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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Nov 17, 2022 • 32 tweets • 29 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Private equity health-care monopolies are on a profitable killing spree; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the…

#Pluralistic 1/ A hospital Emergency Room parking lot. In the center of the
Hey #DC! There's a *very special* invite-only book party for "Chokepoint Capitalism" tonight (Nov 17) and while it's not a public event, there's a limited number of spaces I can distribute on a first come/first serve basis. If you'd like to come, email doctorow@craphound.com! 2/
Today (11/17), I'm part of a @library_futures webinar:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

Tomorrow (11/18), I'm in Baltimore at @thePeale Museum:
thepeale.org/event/book-tal…

Fri (11/19), I'm at Sky Live in London:
news.sky.com/bigideaslive 3/
Private equity health-care monopolies are on a profitable killing spree: And you thought it was bad before.

4/ Image: Rae Allen (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/r
Hey look at this

* Libraries Are Launching Their Own Local Music Streaming Platforms vice.com/en/article/5d3… (h/t Slashdot)

* Fantastic Medieval Campaigns traversefantasy.itch.io/fmc (h/t Vintage RPG)

* @LocusMag's first crowdfunding campaign! indiegogo.com/projects/locus… 5/
#20yrsago Visa claims to own dictionary definition of “visa” web.archive.org/web/2002111811…

#20yrsago Hacker R0TC latimes.com/archives/la-xp…

#15yrsago Korea’s Internet “addiction” boot-camps nytimes.com/2007/11/18/tec… 6/
#15yrsago House keeps AT&T on the hook for spying on America, Senate next? eff.org/deeplinks/2007…

#15yrsago Infringement Nation: we are all mega-crooks web.archive.org/web/2007112701…

#10yrsago Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: The perfect nerdish fantasy memex.craphound.com/2012/11/16/mr-… 7/
#10yrsago What do we do about untrustworthy Certificate Authorities? nature.com/articles/49132…

#10yrsago Taliban uses CC instead of BCC, exposes identity of 400+ contacts observer.com/2012/11/taliba… 8/
#10yrsago House Republicans release watershed copyright reform paper techdirt.com/2012/11/16/hou…

#5yrsago Outstanding rant about the surreal design ethos of The Cheesecake Factory 9/
#5yrsago Poor Detroit neighborhoods, abandoned by telcos and the FCC, are rolling out homebrew, community mesh broadband vice.com/en/article/kz3…

#5yrsago 70% of poor people on broadband subsidy will lose their connections thanks to Trump’s FCC arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 10/
#5yrsago The 0.2% of Americans exempted by the GOP estate-tax plan (including the Trump cabinet) have never paid tax on their millions and never will nytimes.com/2017/11/16/bus… 11/
#5yrsago Donald Trump will re-legalize importing endangered elephants’ ivory and severed heads newscientist.com/article/215368…

#5yrsago Navy admits its pilot sky-wrote a giant cloud-wiener krem.com/article/news/l… 12/
#5yrsago Pentagon mass surveillance slurped up the world’s social media traffic; then they dumped it on a publicly accessible Amazon cloud server upguard.com/breaches/cloud… 13/
#5yrsago Web analytics companies offer “replay sessions” that let corporations watch every click and keystroke for individual users wired.com/story/the-dark… 14/
#5yrsago Trump’s top economic advisor asks CEOs to raise hands if they’re going to use tax cuts to invest, boggled by no one raising hands washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2… 15/
#5yrsago Study finds that people vote for strongman “dominance” leaders when they they feel out of control of their lives scientificamerican.com/article/explai… 16/
#5yrsago Hackers can freeze the camera that lets you know whether your “Amazon Key” equipped door is locked and who is using it wired.com/story/amazon-k… 17/
#5yrsago The Internet of Shit is so manifestly insecure that people are staying away from it in droves www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/De…

#5yrsago “Economic murder”: Senior UK public health researchers say 120,000 people died under Tory austerity independent.co.uk/news/health/to… 18/
#1yrago What Police Get When They Get Your Phone pluralistic.net/2021/11/16/cop…

#1yrago Live Nation is to blame for the Astroworld deaths pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-…

#1yrago Aspiration's comprehensively deceptive greenwashing pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-… 19/
Tuesday's threads: Tracers in the Dark; and more!

