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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Oct 20, 2022 • 32 tweets • 33 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: It was all downhill after the Cuecat; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/ben…

#Pluralistic 1/ A Cuecat scanner with a bun...
Catch me today (10/20) online at @LibraryJournal's Day of Dialog:
libraryjournal.com/event/library-…

#Montreal! On 10/23 I'm at @ArgoBookshop, 10/23:
eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctoro…

And #Ottawa @Writersfest, 10/24
writersfestival.org/events/fall-20… 2/
It was all downhill after the Cuecat: On the origins of "user manipulation and surveillance."

3/ Image: Jerry Whiting (modif...
Hey look at this

* Creepy Ant Face Close-Up Haunts Nikon Small World Photo Contest cnet.com/science/creepy…

* How Ticketmaster Destroyed Live Music

* Teddy Roosevelt's Application to the Explorers Club flickr.com/photos/jurvets… 4/ Image
#15yrsago @JesseBrown's radio show about gaming in China: propaganda, paranoia and gold-farming web.archive.org/web/2011092020…

#15yrsago Baseball players’ stats aren’t property espn.com/mlb/news/story… 5/ Image
#15yrsago @GreatDismal on futurism, terrorism and other isms thetyee.ca/Books/2007/10/…

#15yrsago The Counterfeiters: superb concentration camp movie about the prisoners’ dilemma memex.craphound.com/2007/10/20/the… 6/ Image
#15yrsago How the AP busted Comcast for blocking BitTorrent web.archive.org/web/2014042116…

#15yrsago Snitch-chips embedded in UK school’s uniforms archrights.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/chi…

#10yrsago Groucho meets Bradbury 7/ Image
#10yrsago Identity thief’s amazing disguise fails to fool bank, toddlers web.archive.org/web/2012102023…

#10yrsago Coming to America: Six copyright accusations, lose your Internet arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 8/ Image
#10yrsago Researcher claims feasibility of writing lethal wireless pacemaker viruses web.archive.org/web/2012101905…

#10yrsago Dutch government gives itself the right to break into your computer and destroy it bitsoffreedom.nl/2012/10/18/dut… 9/ Image
#10yrsago Why casual sexism in science matters web.archive.org/web/2012102102…

#10yrsago Corruption in Arizona National Guard, from “bum-hunts” to sexual harassment huffpost.com/entry/national… 10/ Image
#5yrsago NYPD has no backup for its seized property database, recording millions in annual seizures courthousenews.com/no-forfeiture-…

#5yrsago Leaked ICE forfeiture manual instructs agents to seize houses if they contain a phone implicated in crime theintercept.com/2017/10/13/ice… 11/ Image
#5yrsago Mobile ad technique allows stalkers to follow you around a city for less than $1000 adint.cs.washington.edu/ADINT.pdf

#5yrsago Troubles loom for patent trolls who rent sovereign immunity from Native American tribes arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 12/ Image
#5yrsago IRS to America: you were probably already doxed before the Equifaxpocalype, so don’t worry about it thehill.com/policy/cyberse… 13/ Image
#5yrsago Two of the Chicago airport cops who beat up Dr David Dao got fired for lying about it (but not for the beating) consumerist.com/2017/10/18/two…

#5yrsago The Tories replaced benefits with “universal credit” and left a town to starve theguardian.com/society/2017/o… 14/ Image
#5yrsago Viral Chinese mobile game requires players to “applaud” a speech by President Xi Jinping scmp.com/news/china/soc…

#5yrsago Quaker Apples & Cinnamon has “35% less sugar” because they’ve cut the portion size by 35%, while the price remains 100% reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuri… 15/ Image
#5yrsago Apple brought back Braun design, but Google is bringing back Olivetti medium.com/s/story/google…

#5yrsago Facebook’s security is like a “college campus,” but they face threats like a “defense contractor” zdnet.com/article/leaked… 16/ Image
#5yrsago @quinnnorton on sexual assault, community response, and restorative justice quinnnorton.medium.com/robert-scoble-…

