The European Commission falls for openness theater by working with W Social
The European Commission has moved its profiles to W Social. That's a terrible decision.
Latest
More people get their news from social media than anywhere else - globally. The platforms we use matter.
"For the first time, social media and video networks are, on average across the markets covered, more popular than both TV and owned news websites and apps as sources of news."
AI answers are a new vector for election disinformation
For years, people have used social media to seed disinformation in order to swing elections. Now, the answers our search engines and expert systems produce have become more vulnerable.
The honest truth about leaders who want to replace their workers with AI
"The problem tends to show up when a CEO is handed an agentic tool like Claude Code, and has it create something, which will work just fine, and thinks “oh, wait, why do we need so many people, when I can just sit here and make things work?” This is a bad CEO."
To build the future, we need theories of change
News tends to treat technology as something that happens to it, like an asteroid. To better navigate the future, we need to imagine what might come next.
It's not enough to have better ideals.
You also need to build a better product.
The community-first software era
Some ideas about how to encode our values into the tools we use
Notable links: May 29, 2026
On sustainably building tech that serves humanity.
"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."
It's not enough to be free. We also need to be in community
To reach your big goal, you need to sell where you're heading next
"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."
The Fediverse is not a product. It's time to get real about marketing
If projects are going to convince people to try alternatives to Big Tech, they need to do a much better job of explaining why they're better for people who don't care about technical details like protocols and decentralization.
When the AI boom subsides, the data centers will remain. What we do now matters
Data centers are the new factories. How we think about the precedents they set matters.
AI
The Pope used his first encyclical to warn about tech centralization
"When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, [giving] rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities."
AI
Affordances for me, but not for thee
For years, people have tried hard to get websites to build accessibility affordances. Now developers are willingly building them for AI.
AI
Like sunrise over a sink
It appears that the winner of a short story prize was generated with AI. But how was it selected?
AI
Why micropayments can't save news
Why an ephemeral model can't fund relationship-based work
Education
A quarter of a century of open educational technology
Every day for 25 years, Stephen Downes has written about edtech, informing an entire industry.
Notable links
Notable links: May 15, 2026
What happens after the feed? And how can publishers remain independent?
Business
52 actionable posts about building a culture of innovation
One year of consistent posts is nothing to sneeze at. But when each one is genuinely useful, actionable, and insightful, that's another level of achievement.
Media
AI may be the new gatekeepers, but human connection is more needed than ever
"What comes next, after the algorithmic social feed that’s defined our digital social lives for the last decade?" I believe this very useful presentation will be referred back to for years to come.
Technology
Bridging feels seamless. Behind the scenes, it's a technical marvel
"When you all give us your hard-earned money, we feel a deep responsibility to use it as well, and as efficiently, as possible." A responsibility A New Social lives up to in spades.
Media
To maintain their independence, publishers are fleeing Substack
"Substack faced talent drain in 2024 linked to its platforming of Nazi newsletters, but now it’s not just the platform’s stance on hate speech that’s driving away creators."
Media
Asking platforms to do better won't work. We need to force their hands
"If there were a dictator of the internet who intentionally set out to destroy your ability to get accurate information, the result would look a lot like what’s already on your screen. But why?"
Technology
WordPress powers 47% of the web. Now it's more social, too
WordPress is the most popular publishing platform in the world. It wants you to publish and be heard - and that means supporting conversation.