Bill Thompson

@billt.bsky.social

Hack and pundit. BBC Research & Development. Formerly Digital Planet.

@billt.bsky.social

Just to raise awareness of how seriously academic debate is being censored by cowed institutions in the US right. The administration is winning, because important thinkers like @ruha9.bsky.social are not heard. Soon organisations in the UK will limit what is said for fear of losing US funding

@blaine.bsky.socialReposted by @billt.bsky.social

I love this new feature we built for Roundabout. Our community members needed a way to message each-other with personal information, but no-one needed a new way for someone to slide into their DMs, or a new inbox to check.

Roundabout@roundabout.town

How do you allow people to connect one-on-one, for things like coordinating coffee chats and free item pickups, without creating a vector for spam and abuse?: In response to community member requests, our team came up with an elegant solution: Direct Replies

@billt.bsky.social

Steve Reich is 90 this weekend. His music has accompanied me throughout my adult life. I will always remember seeing him perform 'clapping' at his 75th birthday prom in 2011. Such music, such a life.

@gilduran.comReposted by @billt.bsky.social

Got 'em:

The @thebulwark.com added an editor's note to the review, acknowledging that the author's direct affiliation with the Foundation for American Innovation ("the foundation shaping the tech right," according to Inc.) created a conflict that should have been forthrightly disclosed.

Editor's note from Bulwark: 1 Editor’s note (September 3, 2026, 1:10 p.m. EDT): In a response to this review posted to social media, Gil Durán, author of The Nerd Reich, has highlighted that the reviewer, Jacob Bruggeman, is affiliated with the Foundation for American Innovation (FAI). Durán mentions FAI in his book, once, in a sentence that reads as follows: “This merging of tech and far-right networks—hosted by the Foundation for American Innovation, which Inc. later described as ‘the foundation shaping the tech right’—seemed like a live test of [Balaji] Srinivasan’s theory.” Bruggeman’s affiliation with FAI is an unpaid, nonresident fellowship (in other words, it is not his day job), and while it was mentioned in his byline beneath this review, we should have made a point of additionally disclosing it in a footnote like this.
Gil Durán@gilduran.com

Someone finally wrote a bad review of my book! Its argument: The tech bros are not fascists and we need not worry about them. Its author: a fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation (FAI). FAI's ideological godfather and treasured idol: Peter Thiel. 🫠

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