Ben Werdmuller

@ben.werd.io.ap.brid.gy

Writing at the intersection of technology, democracy, and society 🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://werd.io/, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Longform Stories

The community-first software era

Some ideas about how to encode our values into the tools we use

2d ago·13 min read·2573 words

Notable links: May 29, 2026

On sustainably building tech that serves humanity.

May 30·14 min read·2683 words

"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

May 29·2 min read·294 words

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."

May 28·2 min read·384 words

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 prot…

May 28·3 min read·521 words

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.

May 27·3 min read·537 words

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."

May 25·2 min read·328 words

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.

May 22·3 min read·512 words

Like sunrise over a sink

It appears that the winner of a short story prize was generated with AI. But how was it selected?

May 21·2 min read·265 words

Why micropayments can't save news

Why an ephemeral model can't fund relationship-based work

May 21·11 min read·2150 words

A quarter of a century of open educational technology

Every day for 25 years, Stephen Downes has written about edtech, informing an entire industry.

May 16·2 min read·323 words

Notable links: May 15, 2026

What happens after the feed? And how can publishers remain independent?

May 16·15 min read·2810 words

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.

May 14·1 min read·34 words

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.

May 13·1 min read·47 words

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.

May 11·1 min read·43 words

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."

May 11·1 min read·36 words

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?"

May 11·1 min read·47 words

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.

May 11·1 min read·35 words

Canvas is open source, but its cloud services ransomware attack really hurts

It's "the biggest student data privacy disaster in history" - even though the core platform is open source.

May 9·1 min read·30 words

Notable links: May 8, 2026

Building a civic information economy, not cultures of extraction.

May 8·1 min read·14 words

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 socie…

May 7·1 min read·38 words

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 i…

May 3·1 min read·44 words

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."

May 2·1 min read·42 words

Claude Opus can now identify an author from their writing

"AI only needs 150 words to identify me. What does that mean for you?"

May 1·1 min read·24 words

Notable links: May 1, 2026

AI and society; and sustaining innovation has failed us.

May 1·1 min read·14 words

IndieWeb Fiction Carnival: May 2026

This month's prompt is "sticks and stones will break my bones".

May 1·2 min read·260 words

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.

Apr 30·1 min read·30 words

Product-shaped or movement-shaped?

People love your work because of its impact, not how it works.

Apr 30·1 min read·15 words

Building with love, and paying for it

How do you fund work people don't want to pay for?

Apr 29·1 min read·18 words

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."

Apr 29·1 min read·43 words

All You Fascists (Bound to Lose)

A collection of Woody Guthrie covers

Apr 27·1 min read·12 words

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.

Apr 25·1 min read·32 words

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."

Apr 25·1 min read·31 words

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.

Apr 25·1 min read·33 words

Notable links: April 24, 2026

Data and electronic civil rights in wartime; building safer creativity at work.

Apr 24·1 min read·17 words

In wartime, megascale data centers may make way for distributed architectures

"To avoid collateral damage, countries consider ditching giant server hubs for smaller, distributed ones—especially now that military and civilian data live side-by-side."

Apr 24·1 min read·33 words

XOXO Explore is fitting showcase for a brilliant experiment

XOXO was completely wonderful. This site is a lovely showcase of why.

Apr 24·1 min read·21 words

The user-tailored newsroom

Newsrooms typically treat publishing as a one-size-fits-all broadcast. What if they tailored their work to a reader's needs and interests?

Apr 23·1 min read·23 words

It pays to reward curiosity more than looking smart

"Curiosity signals that ideas are welcome, not risky." Modeling it is a crucial part of leading a team.

Apr 23·1 min read·27 words

Copyright and DMCA Best Practices for Fediverse Operators

For instance and community operators, "copyright’s “statutory damages” regime allows for massive, unpredictable financial liability. That’s why it’s important to limit your risk." This guide helps you…

Apr 22·1 min read·38 words

The Technological Republic, in brief

In which a defense contractor lays its anti-democratic, pro-fascist ideology bare.

Apr 19·1 min read·16 words

Notable links: April 17, 2026

How AI is affecting thinking and distribution – and why relationships are still at the heart of great teams.

Apr 17·1 min read·24 words

Google Broke Its Promise to Me. Now ICE Has My Data.

"Google had already disclosed my data without telling me. There was no opportunity to contest it."

Apr 16·1 min read·27 words

You Own Your Role, We Own The Outcome

"A mantra to clarify ownership while reinforcing shared responsibility." I agree with every word.

Apr 16·1 min read·22 words

FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database

An innocuous iPhone notifications setting could put your Signal contacts at risk.

