburgh. If a door shuts anywhere in the building, you can hear it anywhere else: the sound carries, and people are drunk late into the night, and there’s never any peace. A fierce winter wind blows at the windowpanes. The mattress is covered in shiny plastic and I can feel it through my sheets. I’m fascinated by *‌[Brave New World](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780060850524)* and its setup of totalitarianism defended by acquiescence: a world where nobody has to ban books because nobody wants to read them. A dystopia protected by distraction. From my vantage point, it seems plausible. Sometimes, my flatmates barge into my bedroom and pile onto me. One likes to spit in my food as I’m cooking it. One inhabitant of the building tells me not to talk to him. It doesn’t feel very far away from my high school common room, as much as I wanted it to be. **Twenty-three.** I’ve decided to study computer science, but immediately realized my mistake. It’s not the study of how to make tools for people that empower them in ways they weren’t before; nor is it the study of how to tell stories with new means. It’s a practice rooted in mathematics and physics, of the underlying mechanics torn from the underlying humanity that gives any of it meaning. I hate it. I truly hate it. And yet, although every day is a slog, I decide to stick it out. I know I’ll be able to use it later on. The British system is very far from the American liberal arts approach of allowing students to choose their major after sampling a range of subjects. Here, you effectively have to choose your major when you’re sixteen, and it’s very hard to change. There is very little opportunity to study outside of your core subject. But I do have one elective, in my second year. I choose Forensic Medicine because I think it will be useful fuel to tell stories. I learn about how forensic pathologists use blood spatter to determine the direction of blows and what kind of weapon is used. I learn [Locard’s Principle of Exchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locard%27s%5Fexchange%5Fprinciple), which dictates that *every contact leaves a trace*: something that seems to apply far beyond the subject. Every time you touch something, every time something touches you, a trace is left. Inspired by this principle, I decide not to attend the optional autopsy lecture, fearing that it will change me in ways I might not like. *‌[Simpson’s Forensic Medicine](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780367333195)* is a grisly book, but at least it’s not advanced calculus. **Twenty-four. Twenty-five.** I came to Edinburgh because it was a cultural center more than because the university had a good computer science program, although both things are true. I’m in a tent at the Edinburgh Book Festival, chatting with Garry Trudeau. I’ve loved his comic strip, *Doonesbury*, since I was an early teen; I started with his late-seventies collection *‌[As the Kid Goes For Broke](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32032265916)*, which was lying around my great grandparents’ house, and kept reading. It’s got its claws into the world in the way I like, but somehow made its way into the mainstream, normy Sunday comics section. He’s a delight. We’re talking about *[Asterix the Gaul](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781545812228)*, a comic it turns out we both love. I can’t believe my luck. How can I be one of these people? **Twenty-six.** I’m on the streets of Glasgow, protesting the impending war in Iraq. Altogether, two million people in the UK — around 3% of its entire population — are protesting with us. Some have pre-made placards made by the usual organizations that want to spread their own agenda as well as the matter at hand; others have homemade signs. My friend carries one that simply reads, “too angry for a slogan”. It’s clear that the war is based on bad information. The so-called [“dodgy dossier”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%5FDossier) of information about “weapons of mass destruction” is so obviously fake long before it is officially revealed to be. And yet, Britain is part of the invasion, and the dossier of convenient unfacts is used to help justify George W Bush’s war effort. I’m new to politics and I’m apoplectically angry. Chomsky’s *‌[Manufacturing Consent](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780375714498)* has some of the answers I’m looking for. I don’t like the implications, but the arguments resonate. Clawing at the status quo mainstream starts to mean something more than poking fun at the ridiculous nature of class and power imbalances. Sometimes, lives are on the line. **Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.** I’ve graduated. Almost immediately, I go back to work for my university; at that time there aren’t very many software jobs in Edinburgh, and I’ve grown into the city to the extent that I don’t want to leave quite yet. I find myself working out of an office — actually a converted broom closet with a window that doesn’t shut, directly above where they fry the chips for the study canteen — at the Moray House School of Education with a belligerent PhD candidate who resents my presence. By necessity, we start talking, and it becomes clear that we have something to share with each other. He’s knee deep in the educational technology world, where people are starting to talk about “e-portfolios”: a collection of examples of academic work that sound a lot like social media if you squint a bit. In turn, I’m a programmer, a writer, and a blogger. We build a platform together. I call it [Elgg](https://elgg.org), after the town in Switzerland the Werdmullers come from. It’s inspired by [Brad Fitzpatrick’s