Ben Werdmuller

I lead technology at ProPublica and write speculative fiction. This is a personal account. 

Every day, I write about tech, democracy, and society at https://werd.io. 

More about me: https://werd.io/about/ 

Tags: #indieweb #opensource #journalism #writing #fiction #blogs #blogging #startups #openweb #web #fediverse #socialweb #ethics #product #writingcommunity #philadelphia #sanfrancisco

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Profile Code

nprofile1qqsznn3veam729k5320ms8smlw0yxrsq5jtqla36aerwlzmwwc0ecvspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qz9thwden5te0wfjkccte9ehx7um5wghxuet5972d39

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

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relay.mostr.pub

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Last Notes

2026-05-28 20:01:45 CEST

"The story of one couple’s long battle with their health insurer — and the little-known tool buried deep in their insurance coverage booklet that helped them finally win." This should not be a thing, but I'm glad my colleagues at @nprofile…wmhr were able to tell this story. https://www.propublica.org/podcast/health-insurance-industry-secret-external-review

2026-04-03 03:11:12 CEST

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. #Technology https://werd.io/linkedin-is-illegally-searching-your-computer/

2026-04-02 21:33:54 CEST

I'm very excited about the launch of @nprofile…05gk on the web: it demonstrates the open social web's true power. https://werd.io/surf-demonstrates-the-power-of-the-open-social-web/

2026-03-30 19:14:06 CEST

Surf is SO COOL. Go check it out.
#nevent1q…kuew

2026-03-24 14:21:30 CET

What ICE is doing in US airports today, it will be doing at US polling places in November. These photos aren’t funny or incongruous; they should be giving us nightmares. This has to end now.

2026-03-20 21:23:47 CET

This was the feature I needed to make the switch. Looking forward to trying it!
#nevent1q…ugvj

2026-03-05 15:23:19 CET

The BBC is dying. It needs to be preserved - but doing so will require a radical reinvention. #Media https://werd.io/bbc-says-irreversible-trends-mean-it-will-not-survive-without-major-overhaul/

2026-03-04 01:53:01 CET

If you’re a small, resource-strapped team, for example in a newsroom, how can you figure out what software is feasible for you to build and maintain? I wrote a guide. https://werd.io/can-we-build-the-dog/

2026-02-27 05:58:48 CET

News and culture is very rapidly being dominated by administration-aligned companies. It's actually astonishing how fast this has happened. And it's not stopping.
Today will be a significant detail in the many, many textbooks that will be written about the era I fear we're still at the start of.

2026-02-26 22:25:54 CET

Feeling a bit discouraged and self-critical this evening. What's something that's made you feel happy and confident lately?

2026-02-21 17:48:59 CET

If you're a daily coffee drinker at home, what are your go-to everyday beans? Not the fancy stuff you treat yourself to sometimes, but the stuff you always make sure you have in the house.

2026-02-21 16:35:24 CET

It’s all well and good to be worried about centralized social media when it’s owned by fascists and there are troops on the streets and peaceful protesters are being kidnapped and killed and we’re about to strike Iran, but next time, can we listen to the people sounding the alarm a little earlier?

2026-02-21 04:09:31 CET

The detail here about archive dot is and its other domains altering webpages because of a grudge is worth knowing. Not to mention running a DDoS attack, obviously. Yikes. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/

2026-02-09 19:26:19 CET

"Hundreds of children are currently being held with their parents at an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas. In letters and drawings, eight kids convey the pain of feeling trapped with no end in sight." https://www.propublica.org/article/ice-dilley-children-letters

2026-02-07 18:07:15 CET

This isn’t new news as such, but people keep being surprised by it, so it’s worth repeating. Substack hosts, profits from, and promotes explicitly Nazi content, and if you are adding value to that network, you are helping them to do so. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-substack-makes-money-from-hosting-nazi-newsletters

2026-01-26 14:53:57 CET

There's a common thread disparaging people who might move away in this moment. All I'll say is that many of the wave of immigrants who came to the US 80+ years ago are also people who moved away in a moment that's looking more and more similar. People get to do what's right for them to keep their children safe.

