Ben Werdmuller
Ben Werdmuller — Technology director at ProPublica, indie publisher
Writing at the intersection of technology, journalism, and the open web.
werd.ioA good open source project is a community, not a package.
An independent blog at the intersection of technology, journalism, and the open web. Ben writes about digital rights, open source culture, and what happens when newsrooms and tech companies make decisions that shape how information flows. His perspective draws on years building publishing tools and working at ProPublica — he's as comfortable discussing hiring practices as he is dissecting the collapse of open-source journalism.
Written by Ben Werdmuller.
Very Active
Publishes multiple times per week
6
Independent Blog
English
How this blog's content is accessed through Blogs Are Back.
Full Content
RSS feed includes complete post content for reading in-app
Proxy Required
Feed is fetched through our proxy for browser compatibility
Proxy Post Links
Post pages are loaded through our proxy for compatibility
Embeddable
Posts can be displayed inline in the reader view
This blog appears in the following curated collections.
Recent posts from Ben Werdmuller's RSS feed.
Notable links: March 13, 2026
Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.Did I miss something important? Send me an email to let me know.Coming Off the Bench for BlueskyI’m mostly pretty excited about Bluesky’s CEO change. Toni Schneider was the CEO of Automattic for a very long time, and was arguably the grownup in the room. I’ve never met him, but he seems to understand open source and the principles that Bluesky is trying to uphol...
Coming Off the Bench for Bluesky
[Toni Schneider]I’m mostly pretty excited about Bluesky’s CEO change. Toni Schneider was the CEO of Automattic for a very long time, and was arguably the grownup in the room. I’ve never met him, but he seems to understand open source and the principles that Bluesky is trying to uphold.Jay Graber, of course, did an amazing thing. She first wrangled the community that was established to figure out what Bluesky even was, then was the keeper of the argument that it should be an...
Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress
[Brandon Payton at WordPress]This is absolutely bonkers. If you’re on a desktop browser, it’s worth trying now.“With my.WordPress.net, WordPress runs entirely and persistently in your browser. There’s no sign-up, no hosting plan, and no domain decision standing between you and getting started. Built on WordPress Playground, my.WordPress.net takes the same technology that powers instant WordPress demos and turns it into something permanent and personal. This isn’...
Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs
[Kate Blackwood in Cornell Chronicle]The results of this study into corporate BS isn’t going to surprise anyone who’s spent much time in an office. The researchers generated meaningless corporate gobbledegook and tested how workers rated its business-savviness.“Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cog...
Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester
[Joseph Cox at 404 Media]Worth knowing if you think of Proton Mail as being a blanket security solution: in this case it was compelled to provide payment information for an account to the Swiss authorities, who then, via a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, handed it over to the FBI. As a result, the FBI were able to determine the identity of the account owner, an activist who does not appear to have been charged with a crime.This is also kind of a weasely statement:“Edward Shone, head of co...
If you enjoy Ben Werdmuller, you might also like these blogs.
Molly White
mollywhite.netResearcher, software engineer, and writer who focuses on the cryptocurrency industry, blockchains, web3, and tech more broadly.
404 Media
404media.co404 Media is an independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.
Anil Dash
anildash.comA blog about making culture. Since 1999.
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netNo trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.
Follow Ben Werdmuller
Thoughtful, independent writing about technology and media from someone who's been building tools for both — and thinking critically about where they're headed.