LiveJournal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveJournal) but is designed to be as easy to install as WordPress. Some people seem to like it. My first published work is a co-written chapter in *‌[The Handbook of Research in ePortfolios](https://www.igi-global.com/book/handbook-research-eportfolios/467)* about our work. Later, [people write full-blown books about our platform](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elgg-18-social-networking-cash-costello/1108568735). I move back to Oxford so that I’m closer to the London software ecosystem. We rent an office above a bookstore in Summertown, down the road from a Lebanese deli and a wine bar that for some reason sells excellent croissants. Some days I’m too excited to sit still in my chair. I’ve (co-)created something that people like, and found a community in the process. I feel prouder and happier than I have since I was a child. I feel like this was a portal worth falling through. **Twenty-nine.** Ben Brown seems interesting. I’m introduced to his site [Uber](https://aviflombaum.medium.com/thank-you-letter-1-ben-brown-and-uber-nu-b68d2da94f1f) through an Edinburgh friend: irreverent writing with an internet sensibility. I’m heavily online at this point — blogging, but in ways that feel uncool and awkward. What Ben is doing is very different; literary in a way. It’s a precursor of publisher like [The Toast](https://the-toast.net/) and even [McSweeney’s](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/). Ben publishes books as *So New Media*, an indie house co-founded with James Stegall. I buy *‌[Beneath The Axis Of Evil: One Man's Journey Into The Horrors Of War](https://www.avclub.com/neal-pollack-beneath-the-axis-of-evil-one-mans-journe-1798198267)* by Neal Pollack. Yet another dive into the Iraq War; another clawback at the Bush / Blair continuum. Ben’s whole enterprise is inspiring: you can go it alone now. You can maintain your voice. And you can still find an audience while leaving yourself unmoderated. In some ways, on the internet, the rougher your edges are, the easier it is for other people to latch on to you. Years later, I meet Ben in person at XOXO (he silently sidles up to me at an X-Men arcade machine). Years after *that*, I buy him lunch in San Francisco. I don’t think he knows exactly what it means to me. **Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two.** I’m exhausted; gaining weight; my feet, for some reason, are constantly cramping up. It’s all stress. All the startup. My partner is constantly telling me that I need to relax and take time away from work. The startup is all-encompassing; stressful; in every part of my life. My friends and family try to ban me from working past 7:30pm. She buys me my first-ever massage, which is a revelation, and suggests books for me to read. I’d previously read *‌[Maus](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780679406419)*, a graphic novel that is both autobiographical a vividly-painted portrait of the horrors of the Holocaust. It uses the visual language of comic strips but the meaning runs deep. I come from a family that was also thrust into WWII: my father is a Japanese concentration camp survivor, my (Jewish) grandfather on my mother’s side was captured by the Nazis and presumed dead. The story itself resonates with me, but the form does too: comics are a flippant visual medium, in a way, but here that’s used as an entry point for a realism that might not have hit as hard another way. So Helen introduces me to Alan Moore: first through *‌[From Hell](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780958578349)* and then *‌[V for Vendetta](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781779511195)*. Unlike *Maus*, these are unapologetically fiction, but the use of the comics medium is similarly effective. I particularly like the way *From Hell* establishes a new [psychogeography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography) of London, rooting the story of Jack the Ripper in its location by adding layers and resonances that tie back to the planning of the city itself. It adds something new to places I’ve walked all my life. That’s good. I’m looking for something new. **Thirty-three.** My co-founder likes to tell new people we meet that we’re not friends. More than once, he’s threatened to physically fight me: most memorably over the limitations of the [OpenID](https://openid.net/) specification. On a drive through the rolling Yorkshire hills, sunshine dappling the moor grass, he tells me that he’s worried about hiring women because they might get pregnant. He pulls me aside during a contract for MIT to let me know he’s in this for himself and that I should expect him to make decisions with that in mind. On a work excursion to Brighton, he refuses to eat with the rest of the team. This is, in short, not working out. The business threatens to move towards servicing hedge funds, and I choose to leave. One afternoon, I simply close my laptop and listen to the quiet of my house, the footsteps of pedestrians on the street outside, the swoosh of passing cars. Later, there will be worries about money and what exactly I will do next, but for that one spring afternoon, I feel weightless. I need punctuation. A clean break. I’ve never been to Rome in living memory. As it turns out, it’s also cheap to get there. My then-partner and I spend ten days roaming its ancient streets, armed with *[the Rough Guide to Rome](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781789196252)*. “I don’t want this to end,” she says, as we eat grilled artichokes and cacio e pepe on outdoor tables set in a cobblestoned alleyway. It’s a new relationship and we’re discovering each other as well as the twists and turns of an ancient city. “Me either,” I say, and I take another bite. **Thirty-four.