Ben Werdmuller
Notable links: May 15, 2026
52 actionable posts about building a culture of innovation
AI may be the new gatekeepers, but human connection is more needed than ever
Bridging feels seamless. Behind the scenes, it's a technical marvel
To maintain their independence, publishers are fleeing Substack
Asking platforms to do better won't work. We need to force their hands
WordPress powers 47% of the web. Now it's more social, too
Canvas is open source, but its cloud services ransomware attack really hurts
Notable links: May 8, 2026
Plugging the gaps won't save news. It's time to redesign
The way to save news is not to create monopolistic monocultures
Open source maintainers need to go in with open eyes
Claude Opus can now identify an author from their writing
Notable links: May 1, 2026
IndieWeb Fiction Carnival: May 2026
Matt Mullenweg thinks WordPress is in decline. He may be right
Product-shaped or movement-shaped?
Building with love, and paying for it
That terrible Signal exploit has been fixed. We have journalism to thank for it
All You Fascists (Bound to Lose)
Sustaining innovation has failed us. It's time to think more radically
AI is not a magic wand and it wont fix your problems
The world is not a database
Notable links: April 24, 2026
In wartime, megascale data centers may make way for distributed architectures
XOXO Explore is fitting showcase for a brilliant experiment
The user-tailored newsroom
It pays to reward curiosity more than looking smart
Copyright and DMCA Best Practices for Fediverse Operators
The Technological Republic, in brief
Notable links: April 17, 2026
Google Broke Its Promise to Me. Now ICE Has My Data.
You Own Your Role, We Own The Outcome
FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database
Stop Flock
One size fits none: let communities build for themselves
The bottleneck shifts to distribution
When the President threatens to commit a genocide
"Cognitive surrender" leads AI users to abandon logical thinking, research finds
Notable links: April 3, 2026
The open web isn't dying. We're killing it
An AI company set out to fix news deserts. Instead, it copied local journalists’ work
LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer
Surf demonstrates the power of the open social web
What Digital Isolation and Censorship Evasion Look Like In Wartime Iran
The Right Is Using AI Content Scanners to Try to Supercharge Book Banning
An alternate history of social media
Building trust in the open at ONA 2026
Bluesky leans into AI with Attie, an app for building custom feeds
The DOJ thinks news is contraband
The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it
Notable links: March 27, 2026
Why Knight Foundation Invested in Bluesky
Make Space for Every Voice
Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
I built a CLI for Ghost
Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high
Histomat of F/OSS: We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them
Ageless Linux
AI is changing the style and substance of human writing, study finds
Democratic Backsliding Reaches Western Democracies, with U.S. Decline “Unprecedented”
Notable links: March 20, 2026
Four things about Yahoo News that may surprise you
The Last Quiet Thing
Agentic Engineering Patterns
Businesses rush to rehire staff after regretted AI-driven cuts
FCC Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over Iran War Coverage
Trump is using immigration policy to suppress speech, lawsuit claims
When Using AI Leads to “Brain Fry”
BuzzFeed Nearing Bankruptcy After Disastrous Turn Toward AI
Notable links: March 13, 2026
Coming Off the Bench for Bluesky
Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress
Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs
Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester
BBC says ‘irreversible’ trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul
The Safety Levers
Can we build the dog?
Good vibes, bad vendors
Notable links: February 20, 2026
Stop calling optimization "innovation."
The political effects of X’s feed algorithm
In Graphic Detail: Subscriptions are rising at big news publishers – even as traffic shrinks
An increasingly dangerous world
Building trust in the open
Growing the open social web
Palantir vs. the "Republik": US analytics firm takes magazine to court
Most Americans don’t pay for news and don’t think they need to
Everyone is stealing TV
A note about personal security
Journalism lost its culture of sharing
Hiring in an era of fake candidates, real scams and AI slop
Notable links: Jan 24, 2026
On ICE, Verification, and Presence As Harm
The Five Levels: from Spicy Autocomplete to the Software Factory
The Forwardable Email
Funding Open Source for Digital Sovereignty
Who owns your data?
Remembering Beyond Vietnam on MLK Day
Notable links: January 16, 2026
Remarks on the Federal Government’s Ongoing Presence in Minnesota
The Curiosity Tour
‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid
The Zurich protocol
Bari Weiss Is The Symptom
How to know if that job will crush your soul
47 lessons
How I hire engineers
Notable links: January 2, 2026
What is Instagram’s Adam Mosseri really saying in his year-end memo?
2025: The year in LLMs
The next big thing in 2026 will be...
Watching Bari Weiss Murder Investigative Journalism at CBS
A 2026 checklist
2025: a personal year in review
Friday links: December 26, 2025
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
2025 in review: an interesting year
Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud
The Knight Foundation scrubs DEI section from its 'About' page
Lies we tell ourselves
Friday links: December 19, 2025
The Go/No Go Date
Nieman Lab's Predictions for Journalism 2026
Is the article dead?
Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks
T.S.A. Is Providing Air Passenger Data to Immigration Agents for Deportation Effort
Friday links: December 12, 2025
Trump Signs Executive Order To Combat State AI Regulation
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
US plans to start checking all tourists' social media
10 Years of Let's Encrypt Certificates
The world needs social sovereignty
Why RSS matters
The Web Runs On Tolerance
Friday links: December 5, 2025
Trump administration orders enhanced vetting for applicants of H-1B visa
You can't legislate serendipity
Where Do the Children Play?
Introducing Roundabout
What Happens After the Hype? Lessons from Mobile Internet’s Long Road to Success
Knowing when to leave
imperfect notes & my second subconscious
"Disagree and Let’s See"
The Optical Illusion of Prosperity
The EFF we need now
Of the web
The State of the Open Social Web
Open Source Power
Honor The Maker's Schedule
Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine's video archive
I Want You to Understand Chicago
Time to start de-Appling
This Physicist Says We Don’t Take COVID Seriously Enough
How can I be most useful to you?
There's no such thing as neutral technology
Trump Administration's Arrival on Bluesky Highlights Growing Pains for Open Networks
This Is How Much Anthropic and Cursor Spend On Amazon Web Services
Russell Vought: The Shadow President
Europe Can’t Defend Democracy on US Servers
What Made Blogging Different?
Why the open social web matters now
Build what makes you special. Buy the rest.
What AI means for the business of: journalism
Telomeres, my son, and me
Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated'
Don’t dwell on “democracy,” and other new findings about how to market local news
The One-on-One Gift Exchange
Your private data isn't as private as you think
Building distributed media for a democratic breakdown
What I learned in the first five years of Platformer
How aesthetics destroyed privacy and polarized us
Using technology skills for positive change
WordPress for newsrooms
Implementing an unlimited PTO policy
Can newsrooms become social platforms?
GregoryAI aims to improve the lives of researchers and patients alike
Bluesky now platform of choice for science community
More UK news publishers are adopting 'consent or pay' advertising model