2026-01-22 15:32:14 CET

"A small stuffed turtle, a water bottle, and a blanket fill 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos’ cubby. A gray winter hat hangs from his hook. A worksheet to help him trace the letter W waits for him at his desk." https://sahanjournal.com/education/ice-minnesota-columbia-heights-students-detained/

2026-01-21 18:00:35 CET

"Open Source alone won't deliver digital sovereignty. Europe must fix procurement and fund those who actually build it." #Technology https://werd.io/funding-open-source-for-digital-sovereignty/

2026-01-15 15:52:22 CET

"Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground." #Democracy https://werd.io/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-find-neighborhoods-to-raid/

2026-01-15 00:06:59 CET

I published this fictional scenario planning piece about mitigating a hypothetical newsroom raid yesterday. It feels a lot more relevant today. https://werd.io/the-zurich-protocol/

2026-01-12 03:27:27 CET

Astonishing documentary movie about what power is capable of and what journalism can do to liberate. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes; free to stream on Netflix. More than worth your time. Please watch. https://www.netflix.com/title/82145211

2026-01-07 20:55:52 CET

https://propublica.org/tips

2026-01-03 05:21:06 CET

POSSE is on the front page of Hacker News right now, which I think is kind of delightful. Lots of people discovering the more human, independent approach that the #indieweb advocates.

2025-11-07 22:08:26 CET

It's still so weird to me that the idea of universal healthcare is so political here. It's a given in so many other places, and I miss it. And people don't realize how good it is for innovation. You can take so many more risks when your health and well-being aren't tied to a salaried employer.

2025-11-07 21:00:30 CET

I came back to this talk today - and I've got to admit, I think it's a banger. Lots to say about how mission-driven technology can be successful. https://werd.io/why-the-open-social-web-matters-now/

2025-10-13 18:23:28 CEST

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.

2025-10-10 16:18:12 CEST

I'm skeptical of using AI for alt text generation. The tech is not bad at all about describing what's in a picture, but I'm unconvinced that it can tell you what's *important* in a picture. Maybe if you fed in the context around it? But also, a human can write an alt text sentence in a minute or two, so is it really worth it?

2025-10-07 15:23:26 CEST

"The majority of those killed by Israel’s offensive in the strip have been civilians, and the overall total now exceeds 67,000. Entire families have been wiped out in a single airstrike. Sometimes, only a single individual, frequently a child, is left alive." It must end. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/oct/07/the-ruin-of-gaza-how-israel-two-year-assault-has-devastated-the-territory

2025-10-04 16:23:54 CEST

Microblogging is terrible. It's all context collapse and unbridled id: notifications as conversation. We need more long-form, considered discussion. The internet needs more nuance and structured thought.

2025-10-03 14:19:01 CEST

It turns out that "we're protecting democracy and our industry is dying, please pay us money" is not a great sales pitch. #Media https://werd.io/dont-dwell-on-democracy-and-other-new-findings-about-how-to-market-local-news/

2025-10-02 15:07:21 CEST

This is fun. By these measures, the country I've lived in with the most freedom is the Netherlands; the country I've lived in with the least is the United States. What about you? https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores

2025-10-01 21:25:22 CEST

This is a really important piece of the ActivityPub development puzzle. Great to see! https://asml.cyber.harvard.edu/2025/10/01/introducing-the-asml-activitypub-fuzzer-improving-testing-in-the-fediverse/

2025-10-01 16:02:31 CEST

Think your data is safe because it's stored privately or because you're in the EU? Think again.
I wrote a guide to how subpoenas, the third-party doctrine, data brokers, and the CLOUD Act let government and private parties access your information without your knowledge.
https://werd.io/your-private-data-isnt-as-private-as-you-think/

2025-10-01 01:20:57 CEST

I think AP does something important that I think ATproto is missing. It’s not a race or a competition; there’s a lot of room for both to co-exist. But I’m going to try and lay out a use case particularly suited for AP in my FediForum talk next week.

