What are we actually for? The Mamdani case for positive resistance
Why effective opposition requires more than just saying no
Latest
Republican Budget Bill Signals New Era in Federal Surveillance
"The looming rapid expansion of federal surveillance may signal a step change on a trajectory set in motion after September 11, 2001, with broad implications for the rights and privacy of all Americans."
Grammarly to acquire email startup Superhuman in AI platform push
"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." I did not see this coming.
Schools serving undocumented kids go underground
"Some schools have asked staff to use secure messaging systems like Signal instead of text and email to keep sensitive conversations from public reach." They, like many others, need more private, self-hosted software.
Self-censorship and the ‘spiral of silence’: Why Americans are less likely to publicly voice their opinions on political issues
"I’m a political scientist, and I found that Americans were far less likely to publicly voice their opinions than even during the height of the McCarthy-era Red Scare."
AI won't live on publisher sites
The case for moving AI down the stack
Stephen Miller’s Financial Stake in ICE Contractor Palantir
Stephen Miller and at least a dozen other Trump appointees own stock in Palantir, the company that provides "mission critical" services to ICE.
Anthropic wins key US ruling on AI training in authors' copyright lawsuit
A federal court agreed that using copyrighted works to train AI is fair use - but that pirating them to do so infringes creator rights.
Substack's Secret
"Substack's One Weird Marketing Trick was leveraging the economic interests of traditional media employees against their publishers to get positive "earned media"."
The High Stakes of Biometric Surveillance
"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."
The New Surveillance State: Why Data Privacy Is Now Essential to Democracy
"When the government can track where you go, whom you associate with, and what you spend your money on, it [...] chills freedom of expression, undermines your freedom to travel, and destroys the fundamental privacy right that underlies American liberty."
Publishers facing existential threat from AI, Cloudflare CEO says
Ten years ago, Google crawled two pages for every visitor it sent to a publisher. Today, Anthropic crawls 60,000.
Media
When people trust humans more than brands: the incubator newsroom
How we might rebuild journalism from the ground up by rethinking what a newsroom is.
Democracy
Some of those who work forces
404 Media reveals collaboration between ICE and local police
Democracy
Just another Saturday in June.
At the time of writing, the world looks pretty hopeless.
Technology
What is open source?
Why the idealistic promise of collaborative software often falls short of its potential.
Democracy
How to Protest Safely in the Age of Surveillance
It's going to be a long summer. WIRED has some advice for being prepared.
Fediverse
Welcome to the new Werd I/O
I relaunched my website on Ghost. Here's why.
Notable Links
Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS
404 Media reports that the country's major airlines are selling passenger data to Customs and Border Protection and ICE.
Who's reading Werd I/O? Community survey 2025
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’
Notable Links
Bounce lets you move your followers from Bluesky to Mastodon
[Cameron Faulkner at The Verge] Bounce 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
The Darkest Day: A fantasy Doctor Who season
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
Technology
Letter to Arc members 2025
[The Browser Company] 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
Democracy
Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America
[Ava Kofman in The New Yorker] 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