The biggest tech story for 2026 doesn’t appear to be one: the proposed billionaires’ tax in California, which goes after wealth not income. If we are to dig out of the deep hole of inequality led by Big Tech, we need to support bold ideas like a wealth tax. @thenewpress.bsky.social @seiuca.org

Personally owned or chartered jets are potent signifiers of over-the-top wealth, redolent of exclusivity and power, yet they evoke all of the darker aspects of that privilege and are a rather dangerous luxury [ @jeffwise.bsky.social @vanityfair.com ] www.vanityfair.com/style/story/...

Interestingly, the best thing from last weekend's SNL is this clip that was cut for time and posted on a Tuesday night: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA8O...

The inevitability of AI is now under threat from no one wanting to use it.

The Nobel Peace Prize becoming so prestigious that wars are fought over a head of state coveting it is some real monkey paw stuff for Alfred Nobel.

🧵 Trump administration AI policy is widely described as deregulatory. This description is misleading. What's happening is not the absence of governance but its rearrangement--intensive state intervention operating through mechanisms we don't typically call regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy 25th birthday to Wikipedia … the only large-scale platform to reject advertising and surveillance. Why? Because it’s guided by its users not a Know-It-All founder. Why is it so successful? Because it believes in assuming good faith. @thenewpress.bsky.social #TheKnow-It-Alls

Sure. AI companies have ALWAYS been training their models on Wikipedia content, which under the free and open access model is available to anyone — including AI companies. Agreements like these require AI companies to limit and offset the strain they place on Wikimedia infrastructure.

Best explanation for Wikipedia’s status as ‘last unenshittified major website’ is a core belief: Assume Good Faith. Or, Expect Good Faith. Wikipedia tells the truth re: quack science, conspiracy theories, propaganda outlets because it earnestly seeks truth. No both-sidesing! bsky.app/profile/dept...

Happy Wikipedia Day! #Wikipedia25

With the news that Mark Zuckerberg named a former Trump advisor as Meta’s new president I wanted to explore the claim that extremist Democrats like Joe Biden pushed Silicon Valley into the arms of Trump. #TheKnowItAlla #TheBreakitAlls

Much praise to @warren.senate.gov for keeping the focus on Reid Hoffman and how he and other Silicon Valley "liberals" use their wealth to keep the Democrats pro-Big Tech. Hoffman’s plan is to “manage” the destruction from Silicon Valley. We need to stop it. 1/2 www.theverge.com/news/860706/...

Meta names former Trump advisor Dina Powell McCormick as president, vice chair

How’d we get to Move Fast and Break America? From Big Tech treating people like machines and machines like people. #TheKnow-It-Alls @thenewpress.bsky.social

Also known as pulling an Ackman: www.bbc.com/sport/tennis...

Excited that my ahead-of-the-curve book about Silicon Valley is being issued as a paperback just in time for the techpocalypse! Thank you @thenewpress.bsky.social.

After Jimmy Wales said he thought a Wikipedia article entitled “Mar-a-Lago Face” was politically biased, the community agreed to a new name: “Beauty trends among American conservatives.” Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue … bsky.app/profile/noam...

Heated debate over whether to delete Mar-a-Lago Face article from Wikipedia, defined as “eyeliner, mascara, rouge and foundation, heavily applied, as to make its use obvious.” Leading the charge against is Jimmy Wales, who calls it an “attack page” not fit for WP. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar-a-L...

Heated debate over whether to delete Mar-a-Lago Face article from Wikipedia, defined as “eyeliner, mascara, rouge and foundation, heavily applied, as to make its use obvious.” Leading the charge against is Jimmy Wales, who calls it an “attack page” not fit for WP. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar-a-L...

Oh my god.... we're in the Bad Place!!

Lately been thinking that we’re living in the *other* timeline of “It’s a Wonderful Life” … the one where George Bailey was never born and Mr. Potter calls the shots. No charming Bedford Falls, just depraved Pottersville. FWIW, this storefront in my neighborhood has strong #Pottersville vibes.

Beeple’s Art Basel Show Features Realistic Billionaire Robot Dogs Pooping NFTs www.2oceansvibe.com/world/beeple...