2025-09-30 23:47:19 CEST

I'm seeing more and more platform-level activity over on ATproto: Slices is a Heroku-style platform for building apps, for example, and I'm seeing more and more cogs being developed.
Where are the ActivityPub equivalents? I'd still love to see an AP API platform. Am I going to have to build it?

2025-09-10 16:18:32 CEST

In a world that faces unprecedented challenges, from a resurgence in global fascism to the fast-developing storm of the climate crisis, we need more technologists to focus on doing good work.
Here's how to take the leap.
https://werd.io/using-technology-skills-for-positive-change/

2025-09-08 19:45:17 CEST

The investigative newsroom I work for, @nprofile…j3rp, is raising money right now. We report on abuses of power in the public interest - stories like corruption on the Supreme Court or the police response to the Uvalde school shooting. It was the first outlet to win a Pulitzer for web-first journalism. And if you donate through this link, you'll let our team know that the fediverse is an audience to pay attention to. https://give.propublica.org/give/346528/#!/donation/checkout?c_src=ben_mstdn #journalism #fediverse

2025-09-08 16:12:26 CEST

Let's all just be kind to each other and build collaboratively rather than competitively.

2025-09-07 17:51:54 CEST

The world is splitting into nationalist / fascist movements and more progressive / humanist movements.
It's weird to see tech do the same thing. Look at any job board and you can see the fascist-aligned startups and the progressive ones.
The funding, unfortunately, is disproportionately choosing the nationalist path.

2025-09-07 15:13:07 CEST

I was asked what I think about newsrooms that use WordPress. My answer is that it’s often a good choice - but you should evaluate Ghost, too, and understand that WordPress is actually lots of different things. https://werd.io/wordpress-for-newsrooms/

2025-09-03 03:50:23 CEST

Today my best buddy turned 3. We went to the zoo, he saw snakes and goats and fed a giraffe, we had his favorite tacos for dinner and a birthday cake, and he received many lovely gifts. And at the end of the day he just wanted to fall asleep in my arms. Could not have been more perfect.

2025-09-01 19:44:33 CEST

“The world's biggest academic association of genocide scholars has passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday.” To say so is not to justify the Oct 7 attacks. But genocide is never justifiable.
To those who wonder why Americans are concerned about this war over others: it’s because we’re deeply involved. Our money is paying for this. It’s a part of US foreign policy.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-is-committing-genocide-gaza-scholars-association-says-2025-09-01/

2025-08-26 03:11:03 CEST

I have nothing nice to say about the SEPTA cuts here in Pennsylvania. Working public transit is a core part of building prosperity. It should run so often that you don’t care about the timetable; you just know it’ll come. It shouldn’t need to be profitable: the benefits are systemic.
What’s happening now is that it’s impossible to rely on it at all. It almost might as well not exist; buses come so infrequently that they’re often overloaded and have to miss stops. That’s next to useless.

2025-08-25 20:49:49 CEST

This is a great dive into why Blacksky is so cool; a major step up for the Bluesky / ATproto ecosystem and for the open social web as a whole. https://newpublic.substack.com/p/how-blacksky-grew-to-millions-of

2025-08-25 15:23:37 CEST

"Sixteen of the 50 biggest news websites in the UK are now using a “consent or pay” model to allow users to pay to reject personalised advertising or even avoid ads altogether." It should be illegal. #Media https://werd.io/more-uk-news-publishers-are-adopting-consent-or-pay-advertising-model/

2025-08-24 18:42:41 CEST

"Focus on flows and relationships, not products or services." An argument for systems thinking instead of design thinking or breakthrough innovation. #Business https://werd.io/why-you-need-systems-thinking-now/

2025-08-24 17:12:35 CEST

The most effective thing might be if *every* service, website, forum, blog, etc blocked Mississippi.

