Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 22, 2022 33 tweets 26 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Tax prep services send sensitive financial info to Facebook; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/11/22/fre…

#Pluralistic 1/ An H&R Block storefront; the 'o' in Block has been replaced
Today (11/22), I'm hosting a @CalBookClub event with Kim Stanley Robinson where we'll be discussing his 1998 novel "The Gold Coast":

altaonline.com/california-boo… 2/
My publisher @TorBooks and @Goodreads are drawing for a giveaway of advance copies of my next novel, "Red Team Blues," a Silicon Valley forensic accounting thriller about a cryptocurrency heist - If you're in the US or Canada, enter here to win a copy:

goodreads.com/giveaway/show/… 3/
Tax prep services send sensitive financial info to Facebook: And they didn't even know they were doing it.

4/ Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik
Hey look at this

* Greg Bear (1951-2022) file770.com/greg-bear-1951…

* Global Voices seeks an editor to lead our Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa coverage globalvoices.org/2022/11/21/glo…

* Tumblr to add support for ActivityPub techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tum… (h/t Slashdot) 5/
#20yrsago Dumbass plan to redesign internet shored up by crooked, lying consultants nytimes.com/2002/11/22/wor…

#10yrsago Texas student suspended for refusing RFID tracker wired.com/2012/11/studen… 6/
#10yrsago Finnish police confiscate 9-y-o’s laptop after she downloads a song from the Pirate Bay dublimat.blogspot.com/2012/11/9-year…

#10yrsago Hacker steals entire nation’s identity loweringthebar.net/2012/11/if-you… 7/
#10yrsago Fact-checking US patent-boss’s defense of his job arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#10yrsago Counterfeiters counterfeit anti-counterfeiting notice memex.craphound.com/2012/11/22/cou… 8/
#10yrsago Spacehawk: the complete collection of Basil Wolverton’s space crusader memex.craphound.com/2012/11/22/spa…

#5yrsago Connected sex-toy allows for code-injection attacks on a robot you wrap around your genitals 9/
#5yrsago Why we should cheer the DoJ’s lawsuit to block the AT&T/Time-Warner merger wired.com/story/why-the-… 10/
#5yrsago For more than half a century, the sugar industry has used Big Tobacco tactics to suppress sugar/cancer link and to confuse the science journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar… 11/
#5yrsago Cops chase innocent shoplifting suspect into stranger’s house, then storm it with 50-person SWAT team and blow up every room except one thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-watch/fift… 12/
#5yrsago Trump’s top economic advisor couldn’t bear to listen to the president bloviate so he pretended he had a bad connection and hung up cnn.com/videos/politic… 13/
#5yrsago Trump found someone even worse than Tom Price to regulate Health and Human Services: an insulin profiteer medium.com/@caitlynmcclur… 14/
#5yrsago “Less lethal” is a deceptive term to describe the weapons that routinely kill and maim peaceful protesters opendemocracy.net/en/homer-vente… 15/
#5yrsago States suspend your driver’s license over inability to pay court fines, costing you your job and any ability to repay vice.com/en/article/59y… 16/
#5yrsago Behold! The astonishing mental gymnastics of TSA apologists explaining why rich people don’t need to be screened memex.craphound.com/2017/11/22/beh… 17/
#5yrsago Uber admits it breached 57,000,000 accounts, then bribed the hackers to cover it up, now they’re paying a top ex-NSA lawyer to teach them transparency bloomberg.com/news/articles/… 18/
#1yrago Private ambulances want a ban on firefighters rescuing babies pluralistic.net/2021/11/22/amr… 19/
Yesterday's threads: Universities secretly sold their students to online casinos; 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:

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

* Conversation with @Superwuster, #Informed22/@knightfdn (Miami), 11/30:
informed22.interkinnect.com 24/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Library Learning Experience/@ALALibrary (New Orleans), 1/27-30
2023.alaliblearnx.org/cory-doctorow

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 25/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy (Brussels), Mar 2:
brusselsconference.com/registration 26/
Recent appearances:

* @bizwithoutbs
open.spotify.com/episode/04GWer…

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

* How big tech traps consumers and shafts creators (@IrishTimes)
shows.acast.com/inside-politic… 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/2022/11/22/fre… 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. 29/
My latest @Medium column is "Anything That Can’t Go On Forever Will Eventually Stop: Ticketmaster and Ideas Lying Around"

doctorow.medium.com/anything-that-… 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/
Today's top sources: @Slashdot (slashdot.org). 33/

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More from @doctorow

Jul 30
Delta's announced new surveillance pricing: they're feeding an AI your nonconsensually harvested personal info that data-brokers and credit bureaux hold to predict the maximum you're willing to pay, and then price their tickets accordingly:



1/ fortune.com/2025/07/16/del…Hieronymus Bosch's 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a sleight-of-hand artist doing a cup-and-balls routine for a group of amazed yokels. It has been altered. The head of the conjurer has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' He wears a Delta Airlines logo over his breast. The table on which the cup-and-balls game is playing out sports a crashed jet in Delta livery, smoke rising from the wreckage.   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/2025/07/30/eff…

2/
Data-brokers sell all kinds of data, from the "legitimate" info about everywhere your car's been, to everywhere place the Bluetooth radios on your phone and headphones has been, to everything you've bought, to every sit you've visited and every search you've performed.

3/
Read 61 tweets
Jul 22
Ever notice how many right wing influencers are on the grift?

1/ A carny barker at a podium, gesticulating with a MAGA cap. He wears a Klan hood, and his podium features products from Nu-skin, Amway and Herbalife. Behind him is an oil-painted scene of a steamship with a Trump Tower logo, at a pier in flames.
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/2025/07/22/all…

2/
Like Alex Jones - that guy is basically Gwyneth Paltrow for conservative bros, selling the same "wellness" crap to a male audience (and not for nothing, Paltrow's victims are reliable boosters for RFK Jr's MAHA movement):



3/theweek.com/speedreads/709…
Read 66 tweets
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

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