Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 7, 2021 30 tweets 24 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Podcasting "Give Me Slack"; A lexicon of euphemisms for "corporate crime"; IP lawyers weaponize trade secrecy to stall vaccine waivers; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/12/07/sol…

#Pluralistic

1/
I'm going overseas for work on Dec 8, which means time to order signed/personalized copies of my books from @darkdel is running out!

Attack Surface:
darkdel.com/store/p1840/Co…

Little Brother/Homeland:
darkdel.com/store/p1750/Co…

2/
How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism:
darkdel.com/store/p2024/Co…

Poesy the Monster Slayer:
darkdel.com/store/p1562/_P…

3/
Podcasting "Give Me Slack": On the parenting challenges of an era without second chances.



4/
A lexicon of euphemisms for "corporate crime": Compliance, risk, white collar crime...



5/
IP lawyers weaponize trade secrecy to stall vaccine waivers: But Karan Menon has their number.



6/
#20yrsago Busting the WSJ’s FUD on open 802.11 networks web.archive.org/web/2002011122…

#20yrsago The post-PC interface web.archive.org/web/2002011816…

#20yrsago Chris Raettig on KPMG's linking legal threats web.archive.org/web/2002020714…

7/
#15yrsago Canada’s documentaries lost to copyright web.archive.org/web/2006120900…

#10yrsago Business Software Alliance fractures over SOPA support cnet.com/news/kaspersky…

8/
#10yrsago Planesrunner: Ian McDonald’s YA debut is full of action-packed multidimensional cool, airships, electropunk and quantum physics memex.craphound.com/2011/12/06/pla…

#10yrsago Petition to get a pardon for Turing’s “gross indecency” conviction web.archive.org/web/2012011018…

9/
#10yrsago Derek Kirk Kim’s Same Difference: slacker Korean-American kids come of age in the Bay Area memex.craphound.com/2011/12/07/der…

10/
#10yrsago On Jan 1, awesome stuff will enter the public domain: HG Wells, Gertrude Stein, Buster Keaton, Walt Disney, Lenny Bruce (but not in the USA) publicdomainreview.org/collection/cla…

#10yrsago AT&T is the worst carrier in America. Again. ibtimes.com/verizon-wirele…

11/
#5yrsago Mr Robot has driven a stake through the Hollywood hacker, and not a moment too soon technologyreview.com/2016/12/07/155…

#5yrsago Learning about the internal culture of the NSA from 262 leaked articles from its internal employee newsletter theintercept.com/2016/12/07/dro…

12/
#5yrsago The kickstarted Pebble smartwatch is now a division of Fitbit, so they may “reduce functionality” on all the watches they ever sold kickstarter.com/projects/59750…

13/
#5yrsago For two years, criminals stole sensitive information using malware hidden in individual pixels of ad banners welivesecurity.com/2016/12/06/rea…

#5yrsago Italy’s referendum: a vote against neoliberalism and authoritarianism jacobinmag.com/2016/12/italy-…

14/
#5yrsago Quitting Facebook feels GREAT mathbabe.org/2016/12/06/i-q…

#5yrsago Stop calling it “Puppy-Burning” — it’s the “Alt-Warmth Movement” mcsweeneys.net/articles/why-i…

15/
#5yrsago dj BC has your Christmas mashups covered with this year’s amazing Santastic holiday music sampler djbc.net/christmash/

#1yrago China’s war on big data backstabbing pluralistic.net/2020/12/07/bac…

#1yrago The largest strike in human history pluralistic.net/2020/12/06/sur…

16/
#1yrago Ad-tech as a bubble overdue for a bursting pluralistic.net/2020/12/06/sur…
17/
Sunday's threads: When you hear "one size fits all," think "universal"; and more!



18/
My latest book is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books, now in paperback, wherever books are sold.

