Ben Werdmuller

Some distributed social nerds centralizing for #npasummit (that's @ben & me)

NYT Headline: White House Changes Course and Will Demolish Entire Burrito

NYT Headline: White House Changes Course and Will Demolish Entire Democracy

NYT Headline: White House Changes Course and Will Demolish Entire Crunchwrap Supreme

It's terrible, of course, but strikes me as quite a good meme format.

"It’s no accident that US political operatives have been singling out Bluesky as a target for political control and retribution for months." But the result puts protocol developers and the users of their networks in opposition. #Technology […]

Digital Sovereignty Index Discover the Digital Sovereignty Index (DSI): a global snapshot of visible, self-hosted infrastructure. Is your country digitally autonomous.

I think this is cool: an index of countries based on how much self-sovereign, self-hosted digital technology they use. Are they in control of their own cloud services, or is their tech outsourced? https://dsi.nextcloud.com/

Optimism I can get behind:

We can build this!
We can create the best project ever!
We can get to where we need to go!
We will overcome!

Optimism I can't:

Authoritarianism will work out!
It won't be as bad as we think!
People are just paranoid!

ICE is detaining pregnant immigrants, against federal policy. "But the number is impossible to measure since Congress let lapse a requirement that ICE report how many pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants are in custody." https://19thnews.org/2025/10/ice-detaining-pregnant-nursing-immigrants/

This Is How Much Anthropic and Cursor Spend On Amazon Web Services AI at scale isn't scaling.

AI at scale isn't scaling. #AI https://werd.io/this-is-how-much-anthropic-and-cursor-spend-on-amazon-web-services/

Hear me out, but maybe it's not superb that most of the internet is hosted on three very large providers?

This is very good. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2025/10/the-pivot-1.html

If ever there was an obvious indication of a company's values, it's OpenAI only halting offensive MLK deepfakes because his estate told them to.

New @ProPublica video: Russell Vought is piloting everything from Trump's layoffs and agency closings to his shutdown strategy. Who is he and where did he come from? https://www.propublica.org/article/video-who-is-russell-vought-trump-omb-shutdown

Europe Can’t Defend Democracy on US Servers MEP Alexandra Geese argues that Europe needs its own infrastructure, social networks, and software. Rising US authoritarianism means the clock is ticking.

MEP Alexandra Geese argues that Europe needs its own infrastructure, social networks, and software. Rising US authoritarianism means the clock is ticking. #Technology https://werd.io/europe-cant-defend-democracy-on-us-servers/

"The government doesn’t track how many citizens are held by immigration agents. We found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests." https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will

What Made Blogging Different? Blogging was a different medium - and there's still a need for it more than ever.

Blogging was a different medium - and there's still a need for it more than ever. #Technology https://werd.io/what-made-blogging-different/

We have never in human history had access to a shared reality. Ask Galileo. Or anyone from a marginalized group. It's like nostalgia for white picket fence Americana: it hides a lot of harm. What we should fear isn't disagreement, but regression and subjugation.

The internet in its growth phase was breathless, with everyone clamoring to try new things. Now, at the top of the growth s-curve, everyone's getting smarter and more nuanced about implications, ethics, and pro-social tools vs growth at all costs.

We're speedrunning this for AI.

"Now, we don't want to make a new genre. We know we don't have the clout to romantasy the app store, nor do we want it. But we're (as far as we know) the only people building these apps for news publishers. We can't have a genre that belongs to us." […]

Last week I was delighted to give a keynote talk to open #FediForum, the conference about building the open social web. It's about the real threats we're facing, why open alternatives matter so much right now - and the questions we can ask ourselves to make our work really matter […]

@vees I have! It’s very cool stuff.

This is not a solicitation, but if someone had $2-5M to put into an organization to create and support open newsroom tools, there is an awful lot of good that could be done.

The Bird and Baby and Greens are two of my favorite spaces in my hometown, and I’m annoyed that Larry Ellison owns them now. But I have to say that the renovation itself doesn’t sound horrible. I just wish someone nicer held the keys. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8ex0j4y5jzo

I thought this was brilliant: a great introduction to the problems of The Free Press (and what the CBS acquisition represents), and John Oliver as energized as he's ever been. https://youtu.be/gieTx_P6INQ?si=_mqJ31487lcuaE6w

A fun game to play is "guess which prominent members of the journalism industry are secretly working for the security services of at least one nation".

I don't know what happens next, but on the face of it, the ceasefire and the return of captives from both sides feels really good. May there be peace, may the rebuilding be equitable, and may everyone get to live and co-exist in dignity and prosperity.

By the way, this post is probably useful for people who run open source projects and want to get more adoption from newsrooms, non-profits, and other mission-driven organizations. https://werd.io/build-what-makes-you-special-buy-the-rest/

Every newsroom depends on software, but that doesn’t mean it should build it.

Here’s a framework for deciding what to build, what to buy, and why technology should be a strategic partner, not a helpdesk.

https://werd.io/build-what-makes-you-special-buy-the-rest/

Introducing ActivityPat:

ActivityPub for message passing +
ATproto for storing metadata in a canonical identity layer

I will be taking no questions at this time

Pope Leo’s secret letter to U.S. bishops just leaked. TrumpWorld is not going to like what it says.

This week in Rome, Pope Leo XIV quietly handed a letter to a group of visiting U.S. bishops.

Inside were messages from migrants families separated by deportations, children afraid to sleep and […]

Today I learned that an interview with my great uncle is in the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

"Reinald Leidelmeyer describes his experience as a member of the Dutch Resistance in the Hague; details of his arrest; his time in a slave labor camp; and actions that led […]

I'm always impressed by the finesse with which dropshippers make Instagram ads for the most insane SkyMall Sharper Image level crap. I was just presented with a sophisticated George Clooney level reel for an ice cube maker that makes your ice look like a d20. Just perfect for your old fashioneds.