Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Oct 3, 2022 31 tweets 31 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: An antitrust murder whodunnit; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/10/03/pow…

#Pluralistic 1/ A modified version of a Soviet propaganda cartoon called 'Ca
Tomorrow (Oct 4), I'm appearing remotely in a @BKCHarvard seminar about "Chokepoint Capitalism," the book Rebecca Giblin and I just published about monopoly and unfairness in creative labor markets.

cyber.harvard.edu/events/chokepo… 2/
An antitrust murder whodunnit: I accuse Judge Bork with the Powell Memo in the smoke-filled room.

3/
Hey look at this

* Disability Inclusion Fund RFP docs.google.com/document/d/1RB…

* RIP, Chandler Davis: political prisoner, sf writer, mathematician caseazatmiftakhov.org/2022/09/28/cha…

* The seer and the seen: Surveying Palantir’s surveillance platform tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… 4/
#20yrsago Why is it so hard to get a cab in San Francisco? web.archive.org/web/2002100304…

#20yrsago Notes from OSXCon’s DRM and Digital Hub panel web.archive.org/web/2002101823…

#20yrsago Sidekick, your mobile blogging pal web.archive.org/web/2002101712… 5/
#15yrsago RIAA: Our anti-fan lawsuits are costing us millions arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#15yrsago Can “girl games” transcend shopping, fashion and babies? wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/200…

#15yrsago Charlie Stross’s Halting State: Heist novel about an MMORPG memex.craphound.com/2007/10/02/cha… 6/
#15yrsago The Future of Ignoring Things https://web.archive.org/web/20071011000250/https://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=479&doc_id=134703&

#10yrsago Congress: The DHS’s “fusion centers” full of bad intelligence, lies, and imaginary buildings nytimes.com/2012/10/03/us/… 7/
#10yrsago A Wrinkle in Time, worthy graphic novel adaptation memex.craphound.com/2012/10/03/a-w…

#10yrsago Costumes that integrate wheelchairs buzzfeed.com/babymantis/20-…

#10yrsago Japan competes with Panama to pass the world’s worst copyright law torrentfreak.com/anti-downloadi… 8/
#10yrsago The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There memex.craphound.com/2012/10/02/the…

#5yrsago The same Equifax exec who greenlit suspicious stock-sales was also in charge of cybersecurity consumerist.com/2017/10/02/the… 9/
#5yrsago Thanks to the EU, the UK’s privacy law may solve the mystery of Facebook and the last US election theguardian.com/technology/201…

#5yrsago Latest Federal Reserve figures show widening wealth inequality, and it’s much worse if you’re not white jacobin.com/2017/10/wealth… 10/
#5yrsago Spanish tech activists publish a “how-to guide for preserving fundamental rights on the Internet” xnet-x.net/en/how-to-guid…

#5yrsago @TimOReilly explains how self-driving cars will bankrupt Uber 11/
#5yrsago Taser says its weapons don’t kill people, so Reuters built a massive database of 1000+ Taser deaths reuters.com/investigates/s…

#5yrsago The London Underground thinks it can sell travelers’ attention and wifi data for £322m news.sky.com/story/tfl-may-… 12/
#5yrsago Yahoo revises number of hacked accounts from 500,000,000 to 3,000,000,000 arstechnica.com/information-te…

#5yrsago Trump’s ICE snitch-line is full of people secretly trying to deport their in-laws splinternews.com/this-is-what-i… 13/
#5yrsago Bluetooth sex toys are trivial to compromise just by walking around neighborhoods arstechnica.com/information-te…

#5yrsago /r/TheDonald on the Vegas shooting, before and after they learned it was a rich old white man reddit.com/r/sadcringe/co… 14/
#5yrsago Equifax: we missed 2.5 million people when we counted the size of our breach marketwatch.com/story/equifax-…

#5yrsago Trump’s pick for EPA pollution czar says kids are less sensitive to pollution than adults theintercept.com/2017/10/03/epa… 15/
#5yrsago Either we don’t live in a simulation, or computing works differently outside the Matrix web.archive.org/web/2017100216…

#5yrsago San Juan mayor barred from speaking on Trump’s Puerto Rico relief conference call independent.co.uk/news/world/ame… 16/
#5yrsago Supreme Court will rule on whether immigrants have constitutional rights abovethelaw.com/2017/10/does-t…

#5yrsago @greatdismal’s Archangel: a graphic story of the unfolding jackpot apocalypse memex.craphound.com/2017/10/03/wil… 17/
#1yrago How the IMF loan-sharks the global south pluralistic.net/2021/10/02/deb… 18/
Saturday's threads: How Palantir will steal the NHS; and more!

