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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

27 Oct

Surveillance companies assure us that they employ safeguards to ensure that their customers aren't abusing their products to engage in unlawful or unethical surveillance. And yet, inevitably, these companies abuse their tools THEMSELVES.

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It's almost as though being the kind of person who dreams of achieving incredible wealthy by spying on people makes you kind of an asshole.

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@VerkadaHQ

Like the people at @VerkadaHQ, "a fast-growing Silicon Valley surveillance startup" whose male employees used its own products to sexually harass their female colleagues and received the barest wrist-slaps for it.

vice.com/en/article/pkd…

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Read 12 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

27 Oct

One of the arguments for permitting monopolies is that they are "efficient." That's the logic under which Universal was allowed to acquire Comcast and NBC - the "vertical integration" would make all three companies better and we'd all reap the benefit.

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It turns out that there are DISeconomies of scale, what Brandeis called "the curse of bigness" and really, the Universal-NBC-Comcast octopus is a poster child for that curse.

thedesk.matthewkeys.net/2020/10/comcas…

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Comcast has just informed its subscribers that they are at risk of losing access to "Bravo, CNBC, E!, Golf Channel, MSNBC, Olympic Channel, Oxygen, Syfy, Telemundo, Universal Kids, NBC Universo, USA Network and NBC Sports Network."

my.xfinity.com/contractrenewa…

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Read 8 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

27 Oct

When a new president is sworn in, they gets told a lot of secret stuff - launch codes, backup plans, etc. But one of the best-kept presidential secrets is the "Enemies Briefcase," a collection of "presidential emergency action documents" (PEADs).

harpers.org/archive/2020/1…

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These aren't just revelations about the fallback plans for things like a nuclear strike - they are a meticulously maintained collection of emergency authorities that the administrative branch claims it is entitled to.

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These authorities are analyzed in legal memos that give the president to unilaterally declare an emergency "imposing martial law, suspending habeas corpus, seizing control of the internet, imposing censorship, and incarcerating so-called subversives."

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Read 12 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

27 Oct

Creepshow (1982) wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/633141553…

Read 9 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

26 Oct

@Sally_Hubbard

MONOPOLIES SUCK is a title I wish I'd thought of - talk about "does what it says on the tin!"

It's by @Sally_Hubbard, Director of Enforcement Strategy at @openmarkets and retired antitrust enforcer for the NY Attorney General.

It's great.

simonandschuster.com/books/Monopoli…

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Hubbard's got deep experience, and she brings the same kind of verve to this book that Zephyr Teachout delivered in her (also excellent) (and also brilliantly titled) BREAK 'EM UP:

pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/bre…

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But Hubbard's got another thing going for her: institutional support. The Open Markets Institute operates a range of advocacy programs for angry members of the public (e.g. you), and each of Hubbard's chapters ends on ways you can engage in the policy questions she raises.

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Read 6 tweets