Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Oct 20, 2022 32 tweets 33 min read Read on X
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...
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

Mar 5
You guys, I don't want to bum you out or anything, but I think there's a good chance than some self-described capitalists *aren't really into capitalism*.

Sorry.

1/ A giant, complicated, mechanical printing press. Looming over it is an 18th-century demon from the Compendium Rarissimum Totius Artis Magicae; it is a eating severed human leg, and waving another leg in the air. In the background rise dark red flames. The printer has a Brother logo.
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/2025/03/05/pri…

2/
Take incentives: Charlie Munger, capitalism's quippiest pitchman, famously said, "Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome."

3/
Read 50 tweets
Mar 3
I get a special pleasure from citing Milton Friedman. I like to imagine that as I do, he groans around the red-hot spit protruding from his jaws, prompting howls of laughter from the demons who pelt him with molten faeces for all eternity.

1/ Oil derricks superimposed against a 'code waterfall' as seen in the credit sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies. In the foreground is Trump's hair.
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/2025/03/03/fri…

2/
If you're lucky enough not to know about Friedman, here's the short version. Friedman was a kind of court sorcerer to Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Augusto Pinochet, and other assorted authoritarian, hard-right leaders who set us on the path to the hellscape we inhabit today.

3/
Read 56 tweets
Feb 20
The commercial surveillance industry is almost totally unregulated. Data brokers, ad-tech, and everyone in between - they harvest, store, analyze, sell and rent every intimate, sensitive, potentially compromising fact about your life.

1/   A towering figure with the head of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' surmounted by Trump's hair, wearing a tailcoat with a Google logo lapel pin. It peers through a magnifying glass at a distressed, tiny Uncle Sam figure perched in its monstrous palm.   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/2025/02/20/pri…

2/
Late last year, I testified at a Consumer Finance Protection Bureau hearing about a proposed new rule to kill off data brokers, who are the lynchpin of the industry:



3/pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the…
Read 41 tweets
Feb 18
In 2013, Thomas Piketty had an unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) *Capital in the 21st Century*.

1/ A Gilded Age editorial cartoon of a frowning Uncle Sam giving a blood transfusion to a gargantuan business-man whose waistcoat is labeled 'protected monopolies.' The businessman's head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background has been replaced with a halftoned EU flag whose blue field is covered in circuit-board traceries. The floor beneath the figures is an abstract, pinkish pattern.  Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed....
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/2025/02/18/pik…

2/
It offers a very convincing explanation of our political decay, and it continues to serve this purpose as the decay undergoes alarming acceleration:



3/memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/tho…
Read 62 tweets
Feb 17
Theory-free inference is a hell of a drug. For years, Big Data advocates - the larval form of today's AI weirdos - have insisted that if you have enough data, you can infer causal relationships between complex phenomena without ever having to understand how x causes y.

1/ https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/17/caliper-ai/#racism-machine   A phrenological illustration of a man's face in profile, with his skull divided up into sections with illustrations of what each area is meant to govern, e.g., appetite, artistic aptitude, aggression, ardor. A pair of gleaming silver calipers, wielded by the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' measures the figure's skull.   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/2025/02/17/cal…

2/
Thus, we can slay the dread "correlation is not causation" beast. This is cousin to Milton Friedman's famous economic catechism:



3/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in…
Read 36 tweets
Feb 12
Remember the Tiktok ban? I know, it was ten million years ago (in Musk years, anyway), so it may have slipped your mind, but let me remind you: Congress passed a law saying Tiktok was banned. Trump said he wouldn't enforce the law. The end.

1/ An official portrait of the US Supreme Court, with the justices sitting and standing before a red velvet curtain. Their faces have been replaced with the green 'Mr Yuck' logo. Floating in the middle of the image, obscuring several judges, is the Tiktok logo, with Trump's hair.
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/2025/02/12/you…

2/
No, really. I mean, sure, there's a bunch of bullshit about whether Trump will pick up the ban again after Tiktok's grace period ends, depending on whether they sell themselves to his creepy wax museum pal Larry Ellison. Maybe he will.

3/
Read 39 tweets

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