Patrick Boehler
banner
pboehler.net
Patrick Boehler
@pboehler.net
Media & autocrats / pug kahu

https://www.pboehler.net
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
I've had the immense pleasure of meeting and working with some of the folks at the Gazzetta journalism lab and they recently published this based on some of their efforts: www.gazzetta.xyz/ai-worker-ri...

I strongly encourage you to read this.
DeepSeek's double life: How we tricked a Chinese chatbot for strike advice the 'free' Western models couldn't give
Freedom from censorship hasn't equaled real-world understanding for Western AI.
www.gazzetta.xyz
November 10, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
Just to pre-empt the pundits, I absolutely believe you could run a Mamdani in middle America and win
November 5, 2025 at 2:41 AM
🎉🎉🎉
November 5, 2025 at 2:47 AM
The WSJ journalists build a house of deep reporting and accountability. Then the op-ed page editors spend all day burning it down with toxic, fact-free arson.
October 29, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
Das ist richtig, aber Konsolidierung ist fällig. Und dann eine Förderung so gestaltet, dass Medien nicht am Interesse der Kunden (der berühmte „Markt“ - das sind wir alle) vorbei produzieren. Viele Medien, die wenig konsumiert werden, ist gesellschaftlich auch kein Mehrwert.

1/2
Das ist wohl so, heißt aber noch nicht, dass seriöse journalistische Medien zwangläufig sterben müssen.
Es gibt in Ö. auch kein Geschäftsmodell für Theater, Museen o. Bibliotheken. Weil wir sie aber für gesellschaftlich relevant halten, finanzieren wir sie gemeinsam. /1
True: Es gibt in Österreich schlicht kein journalismusbasiertes Geschäftsmodell mehr, das ein Haus mit 100 - 300 Mitarbeitern nachhaltig erhalten kann.
October 24, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
Really pretty weird that this is the central topic of the NYC mayoral debate.
October 16, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
Portland, I love you! 💙❤️💙

This gives me great hope, and a good chuckle.

#StopTheMadness #StopTrump #Resist 👊🏼
October 12, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
"even if it's AI, it's at least true" hard to overstate the damage this stuff is doing to people's brains. we're gonna be cleaning the slop out of archives for decades
October 11, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
I kind of can’t believe this Bari Weiss quote is even real, and yet www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/b...
October 7, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.
We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...
signal.org
October 6, 2025 at 6:46 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
I was curious if The Post's shift to accommodating the right was yielding any distinct benefit to the paper. To this point, it hasn't — and it's hard to see why it would.
More data (including on CBS) here:
www.pbump.net/o/you-cant-g...
You can’t get anti-institutionalists to trust an institution
I will stipulate at the outset that I do not know how to reverse the long trend toward distrust in traditional American news sources. There's probably a solution out there, likely something involving ...
www.pbump.net
October 6, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
It’s hard to find much evidence of a true youth movement rallying behind Kirk beside the conservatives who were already fans.

Instead, we see a top-down effort from powerful people to use a controversial man’s death to create a cult of personality where one didn't exist. trib.al/pAP5Egz
October 5, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
I have criticisms of ICEBlock, but this is authoritarian bullshit, and the fact that nearly all smartphone use one of two app stores controlled by US corporations does not bode well for the future
There's nothing illegal about ICE block. This is solely about Apple appeasing the Trump regime.

With Google removing sideloading next year, these companies will have total control over what runs on your phone.

www.businessinsider.com/apple-iceblo...
Apple removes ICEBlock app from App Store
Apple on Thursday removed the immigration enforcement tracking app, ICEBlock, from the App Store, citing "safety risks."
www.businessinsider.com
October 3, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
And yes, while Mastodon isn’t my thing and I prefer AT Proto to Activity as federated social media infrastructure, I am VERY glad it exists and is being built out, too.

The future absolutely requires online communication hubs that can’t be bought by dead-eyed Nazis.
October 2, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
You absolutely should not dismiss the AT Protocol technology that runs this place as boring nerd stuff, because that is the exact technology we are going to need to ensure that usable social media that isn’t controlled by Nazis continues to exist.
October 2, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
No one knows Silicon Valley better than @stevenlevy.bsky.social. And no one is more clear-eyed about how far removed it has become from its supposed ideals.
I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong
Tech got what it wanted by electing Trump. A year later, it looks more like a suicide pact.
www.wired.com
September 22, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
One problem I think is Ezra is a policy guy who basically thinks arguing for liberalism is like an extension of arguing for policy, instead of an argument for a form of life/association
Watched the Ezra Klein interview with Douthat and I thought it was interesting, even though they both kinda seemed out of touch on some things
(“Why don’t libs do a debate tour at evangelical churches?”)
But it struck me how unprepared Klein was to make a moral argument for liberalism.
September 20, 2025 at 2:53 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
Service-oriented journalism can help provide deeper impact data and ensure your reporting is relevant. But how can we adopt this approach when so many systems in our industry are resistant to change? Madison Karas & @pboehler.net explored this idea through workshops and one-on-one sessions 👇
Service-oriented journalism: Moving from idealism to utility
Journalism can be more impactful if we focus on the utility people receive from it. But what obstacles are preventing us from getting there?
www.lenfestinstitute.org
September 17, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
Shot, chaser

Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men
September 14, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
I wrote in support of @thisismissem.social's letter saying that ATProto and ActivityPub ecosystems ought to engage kindly and constructively with each other. And I have explained my thinking more here: github.com/swicg/genera...
Create statement on ActivityPub vs AT Protocol discussions (2025-09-05) by ThisIsMissEm · Pull Request #45 · swicg/general
This is the first draft of a statement on the recent conflicts that have been happening between communities on both sides of ActivityPub and AT Protocol, as discussed within this month's Social...
github.com
September 6, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Reposted by Patrick Boehler
Newspapers disappear. Communities’ stories shouldn’t.

Community Webs librarians are archiving grassroots news to preserve the web we built.

Learn more ⤵️
blog.archive.org/2025/08/27/p...
🧵
August 28, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Social media's rage-bait engagement-based business model has been horrific for societies globally, but what if AI chatbots suck-up-bait is even worse?

It's less trackable, has a huge impact on how we see ourselves and the world, and on our ability to challenge our thinking.
August 17, 2025 at 10:56 AM