Don't let technology happen to you
(a paraphrased quote from our pal Ben Werdmuller.)
Last month the votes on the expression of interest form for a PfP✨ event in Europe was heavily leaning towards end of January, but since then has shifted to February as the most popular. Because EU Open Source Week, the EU Open Source Policy Summit, and FOSDEM are all happening at the end of January, it makes sense to push back to February for PfP✨ London. The poll is still open so let us know what you think.
In the meantime we have been very busy meeting with locals in Europe and securing some exciting partnerships. Soon we should have the speaker list solidified and released publicly. Already we have a number of excellent publishers and protocol devs enthusiastic to convene, and that list is growing every day. But we need even more! This is where you come in: who in your network should we be talking to in Europe? We are looking for more participants and more sponsors to help make this next PfP✨ event a success. Momentum multiplies the movement!
To bring it back to this side of the pond, we have had inquiries about doing PfP✨ events in Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and in the Oakland Bay Area (😉). These could be on the table for later next year. If you are interested, please reach out so we can plan for the future.
Thank you for all your support.
— PfP✨ Team
🌉 Open Social moves in Europe
Eurosky is building shared European infrastructure for a new generation of social media apps, all on the AT Protocol (the same protocol that powers the Bluesky social media app). They held their launch event in Berlin in November and videos of the talks and panels are now available. Link →
Last month Mastodon appointed a new Executive Director: Felix Hlatky. Founder Eugen Rochko is moving to the board. An old friend of open-ness Hannah Aubry is also joining the leadership team to head Community. With this restructuring expect some new energy from Mastodon in 2026. Link →
💰 Taking the business of News elsewhere
The CalMatters/The Markup newsroom built a series of cool products to connect to audiences. This is the kind of news product creativity we would like to see in leveraging novel protocols. In what new directions can we push the story format during the next platform shift? Link →
Patrick Boehler examines a sharp piece on the creator economy which is full of "hashtag #realtalk" and concludes with the importance of owning your own infrastructure: "Create assets, not just posts." Patrick thinks through this advice in terms of how more and more journalists are being forced into the creator economy, and how they must avoid the trap so many creators have found themselves in. Link →
🤖 Augmentation not automation
Benedicts Evans, the long-time mainstream tech analyst, has released his latest talk: AI eats the world. Ben is an AI normalist and in this talk he outlines the business fundamentals of this new platform shift and the pattern of Absorb > Innovate > Disrupt. "It takes time." And he points out "The web has been dying since 1997" (… So you're telling me there's a chance? ☺️) Link →
An open call for an article in a Toronto online magazine helps an editor catch an AI-assisted freelancer, leading to the retraction of stories in several mainstream publications. "I had been naively operating with a pre-ChatGPT mindset…" Link →
There is now an AI LUMAscape 🗺️ Seems like a lot of overlap with some of the other Lumascapes like MarTech 🤔 Link →
In authoritarian regimes visiting a site or engaging a social media post can be dangerous. More and more surveillance for "engagement" is being co-opted. "If newsrooms can own more of their infrastructure, and rely less on platforms that expose their audiences to surveillance, censorship, or harm, they can begin to measure success on their own terms." (And possibly give them a way to avoid #GoogleZero.) Link →
Last newsletter we mentioned ad agencies advising brands to use Reddit in order to be included in LLM training data. Two can play at that game: Gizmodo reports Redditors are trying to poison LLMs to keep tourists out of their favourite restaurants. Link →
Hacks/Hackers announced their AI x Journalism Summit, May 12th 2026 in Baltimore. PfP✨ side event? Link →
