Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 24, 2022 25 tweets 23 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Mass arbitration attack could bring Intuit to its knees; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/ube…

#Pluralistic 1/ Image
Today (Feb 24), I'm on a panel for @fightfortheftr and @amnesty called "#Web3 for Activists: What Could Go Right, What Could Go Wrong":

amnestyusa-org.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 2/
Mass arbitration attack could bring Intuit to its knees: Justice for the millions ripped off by Turbotax's "Free File" fraud.

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#20yrsago Judith Merril's memoirs, at last web.archive.org/web/2002060312…

#20yrsago I’m a Googlebot! I will not kill you ftrain.com/robot_exclusio…

#20yrsago RIP, Chuck Jones cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/T…

#20yrsago A bad fall while installing a WiFi antenna people.well.com/user/doctorow/… 4/ Image
#15yrsago Best muscle-rub ever memex.craphound.com/2007/02/24/bes…

#5yrsago Techdirt is being sued by the “I invented email” guy and needs your money techdirt.com/articles/20170…

#5yrsago So It Is: a Cuban-inspired album from the astounding Preservation Hall Jazz Band memex.craphound.com/2017/02/24/so-… 5/ Image
#5yrsago The automated, invisible revert-wars of Wikipedia’s bot ecosystem journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

#5yrsago Putinology considered harmful: the many legends we tell ourselves about Vladimir Putin theguardian.com/world/2017/feb… 6/ Image
#5yrsago Pope to greedheads: better to be an atheist than the kind of Catholic who screws the poor reuters.com/article/us-pop…

#5yrsago Customs officials refuse to allow passengers to debark a domestic flight unless they show ID vice.com/en/article/434… 7/ Image
#5yrsago In which Laurie Penny comprehensively proves that she has Yiannopoulos’s number psmag.com/news/on-the-mi…

#5yrsago Lawsuit forces DoJ to admit that Obama administration sneakily killed transparency bill freedom.press/news/new-docum… 8/ Image
#5yrsago After a century of resisting monopolies, Democrats became the party of finance capitalism and it cost them the election theatlantic.com/business/archi…

#5yrsago Found at a thrift shop: the last record of a doomed Apple DRM effort from 1979 drive.google.com/file/d/0B9vexS… 9/ Image
#1yrago Court rejects TSA qualified immunity: Government genital massages can be video-recorded pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb…

#1yrago The Mauritanian: Hitler painted roses and GWB does portraiture pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb… 10/ Image
#1yrago EVs as distributed storage grid: Go green, buy a bigger truck pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb…

#1yrago Bossware and the shitty tech adoption curve: White collar workers, your blue collar comrades tried to warn you pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb… 11/ Image
#1yrago German covid coinages: Schadenfreude fur CoronaFußgruß pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acc…

#1yrago Malcolm X's true killers: NYPD deathbed confessions confirms "conspiracy theory" pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acc… 12/ Image
#1yrago Private equity's nursing home killing spree: Pre- and post-covid pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acc… 13/ Image
Tuesday's threads: Podcasting Part III of "The Internet Heist"; China hamstrings its Big Tech; and more!

14/ Image:  Leslie Illingworth/...
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… 15/
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… 16/ Image
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/ 17/ Image
Upcoming appearances:

* 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 18/ Image
Recent appearances:

* The Policy Implications of Web3 (@StanfordCyber)


* Big Tech & Surveillance Capitalism (@shaunattwood):


* Bringing Back Luddites (@OhNoPodcast)
ohnopodcast.com/investigations… 19/ Image
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… 20/ Image
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/2022/02/24/ube… 21/
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. 22/
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-… 23/
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 24/
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… 25/

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More from @doctorow

Sep 27
Like you, I'm sick to the back teeth of talking about AI. Like you, I keep getting dragged into AI discussions. Unlike you‡, I spent the summer writing a book on why I'm sick of AI⹋, which @fsgbooks will publish in 2026.