** I’m six years old. My grandparents live with us for a little while in a grand old house in Oxford: a stone Victorian with a curved driveway and a big back garden. The kitchen has terracotta tiles. My Grandma reads *‌[The Black Island](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780316358354)* to me in my bed and stays with me for a bit while I drift off to sleep. I’m seven years old. I’m told to stay in my bedroom. My mother’s received a phone call and is crying in the living room. I’m not to go see her. I’m to wait. My Grandma had pulmonary fibrosis in her lungs; she was finding it harder and harder to breathe. And now, so suddenly, she’s gone. All the way in Texas; thousands of miles away from my mother. I can’t begin comprehend the loss but I know that if my mother was sick I would want to see her again. **Thirty-five.** My parents have lived in California for years now: first to look after my Oma, and then just to *live*. Ma — after consistently calling her by her first name throughout my childhood, she’s *Ma* to me in my thirties — has retrained from an analyst for the telecommunications industry to a middle school science teacher in one of the central valley’s most impoverished districts. She loves her work in a way she never did before. But she has a persistent cough that won’t let go. At first we wonder if it’s just the dust of the Central Valley: almond shells and the detritus from overfarming. Maybe she just needs clean air. It’s almost Christmas-time. I’ve wrapped a copy of *‌[You Can Write Children’s Books](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/633167/you-can-write-childrens-books-by-tracey-e-dils/)*. She would be so good at it — her writing, the way she tells stories, has always been so magical to me — and it’s so in line with what she’s turned her life to do. In the liner, I add some written lines of my own, based on her life in Oxford: *In a house at the bottom of a hill, in a small town that rarely saw the sun, there lived a little dog who loved to play.* A few days before Christmas, we understand that she has pulmonary fibrosis. This same thief of a disease my Grandma had. We knew, in a way — my dad, in particular, *knew* — but the diagnosis makes it official. It’s a new cloud. What we don’t understand: What happens next. What to do next. How long she has. Who else will get it. Why. **Thirty-six.** My sister is reading my copy of *‌[Parable of the Sower](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781538732182)* to Ma. She’s perched on my parents’ bed in Santa Rosa. Outside, the sun is shining over the Sonoma hills. Somewhere, my dad is tinkering with something downstairs. It’s been a while. My sister and I both moved to California, starting from scratch. Ma continued teaching for as long as she could; her middle school science teachers were fascinated by the oxygen tanks she began to wear on her back like a Ghostbuster. Then it became too hard and too heavy, her oxygen needs too great. I sent a Hail Mary letter to the hospital explaining how badly in need she was; her oxygen concentrators were refrigerator sized and running in parallel, her movements limited by how far her cannula tube could extend. Eventually, at the very last moment, they tried something new and cut a set of lungs down to fit her size in order to try and save her life. The first night, I refuse to leave her side. The doctors eventually kick me out of her ICU room and I sleep in the family room down the hall. The day after happens to be the Super Bowl; she takes her first post-double-lung-transplant walk just as Beyoncé takes to the halftime stage to sing *Crazy Right Now*. Now, a few years later, the drugs are taking their toll. She’s tired. She’s often ill. But she’s here. My sister likes to read to her, and she loves lying there and listening. Other times, at the dialysis she now needs because the anti-rejection drugs have killed her kidneys, she reads on a Kindle with the font size cranked practically as high as it will go. Every day is a gift. Every contact leaves a trace. Every book is a portal out of here. **Thirty-seven.** The last book Ma and I read together is *‌[The Nickel Boys](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780345804341)*. It’s the kind of thing she likes to read: a story about America’s monstrous history, told with skill and resonance. We share our reflections of it; the experience of reading the same ideas. Asynchronously, sure, but together all the same. **Thirty-eight.** When I move to California I land in Berkeley. I find myself a coworking space above a coffee shop: a mix of developers, academics, and artists. Most of us have a standard office desk, but one inhabitant, [Hallie Bateman](http://halliebateman.com/), has brought in an antique wooden artist’s desk that looks like it’s been dropped in from another dimension. It’s covered in paintbrushes, inks, and paper: fragments of a very different kind of professional life to the one I’m leading. I continue to follow her work long after we share an office. When she publishes *‌[What to Do When I'm Gone: A Mother's Wisdom to Her Daughter](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781632869685)* — instructions from her own mother about what to do once she dies — I buy it immediately. Back then, when Ma was still around, I could read it all the way through. I no longer can. It sits on my shelf and I sometimes think about it, but grief is like a wave, and I know it can overtake me. Instead of asking Ma for instructions, I sit down with a tripod and a camera and I record her life story, instead. **Thirty-nine.