19/
My latest book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with @rgibli), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.

chokepointcapitalism.com

Signed copies available from @BookSoup:

booksoup.com/book/978080700… 20/
My latest novel 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… 21/
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, @beaconPressBks et al) 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/ 22/
Upcoming appearances:

* Chokepoint Capitalism event, @BooksandBooks (Miami), 10/12
booksandbooks.com/event/in-perso…

* Reboot Conference, @JoinLincoln (Miami), 10/13
eventbrite.com/e/reboot-2022-…

* @LibraryJournal Day of Dialog (Zoom), 10/20
libraryjournal.com/event/library-… 23/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Surviving Apocalyptic Economics, with @Rushkoff and @rgibli, Ottawa @Writersfest, 10/24
writersfestival.org/events/fall-20…

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

* Arthur C Clarke Award (DC), 11/16
mailchi.mp/2e2b8a01e992/s… 24/
Recent appearances:

* Eastern Blocks (@TWIT)
twit.tv/shows/this-wee…

* Triangulation: Chokepoint Capitalism
twit.tv/shows/twit-eve…

* Cultural Capture by Chokepoint Capitalism (@MachineKillsPod)
soundcloud.com/thismachinekil… 25/
Happy #SpookySeason! My picture book "Poesy the Monster Slayer" is the perfect read for your little monsters: it's an epic tale of bedtime-refusal, toy-hacking and monster-hunting, illustrated by @McRockefeller.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe… 26/
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/2022/10/03/pow… 27/
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 "The True Genius of Tech Leaders"

doctorow.medium.com/the-true-geniu… 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 29/
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… 30/
Today's top sources: Linda Holliday. 31/

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More from @doctorow

Jul 3
As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are *not popular*.

1/ A kneeling figure, shackled hand-and-foot with ball-and-chains at his ankles. His face is that of a turn-of-the-century newsie, grinning broadly under a torn cloth cap. Behind him is a heavily halftoned neon HELP WANTED sign, askew over a indistinct black hellscape ganked from the third panel of Boschs's 'Garden of Earthly Delights.'
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/2025/07/03/sta…

2/
Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is *extremely* unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Jul 1
If there's one are where tech has shown a consistent aptitude for innovation, it's in accounting tricks that make money-losing companies appear wildly profitable. And AI is the greatest innovator of all (when it comes to accounting gimmicks).

1/ A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill.   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/2025/06/30/acc…

2/
Since the dotcom era, tech companies have boasted about giving stuff away but "making it up in volume," inventing an ever-sweatier collection of shell-games that let them hide the business's true profit and loss.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Jun 28
In 2014, I read a political science paper that nearly convinced me to quit my lifelong career as an activist: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," published in *Perspectives on Politics*:



1/ cambridge.org/core/journals/…An inflatable pig balloon against a blue sky, bearing the Zohran for Mayor logo. The Chrysler Building sits to one side.  Image: Frank Vincentz (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geeste_-_Biener_Stra%C3%9Fe_-_Speicherbecken_-_Drachenfest_38_ies.jpg  Petri Krohn https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_building-_top.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/06/28/mam…

2/
The paper's authors are Martin Gilens, a UCLA professor of Public Policy; and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, a professor of Decision Making. Gilens and Page studied a representative sample of 1,779 policy issues.

3/
Read 49 tweets
Jun 24
When a company sells you something for $2 that someone else can buy for $1, they're revaluing the dollars in your pocket at half the rate of the other guy's.

1/ A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light.  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/2025/06/24/pri…

2/
Economists praise "price discrimination" as "efficient." That's when a company charges different customers different amounts based on inferences about their willingness to pay.

3/
Read 50 tweets
Jun 20
Private equity firms are the demon princes of the hellspace that is the imploding, life-destroying, plutocrat-generating American economy.

1/ A billionaire in a tuxedo with dollar-sign cufflinks, stands at a podium, yanking a lever shaped like a gilded dollar sign with one gloved hand. From the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a bloody corpse. His head has been replaced with the head of a doctor in a surgeon's blue cap, with red, glaring eyes. The background is the text of Oregon's new Corporate Practice of Medicine law, in blown-out, red type.
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/2025/06/20/the…

2/
Their favorite scam, the "leveraged buyout" is a mafia bustout dressed up in respectable clothes, and if you mourn a beloved, failed business, chances are that an LBO was the murder weapon, and PE was the killer:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spi…
Read 44 tweets
May 27
On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":



1/ soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…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 posed man in a sharp business suit, frowning 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/2025/05/27/ran…

2/
> One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

3/
Read 98 tweets

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