DAMON BERES

Damon Beres is a journalist whose work focuses on the effects of technology on people and the planet. He is a Senior Editor at The Atlantic. Major stories he’s assigned and edited there include two investigations into DOGE’s incursions at federal-government agencies, an investigation into Microsoft’s dealings with fossil-fuel companies, and ambitious features on controversial AI training practices (the Common Crawl, LibGen, Books3, OpenSubtitles, and various YouTube datasets). In September 2025, he launched The Atlantic’s AI Watchdog project with the journalist Alex Reisner.

He is currently writing a book, Easy Mode, for Scribner, exploring how digital technology removes friction from our lives and what results from our drive toward hyper-efficiency.

Beres’ writing has been published in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Wired, Vice, Slate, and other outlets.

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A Brief Selection of Published Work:

The Atlantic:

• The Age of Anti-Social Media Is Here
  (Print Version)

• At Least Two Newspapers Syndicated AI Garbage‍

• A Devil’s Bargain With OpenAI

• ChatGPT Is Turning the Internet Into Plumbing

• Death by a Thousand Personality Quizzes

• I’m Scared of My Baby Monitor

• The iPhone Isn’t Cool

The New York Times:

• Your Smartphone Should Be Built to Last
  (Also in Print, April 26, 2021.)

Wired:

• Blind People Won the Right to Break Ebook DRM. In 3 Years, They'll Have to Do It Again

Vice (Motherboard):

• How a Hacking Group Did Apple Repair Professionals an Accidental Favor

Future Human:

• In 2020, Human-Made Objects Tipped the Earth Out of Balance

OneZero:

• “We need fewer things that do everything.”

• The Apple Card Explains Everything You Need to Know About Apple Today

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Previously, Beres was the inaugural Editor in Chief at Unfinished, where he created and wrote a flagship newsletter about tech and democracy and developed live events about emerging technologies. He co-founded and was Editor in Chief of the award-winning publication OneZero at Medium, which specialized in stories about the “undercurrents of the future” — smart, forward-looking stuff about social networks, artificial intelligence, surveillance, and labor. Standout stories there include OneZero’s investigations into Banjo and Acellus, its feature on the homeless community near Apple’s $5 billion campus, and Cory Doctorow’s book How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism. In 2020, he oversaw the launch of the spinoff brands Debugger and Future Human. You can read more about his work at Medium by visiting this recap page.

Prior to Medium, Beres was an Executive Editor leading tech and science coverage at Mashable. He worked with content across platforms and directed Mashable's industry-leading Snapchat Discover story, a goofy-but-sharp digital magazine read by millions of people around the world. (It was cited by Digiday when Mashable won the agency's "Most Innovative Publisher" award in 2017.) 

And before that, Beres was Senior Tech Editor at HuffPost, where he anchored influential coverage on Apple, the electronic waste crisis, and more. He first started covering technology as an editor at Reader’s Digest magazine.

Other Media:

Beres has moderated panels, like this discussion on tech and the future of democracy held in Davos during the World Economic Forum, this one about ethical A.I. held at Unfinished Live, and this conversation with Cory Doctorow. As a tech and media expert, he’s been quoted by the Wirecutter, the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, and others. He has also done many TV appearances and podcasts.

You can visit his LinkedIn page for more information. Contact via the email below for a full resume or to request a media appearance.