Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 16, 2022 19 tweets 15 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: The extremely shady "educational integrity" industry; Oh great, there's DRM in printer PAPER now; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/una…

#Pluralistic 1/ Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik
This coming weekend (Feb 18-20) I'm a (virtual) guest at the @boskonenews sf convention. I'm doing several panels and my first-ever reading from *Red Team Blues,* my forthcoming novel from @TorBooks.

schedule.boskone.org/people/29740 2/
The extremely shady "educational integrity" industry: From Proctorio to Honorlock.

3/ Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik
Oh great, there's DRM in printer PAPER now: Dymo was so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

4/ Image: Hugh D'Andrade/EFF https://www.eff.org/about/staff/hu
#15yrsago Macrovision sends pretty lies to Steve Jobs web.archive.org/web/2007021808…

#10yrsago Meet the western technology companies who sell network snooping technology to torturing dictators eff.org/deeplinks/2012… 5/
#5yrsago More anti-money laundering measures hit China as top three Bitcoin exchanges freeze withdrawals bleepingcomputer.com/news/legal/chi…

#1yrago Ring helped LAPD spy on BLM protests pluralistic.net/2021/02/16/rin…

#1yrago Uber loses (another) $6.8b pluralistic.net/2021/02/16/rin… 6/
Yesterday's threads: McKinsey For Kids (no, really); Outing German spy agencies by mailing them Airtags; and more!

7/ Image: McKinsey for Kids https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-i
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… 8/
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… 9/
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/ 10/
Upcoming appearances:

* @boskonenews 59 (Feb 18-20)
schedule.boskone.org/people/29740

* Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical SF, 1950 to 1985 (@CityLightsBooks), Feb 27
citylights.com/events/dangero…

* Emerging Technologies For the Enterprise, Apr 19-20
2022.phillyemergingtech.com 11/
Recent appearances:

* Bringing Back Luddites (@OhNoPodcast)
ohnopodcast.com/investigations…

* The End of Uber (@TheWarOnCars)
thewaroncars.org/2022/01/26/the…

* Moral Panic (@Drug_Science Podcast)
drugscience.org.uk/podcast/53-mor… 12/
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… 13/
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/2022/02/16/una… 14/
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. 15/
My latest @Medium column is: "An Open Letter to Pixsy CEO Kain Jones, Who Keeps Sending Me Legal Threats"

doctorow.medium.com/an-open-letter… 16/
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 17/
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… 18/
Today's top sources: @Slashdot (slashdot.org). 19/

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More from @doctorow

Feb 18
In 2013, Thomas Piketty had an unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) *Capital in the 21st Century*.

1/ A Gilded Age editorial cartoon of a frowning Uncle Sam giving a blood transfusion to a gargantuan business-man whose waistcoat is labeled 'protected monopolies.' The businessman's head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background has been replaced with a halftoned EU flag whose blue field is covered in circuit-board traceries. The floor beneath the figures is an abstract, pinkish pattern.  Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed....
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/2025/02/18/pik…

2/
It offers a very convincing explanation of our political decay, and it continues to serve this purpose as the decay undergoes alarming acceleration:



3/memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/tho…
Read 62 tweets
Feb 17
Theory-free inference is a hell of a drug. For years, Big Data advocates - the larval form of today's AI weirdos - have insisted that if you have enough data, you can infer causal relationships between complex phenomena without ever having to understand how x causes y.

1/ https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/17/caliper-ai/#racism-machine   A phrenological illustration of a man's face in profile, with his skull divided up into sections with illustrations of what each area is meant to govern, e.g., appetite, artistic aptitude, aggression, ardor. A pair of gleaming silver calipers, wielded by the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' measures the figure's skull.   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/2025/02/17/cal…

2/
Thus, we can slay the dread "correlation is not causation" beast. This is cousin to Milton Friedman's famous economic catechism:



3/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in…
Read 36 tweets
Feb 12
Remember the Tiktok ban? I know, it was ten million years ago (in Musk years, anyway), so it may have slipped your mind, but let me remind you: Congress passed a law saying Tiktok was banned. Trump said he wouldn't enforce the law. The end.

1/ An official portrait of the US Supreme Court, with the justices sitting and standing before a red velvet curtain. Their faces have been replaced with the green 'Mr Yuck' logo. Floating in the middle of the image, obscuring several judges, is the Tiktok logo, with 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/2025/02/12/you…

2/
No, really. I mean, sure, there's a bunch of bullshit about whether Trump will pick up the ban again after Tiktok's grace period ends, depending on whether they sell themselves to his creepy wax museum pal Larry Ellison. Maybe he will.

3/
Read 39 tweets
Feb 11
Let me tell you about the most wasteful US federal government spending I know about. It's a humdinger. You and everyone you know are mired in it for weeks, or perhaps months, every year.

1/ A halftoned 2025 IRS 1040 form. To the left is a bloated billionaire figure in top hat, white gloves and tux, with the pouting face of Elon Musk. With one hand, he is yanking on a lever made out of a gilded dollar-sign. With the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a street urchin. The podium to which the lever is attached bears the Turbotax logo, a white checkmark in a red circle. To the left is a cascade of gold coins, falling out of an upended sack.   Image: Wcamp9 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_-_March_28,_2024_%28cropped%29.jpg  CC BY 4.0 https://creative...
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/2025/02/11/dou…

2/
It will cost you, personally, thousands of dollars over your lifetime. I'm talking about filing your taxes.

Not *paying* your taxes. Paying your taxes is fine.

3/
Read 29 tweets
Feb 5
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT.

Inside: MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing; and more!

Archived at:

#Pluralistic

1/ pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/pow…A vintage ad for Amway Nutrilite supplements; the illustration in the center of the ad has been replaced with a WPA mural depicting trade unionists rising up against capitalism.
This week, Barnes and Noble are offering a 25% discount on pre-order of my next novel, *Picks and Shovels* (use code PREORDERS):



2/ barnesandnoble.com/w/picks-and-sh…Image
MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing: In the mirror world, community organizers are community predators.



3/ Image
Read 29 tweets
Jan 27
If Elon Musk wants to cut $2t from the US federal budget, there's a pretty straightforward way to get there - just eliminate all the beltway bandits who overcharge Uncle Sucker for everything from pharma to roads to (of course) rockets, and make the rich pay their taxes.

1/  A highwayman in a tailcoat and top-hat with Elon Musk's laughing face points a pair of oversized revolvers at a bent-double Uncle Sam, his face a bitter mask; Sam is being crushed under a small mountain of variegated fardels, e.g., large sacks, barrels, and railroad rails. In the background is a halftoned image of a Falcon Heavy rocket plummeting out of the sky, chased by a plume of flame.   Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/52005460639/  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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/2025/01/27/bel…

2/
There *is* a ton of federal bloat, but it's not coming from useless programs or overpaid federal employees.

3/
Read 56 tweets

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