Founder Eugen Rochko on helping Threads federate, dodging venture capital, and why he hopes Bluesky abandons its protocol | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 months ago

How platforms killed Pitchfork

Casey Newton on the challenging environment it faced, from the ad market to personalized algorithmic recommendations # | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 3 months ago

Why Platformer is leaving Substack

every newsletter I love, from Garbage Day and Today In Tabs to Citation Needed and Ironic Sans, are moving off the Nazi-friendly platform # | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 3 months ago

Casey Newton on lessons learned in three years of running Platformer

essential reading for anyone interested in journalism # | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 7 months ago

Casey Newton on how the Kids Online Safety Act puts us all at risk

"Lawmakers are quickly advancing an anti-sex, anti-speech agenda in which every adult user of the internet could soon find themself entangled." # | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 8 months ago

How you want me to cover artificial intelligence

Seven principles for journalism in the age of AI Be rigorous with your definitions. Predict less, explain more. Don’t hype things up. Focus on the people building AI systems — and the people affected by its release. Offer strategic takes on products. Emphasize the tradeo … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 11 months ago

Microsoft just laid off one of its responsible AI teams

Microsoft laid off its entire ethics and society team within the artificial intelligence organization as part of recent layoffs that affected 10,000 employees across the company, Platformer has learned. The move leaves Microsoft without a dedicated team to ensure its AI principle … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

Twitter's decline is paving the way for other platforms to build next-generation replacements. And now the biggest player in the game is getting involved: Meta is in the early stages of building a dedicated app for people to post text-based updates.(platformer.news) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

How a single engineer brought down Twitter on Monday

Twitter's website is breaking in novel new ways - and while the company managed to recover from its latest outage within a couple hours, the story behind how it broke suggests there are likely to be similar problems in the near future. On Monday morning, Twitter users logged on t … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first

After his Super Bowl tweet did worse numbers than President Biden’s, Twitter’s CEO ordered major changes to the algorithm | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Elon Musk fires a top Twitter engineer over his declining view count

For weeks now, Elon Musk has been preoccupied with worries about how many people are seeing his tweets. Last week, the Twitter CEO took his Twitter account private for a day to test whether that might boost the size of his audience.(platformer.news) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Instagram's co-founders are mounting a comeback

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back. The simplest way to understand Artifact is as a kind of TikTok for text, though you might also call it Google Reader reborn as a mobile app, or maybe even a surprise attack on Twitter.(platformer.news) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

How Elon botched his war on bots

The project was part of Elon Musk's attempt to rid Twitter of spam. But rather than work to remove individual offenders, the company identified mobile networks associated with large spam networks in specific countries, and blocked users who relied on those networks from receiving … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Twitter's risky plan to save its ads business

A month ago, when Elon Musk's Twitter first set out to revamp the Twitter Blue subscription, workers at the company identified a problem. Musk had promised that subscribers to the $8-a-month service would see half as many ads as free users.(platformer.news) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Why some tech CEOs are rooting for Musk

After a long weekend away, today let's talk about the largely positive reception that Elon Musk's radical remaking of Twitter is getting from tech CEOs - and whether those views are likely to change if the fight that Musk is picking with Apple erodes even more value from his $44 … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Elon only trusts Elon

On Thursday evening, after a full day of chaos on the timeline, Elon Musk's Twitter halted new enrollment into its $8-a-month Blue subscription offering. Offering anyone the chance to slap a "verified" badge on their account had led to widespread impersonation of government offic … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Inside the Twitter meltdown

Platformer reports on Elon Musk's ongoing self-inflicted train wreck # | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Musk discusses putting all of Twitter behind a paywall

Will he go through with it? PLUS: Botched layoffs, how the new Blue could lose money, and more | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Twitter, cut in half

The email went out at 5:21 PT PT on Thursday. For a full week, Twitter employees had waited in hopes of hearing something directly from their new owner. Instead, they had heard only from Elon Musk's intermediaries, and even then usually not directly.(platformer.news) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Elon's first big move: pay to remain verified on Twitter

Twitter is strongly considering making its users pay to remain verified on the service, Platformer has learned. If the project makes forward, users would have to subscribe to Twitter Blue at $4.99 a month or lose their badges.(platformer.news) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Elon takes over Twitter

Twitter has a new CEO. And he'd like to see your code, please | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Did this email cost Mailchimp's billionaire CEO his job?