2025-08-24 17:05:11 CEST

This is why software freedom matters. https://natematias.com/portfolio/2025-08-22-unchaining-from-broken-software-tethers/

2025-08-24 17:01:14 CEST

Social problems cannot usually be fixed with technical solutions.

2025-08-24 16:59:26 CEST

- reply

@nprofile…hyrk I think, based on initiatives we’ve already seen, that this is a faulty assumption. It would be a blank check to kill net neutrality for good.
I agree that the current landscape is nuts. I don’t think there’s a technical solution, though. I guess a service could operate in a place beyond jurisdictional treaties with the US and EU, but would users trust it? Those places aren’t necessarily known to be freedom-preserving.

2025-08-24 16:26:31 CEST

- reply

@nprofile…hyrk That would necessitate the ISPs filtering everyone’s internet though?

2025-08-24 15:52:46 CEST

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but decentralization doesn’t prevent you from having to adhere to laws and regulations.

2025-08-23 20:56:24 CEST

"Obviously, any campaign that used only that AI-generated data would miss the mark — instead of looking at the views of real respondents, it would be looking at a funhouse mirror reflection of a demographic cooked up by a language model with no access to actual data." #AI https://werd.io/political-pollsters-are-trying-to-save-money-by-polling-ai-instead-of-real-people-and-its-going-about-as-well-as-youd-expect/

2025-08-23 01:49:09 CEST

https://cdn.masto.host/werdsocial/media_attachments/files/115/075/091/300/786/610/original/91af3dfc36dd2764.jpeg

2025-08-21 03:56:29 CEST

I still get notifications that the paper I co-wrote about building social community platforms - 22 years ago - is being read. Blows my mind that people might be thinking, “wait, people could learn from each other using feeds of content …”
Also, I am as old as dust.

2025-08-21 01:24:03 CEST

In a world where many publishers are still learning to listen using protocols that were established decades ago, I wonder if, in addition to new protocols that disintermediate publishers and their audiences, we need to build new publishers who will take advantage of them. #protocolsforpublishers

2025-08-20 14:59:23 CEST

I'm not much of a notetaker. I don't keep a personal data garden. I don't save many personal bookmarks. I clear out my tabs at the end of every day. And I've had trouble finding a todo list app that's really stuck for me.
But I might try using Obsidian again after this release, which seems really handy. https://help.obsidian.md/bases

2025-08-20 14:53:47 CEST

I think this is super-interesting. Future developments, including using the web payments API, feel promising - a way of funding the #Fediverse. https://wedistribute.org/2025/08/introducing-crowdbucks/

2025-08-20 14:43:55 CEST

Breakfast menu lists “a classic hand-folded omelet”. Seems unsanitary

2025-08-20 13:28:44 CEST

Protect them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/trans-people-us-data

2025-08-19 16:08:00 CEST

Arc Browser was perfect until The Browser Company pivoted to AI and abandoned power users. After months of searching, I finally found what I was looking for in Zen Browser. Here's why I'm all-in: https://werd.io/why-im-all-in-on-zen-browser/

2025-08-18 18:42:12 CEST

I moved back to Firefox as my default browser. I loved Arc but it's dead-ended, and Dia is not for me. The improved Profile picker really helps, but I wish it wasn't buried behind a secondary menu. I've got sidebar tabs set up but I wish the sidebar would just appear on hover. Minor things.

2025-08-18 17:56:20 CEST

Not ONE of these people are called Hugo. https://transfer-orbit.ghost.io/here-ar/

2025-08-18 17:49:46 CEST

Mail-in voters are more likely to be educated professionals, a demographic that skews Demographic. Americans who live abroad and register to vote are also significantly more likely to vote Democratic.
So of course that guy wants to remove mail-in voting.

2025-08-18 16:10:23 CEST

"The 19th developed seven key initiatives to guide our priorities for the next three years." Doing this work in public is such a smart move. #Media https://werd.io/the-19ths-strategic-plan/

2025-08-18 13:44:51 CEST

One unintended consequence of moving to all-electric gardening equipment is that I’m fully locked into an ecosystem because the batteries aren’t standard. I’m not going to buy another brand and have to juggle different batteries. Kind of feels like it should be regulated tbh.

