Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Sep 24, 2022 29 tweets 29 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Billionaire grifters hate her; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/09/24/shi…

#Pluralistic 1/
#SanFrancisco! I'm in town tomorrow with "Chokepoint Capitalism," @rgibli's and my latest book!

sfpl.org/events/2022/09…

Next stop, #LA (Sept 27): booksoup.com/event/cory-doc… 2/
If you can't make it and want a signed, personalized copy shipped to your door, our friends at @FolioSF have you covered:

foliosf.com/chokepointcapi… 3/
Billionaire grifters hate her: Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Ida M Tarbell.

4/
Hey look at this

* Oh, you like Leonard Cohen? Name 3 of his songs that have securitized as collateral against Blackstone debt (h/t @YvesSmith) 5/
Hey look at this (cont'd)

* The Quality and Efficiency of Public and Private Firms: Evidence from Ambulance Services Get access Arrow academic.oup.com/qje/article-ab… (h/t Fipi Lele) 6/
Hey look at this (cont'd)

* GEICO Tells Workers They Have ‘Right to Contact Police’ If Union Organizers Visit Their House vice.com/amp/en/article… (h/t @YvesSmith) 7/
#20yrsago @therealjanisian interviewed on @Slashdot news.slashdot.org/story/02/09/23…

#20yrsago Warchalking FAQ by @AaronSw web.archive.org/web/2002092502…

#20yrsago Roman chariots responsible for Space Shuttle design constraints web.archive.org/web/2002100403… 8/
#20yrsago Science fiction writers help the CIA wired.com/2002/10/i-foug…

#15yrsago Police can retroactively bug your phone for your breadcrumb trail wired.com/2007/09/is-tha…

#15yrsago Debate: Pixel-Stained Technopeasants Versus Webscabs trashotron.com/agony/news/200… 9/
#15yrsago My column on fixing cellphones by killing the carriers web.archive.org/web/2007101107…

#15yrsago Ha'penny, @BlueJoWalton's haunting thriller about an alternate British Reich memex.craphound.com/2007/09/24/hap… 10/
#15yrsago Cory Doctorow cosplayers at the @XKCD picnic flickr.com/photos/miserlo…

#10yrsago A report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports gao.gov/products/gao-1… 11/
#10yrsago How DRM screws people with visual disabilities: a report from the front lines zdnet.com/article/going-…

#10yrsago Pharmaceutical companies deliberately mislead doctors into prescribing useless and even harmful meds web.archive.org/web/2013073016… 12/
#10yrsago Copyright lobbyists secretly engineering clawback of Canadian user rights web.archive.org/web/2012102819…

#10yrsago Time-Warner Cable pisses off two Starship Enterprise Captains on two coasts 13/
#10yrsago @MollyCrabapple describes and illustrates her Occupy arrest cnn.com/2012/09/22/opi…

#5yrsago Saudi history textbook features photo of King Faisal chilling with Yoda telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/2… 14/
#5yrsago The Spider Network, a novelistic account of the mediocre rich men who robbed the world with Libor memex.craphound.com/2017/09/24/the…

#1yrago Demonopolizing the internet with interoperability: My op-ed in the Communications of the ACM pluralistic.net/2021/09/24/com… 15/
#1yrago The music monopolists: Thinking outside the antitrust box pluralistic.net/2021/09/23/rem…

#1yrago The Halloween Moon: A YA novel from Nightvale creator @PlanetofFinks pluralistic.net/2021/09/23/rem… 16/
Thursday's threads: Twitch does a chokepoint capitalism; and more!

17/
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… 18/
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… 19/
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/ 20/
Upcoming appearances:

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

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

* Chokepoint Capitalism event, @AltaJournal Live (Zoom), 9/28
altaonline.com/events/a411093… 21/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Discussing "Adventure Capitalism" with @RayCraib, @SkylightBooks (LA), 9/29
blog.pmpress.org/events/raymond…

* #OnlinePublicSphere2022, 10/3
globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/events/regulat…

* Chokepoint Capitalism event, @BooksandBooks (Miami), 10/12
booksandbooks.com/event/in-perso… 22/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @LibraryJournal Day of Dialog (Zoom), 10/20
libraryjournal.com/event/library-…

* @WEDF_forum, 10/26-28
worldethicaldataforum.org/registration

* Arthur C Clarke Award (DC), 11/16
mailchi.mp/2e2b8a01e992/s… 23/
Recent appearances:

