Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 21, 2022 24 tweets 21 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: A(nother) massive Swiss banking leak; The people's disruption; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/02/21/con…

#Pluralistic 1/ Image: Hugh D’Andrade/EFF (modified) https://eff.org/about
This week, I'm on two online panels about #Web3 and activism.

Feb 22
The Policy Implications of Web3/@StanfordCyber:
cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/events/policy-…

Feb 24
Web3 for Activists: What Could Go Right, What Could Go Wrong (@fightfortheftr/@Amnesty)
amnestyusa-org.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 2/
A(nother) massive Swiss banking leak: Sunshine won't disinfect anything on its own.

3/ Image: Ready.gov (modified) https://ready.gov/floods
The people's disruption: Tech rights are workers' rights.

4/ Image: Hugh D’Andrade/EFF (modified) https://eff.org/about
#20yrsago Science fiction without the future web.archive.org/web/2002030522…

#20yrsago Vegas is decadent again web.archive.org/web/2002021522…

#20yrsago Thin-skinned Mike Harris brings $15m libel suit against the Globe and Mail theglobeandmail.com/news/national/… 5/
#20yrsago The Betamax decision, demystified people.well.com/user/doctorow/…

#15yrsago Odeo for sale web.archive.org/web/2007022205…

#15yrsago Pay-per-use electricity in Dallas/Fort-Worth airport flickr.com/photos/doctoro… 6/
#15yrsago MSU forces students to watch RIAA videos web.archive.org/web/2007022304…

#15yrsago Understanding what a progam can do freedom-to-tinker.com/2007/02/21/why…

#10yrsago Leaked climate-change denial lobby docs came from water scientist desmog.com/2012/02/14/hea… 7/
#5yrsago It’s very hard to maintain an anonymous Twitter account that can withstand government-level attempts to de-anonymize it theintercept.com/2017/02/20/how… 8/
#5yrsago “Europe’s last dictator” finally finds the limits to power: taxing the unemployed during a recession reuters.com/article/us-bel…

#5yrsago A Clinton-era tech law has quietly, profoundly redefined the very nature of property in the IoT age vice.com/en/article/qkx… 9/
#1yrago The Paltrow-Industrial Complex: How Goop is cashing in on covid pluralistic.net/2021/02/21/pal…

#1yrago Facebook vs Australia: It's not a link-tax, it's collective bargaining pluralistic.net/2021/02/21/pal… 10/
#1yrago K-shaped recovery vs wealth taxes: Evita's spectre is haunting Argentina pluralistic.net/2021/02/21/pal…

#1yrago Tech trustbusting's moment has arrived pluralistic.net/2021/02/20/esc… 11/
Saturday's threads: Pluralistic is two; and more!

12/
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… 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:

* The Policy Implications of Web3/@StanfordCyber, Feb 22:
cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/events/policy-…

* Web3 for Activists: What Could Go Right, What Could Go Wrong (@fightfortheftr/@Amnesty), Feb 24:
amnestyusa-org.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 16/
Recent appearances:

* Big Tech & Surveillance Capitalism (@shaunattwood):


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

* The End of Uber (@TheWarOnCars)
thewaroncars.org/2022/01/26/the… 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 @MCRockefeller. 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/2022/02/21/con… 19/
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. 20/
My latest @Medium column is: "We Should Not Endure a King: Antitrust is a political cause, not an economic one"

doctorow.medium.com/we-should-not-… 21/
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 22/
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… 23/
Today's top sources: Bruce Schneier (schneier.com). 24/

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Keep Current with Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK

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More from @doctorow

Feb 20
The commercial surveillance industry is almost totally unregulated. Data brokers, ad-tech, and everyone in between - they harvest, store, analyze, sell and rent every intimate, sensitive, potentially compromising fact about your life.

1/   A towering figure with the head of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' surmounted by Trump's hair, wearing a tailcoat with a Google logo lapel pin. It peers through a magnifying glass at a distressed, tiny Uncle Sam figure perched in its monstrous palm.   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/2025/02/20/pri…

2/
Late last year, I testified at a Consumer Finance Protection Bureau hearing about a proposed new rule to kill off data brokers, who are the lynchpin of the industry:



3/pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the…
Read 41 tweets
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

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