#5yrsago Trump’s war on leakers has neutered the intelligence community’s whistleblower program, which diverts leakers foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/18/tur… 17/ Image
#5yrsago Detailed anatomy of Wisconsin’s election-rigging, racist voter suppression motherjones.com/politics/2017/…

#1yrago The monopoly strategy behind the Google/Microsoft mobile patent wars pluralistic.net/2021/10/20/viz… 18/ Image
#1yrago Copyleft lawsuit against Vizio will allow anyone to defend the commons pluralistic.net/2021/10/20/viz…

#1yrago The true, Terry Pratchett-esque origins of the trillion-dollar coin pluralistic.net/2021/10/19/moi… 19/ Image
Tuesday's threads: Being good at your job is praxis; and more!

20/ Image: Temple University L...
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… 21/
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… 22/
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/ 23/ Image
Upcoming appearances:

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

* Chokepoint Capitalism Event, @ArgoBookshop (Montreal), 10/23
eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctoro… 24/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

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

* Launch for xychelsea's "Readme.txt: A Memoir" (Bookshop.org), 10/26:
xychelsea.tv/#event-booksho… 25/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

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

* #RadicalBookFair/@Lighthousebks (Edinburgh), 11/10
lighthousebookshop.com/events/chokepo…

* Arthur C Clarke Award (DC), 11/16
clarkefoundation.org/2022-awards-ev…

* Big Ideas Live (London), 11/19
news.sky.com/bigideaslive 26/ Image
Recent appearances:

* Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan (@lithub)
lithub.com/cory-doctorow-…

* Sex and Politics with @fakedansavage (use code "Doctorow" for a free month):
index.supportingcast.fm/subscription/t…

* Regulating the Online Public Sphere (@ColumbiaGFoE)
27/ Image
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… 28/ 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/2022/10/20/ben… 29/
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 "Unspeakable: Big-Tech-as-cop vs. abolishing Big Tech"

doctorow.medium.com/unspeakable-8c… 30/
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 31/
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… 32/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 16
We are about to get a "post-American internet," because we are entering a post-American *era* and a post-American *world*. Some of that is Trump's doing, and some of that is down to his predecessors.

1/ Uncle Sam staring into a funhouse mirror that has made him painfully thin. The reflection is wearing a Trump wig and has orange skin. He stands atop a map of the world that stretches to infinity. In the background is a shantytown with the TRUMP logomark rising in the sky over it.
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/2025/12/16/k-s…

2/
When we think about the American century, we rightly focus on America's hard power - the invasions, military bases, arms exports, and CIA coups.

3/
Read 86 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 13
Look, I'm not trying to say that new technologies *never* raise gnarly new legal questions. But what I *am* saying is that a lot of the time, the "new legal challenges" raised by technology are somewhere between 95-100% bullshit.

1/ A modified FBI badge. It now reads 'Federal Wallet Investigators.' It is made out to 'Timothy J Shotspotter.' It is held in the three-fingered, gloved grip of a cartoon character. Around its edges, we see a cartoon room from a public domain Betty Boop cartoon.
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/2025/12/13/unc…

2/
It's ginned up by none-too-bright tech bros and their investors, and then swallowed by regulators and lawmakers who are either so credulous they'd lose a game of peek-a-boo, or (likely) in on the scam.

3/
Read 68 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 9
I have a weird fascination with early-stage Bill Gates, after his mother convinced a pal of hers - chairman of IBM's board of directors - to give her son the contract to provide the operating system for the new IBM PC.

1/ A 1960s ad for IBM mainframes, featuring a woman in an office chair seated at a console, surrounded by large processing and storage units. It has been modified. A man in a business suit, impatiently checking his watch, looms out from between two of the cabinets. His head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The woman's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie. Both the woman and the man have been tinted red. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommon...
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/2025/12/09/tem…

2/
Gates and his pal Paul Allen tricked another programmer into selling them the rights to DOS, which they sold to IBM, setting Microsoft on the path to be one of the most profitable businesses in human history.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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

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