Apr 15·1 min read·23 words

Stop Flock

Flock is building a national surveillance network. A protest movement is forming to tear it down.

Apr 15·1 min read·18 words

One size fits none: let communities build for themselves

How open protocols and agentic development could lead to a whole new generation of social applications.

Apr 15·1 min read·25 words

The bottleneck shifts to distribution

"There is a fixed amount of scarce attention to go around, and too many people want it. The metagame becomes: secure attention by any means necessary."

Apr 8·1 min read·31 words

When the President threatens to commit a genocide

This cannot continue.

Apr 7·1 min read·11 words

"Cognitive surrender" leads AI users to abandon logical thinking, research finds

"Experiments show large majorities uncritically accepting “faulty” AI answers." Increasingly, incentive structures are asking them to.

Apr 5·1 min read·27 words

Notable links: April 3, 2026

A dystopian week, with a glimmer of hope: alternatives are available.

Apr 3·1 min read·16 words

The open web isn't dying. We're killing it

Julien Genestoux thinks the open web needs netizens. I agree – and in 2026, that's indistinguishable from citizenry.

Apr 3·1 min read·26 words

An AI company set out to fix news deserts. Instead, it copied local journalists’ work

"Nota shut down its news sites after Axios and Poynter found dozens of plagiarized quotes, phrases and photos."

Apr 3·1 min read·33 words

LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer

LinkedIn is using invasive techniques to fingerprint your browser. Together with its understanding of your identity and professional history, it has the ingredients for an incredibly detailed profile.

Apr 3·1 min read·34 words

Surf demonstrates the power of the open social web

Flipboard's browser for the open social web is out for web users today.

Apr 2·1 min read·22 words

What Digital Isolation and Censorship Evasion Look Like In Wartime Iran

"Four weeks into the war, Iran is plummeting toward total digital isolation with its internet blocked and communications heavily restricted and monitored." And it's part of a bigger trend.

Apr 1·1 min read·40 words

The Right Is Using AI Content Scanners to Try to Supercharge Book Banning

"Groups that challenge books have begun using Gemini, ChatGPT, xAI, and other AI tools to try to get books banned." The point is to create a chilling effect.

Apr 1·1 min read·41 words

Building trust in the open at ONA 2026

A new white paper about building open communities for news.

Mar 30·1 min read·18 words

Bluesky leans into AI with Attie, an app for building custom feeds

Bluesky's new service isn't about AI; it's about accessibility.

Mar 30·1 min read·21 words

The DOJ thinks news is contraband

By treating source materials as contraband, the DOJ is putting both journalism and democracy at risk.

Mar 28·1 min read·22 words

The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it

Want to report your friends and neighbors for extrajudicial kidnapping? The new White House app wants you to get in touch.

Mar 28·1 min read·39 words

Notable links: March 27, 2026

Progress on the open social web; not so much in the world.

Mar 27·1 min read·17 words

Why Knight Foundation Invested in Bluesky

Newsrooms have been slow to care about the open social web - but one of their most important support organizations is paying attention.

Mar 27·1 min read·29 words

Make Space for Every Voice

"If you want stronger decisions, make space for every voice." This is a simple technique to do this in your meetings that really works.

Mar 26·1 min read·29 words

Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

The implications of this case could include the effective end of Section 230 protections – and a new wave of attacks on places where people learn, share, and connect online.

Mar 26·1 min read·41 words

I built a CLI for Ghost

John O'Nolan built a CLI for his own product - and found himself using it in an entirely new way. The underlying trend here is really exciting.

Mar 23·1 min read·33 words

Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high

"Our home planet is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies." How we react matt…

Mar 23·1 min read·43 words

Histomat of F/OSS: We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them

"The materialist response isn't to reject the new technology. It's to evolve our licenses to encompass it."

Mar 22·1 min read·27 words

Ageless Linux

"Software for humans of indeterminate age. We don't know how old you are. We don't want to know. We are legally required to ask. We won't." Open source activism at its finest.

Mar 22·1 min read·34 words

AI is changing the style and substance of human writing, study finds

"Teams from Google and leading universities found that large-language models change the voice, tone and intended meaning of human authors."

Mar 21·1 min read·32 words

Democratic Backsliding Reaches Western Democracies, with U.S. Decline “Unprecedented”

"Democratic backsliding is now happening in well-established democracies. Democracy in the USA is deteriorating at unprecedented speed, and media and journalists are increasingly targeted across the w…

Mar 21·1 min read·36 words

Notable links: March 20, 2026

Agentic engineering and burnout.

