Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Sep 12, 2022 23 tweets 22 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Spotify steals from artists, a Spotify exclusive; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/str…

#Pluralistic 1/ The cover for Chokepoint Capitalism, superimposed with a bla
#Toronto! #NewYork! #SanFrancisco! I'm heading your way with my next book, "Chokepoint Capitalism"!

9/16: Toronto - @typebooks/Junction 7PM

9/25: SF
sfpl.org/events/2022/09…

9/27: LA
booksoup.com/event/cory-doc…

More (#DC, #Ottawa, #Boston, #London, #Miami, more!) coming soon! 2/
I'm Kickstarting a DRM-free audiobook of Chokepoint Capitalism, the book @rgibli and I wrote about how tech- and entertainment monopolies rip off artists, and how to unrig those terrible labor markets:

kickstarter.com/projects/docto…

("This book really gets it" - @StephenFry) 3/
Spotify steals from artists, a Spotify exclusive: More Chokepoint Capitalism stunt-publishing.

4/
Hey look at this

* Transacting in Person with Strangers from the Internet krebsonsecurity.com/2022/09/transa… (h/t @Slashdot)

* Atkinson Hyperlegible Font brailleinstitute.org/freefont (h/t Trivium)

* A Note on "Industrial Policy” braddelong.substack.com/p/a-note-on-in… (h/t @YvesSmith) 5/
#15yrsago Voice-stress ice-cream dispenser increases portions for the miserable web.archive.org/web/2007101205…

#15yrsago US hedge-funds wax fat by investing in Chinese surveillance nytimes.com/2007/09/11/bus… 6/
#15yrsago Canadian gov’t convenes secret net-tapping inquiry web.archive.org/web/2007101109…

#10yrsago Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete toothycat.net/~hologram/Turi…

#10yrsago @DBtodomundo’s How Music Works memex.craphound.com/2012/09/12/dav… 7/
#5yrsago Deposit “tips” that are actually fake money with Bible verses in the church collection plate imgur.com/gallery/c4BrU

#5yrsago Chinese government sources tell the WSJ they’re about to shut down all domestic Bitcoin exchanges theverge.com/2017/9/11/1628… 8/
#5yrsago RIP, Imagineer X Atencio gizmodo.com/x-antencio-dis…

#5yrsago Blueborne is a newly revealed Bluetooth attack that allows wireless penetration of billions of devices arstechnica.com/information-te… 9/
#5yrsago Red Cross “didn’t show up” at Florida shelters during Irma yorkdispatch.com/story/news/201…

#5yrsago There’s an 820-foot-long fatberg clogging an east London sewer consumerreports.org/consumerist/lo… 10/
Saturday's threads: American healthcare did a fuckery; The White House has a plan for Big Tech; and more!

11/
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… 12/
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… 13/
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/ 14/
Upcoming appearances:

* Canadians Connected (Ottawa), 9/15
member.cira.ca/Events/Canadia…

* Chokepoint Capitalism event, @TypeBooks Junction (Toronto), 9/16, 7PM

* #UnfinishedLive (NYC), 9/21-24
live.unfinished.com
Upcoming appearances (cont'd)

* Chokepoint Capitalism event, SFPL (San Francisco), 9/25
sfpl.org/events/2022/09…

* Chokepoint Capitalism, @BookSoup (LA), 9/27
booksoup.com/event/cory-doc…

* @WEDF_forum, 10/26-28
worldethicaldataforum.org
Recent appearances:

* Launch for @Motherboard's Terraform antho
vice.com/en/article/3ad…

* Crypto and the Left (@TBSocialist)
theblockchainsocialist.com/crypto-and-the…

* The Wondrous World of the Early Internet & How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism (@curaffairs) patreon.com/posts/cory-doc…
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/2022/09/12/str…
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

My latest Medium column is "Sound Money: The best money is social, not personal"

doctorow.medium.com/sound-money-28…
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/web/@pluralist…
ETA: an earlier version of this thread gave the wrong date for my event in Toronto at @typebooks in the Junction; it's Sept 16!

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More from @doctorow

Mar 25
A law professor friend tells me that LLMs have completely transformed the way she relates to grad students and postdocs - for the worse. And no, it's not that they're cheating on their homework or using LLMs to write briefs full of hallucinated cases.

1/ Norman Rockwell’s ‘self portrait.’ All the Rockwell faces have been replaced with HAL 9000 from Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ His signature has been modified with a series of rotations and extra symbols. He has ten fingers on his one visible hand.    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/2025/03/25/com…

2/
The thing that LLMs have changed in my friend's law school is *letters of reference*. Historically, students would only ask a prof for a letter of reference if they knew the prof really rated them.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Mar 22
I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire.



1/ mystgalaxy.com/32425DoctorowA bloody mary stacked high with many absurd, over-the-top garnishes.   Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/  CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/03/22/omn…

2/
Which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):

3/
Read 50 tweets
Mar 19
Paula Le Dieu is one of the smartest, most committed archivists I know. Many years ago, she shared a neat analogy with me about the paywalling of public archives.

1/ The Columbia University library, a stately, columnated building, color-shifted to highlight reds and oranges. The sky behind it has been filled with flames. In the foreground, a figure in a firefighter's helmet and yellow coat uses a flamethrower to shoot a jet of orange fire.   Image: Ajay Suresh https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/52009406881/  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/2025/03/19/sel…

2/
This phenomenon has become rampant as public institutions have been pushed to seek private funding to close the gaps left by swingeing cuts.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Mar 18
AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:



1/ pcmag.com/news/amid-job-…The capital building, crossed by a yellow hazmat tape emblazoned 'DANGER ASBESTOS.' Behind the tape stands a figure in an old-fashioned hazmat suit. In the background are the blown-up faces of a group of grubby, miserable child miners. The capital dome has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'     Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en  --  Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creati...
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/2025/03/18/asb…

2/
If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong.

3/
Read 26 tweets
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

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