2025-08-16 18:04:25 CEST

Do you wonder what the future of newsroom technology looks like? Or how technology is used behind the scenes? I've spent 15+ years inside media startups and major newsrooms. Ask me anything. https://werd.io/ask-a-newsroom-technology-leader/

2025-08-16 01:50:40 CEST

🙃 https://simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/15/the-summer-of-johann/

2025-08-15 15:43:16 CEST

"Now, nearly two years and more than 250 assassinations later, I can count the names of the living journalists in Gaza I follow on one hand." #Democracy https://werd.io/how-do-we-tell-the-story-of-gazas-murdered-journalists/

2025-08-15 05:58:37 CEST

Shout out to everyone else who deals with anxiety and self-doubt. It's hard to navigate life at the best of times. This is a particularly hard year to do it in. And if we're all being honest, it's been really hard for at least five.

2025-08-14 23:33:50 CEST

"Open Source runs much of the world's critical infrastructure. It powers government services, supports national security, and enables everything from public health systems to elections. This means governments must help fund Open Source." #Technology https://werd.io/funding-open-source-like-public-infrastructure/

2025-08-14 20:49:57 CEST

I'm a huge fan of @nprofile…eznj. The work she does is inspiring - and this is a great interview. https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/independent-journalist-molly-white-knows-how-to-follow-the-memecoin/

2025-08-14 17:34:37 CEST

General poll: if you need to keep your sensitive conversations secure, what platforms are you using beyond Signal?

2025-08-14 15:26:16 CEST

Revisiting this piece about how to build a strong newsroom technology culture.
"I like to say that journalism treats technology as something that happens to it — like an asteroid. But technology is too important to the future of news for it to be treated passively. [...] If you want to spread a technology competence throughout your organization, it all starts with finding a leader you can trust."
https://werd.io/building-a-newsroom-technology-culture/

2025-08-14 15:11:07 CEST

This is a clear, simple way to tell the story of your venture, your organization, or your product team so it lands well. It works. And there's a simple workbook to take you through it. https://pointc.co/who-we-are/

2025-08-14 00:57:27 CEST

"Artificial-intelligence startup Perplexity offered to purchase Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion as it works to challenge the tech giant’s web-search dominance." #Technology https://werd.io/perplexity-makes-longshot-34-5-billion-offer-for-chrome/

2025-08-13 22:30:33 CEST

Idea for a service:
You submit your resume / CV and links to any professionally relevant websites (your own, LinkedIn profile, social handles, etc).
A panel of hiring managers in your field then gives you anonymous feedback, letting you know the first impressions that you wouldn't otherwise get to hear about. It's up to you whether you make changes and re-submit.
You pay to be reviewed; hiring managers get paid to leave reviews.

2025-08-13 16:28:04 CEST

Tinkering with my About page. Is this decent? https://werd.io/about/

2025-08-12 20:05:02 CEST

Goodness me. Always exciting when I get a full Nazi reply on here - and in the original German, no less, presumably to escape moderator scrutiny.

2025-08-12 16:55:01 CEST

Very excited about this upcoming launch. https://www.amtrak.com/routes/acela-train/nextgenacela.html

2025-08-12 16:09:21 CEST

I mean, obviously. This is also why so many people in rural America say they're terrified of the cities. There's nothing to actually be terrified of - it's just there are people who don't look like them. https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-dc-takeover-race-39388597bad7e70085079888fe7fb57b

2025-08-12 15:01:09 CEST

Secretly, I have to admit, I kind of hate local news. But this kind of thing would get me to watch. https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/can-nonprofit-news-work-on-local-tv-a-pennsylvania-partnership-aims-to-find-out/

2025-08-12 14:15:00 CEST

Heaven forbid
https://cdn.masto.host/werdsocial/media_attachments/files/115/015/736/622/992/353/original/2cb2d9f70687f608.png

2025-08-12 04:44:28 CEST

If we're thinking about building GitHub alternatives, let's build ones that host not just code but everything involved in building software, including the community work involved in validating assumptions and making sure we're solving real problems, equitably, for the people we're trying to help.