Mar 20·1 min read·9 words

Four things about Yahoo News that may surprise you

It's one of the most popular news sites in the country, and it's wildly profitable. It might be the right time for Yahoo to bounce back.

Mar 18·1 min read·35 words

The Last Quiet Thing

"That guilt was manufactured. It was placed inside you by an industry that profits from your participation and a wellness culture that profits from your shame."

Mar 18·1 min read·30 words

Agentic Engineering Patterns

Simon Willison is building a great, ongoing, work-in-progress guide for understanding agentic engineering.

Mar 16·1 min read·16 words

Businesses rush to rehire staff after regretted AI-driven cuts

"Two in three employers that reduced headcount because of artificial intelligence are already rehiring laid off staff, as most express regret over how they handled the AI-led retrenchments."

Mar 15·1 min read·37 words

FCC Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over Iran War Coverage

Critics say Brendan Carr is positioning himself as a national censor. His threats to broadcasters covering Iran fit the bill.

Mar 15·1 min read·31 words

Trump is using immigration policy to suppress speech, lawsuit claims

Researchers who study online safety are being censored and denied entry to the United States. It's having an unconstitutional chilling effect on independent research and advocacy that a lawsuit aims t…

Mar 14·1 min read·42 words

When Using AI Leads to “Brain Fry”

AI use can lead to burnout - but how you use it really matters.

Mar 14·1 min read·21 words

BuzzFeed Nearing Bankruptcy After Disastrous Turn Toward AI

Buzzfeed pivoted to AI - and now finds itself circling the drain.

Mar 14·1 min read·20 words

Notable links: March 13, 2026

Bluesky's new CEO, Proton Mail de-anonymization, and promoting safety at work.

Mar 13·1 min read·16 words

Coming Off the Bench for Bluesky

Bluesky must succeed. It just might.

Mar 13·1 min read·12 words

Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress

A WordPress instance that's entirely hosted in your browser opens up interesting possibilities for self-hosted personal apps.

Mar 12·1 min read·22 words

Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

Employees who are impressed with corporate jargon are less good at their jobs. News at 11.

Mar 6·1 min read·27 words

Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester

"A court record reviewed by 404 Media shows privacy-focused email provider Proton Mail handed over payment data related to a Stop Cop City email account to the Swiss government, which handed it to the…

Mar 5·1 min read·45 words

BBC says ‘irreversible’ trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul

The BBC is dying. It needs to be preserved - but doing so will require a radical reinvention.

Mar 5·1 min read·30 words

The Safety Levers

"A framework to move your subculture from the Anxiety Zone to the Learning Zone" - and provide a way for everyone on your team to contribute and experiment safely.

Mar 5·1 min read·32 words

Can we build the dog?

What resource-constrained teams need to ask before writing a line of code

Mar 3·1 min read·17 words

Good vibes, bad vendors

AI coding works now. Here's how to think about it.

Feb 25·1 min read·14 words

Notable links: February 20, 2026

Why aren't newsrooms sharing and innovating? And more.

Feb 20·1 min read·13 words

Stop calling optimization "innovation."

"The problem is, if you’re optimizing a product that fundamentally isn’t working for how people get news in 2026, all you’re really doing is riding that buggy off of a cliff with style."

Feb 19·1 min read·37 words

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm

"Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes." This study shows that some do - to significant effect.

Feb 18·1 min read·26 words

In Graphic Detail: Subscriptions are rising at big news publishers – even as traffic shrinks

In a world where traffic is decreasing, publishers are moving more heavily into subscriptions - with very good results.

Feb 18·1 min read·34 words

An increasingly dangerous world

My underlying model for everything that's happening

Feb 17·1 min read·11 words

Building trust in the open

How Protocols for Publishers points to the future of journalism – and the web

Feb 17·1 min read·19 words

Growing the open social web

A position statement for FediForum's unworkshop

Feb 16·1 min read·11 words

Palantir vs. the "Republik": US analytics firm takes magazine to court

Switzerland rejected Palantir on security grounds after independent journalism shed light on fundamental issues. Now the company is suing to tell its side of the story.

Feb 15·1 min read·37 words

Most Americans don’t pay for news and don’t think they need to

Only 8% of respondents believe individual Americans have a responsibility to pay for news. "I don't think that information should be a privilege," one respondent said.

Feb 11·1 min read·38 words

Everyone is stealing TV

"Fed up with increasing subscription prices, viewers embrace rogue streaming boxes." The question is: what's on them?

Feb 11·1 min read·21 words

A note about personal security

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 b…

Feb 11·1 min read·96 words