‡probably

⹋"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI"

1/ A Zimbabwean one hundred trillion dollar bill; the bill's iconography have been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' and a stylized, engraving-style portrait of Sam Altman.  Image: TechCrunch https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Altman_-_TechCrunch_Disrupt_SF_2017_(36522988343).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en  --  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/2025/09/27/eco…

2/
A week ago, I turned that book into a speech, which I delivered as the annual Nordlander Memorial Lecture at Cornell, where I'm an AD White Professor-at-Large.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Sep 24
Billionaires don't think we're real. How could they? How could you inflict the vast misery that generates billions while still feeling even a twinge of empathy for the sufferer in your extractive enterprise. No wonder Elon Musk calls us "NPCs":



1/ pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/see…  An oil painting of a French king atop a throne, draped in sumptuous robes. His head has been replaced with a screaming, toothless man wearing a top-hat. Over his shoulder looms the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'  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/2025/09/24/rob…

2/
Ever notice how people get palpably stupider as they gain riches and power? Musk went from a cringe doofus to a world-class credulous dolt, and it seems like he loses five IQ points for every $10b that's added to his net worth.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Sep 23
I'm only a few chapters into Bill McKibben's stupendous new book *Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization* and I already know it's going to change my outlook forever:



1/ billmckibben.com/books/here-com…A rooftop solar installation. Behind the roof rages a blazing forest fire. Reflected in the solar panels is the poop emoji from the cover of my book 'Enshittification,' which has angry eyebrows and a black, grawlix-filled bar across its mouth."    Image: Bastique (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Panels_on_Church_Roof_full.jpg  CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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/2025/09/23/our…

2/
McKibben is one of our preeminent climate writers and activists, noteworthy for his informed and brilliant explanations of the technical limits - and possibilities - of various climate interventions, and for his lifelong organizing work.

3/
Read 80 tweets
Sep 22
One of the dumbest, shrewdest tricks corporate America ever pulled was teaching us all to reflexively say, "If a corporation blocks your speech, that doesn't violate the First Amendment and therefore it's not censorship":



1/ pluralistic.net/2022/12/04/yes…Two figures in royal robes seated back to back atop a pile of gold bars. One wears a tophat, the other, a crown in the form of a gilded crown. A forest of angled broadcast towers sits behind them. The sky is overshadowed by thunderheads.
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/2025/09/22/one…

2/
Censorship isn't limited to government action: it's the act of preventing a message from a willing speaker from reaching a willing listener. The fact that it's censorship doesn't (necessarily) mean that it's illegitimate or bad.

3/
Read 62 tweets
Sep 17
Conspiratorialism is downstream of the trauma of institutional failures.

Insitutional failures are downstream of regulatory capture.

Regulatory capture is downstream of monopolization.

Monopolization is downstream of the failure to enforce antitrust law.

1/ A four-doll matrioshke, unpacked and arranged 2x2. In order, the dolls' faces have been replaced with: the Qanon logo; an Oxycontin pill, the face of Robert Bork, and Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar.  Image: Vicent Ibáñez (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nina_Rusa._Mu%C3%B1eca_Rusa.JPG  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en  --  RootOfAllLight (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon.png  CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/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/2025/09/17/cau…

2/
Start with conspiratorialism and trauma. I am staunchly pro-vaccine. I have had so many covid jabs that I glow in the dark and can get impeccable 5g reception at the bottom of a coal-mine.

Nevertheless.

3/
Read 57 tweets
Sep 8
This was the plan: America would stop making things and instead make *recipes*, the "IP" that could be sent to other countries to turn into actual *stuff*.

1/ An organ grinder with a monkey. The organ grinder's head has been replaced with a Gilded Age caricature of a sneering millionaire. The monkey's head has been replaced with the head of a miserable child coal miner. The background is a blurred, halftoned view of a vast square in Beijing with a giant official building in the background, and a Chinese flag on a flagpole. On the organ is a blurred portrait of John Philip Sousa.
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/2025/09/08/pro…

2/
This would happen in distant lands without the pesky environmental and labor rules that forced businesses accept reduced profits because they weren't allowed to maim their workers and poison the land, air and water.

3/
Read 77 tweets

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