Harvard endowment tripled its investment in Bitcoin ETF — to $442.9 million! — according to SEC disclosure, The Crimson reports. Stanford professor tells paper he’s surprised since, “Bitcoin does not pay dividends and has limited uses as a payment instrument.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here

Just as The Free Press journalist Olivia Reingold was getting noticed for her John Oliver impression, her Wikipedia article was deleted for not being “notable.” A reverse Streisand effect … you briefly get public's attention, only to be told, "Why should we care?" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

The heroes of the day are Richard Knipel, chair of @wikimedianyc.bsky.social, and @fuzheado.bsky.social, who stepped up and saved lives at Civic Hall. They were already anchors in the community, now their work in trust and safety extends to the physical realm. They deserve all our care and support.

Now Trump is hoping to at least get a Daytime Nobel Peace Prize.

Before Sen. Ted Cruz accused Wikipedia of bias for labeling Fox News unreliable about politics and science, I wrote @wired.com about how Fox News earned that designation. The process was guided by an apolitical British editor is mainly interested in snooker arstechnica.com/tech-policy/... 1/2

In 1996, Brewster Kahle wrote "Preserving the Internet" for Scientific American. Nearly 30 years later, it’s striking how many of his predictions about digital preservation came true—and how many challenges remain. Let’s compare 1996 vs 2025 🧵

As Peter Thiel turns loopier and loopier — meditating on the anti-Christ — Marc Andreessen has emerged to reveal Silicon Valley’s dark heart, as per this BI article: * only engineers matter * use lawsuits to intimidate critics * build cults of personality www.businessinsider.com/marc-andrees...

Elon Musk’s rage toward Wikipedia — and dreams of replacing it with an encyclopedia of his own — is in line with autocrats around the world, in China, Russia, Turkey and lately India. As I argued in this piece for The Globe and Mail a little while back. archive.ph/yoByG

Much unintentional humor in the Guardian piece on performers' explanations for taking the money to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Charlie Kirk article's single-day traffic was highest in Wikipedia history - 15 mil views the day he died. It pulls no punches. Kirk was “a right-wing political activist" advocating Christian nationalism and Great Replacement conspiracy theory. New discussion topic: Was Kirk becoming Catholic? 1/2

My “America at 250” class—taught with David Blight and Beverly Gage — can be found here. New lectures and podcasts put up every week. m.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

The tech journalist stevenlevy.bsky.social wrote an apologia @wired.com after decades of largely flattering coverage of Silicon Valley. This feels like a vital moment -- a case for dismantling tech giants from an unlikely voice -- even if the essay pulls punches. 🧵 1/7 www.wired.com/story/silico...

I don't want to speculate, but you have to think that the hours that Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Epstein spent over lunch in 2017 almost certainly featured one of the most normal conversations of all time.

The Mark Zuckerberg image makeover continues … Zuck’s Wikipedia article now features a fresh, Meta-produced photo (left), replacing a 2020 shot (right).

It's helpful information how much the support of Kimmel is a sign of moral revulsion and how much it is a pure political calculation that Trumpism is weakening & a bluff. So it'd be good to have an instrument that has no capacity for morality and only detects political interest. Thank you, Ted Cruz!

This is airing on 60 Minutes this Sunday. The operation to fluff Bari Weiss is underway.

My latest for @nytopinion.nytimes.com "Is it possible that these purveyors of popular culture will ignore the 50 percent or more of this country that want television, film and music that doesn’t feel like it was extruded directly from the president’s brain? " www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/o...

"...every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, convulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism...nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us."

Trees are not a stated part of the Dept. of Transportation's plan to widen sidewalks and add bike connections to the Canal Street area next year. nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/09/15/p...

He never was that guy. He was always this guy. He was just outnumbered and didn't show you he was this guy. All along, they've been these guys.

one way you can tell he’s lying is that the story was sold with a hard news headline as opposed to the poncy “From Kampala to Queens, Mamdani navigates a complex identity” feature hed it would have gotten if it was actually about the decisions “people with overlapping identities wrestle with”

@hntdove.bsky.social I made this independent cartoon. If you like it would you share it? If we find an audience we can keep making them, and don't need to bend our creative vision to the studio system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLvq...

I am skeptical about the likelihood that some of Mamdani's topline proposals get implemented, but this AMA answer points to the sheer quantity of low-hanging fruit out there in terms of simple straightforward quality of life improvements available in our city.

I’m so excited to announce that my book was published today! The book retells the life of Charles Sumner, an abolitionist senator who co-framed the Reconstruction Amendments. I wrote this book with my blood, sweat & tears as a student at Yale Law School. (1/x)

Bruce Springsteen just opened his European tour in Manchester with a powerful message about how things are going back home 🔥

Spotted on 4th Ave. in Brooklyn

Dance with Death, by Hieronymus Hess, 1841, 📸 via Vatican Media Pool