Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Apr 16, 2021 22 tweets 17 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a thread).

Inside: Mass-action lawsuit against Facebook; $100m deli made $35k in 2019/20; "Anti-voter-suppression" companies are lobbying to kill HR1; People's Choice Communications; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/whe…

#Pluralistic

1/
I'm appearing at the FITC conference next Tuesday!

* Panel: "Intersection: Seeing Our Failures from the Future"
fitc.ca/presentation/i…

* Keynote: "Interop: Self-Determination vs. Dystopia"
fitc.ca/presentation/i…

2/
Mass-action lawsuit against Facebook: Digital Rights Ireland wants to make the other GDPR shoe drop.



3/
$100m deli made $35k in 2019/20: What the fuck is going on with Your Hometown Deli?



4/
"Anti-voter-suppression" companies are lobbying to kill HR1: Keep your eyes on the prize.



5/
People's Choice Communications: An ISP owned by striking Charter works that diverts profits to its customers.



6/
#20yrsago Leon Trotsky, B2B visionary memex.craphound.com/2001/04/15/leo…

#10yrsago New Zealand’s 3-strikes rule can go into effect in September legislation.govt.nz/bill/governmen…

#5yrsago Barack Obama: Taking money from 1 percenters compromised my politics theintercept.com/2016/04/15/bar…

7/
#5yrsago From beyond the grave, Terry Pratchett orders Neil Gaiman to adapt Good Omens for TV theguardian.com/books/tvandrad…

#5yrsago Uber and Lyft don’t cover their cost of capital and rely on desperate workers ianwelsh.net/the-market-fai…?

8/
#1yrago Universities want to infect students’ laptops with undetectable rootkits pluralistic.net/2020/04/15/inv…

#1yrago One person is in charge of oversight for $2.2T in stimulus pluralistic.net/2020/04/15/inv…

9/
#1yrago Jailbreak for CPAP machine reveals hidden ventilator functionality pluralistic.net/2020/04/15/inv…

#1yrago FCC will spend $9B to improve broadband…without an accurate broadband map pluralistic.net/2020/04/16/new…

10/
#1yrago Plutocrats firehose money on primary challenger to AOC pluralistic.net/2020/04/16/new…

#1yrago Apple hunters recover ten "lost" varieties from forgotten farms pluralistic.net/2020/04/16/new…

11/
Wednesday's threads: The FCC wants your broadband measurements; Murder Offsets; and more!



12/
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."

Get signed books from @darkdel: darkdel.com/store/p1840/Av…

13/
My book "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" is a critique of Big Tech connecting conspiratorial thinking to the rise of tech monopolies (proposing a way to deal with both) is now out in paperback:

onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy…

Signed copies here:
darkdel.com/store/p2024/Av…

14/
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."

craphound.com/shop/

15/
Upcoming appearances:

* Interop: Self-Determination vs Dystopia (FITC), Apr 19-21, fitc.ca/presentation/i…

* Book launch for Bruce Sterling's Robot Artists & Black Swans (Book People), Apr 27, bookpeople.com/event/virtual-…

16/
Recent appearances:

* Right to Repair, Monopolies, and Solarpunk


* The surveillance state, digital monopolies, and why we should be worried (Podsongs)
anchor.fm/podsongs/episo…

* Conspiracy Theories (Utopian Horizons):
soundcloud.com/utopianhorizon…

17/
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.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe…

18/
You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/whe…

19/
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!

Subscribe here: pluralistic.net/plura-list

20/
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @pluralistic@mamot.fr.

Here's today's edition: mamot.fr/@pluralistic/1…

21/
Today's top sources: Super Punch (superpunch.net), Boing Boing (boingboing.net).

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Mar 15
Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing.

1/ A cylindrical black Alexa speaker on a coffee table; it is wearing a Darth Vader helmet.  Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexa_%2840770465691%29.jpg  Sam Howzit (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWC_6_-_Darth_Vader_Costume_(7865106344).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/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/2025/03/15/alt…

2/
This will happen even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:



3/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…
Read 48 tweets
Mar 13
My theory of the "shitty technology adoption curve" holds that you can predict the future impact of abusive technologies on you by observing the way these are deployed against people who have less social power than you:



1/ pluralistic.net/2023/06/11/the…A magnified image of the inside of an automated backup tape library, with gleaming racks of silver tape drives receding into the distance. In the foreground is a pile of dirt being shoveled by three figures in prisoner's stripes. Two of the figures' heads have been replaced with cliche hacker-in-hoodie heads, from which shine yellow, inverted Amazon 'smile' logos, such that the smile is a frown. The remaining figure's head has been replaced with a horse's head. Behind the figure is an impatiently poised man in a sharp business suit, glaring at his watch. His head has been replaced with the ...
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/2025/03/13/ele…

2/
When you have a new, abusive technology, you can't just aim it at rich, powerful people, because when *they* complain, they get results.

3/
Read 71 tweets
Mar 12
Let me tell you how I became a proud science denier, and how it saved my life.

1/ A cross-section of the head of a man who is wide-eyed and screaming. The head is elongated and is being sucked into a black hole.
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/2025/03/12/epi…

2/
It was about 15 years ago. I was living in London, and my wife's job came with a private health insurance buff that let us use private doctors instead of the NHS.

3/
Read 58 tweets
Mar 10
Inflation has many complex causes and dynamics, but this much should be obvious: when prices go up, and the *profits* go up, the price rise - the "inflation" is in part the result of greed - it's greedflation.

1/ A 'stonks' meme, featuring a 3d modeled head atop the body of a man in a business suit, arms folded, standing before a stylized stock-chart with an orange arrow pointing up and to the right. The word 'stonks' has been replaced with 'eggs.' A cartoon drawing of a shattered, crying Humpty Dumpty is in the bottom left corner.
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/2025/03/10/dem…

2/
Orthodox economists insist that greedflation is impossible. Sure, companies would *prefer* to jack up prices, but if they do, other companies would rush inn to sell more cheaply.

3/
Read 53 tweets
Mar 5
You guys, I don't want to bum you out or anything, but I think there's a good chance than some self-described capitalists *aren't really into capitalism*.

Sorry.

1/ A giant, complicated, mechanical printing press. Looming over it is an 18th-century demon from the Compendium Rarissimum Totius Artis Magicae; it is a eating severed human leg, and waving another leg in the air. In the background rise dark red flames. The printer has a Brother logo.
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/2025/03/05/pri…

2/
Take incentives: Charlie Munger, capitalism's quippiest pitchman, famously said, "Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome."

3/
Read 50 tweets
Mar 3
I get a special pleasure from citing Milton Friedman. I like to imagine that as I do, he groans around the red-hot spit protruding from his jaws, prompting howls of laughter from the demons who pelt him with molten faeces for all eternity.

1/ Oil derricks superimposed against a 'code waterfall' as seen in the credit sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies. In the foreground is Trump's hair.
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/2025/03/03/fri…

2/
If you're lucky enough not to know about Friedman, here's the short version. Friedman was a kind of court sorcerer to Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Augusto Pinochet, and other assorted authoritarian, hard-right leaders who set us on the path to the hellscape we inhabit today.

3/
Read 56 tweets

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