Signed copies at @darkdel:

darkdel.com/store/p1840/Co…

19/
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…

20/
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/

21/
Upcoming appearances:

* @intgovforum (Warsaw), Dec 10
intgovforum.org/en/schedule/20…

22/
Recent appearances:

* Seize the Means of Computation (@SeaGL)
seagl.org/archive/2021/s…

* Redistribute the Internet (@NGIForward Summit)
vimeo.com/651018259

* NFTs (@UpstreamPodcast)
soundcloud.com/upstreampodcas…

23/
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 @MCRockefeller. It's the monster book I dreamt of reading to my own daughter.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe…
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/2021/12/07/sol…
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

My latest Medium column is "Pandemic of the Unvaccinated":

medium.com/@doctorow/pand…
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
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…
Today's top sources: @NakedCapitalism (nakedcapitalism.com).

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Jul 30
Delta's announced new surveillance pricing: they're feeding an AI your nonconsensually harvested personal info that data-brokers and credit bureaux hold to predict the maximum you're willing to pay, and then price their tickets accordingly:



1/ fortune.com/2025/07/16/del…Hieronymus Bosch's 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a sleight-of-hand artist doing a cup-and-balls routine for a group of amazed yokels. It has been altered. The head of the conjurer has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' He wears a Delta Airlines logo over his breast. The table on which the cup-and-balls game is playing out sports a crashed jet in Delta livery, smoke rising from the wreckage.   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/2025/07/30/eff…

2/
Data-brokers sell all kinds of data, from the "legitimate" info about everywhere your car's been, to everywhere place the Bluetooth radios on your phone and headphones has been, to everything you've bought, to every sit you've visited and every search you've performed.

3/
Read 61 tweets
Jul 22
Ever notice how many right wing influencers are on the grift?

1/ A carny barker at a podium, gesticulating with a MAGA cap. He wears a Klan hood, and his podium features products from Nu-skin, Amway and Herbalife. Behind him is an oil-painted scene of a steamship with a Trump Tower logo, at a pier in flames.
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/2025/07/22/all…

2/
Like Alex Jones - that guy is basically Gwyneth Paltrow for conservative bros, selling the same "wellness" crap to a male audience (and not for nothing, Paltrow's victims are reliable boosters for RFK Jr's MAHA movement):



3/theweek.com/speedreads/709…
Read 66 tweets
Jul 3
As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are *not popular*.

1/ A kneeling figure, shackled hand-and-foot with ball-and-chains at his ankles. His face is that of a turn-of-the-century newsie, grinning broadly under a torn cloth cap. Behind him is a heavily halftoned neon HELP WANTED sign, askew over a indistinct black hellscape ganked from the third panel of Boschs's 'Garden of Earthly Delights.'
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/2025/07/03/sta…

2/
Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is *extremely* unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Jul 1
If there's one are where tech has shown a consistent aptitude for innovation, it's in accounting tricks that make money-losing companies appear wildly profitable. And AI is the greatest innovator of all (when it comes to accounting gimmicks).

1/ A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill.   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/2025/06/30/acc…

2/
Since the dotcom era, tech companies have boasted about giving stuff away but "making it up in volume," inventing an ever-sweatier collection of shell-games that let them hide the business's true profit and loss.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Jun 28
In 2014, I read a political science paper that nearly convinced me to quit my lifelong career as an activist: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," published in *Perspectives on Politics*:



1/ cambridge.org/core/journals/…An inflatable pig balloon against a blue sky, bearing the Zohran for Mayor logo. The Chrysler Building sits to one side.  Image: Frank Vincentz (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geeste_-_Biener_Stra%C3%9Fe_-_Speicherbecken_-_Drachenfest_38_ies.jpg  Petri Krohn https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_building-_top.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/06/28/mam…

2/
The paper's authors are Martin Gilens, a UCLA professor of Public Policy; and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, a professor of Decision Making. Gilens and Page studied a representative sample of 1,779 policy issues.

3/
Read 49 tweets
Jun 24
When a company sells you something for $2 that someone else can buy for $1, they're revaluing the dollars in your pocket at half the rate of the other guy's.

1/ A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light.  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/2025/06/24/pri…

2/
Economists praise "price discrimination" as "efficient." That's when a company charges different customers different amounts based on inferences about their willingness to pay.

3/
Read 50 tweets

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