Platformer is an independent publication devoted to exploring the intersection of technology platforms and society. It was founded in 2020 by me, Casey Newton, former Silicon Valley editor of The Verge.

Platformer arrives Monday through Thursday at 5PM PT, and sometimes on particularly newsy Fridays. You can subscribe here. Offering a mix of original reporting, analysis, commentary, and curated links, the newsletter effectively serves as a daily live blog for a tumultuous period in the history of technology and governance.

More than 20,000 people trust Platformer to keep them informed on the day’s most important developments. Subscribers include executives at Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Snap, along with their counterparts in academia, government, and journalism.

This guide is based on and borrows heavily from a guide that I wrote for Platformer's predecessor, The Interface.

What does Platformer cover?

My focus evolves with the news, and I intend to update this list at least quarterly. Here’s what I’m obsessed with right now:

• How do social networks affect human behavior and politics?
• How will governments regulate tech platforms, and what are the effects of those regulations?
• How will content moderation evolve as platforms attempt to balance free speech with security? What are the best ways to strike that balance?
• How will social networks, governments, and activists act to reduce the spread of misinformation, disinformation, hate speech, and coordinated influence campaigns? How will their adversaries respond?
• Should platforms make efforts to create a shared sense of reality among their users? If they choose not to, what consequences will that have?
• What are potential solutions to the sharp decline in trust in our media environment?
• How will the cultural reckoning over tech platforms affect their businesses?
• What new products and services are social platforms building, and what consequences will they have?
• How will the COVID-19 pandemic change tech giants? Will they use this period to consolidate power? How effective will technological interventions like exposure notification turn out to be?

How do you see the world?

Like many people, my views about technology were reshaped by the events of 2016. Revelations that foreign actors had manipulated Facebook, Twitter, and other sites caused me to reevaluate my old, blinkered assumption that social networks were only harmless fun. Before 2016, my primary concern about Facebook was that the News Feed would crush most digital media. After 2016, my concern shifted from a business concern to a more patriotic one: are social networks undermining democracy?