#NewYorkers! The state legislature has passed landmark #RightToRepair legislation, but @GovHochul hasn't signed it and it might die. Visit eff.org/rtr to help tell the Governor that we can't afford to wait (and tell your friends in New York, too!). 2/
Better failure for social media: The right of exit, freedom of reach, and technological self-determination.
#10yrsago Point of Sale skimmer that prints out real-seeming receipts 10/
#10yrsago If you’re suspected of drug involvement, America takes your house; HSBC admits to laundering cartel billions, loses five weeks’ income and execs have to partially defer bonuses web.archive.org/web/2012122101… 11/
#5yrsago Rich people in Bristol install anti-bird spikes in trees to keep shit off their cars, rendering trees “literally uninhabitable” by local wildlife independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n… 13/
#5yrsago CBD is a non-psychoactive compound in marijuana that shows promise in epilepsy and pain therapy, so the DEA wants to class it with heroin arstechnica.com/science/2017/1… 18/
#5yrsago@EFF to US Copyright Office: fix the DRM rules that stop us from fixing our stuff, make fair use, and make IoT gadgets work the way we want eff.org/press/releases…
#5yrsago The Tea Party’s baseless claims of IRS discrimination left the agency on life-support, unable to police dark money gushing through “charities” washingtonpost.com/investigations… 21/
#5yrsago Anatomy of how crooks use financial secrecy in the UK and New Zealand to rip off international investors with impunity interest.co.nz/business/91250… 22/
#5yrsago When Justin Trudeau was in opposition, he voted for Canada’s PATRIOT Act but promised to fix it; instead he’s making it much, much worse citizenlab.ca/2017/12/citize… 23/
#5yrsago As climate deniers claim credit for killing Net Neutrality, the FCC’s internal auditor reveals that Neutracide was based on a lie vice.com/en/article/vby… 24/
#5yrsago EPA employees who spoke out about Trump are having their emails ransacked, and the EPA’s new “monitoring” firm is linked to a GOP oppo research firm nytimes.com/2017/12/17/us/… 25/
#5yrsago China will collect the DNA of every adult in Xinjiang province, where Uyghur people are systematically oppressed techdirt.com/2017/12/18/chi…
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."
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 "'Metaverse' means 'pivot to video'"
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!
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? You can read my work elsewhere, but it is now a #TwitterCrime to tell you how. Please visit my site, pluralistic.net, for links to find me on less-unhinged places (I can only imagine that my days here are numbered). 37/
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I am an environmentalist, but I'm not a climate activist. I used to be - I even used to ring strangers' doorbells on behalf of Greenpeace.
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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:
But a quarter of a century ago, I fell in with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and became a lifelong digital rights activist, and switched to cheering on environmental activists from the sidelines of their fight:
Like you, I'm sick to the back teeth of talking about AI. Like you, I keep getting dragged into AI discussions. Unlike you‡, I spent the summer writing a book on why I'm sick of AI⹋, which @fsgbooks will publish in 2026.
‡probably
⹋"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI"
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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:
A week ago, I turned that book into a speech, which I delivered as the annual Nordlander Memorial Lecture at Cornell, where I'm an AD White Professor-at-Large.
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Billionaires don't think we're real. How could they? How could you inflict the vast misery that generates billions while still feeling even a twinge of empathy for the sufferer in your extractive enterprise. No wonder Elon Musk calls us "NPCs":
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:
Ever notice how people get palpably stupider as they gain riches and power? Musk went from a cringe doofus to a world-class credulous dolt, and it seems like he loses five IQ points for every $10b that's added to his net worth.
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I'm only a few chapters into Bill McKibben's stupendous new book *Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization* and I already know it's going to change my outlook forever:
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:
McKibben is one of our preeminent climate writers and activists, noteworthy for his informed and brilliant explanations of the technical limits - and possibilities - of various climate interventions, and for his lifelong organizing work.
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One of the dumbest, shrewdest tricks corporate America ever pulled was teaching us all to reflexively say, "If a corporation blocks your speech, that doesn't violate the First Amendment and therefore it's not censorship":
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:
Censorship isn't limited to government action: it's the act of preventing a message from a willing speaker from reaching a willing listener. The fact that it's censorship doesn't (necessarily) mean that it's illegitimate or bad.
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Conspiratorialism is downstream of the trauma of institutional failures.
Insitutional failures are downstream of regulatory capture.
Regulatory capture is downstream of monopolization.
Monopolization is downstream of the failure to enforce antitrust law.
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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:
Start with conspiratorialism and trauma. I am staunchly pro-vaccine. I have had so many covid jabs that I glow in the dark and can get impeccable 5g reception at the bottom of a coal-mine.