* Cultural Capture by Chokepoint Capitalism (@MachineKillsPod)
soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…

* Billionaires As Policy Failure Factories (@CheeseMacro)
realprogressives.org/podcast_episod…

* Where’s My Privacy? (@myjetpackca)
wheresmyjetpack.ca/2022/09/14/doc… 24/
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… 25/
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/2022/09/24/shi… 26/
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 "Doing the Work: How to Write When You Suck

doctorow.medium.com/doing-the-work… 27/
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 28/
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… 29/

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More from @doctorow

Nov 20
Well, this fucking *sucks*. A federal judge has decided that Meta is not a monopolist, and that its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp were not an illegal bid to secure and maintain a monopoly:



1/ gizmodo.com/meta-learns-th…The classic Puck Magazine editorial cartoon entitled 'The King of All Commodities,' depicting John D Rockefeller as a man with grotesquely tiny body and a gigantic head, wearing a crown emblazoned with the names of the industrial concerns he owned. Rockefeller's head has been replaced with that of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar. The names of the industrial concerns have been replaced with the wordmarks for Scale AI, Instagram, Oculus and Whatsapp. The dollar-sign at the crown's pinnacle has been replaced with the Facebook 'f' logo. The chain around Rockefeller's neck sports the charm th...
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/2025/11/20/if-…

2/
This is particularly galling because Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly, explicitly declared that these mergers were undertaken *to reduce competition*, which is the only circumstance in which pro-monopoly economists and lawyers say that mergers should be blocked.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Nov 18
Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called *Who Censored Roger Rabbit?* which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*

1/ The final scene of Disneyland's 'Roger Rabbit's Toontown Spin,' in which Roger Rabbit is deploying a pair of portable holes; the holes have been replaced with copyright symbols, which are partially cropped.  Image: Ken Lund (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/16775732643/  CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/11/18/im-…

2/
But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn't made any feature-length sequels.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Nov 8
A blockbuster Reuters report by Jeff Horwitz analyzes leaked internal documents that reveal that: 10% of Meta's gross revenue comes from ads for fraudulent goods and scams, and; the company knows it, and; they decided not to do anything about it, because...

1/ A tuxedoed figure dramatically shoveing greenish pigs into a tube, from whose other end vomits forth a torrent of packaged goods. He has the head of Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse' avatar. He stands upon an endless field of gold coins. The background is the intaglioed upper face of the engraving of Benjamin Franklin on a US$100 bill, roughed up to a dark and sinister hue.
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/2025/11/08/fae…

2/
...The fines for facilitating this life-destroying fraud are far less than the expected revenue from helping to destroy its users' lives:



3/reuters.com/investigations…
Read 59 tweets
Nov 7
While I formulated the idea of enshittification to refer to digital platforms and their specific technical characteristics, economics and history, I am very excited to see other theorists extend the idea of enshittification beyond tech and into wider policy realms.

1/ A Gilded Age editorial cartoon depicting a muscular worker and a corpulent millionaire squaring off for a fight; the millionaire's head has been replaced with the poop emoji from the cover of 'Enshittification,' its mouth covered in a grawlix-scrawled black bar.
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/2025/11/07/pos…

2/
There's an easy, loose way to do this, which is using "enshittification" to refer to "things generally getting worse." To be clear, I am *fine* with this:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pea…
Read 89 tweets
Oct 29
Amazon made $35b profit last year. They're celebrating by firing 14k workers (a number they say will rise to 30k). It's the kind of thing Wall St loves. It comes after a string of pronouncements from Andy Jassy about how AI is going to let him fire *tons* of workers.

1/ A black and white image of an armed overseer supervising several chain-gang prisoners in stripes doing forced labor. The overseer's head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The prisoners' heads have been replaced with hackers' hoodies.   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/2025/10/29/wor…

2/
That's the AI story, after all. It's not about making workers more productive or creative.

3/
Read 45 tweets
Oct 11
I am an environmentalist, but I'm not a climate activist. I used to be - I even used to ring strangers' doorbells on behalf of Greenpeace.

1/ A field of utility scale solar. Behind the mountains on the horizon line loom two logos: the original EFF 'clenched fist and lightning bolt' logo and the first Earth Day logo. They are reflected in the solar panels. Behind them roils hellish red-shot smoke.
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/2025/10/11/cyb…

2/
But a quarter of a century ago, I fell in with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and became a lifelong digital rights activist, and switched to cheering on environmental activists from the sidelines of their fight:



3/eff.org
Read 53 tweets

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