20/
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/
Upcoming appearances:

* @library_futures Webinar, 11/17
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

* Chokepoint Capitalism at @ThePeale Museum (Baltimore), 11/18:
thepeale.org/event/book-tal…

* Big Ideas Live (London), 11/19
news.sky.com/bigideaslive 24/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Kim Stanley Robinson's Gold Coast (California Book Club), Nov 22
altaonline.com/california-boo…

* Conversation with @Superwuster, #Informed22/@knightfdn (Miami), 11/30:
informed22.interkinnect.com 25/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 26/
Recent appearances:

* @teamhumanshow interview
teamhuman.fm/episodes/229-c…

* How big tech traps consumers and shafts creators (@IrishTimes)
shows.acast.com/inside-politic…

* Copyright Waffle (@UKCopyrightLit)
soundcloud.com/user-243274189… 27/
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/2022/11/17/the… 28/
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 "They Want to Kill Libraries"

doctorow.medium.com/they-want-to-k… 29/
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 30/
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… 31/
Today's top sources: @YvesSmith (nakedcapitalism.com). 32/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jan 26
The best summary of Trump's trade "philosophy" comes from Trashfuture's November Kelly, who said that Trump is flipping over the table in a poker game that's rigged in his favor because he resents having to pretend to play the game at all.

1/ A detail from a US $100 bill. The bill has been tinted orange. Ben Franklin's face has been replaced with an indistinct blur surmounted by Trump's hair. The lettering in the scrollwork beneath the portrait reads 'TRUMP.' The '100's have been turned into '000's. The writing 'ONE HUNDRED' now reads 'NONE HUNDRED.' The series issue has been changed to '47.' The Secretary of the Treasury's signature has been replaced with Trump's.
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/2026/01/26/i-d…

2/
After all, the global system of trade was designed and enforced by American officials, especially the US Trade Representative.

3/
Read 84 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jan 17
Ireland is a tax haven. In the 1970s and 1980s, life in the civil-war wracked country was hard - between poverty, scarce employment and civil unrest, the country hemorrhaged its best and brightest. As the saying went, "Ireland's top export is the Irish."

1/ A green Irish pillarbox, standing before a verdant, rolling Irish countryside. The pillarbox is emblazoned with the poop emoji from the cover of 'Enshittification,' with angry eyebrows and a grawlix-scrawled black bar over its mouth. Image: Stuart Caie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_aperture_Irish_pillar_box_in_Dublin_2008.jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en -- Sourabh.biswas003 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PXL_20231216_105219694-Ballygalley_Larne_UK-_Irish_Countryside-Northern_Ireland_06.jpg CC BY-SA 3.0 ht...
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/2026/01/17/eri…

2/
In desperation, Ireland's political class hit on a wild gambit: they would weaponize Ireland's sovereignty in service to corporate tax evasion.

3/
Read 35 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jan 6
Code is a liability (not an asset). Tech bosses don't understand this. They think AI is great because it produces 10,000 times more code than a programmer, but that just means it's producing 10,000 times more liabilities.

1/ A shredder, shredding a giant US$100 bill. Benjamin Franklin's head has been replaced with a cliched 'hacker in a hoodie' illustration. The machine's faceplate bears the Claude Code wordmark. The background is the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' 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/2026/01/06/100…

2/
AI is the asbestos we're shoveling into the walls of our high-tech society:



Code is a liability. Code's *capabilities* are assets.

3/pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/eco…
Read 48 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 16, 2025
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, 2025
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, 2025
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

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