Casey Newton

Casey Newton is the founder and editor of Platformer, an independent publication devoted to exploring the intersection of technology and democracy. Of Platformer, it is said “there's no better way to understand how social networks and the modern internet shapes our lives.” Always evolving with the news, Casey’s current work focuses on the rise of artificial intelligence, how social media affects human behavior and politics, government regulation of Big Tech, as well as the declining trust in government and ongoing threats to democracy. He also co-hosts Hard Fork, the critically acclaimed New York Times podcast about the future that is already here, alongside fellow Leigh Bureau speaker Kevin Roose.  

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Offering a mix of original reporting, analysis, and commentary, Platformer serves as a daily live blog for this tumultuous period in the history of technology and governance. Over 150,00 people—including big tech executives and their counterparts in academia, government, and journalism—trust the newsletter to keep them informed on the industry’s most important developments of the day. Nothing quite captures the significance of the newsletter to the tech community more than the anecdote that many Twitter employees, during Elon Musk’s takeover, learned of their layoffs from Platformer, not through internal means.

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In 2020, Casey was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for his series of investigative reports about content moderation that lead to a $52 million settlement for Facebook moderators who developed PTSD on the job.

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Prior to founding Platformer in 2020, Casey spent 10 years covering Silicon Valley for The Verge, CNET, and the San Francisco Chronicle. While at The Verge, he authored The Interface, a daily newsletter with over 20,000 subscribers, and hosted the Converge podcast, offering humorous and revealing conversations with Silicon Valley’s most fascinating entrepreneurs.