2025-08-11 19:31:56 CEST

The thing about so-called 'creeping fascism' is that it doesn't actually creep. It's loud and overt. What's insidious is how quickly those loud, overt changes are normalized.

2025-08-11 14:38:04 CEST

It's absurd (and disappointing, but not surprising) how variable American healthcare is. Jefferson Health is the actual worst, yet Penn Medicine is really good. I miss UCSF, which I now see as a giant anomaly in terms of how amazing it is.

2025-08-11 03:37:49 CEST

Absolute horror. It's endless. https://cpj.org/2025/08/israel-kills-al-jazeera-journalists-in-targeted-gaza-city-airstrike/

2025-08-10 22:00:28 CEST

Today's biggest discovery: Spindrift's Nojito flavor is absolutely fantastic. I spent much of today weeding in the garden in almost 90 degree heat, so I've had a few of them. I wish to have an unlimited supply. I would drink these forever. I hate influencer culture but I would influence for this.

2025-08-10 20:54:18 CEST

My Sources page automatically keeps up to date with the feeds I'm reading. I sometimes dip into this instead of my feed reader because it's so fast-loading and close to real time. https://sources.werd.io/

2025-08-10 16:12:17 CEST

I used to check into every restaurant and bar on Foursquare. Those thousands of location pins felt like memories. Now they feel like evidence.
New piece on how our voluntary self-surveillance became a potential tool of authoritarian control - and what we might do about it: https://werd.io/lifelogging-under-fascism/

2025-08-10 02:03:09 CEST

This is really sad to me. I love science fiction. At its heart, it plays with ideas and human implications that are vital for us to understand - and make for really gripping stories. https://tracydurnell.com/2025/08/09/whats-up-with-sci-fi-publishing/

2025-08-09 15:04:12 CEST

Hoping to see a good article about Blacksky. It's a pretty impressive achievement and a really important step towards the social media we want.

2025-08-08 20:02:43 CEST

Anyone tried Hyprnote? Is it good? I know lots of people like Granola, but I absolutely can't send details about my meetings via a third party API in any way.

2025-08-08 16:14:15 CEST

If I had a nickel for every time the time-stream was broken and we needed to reboot reality to avoid the void-reavers from inhabiting the corpse-shells of the innocent, I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

2025-08-08 13:37:29 CEST

Parents: at what age did you finally get a good night's sleep again? I'm pretty sure my sleep tracker thinks I'm going to die soon.

2025-08-07 22:21:22 CEST

"But the “fear of being left behind” argument is particularly dangerous: it suggests that you should pick a technology first and then find problems for it to solve. That’s always backwards." In case you missed it, how I think about AI - in terms of vendors, tech, and power: https://werd.io/evaluating-ai/

2025-08-07 17:18:21 CEST

Understanding which channel someone reached out to me on, or what kind of media contained an insight I want to go back to (which means remembering which service I saved it to), is becoming a real issue.

2025-08-07 04:07:20 CEST

The idea of a blogging residency is lovely. One based on the kinds of conversations hosted on Lesswrong is less appealing to me. I kind of want to start an equivalent for optimistic humanist writers who believe in a community, equity, and human-centered view of the present and future. https://www.inkhaven.blog/

2025-08-06 19:58:50 CEST

On bridging between networks vs cross-posting:
"They’re similar, but they’re different in some important ways. Notably, bridging results in more unified conversations, while cross-posted conversations are more fragmented."
That's why Bridgy Fed's approach is so interesting - and, imo, important.
https://blog.anew.social/bridging-vs-cross-posting/
#Fediverse

2025-08-06 18:02:46 CEST

👀 https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/06/key-sections-of-the-us-constitution-deleted-from-governments-website/