Ben Chestnut stepped down in August after arguing that asking for pronouns at the start of meetings “does more harm than good” | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Inside the messy fight between Meta and The Wire

Reporter Jahnavi Sen met with the source, who sought to verify their identity by providing Sen with documents including their work badge and pay slips. Many conversations followed, Sen told Platformer in an interview, and by the fall The Wire trusted the source enough to turn to … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Instagram walks back its changes

Say goodbye to the full-screen feed, and at least some of those recommendations — for now. Adam Mosseri explains why | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

A new FTC lawsuit hits on the day of Meta’s first-ever earnings decline

A new FTC lawsuit hits on the day of its first-ever earnings decline | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

TikTok's Data Dilemma

How do you protect user privacy in a country with no privacy standards? | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Twitter's emotional Friday all-hands

CEO Parag Agrawal on five years of regrets | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

Musk flips Twitter the bird

Normally when you buy a company, you talk it up. You talk about its strengths, about its potential, about its glorious future under your leadership. Normally you do not buy a company to re-litigate its past. But Elon Musk is no normal acquirer, and neither is his behavior in the … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 1 year ago

The lesson Facebook won't learn

Today, let's talk about the lunacy of Facebook running a secret campaign against TikTok focused on the dangers of social networks to children. The campaign, which is sadly consistent with the company's approach to competition over the past 10-plus years, saw it paying Republican … | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

There's something off about ApeCoin

Tokens like the new one from Bored Ape Yacht Club promise to decentralize the web. So why are insiders reaping most of the profits? | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Everything platforms know about the war but won't tell us

CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman on social networks' responsibility to open up | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

The internet is a force multiplier for Ukraine

How much will it matter? Notes on the platforms in wartime | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

YouTube's Neal Mohan on the next phase of the misinformation fight

PLUS: I'm co-hosting a new podcast for the New York Times (!) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Casey Newton interviews Molly White of Web 3 Is Going Just Great

Q&A with Molly White of Web 3 Is Going Just Great | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Man gets fired by his DAO

The public face of Ethereum Name Service did a bad tweet. Does web3 fix this? | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Why gamers hate crypto, and music fans don't

A tale of two fandoms | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Three things Web3 should fix in 2022

A viral video highlights some very real shortcomings in the next-generation internet | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Casey Newton on Jack Dorsey stepping down as Twitter CEO

Theories on why now, and what to expect from Parag Agrawal's Twitter. (Hint: crypto) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Is the music industry's future on the blockchain?

Royal's Justin Blau and Paradigm's Fred Ehrsam on how selling royalties directly to fans could end predatory record deals | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

The Facebook Papers' missing piece

A former integrity worker on Facebook's internal "posting culture" and why it's easy to misread the Haugen leaks | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Fresh details from the search for a new name. PLUS: Five former employees weigh in | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

How Axie Infinity is turning gaming on its head

Players are making thousands of dollars a month battling Pokémon clones. Is this how crypto goes mainstream? | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Q&A with WhatsApp's Will Cathcart

After a contentious year, candid talk on encryption, privacy, and ProPublica | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

What I learned from a year on Substack

Your questions about Platformer, answered | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

All the most popular posts on Facebook are plagiarized

Being original on Facebook doesn't pay, according to its own data | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Loot is a viral social network that looks like nothing you've ever seen

Loot (and Vine) creator Dom Hofmann on creating an open-source, decentralized game / financial asset / art project / metaverse (?) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Casey Newton on Loot

Loot (and Vine) creator Dom Hofmann on creating an open-source, decentralized game / financial asset / art project / metaverse (?) | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago

Mark in the Metaverse

An interview with Facebook's CEO about the company's next big initiative | Continue reading


@platformer.news | 2 years ago