Tomorrow, Zeynep Tufekci and I are delivering the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Contemporary Political Struggle: Social Movements, Social Surveillance, Social Media: ucdavis.zoom.us/webinar/regist…
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Private equity's nursing home killing spree: Pre- and post-covid.
My latest novel is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books. @washingtonpost called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance."
My book "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" is a critique of Big Tech connecting conspiratorial thinking to the rise of tech monopolies and proposing a way to deal with both is available in paperback!
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
* Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Contemporary Political Struggle: Social Movements, Social Surveillance, Social Media (with Zeynep Tufekci), Feb 24, ucdavis.zoom.us/webinar/regist…
* Technology, Self-Determination, and the Future of the Future (CERIAS)
* Talking "Permanent Record Young Readers' Edition" with Snowden
* Talking "Agency" with William Gibson
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My first picture book is out! It's called Poesy the Monster Slayer and it's an epic tale of bedtime-refusal, toy-hacking and monster-hunting, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller. It's the monster book I dreamt of reading to my own daughter.
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is also ad- and tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🧑🏾🎨". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
A year ago, covid was a mystery. We didn't know how it spread, we didn't know who it infected, we didn't know how to treat it. All we knew was that it was spreading fast and the early epicenters were slaughterhouses.
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It's been a year, and now we know a lot more. One thing we know, for example, is that even though virus particles can linger for a long time on surfaces, you're not likely to catch the virus from these "fomites."
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Simple handwashing of the sort we should have all practised all along will do the trick. You don't need to sterilize your groceries or leave your parcels to sit on your doorstep for three days. Just wash your hands!
Inside: Bossware and shitty tech adoption; EVs as distributed storage; The Mauritanian; Court rejects TSA qualified immunity; Why Brits can no longer order signed copies of my books; and more!
This afternoon, Zeynep Tufekci and I are delivering the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Contemporary Political Struggle: Social Movements, Social Surveillance, Social Media: ucdavis.zoom.us/webinar/regist…
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Bossware and the shitty tech adoption curve: White collar workers, your blue collar comrades tried to warn you.
2020 was a big year for me as a writer: I had four new books come out! It was also a weird year for me as a writer: I couldn't tour with any of them. It was a big, weird year for me as a writer.
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But I have a secret weapon: @DarkDel, a great specialist indie bookstore just a few minutes' walk from my front door, where they are only too glad to get orders for signed copies of my books - I drop by and personalize 'em and they ship 'em out.
They got a shipment of 25 copies of the new paperback edition of HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM in last week and they sold like crazy; yesterday I dropped by to sign the last in-stock copies (don't worry, more are on the way).
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Qualified immunity is a bizarre American legal doctrine that says that government officials (especially cops) that break the law aren't personally liable for their lawlessness unless the law they violate is "clearly established."
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Practically speaking, it means that if a law enforcement officer breaks the law, they face no legal consequences - unless they break the law in PRECISELY the way that some other cop was convicted for - "Your honor, that other cop broke a suspect's KNEE - I broke his ELBOW."
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"Professional troublemaker" @_JonCorbett is a lawyer who specializes in suing the TSA for civil rights violations, mostly due to the compulsory government genital massages they administer at airport checkpoints. He's just scored a major victory in a qualified immunity case.
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Last night, I attended a (virtual) press-screening of @TheMauritanian, a film adaptation of Mohamedou Ould Salahi's 2015 memoir "Guantánamo Diary," the true story of Salahi's 14 years of Gitmo detention and torture.
It was a harrowing and moving experience. It wasn't just the big names (Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch): Tahar Rahim's performance as Salahi was stunning, especially combined with the direction and camerawork that brought the abuse and torture of Gitmo to vivid life.
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Salahi was kidnapped from Mauritania at the order of Donald Rumsfeld, who was acting on coerced testimony that falsely identified him as the recruiter behind the 9/11 attacks. He was then repeatedly brutalized, sexually assaulted, tortured and nearly murdered by Gitmo guards.
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