08/08/2026
Vibe Coding My News Feed: Reclaiming Attention from Tech Oligarchs
Here's the recorded Zoom video from today's "Civics of Technology 2026" conference presentation I shared. The formal title was, "Your Feeds, Your Algorithms."
I'll include links in the comments to all the session resources, including those suggested by attendees / session participants in the live Zoom chat.
This was the session description in the conference program:
Tech oligarchs increasingly control what news reaches us and shape what we believe, but open-web standards, federated social platforms, and citizen-built tools give ordinary educators the power to take that control back. This session showcases four open-source projects and a practical action plan for “reclaiming your news feeds,” connecting with trusted voices, and modeling digital resistance for students.
This is the video description I used on YouTube:
Middle school media literacy & CS teacher Wes Fryer shows how open-web tools, the fediverse, and AI-assisted "vibe coding" can free your news feed from platforms controlled by tech oligarchs. Recorded live at the Civics of Technology Conference, August 7, 2026.
Fryer defines "techno-fascism" as the consolidation of power by technological elites through efficiency, surveillance, and digital control, and cautions against binary thinking about AI while emphasizing keeping humans in the loop. He shares how he discovered journalist Charlie Warzel through open feeds rather than proprietary social media, then demos his openly licensed projects, "PodCommons" and "News with Wes," which ingest and organize hundreds of podcasts and newsletters via RSS to create algorithm-free, chronological feeds. He advocates for trusted voices, supporting local journalism, and explores how libraries and communities could host their own federated servers and local news portals.