** My Aunt publishes [a book about evaluating scientific evidence in the context of civil and criminal legal contexts](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780521676557). I have it, of course, even though I am not a lawyer and I have no professional need for it. I remember her poring over the edit on her laptop in the downstairs bedroom in my great grandparents’ house on Cape Cod. The last time I see her, we eat Thai food in the Tenderloin. I have no idea it’s the last time. This disease is evil. **Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two.** I’m in Santa Rosa and can still hear the wheels of the pole the feeding tube hangs from wheeling across the floor; of the oxygen clicking through the cannula; of my parents talking. It will fade, eventually, but I’m haunted now, and lost. My mother talked about being radicalized. Both my parents were Berkeley radicals, which just means that they took action on causes they cared about. I think about all those people I’ve looked up to who kept their claws sharp, who dug in, who fought for equity and didn’t compromise their values, who had a voice and used it. I walk the Santa Rosa hills, looking at these big houses on the edge of wine country, and listen to the audiobook of *‌[The Jakarta Method](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781541724006)*, which details the murder undertaken in the name of America. I re-read *‌[The Handmaid’s Tale](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780385490818)*. Through *‌[Caste](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780593230275)*, I’m appalled to learn that Hitler’s treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany was inspired by American Jim Crow laws. By now I know that I won’t get the disease — or at least, not according to our current understanding of that. It’s a genetic mutation that I don’t have. But regardless, we all have limited time, and none of us know how much time we have left. Time is ticking for everyone. I think about how I might do a better job of using my voice to make the world better. Later, I’ll start applying to jobs where I can help people speak truth to power; to work to further the work of journalism. To honor my mother — really to honor both my parents — and what she stood for in the world. I want to live up to them. **Forty-three.** I allow myself to start to write again. Words, not software. It feels daunting. My cousin Sarah, [who is a very successful author](https://www.sarahdessen.com/) (and whose books, although not designed for me, have made me cry), once recommended *‌[Bird By Bird](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780385480017)*. I’ve come back to it again and again: it’s about writing but also not. Its lessons are relevant to anyone who is building something big and new; anyone who is picking themselves up. *‌You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories.* **Forty-four.** The last book Ma gives me is *‌[Between the World and Me](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780812993547)*: a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his son. It is masterful. A portal to lived experiences I don’t have; a way in to understanding them, and through this understanding, to better understand the role I have to play, too. It’s not the main point of the book, but one of those unknown lived experiences: having a son and the sense of responsibility that follows. I can’t imagine the fear of caring for a child while being Black in America; I can’t imagine having a child at all. **Forty-five.** Erin’s labor has been two days long, difficult, and painful. Our son wasn’t breathing in the way they expected him to, so I’m standing at a table off to the side while they put a mask to him and try to get him to start. I find myself wondering if this is, somehow, the disease, this curse, out to get us again. Eventually, after a few minutes that seem like days or years, my heart pounding in my chest all the while, he breathes normally. We’re able to return him, the doctors and me, to his waiting mother. He cries, then snuggles in. She cries with him. I can’t believe Ma will never meet him. She’s there, of course. I remember the songs she sang to me and sing them to him; I find myself using the same words to console him and to let him know he’s loved. Maybe I won’t read him *The Hundred and One Dalmatians*, but I have other books in mind. There will be new books, too, that we did not discover together but will continue our story. Have you ever read *‌[The Runaway Bunny](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780060775827)*? *“If you become a bird and fly away from me,” said his mother, “I will be a tree that you come home to.”* She is nowhere and she is everywhere. I see her in him. I see myself in him and him in me. Every contact leaves a trace. We are a continuum. **Forty-six.** Donald Trump has been re-elected. The shadow of renewed nationalism, of division, of hate feels heavier than ever. The world is at, or on the brink of, war. I remember marching in Glasgow, the despair when it came to nothing. We are all in need of a refuge. We are all in need of portals out of here. We’re lying in bed: Erin, him, and me. “Read a book?” My son asks me. Of course I read to him. *Of course.* I open *‌[The Story of Ferdinand](https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9780670674244)* and begin: *‌Once upon a time in Spain there was a little bull and his name was Ferdinand. All the other little bulls he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together, but not Ferdinand. He liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers.* He snuggles into my arm and I stay with him until he falls asleep. _Includes the latest 500 public posts. Use `/sitemap.xml` for the complete archive of public content._