Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Sep 14, 2020 12 tweets 4 min read Read on X
.@exxonmobil knew.

They knew, 50 years ago, that they were going to murder the planet and our species with their oil.

And they acted.

Oh, how they acted!

They created a campaign of lies to distort the public perception of climate change.

exxonknew.org

1/
Exxon knew.

They knew in '73, when their researchers told them: plastics would never be recycled. There would not be a cost effective way to recycle plastic.

And they acted.

They created a disinfo campaign to convince us plastic COULD be recycled.

npr.org/2020/09/11/897…

2/
That campaign - the little recycling logos on our plastics, the upbeat videos about a future where plastic was part of a circular economy of use and recycling - convinced us to buy, wash, and sort plastic.

90% of that plastic was never recycled. It never will be.

3/
NONE of those splashy campaigns - the announcement that all NYC school plastics would be recycled, the recycling in national parks - ever worked. They all lasted long enough to get some upbeat press, and then they quietly shut down.

4/
This week's @NPR/@planetmoney investigation by @LauraSullivaNPR doesn't just talk to the ex-chief lobbyists, now serving as belated Oppenheimers, lamenting the impending destruction of our planet.

5/
It also talks to the current round of executives who have announced a fresh round of plans to recycle plastics - completely disingenuous, insultingly obvious distraction tactics to convince us that their projections of TRIPLING production by 2050 isn't a form of mass murder.

6/
Then Sullivan circles back to those retired executives, the ones who oversaw the first disinformation campaign, and they confirm that this latest round of promises are literally the same tactic, barely updated for a world on fire.

7/
The world is on fire. My sky has been orange all week. Our family's socially distanced meetings with friends in parks or back yards have been cancelled because we cannot breathe outside.

8/
Exxon - and Chevron, and the rest of Big Oil - knows.

In a secret recording released to the @nytimes, oil execs meet to cheerfully discuss how they will burn the world and murder us all but make a buck in the process.

nytimes.com/2020/09/12/cli…

9/
Their plans for climate change don't involve reducing emissions - they're building bunkers and hiring mercenaries to keep us at bay when we come for them. They know what they've done.

Exxon knows.

10/
Exxon knows.

When I searched for the "Exxon Knew" campaign to find a link for this piece, the top of @Google's search results included a blisteringly expensive ad for a disinformation site, paid for by Exxon.

11/
The sky is orange. The oceans are choking. The air is unbreathable. Your body is full of microplastics.

Exxon.

Fucking.

Knows.

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Nov 8
A blockbuster Reuters report by Jeff Horwitz analyzes leaked internal documents that reveal that: 10% of Meta's gross revenue comes from ads for fraudulent goods and scams, and; the company knows it, and; they decided not to do anything about it, because...

1/ A tuxedoed figure dramatically shoveing greenish pigs into a tube, from whose other end vomits forth a torrent of packaged goods. He has the head of Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse' avatar. He stands upon an endless field of gold coins. The background is the intaglioed upper face of the engraving of Benjamin Franklin on a US$100 bill, roughed up to a dark and sinister hue.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/11/08/fae…

2/
...The fines for facilitating this life-destroying fraud are far less than the expected revenue from helping to destroy its users' lives:



3/reuters.com/investigations…
Read 59 tweets
Nov 7
While I formulated the idea of enshittification to refer to digital platforms and their specific technical characteristics, economics and history, I am very excited to see other theorists extend the idea of enshittification beyond tech and into wider policy realms.

1/ A Gilded Age editorial cartoon depicting a muscular worker and a corpulent millionaire squaring off for a fight; the millionaire's head has been replaced with the poop emoji from the cover of 'Enshittification,' its mouth covered in a grawlix-scrawled black bar.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/11/07/pos…

2/
There's an easy, loose way to do this, which is using "enshittification" to refer to "things generally getting worse." To be clear, I am *fine* with this:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pea…
Read 89 tweets
Oct 29
Amazon made $35b profit last year. They're celebrating by firing 14k workers (a number they say will rise to 30k). It's the kind of thing Wall St loves. It comes after a string of pronouncements from Andy Jassy about how AI is going to let him fire *tons* of workers.

1/ A black and white image of an armed overseer supervising several chain-gang prisoners in stripes doing forced labor. The overseer's head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The prisoners' heads have been replaced with hackers' hoodies.   Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/10/29/wor…

2/
That's the AI story, after all. It's not about making workers more productive or creative.

3/
Read 45 tweets
Oct 11
I am an environmentalist, but I'm not a climate activist. I used to be - I even used to ring strangers' doorbells on behalf of Greenpeace.

1/ A field of utility scale solar. Behind the mountains on the horizon line loom two logos: the original EFF 'clenched fist and lightning bolt' logo and the first Earth Day logo. They are reflected in the solar panels. Behind them roils hellish red-shot smoke.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/10/11/cyb…

2/
But a quarter of a century ago, I fell in with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and became a lifelong digital rights activist, and switched to cheering on environmental activists from the sidelines of their fight:



3/eff.org
Read 53 tweets
Sep 27
Like you, I'm sick to the back teeth of talking about AI. Like you, I keep getting dragged into AI discussions. Unlike you‡, I spent the summer writing a book on why I'm sick of AI⹋, which @fsgbooks will publish in 2026.

‡probably

⹋"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI"

1/ A Zimbabwean one hundred trillion dollar bill; the bill's iconography have been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' and a stylized, engraving-style portrait of Sam Altman.  Image: TechCrunch https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Altman_-_TechCrunch_Disrupt_SF_2017_(36522988343).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en  --  Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/eco…

2/
A week ago, I turned that book into a speech, which I delivered as the annual Nordlander Memorial Lecture at Cornell, where I'm an AD White Professor-at-Large.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Sep 24
Billionaires don't think we're real. How could they? How could you inflict the vast misery that generates billions while still feeling even a twinge of empathy for the sufferer in your extractive enterprise. No wonder Elon Musk calls us "NPCs":



1/ pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/see…  An oil painting of a French king atop a throne, draped in sumptuous robes. His head has been replaced with a screaming, toothless man wearing a top-hat. Over his shoulder looms the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'  Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/09/24/rob…

2/
Ever notice how people get palpably stupider as they gain riches and power? Musk went from a cringe doofus to a world-class credulous dolt, and it seems like he loses five IQ points for every $10b that's added to his net worth.

3/
Read 26 tweets

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