{"podcast":{"title":"Revolution.Social","slug":"revolution-social-7409931","podcast_index_feed_id":7409931,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/11425154c/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://revolution.social/","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/46229419/49a2b074e1d12f41.jpg","author":"Rabble a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath","episode_count":49,"summary":"A podcast about the future of social media and reclaiming our digital communities. Revolution.Social is hosted by technologist and community advocate Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath — who was Twitter’s first employee and hired Jack Dorsey. In weekly interviews, Rabble will interview thought leaders, technologists, academics, and more about the need for a new social media \"bill of rights.\" Just as the original Bill of Rights protected individual freedoms from government overreach, we need fundamental protections from corporate control and surveillance capitalism. This is the start of a conversation about what developers are building, how they're building it, and what consumers need to be asking for. Guests will include Jack Dorsey (former CEO & co-founder of Twitter); Kara Swisher (host of On with Kara Swisher, co-host of Pivot); Cory Doctorow (science fiction author & former editor of Boing Boing); and Taylor Lorenz (founder of User Mag, host of Power User).","last_synced_at":"2026-07-09T16:20:23.930135+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931"},"episode":{"title":"An Alternate History of Social Media (with Ben Werdmuller)","slug":"an-alternate-history-of-social-media-with-ben-werdmuller","published_at":"2026-03-05T08:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931/an-alternate-history-of-social-media-with-ben-werdmuller","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/divine01/episodes/An-Alternate-History-of-Social-Media-with-Ben-Werdmuller-e3l6of0","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/11425154c/podcast/play/121905056/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-5-23%2F426709593-44100-2-c511cf5a7fe55d11.mp3","summary":"Ben Werdmuller is the Senior Director of Technology at ProPublica and a seasoned technologist who has spent his career building platforms that prioritize social impact and integrity. In 2004, he co-founded the open-source social networking software Elgg, which for more than 20 years has served as an alternative to Facebook for governments, schools, and political movements around the world. \"They are very similar,\" Ben says of Elgg and Facebook. \"PHP-based social network[s], both heavily inspired by LiveJournal ... They took different paths and now Mark has a private Hawaiian island, and I don't. And also, Mark has undermined democracies and been culpable in a genocide.\" Today on Revolution.Social, Ben and Rabble talk about his career transitions from technologist to venture capitalist to his current technical leadership at ProPublica. They also discuss how the sensitivities with which journalists approach new technologies like AI; the ebbs and flows of the Indie Web movement; and how builders in tech, including vibe-coders, can choose to lean into ethics, community, and social good. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 3:08 Investigating Power at ProPublica 7:32 Media and Venture Capital Don't Mix 13:53 Why Newsrooms Struggle with Innovation 17:15 AI Can't Do Journalism 22:15 Subpoenas and Data Privacy 25:09 The Rise of the IndieWeb 32:11 Vibe Coding and Agentic Programming 42:45 Human Intent in an AI-Built Web 45:32 Open-Source Social with Elgg 51:26 Mark Zuckerberg's Divergent Path 56:31 Co-Designing the Future of Work and AI Follow Rabble on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rabble.nz Follow the podcast: https://episodes.fm/1824528874 This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing. To learn…","meta_description":"Ben Werdmuller is the Senior Director of Technology at ProPublica and a seasoned technologist who has spent his career building platforms that prioritize…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3606,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/revolution-social-7409931/episodes/an-alternate-history-of-social-media-with-ben-werdmuller/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931/an-alternate-history-of-social-media-with-ben-werdmuller.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}