Notable links
Notable links: May 8, 2026
Building a civic information economy, not cultures of extraction.
Notable links
Commentary on links that caught my attention around the web.
Media
Plugging the gaps won't save news. It's time to redesign
"Journalists, cultural workers, content creators, and other trusted messengers are enabling better civic insight for communities. How do we economically support the civic information future that society needs?"
Media
The way to save news is not to create monopolistic monocultures
"Why, a funder asked me recently, do two intermediaries this funder saw as offering duplicative services both still exist? Because you—and your funder colleagues—let them, I said." But consolidation is a dangerous road.
Technology
Open source maintainers need to go in with open eyes
"To labour out of love, and to choose to share their work freely in a market society, OSS developers find themselves in a position where they are vulnerable to exploitation and harm."
AI
Claude Opus can now identify an author from their writing
"AI only needs 150 words to identify me. What does that mean for you?"
Notable links
Notable links: May 1, 2026
AI and society; and sustaining innovation has failed us.
Technology
Matt Mullenweg thinks WordPress is in decline. He may be right
When open source becomes a bureaucracy, it stops being able to innovate. For a product, that can mean death.
Technology
That terrible Signal exploit has been fixed. We have journalism to thank for it
"Apple’s fix means iPhones should no longer save copies of deleted messages from Signal or other apps, and Apple said the patch also purges already saved and related notifications."
Democracy
Sustaining innovation has failed us. It's time to think more radically
Some innovations create a new future that serves people better. Some sustain the status quo. It's time to think more radically.
AI
AI is not a magic wand and it won’t fix your problems
Without investment in people, processes, and working conditions, AI becomes merely "a technological smoke screen for deeper institutional decline."
AI
The world is not a database
One of the most important pieces of AI commentary: "software brain" is important to understand if we want to get through this era with our humanity intact.
Notable links
Notable links: April 24, 2026
Data and electronic civil rights in wartime; building safer creativity at work.