Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 19, 2022 37 tweets 35 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Better failure for social media; Hey look at this; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/bet…

#Pluralistic 1/ Moses confronting the Pharaoh, demanding that he release the
#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.

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

* Mandelmap poster mandelmap.com/product-page/m… (h/t @Kottke)

* @ProPublica Launches Investigative Editor Training Program propublica.org/article/propub…

* this house may or may not be real mcmansionhell.com/post/703763852… 4/
#20yrsago Libraries get Audible audiobooks web.archive.org/web/2003021211…

#20yrsago Videos of GW Bush cracking jokes with Enron execs about accounting fraud latimes.com/archives/la-xp…

#20yrsago Elcomsoft not guilty on all counts! web.archive.org/web/2003010104… 5/
#20yrsago Technically legal signs for anti-PATRIOT ACT librarians librarian.net/technicality.h…

#20yrsago Disney cartoons not hypnotic enough for boys web.archive.org/web/2003021213…

#15yrsago Abandoned Sun Microsystems building photo-tour web.archive.org/web/2006021110… 6/
#15yrsago Science is linguistic as well as numerical radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/…

#15yrsago HOWTO Make a BristleBot vibrating toothbrush robot evilmadscientist.com/2007/bristlebo…

#15yrsago Kim Stanley Robinson on “Comparative Planetology” bldgblog.com/2007/12/compar… 7/
#15yrsago Great Firewall of China crumbling from within wired.com/2007/10/ff-chi…

#15yrsago @DBtodomundo’s guide to being a musician in the 21st century web.archive.org/web/2008030602…

#15yrsago @DBtodomundo and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke talk music biz wired.com/2007/12/ff-yor… 8/
#15yrsago MTV declares music industry “broken” web.archive.org/web/2007121906…

#10yrsago Lessons from an author who switched from a commercial publisher to an audience-funded Kickstarter book tobiasbuckell.com/how-i-used-kic… 9/
#10yrsago Amazon Replacement Order Scam: anatomy of a social engineering con in action web.archive.org/web/2012123023…

#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/
#10yrsago Anonymous declares religious war on Westboro Baptist Church arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#10yrsago Woman gets stem-cell “wrinkle treatment,” grows extra bones in her eye-socket scientificamerican.com/article/stem-c… 12/
#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 Wells Fargo CEO promises to spend not one cent of the GOP tax gift on investment or wages thinkprogress.org/wells-fargo-ce…

#5yrsago Only Chinese companies will be allowed to map Chinese roads thedrive.com/tech/17001/chi… 14/
#5yrsago Trump’s Department of Labor proposes rule that lets employers steal employees’ tips epi.org/publication/em…

#5yrsago Stop charging AT-ATs (What the Rebellion should do in order to improve its anti-Empire tactics) wired.com/story/star-war… 15/
#5yrsago The Trumpdroid at Disney’s Hall of Presidents looks an awful lot like a hastily modded Hillarybot

#5yrsago Superb science fiction story in the form of a list of failed attempts to stave off climate extinction vice.com/en/article/xwv… 16/
#5yrsago The final draft of the GOP tax plan transfers even more wealth to the 1%: now they get 83% taxpolicycenter.org/publications/d… 17/
#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 Donald Trump droid is live at Disney World’s Hall of Presidents disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2017/12/t… 19/
#5yrsago Ted Chiang: Elon Musk’s fear of runaway AI is a projection of his repressed terror of runaway corporations buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchi… 20/
#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…

#5yrsago Female adolescent macaques practice sex by mounting male deer link.springer.com/article/10.100… 26/
Friday's threads: The antitrust Twilight Zone; and more!

27/
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… 28/
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… 29/
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/ 30/
Upcoming appearances:

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

* Chokepoint Capitalism: Can It Be Defeated? (@UCLLaws), 2/1
ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/20…

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 31/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy (Brussels), 3/2:
brusselsconference.com/registration
fwean 32/
Recent appearances:

* New Books in Public Policy (@PitPolicy):
open.spotify.com/episode/2niuM0…

* How to take back the arts from Big Tech (@TheRealNews)


* @dartsandletters:
dartsandletters.ca/2022/12/12/ep7… 33/
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/2022/12/19/bet… 34/
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'"

doctorow.medium.com/metaverse-mean… 35/
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 36/
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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More from @doctorow

May 21
My latest *Locus Magazine* column is "Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives," about the secret engine of sweeping political upheavals (like Trumpism) and their inherent fragility:



1/ locusmag.com/2025/05/commen…A Renaissance oil-painting of the assassination of Julius Caesar, modified to give Caesar Trump's hair and turn his skin orange, to make the knives glow, and to emboss a Heritage Foundation logo on the wall behind the scene.
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/2025/05/21/et-…

2/
Stories about major change usually focus on a *group*, but groups rarely achieve big, ambitious goals. Think about all the goal-oriented groups in your orbit, with missions like alleviating hunger, or beautifying your neighborhood, or changing the health-care system.

3/
Read 40 tweets
May 14
Something's very different in tech. Once upon a time, every bad choice by tech companies - taking away features, locking out mods or plugins, nerfing the API - was countered, nearly instantaneously, by someone writing a program that overrode that choice.

1/ A 19th century engraving of fiendishly complex machine composed of thousands of interlocking gears and frames (originally an image of a printing press, but modified so that it's just all gears and things), colored dark blue. It bears Woody Guthrie's guitar sticker, 'This machine KILLS fascists. To one side of it stands an image of Ned Ludd, taken from an infamous 19th century Luddite handbill, waving troops into battle. King Ludd's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie, the face within lost in shadow.
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/2025/05/14/pre…

2/
Bad clients would be muscled aside by third-party clients. Locked bootloaders would be hacked and replaced. Code that confirmed you were using OEM parts, consumables or adapters would be found and nuked from orbit.

3/
Read 51 tweets
May 13
"Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" is my new podcast for CBC about the enshittogenic policy decisions that gave rise to enshittification. Episode two just dropped: "ctrl-ctrl-ctrl":



1/ cbc.ca/listen/cbc-pod…The logo for 'Who Broke the Internet' - a shattered hard-drive with the CBC logomark.
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/2025/05/13/ctr…

2/
The thesis of the show is straightforward: the internet wasn't killed by ideological failings like "greed," nor by economic concepts like "network effects," nor by some cyclic force of history that drives towards "re-intermediation."

3/
Read 49 tweets
May 2
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT.

Inside: AI and the fatfinger economy; and more!

Archived at:

#Pluralistic

1/ pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpi…A leg-hold trap whose trigger disc has been replaced with the hostile, glaring eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' A giant man's finger enters the frame from one corner, aimed at the trigger.  Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.JPG  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en  --  Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in NEW ZEALAND at UNITY BOOKS in WELLINGTON TODAY (May 3, 3PM):

unitybooks.co.nz/news-and-event…

More tour dates (PDX, Pittsburgh, London, Manchester) here:

martinhench.com

2/ Image
AI and the fatfinger economy: Every slip of the finger in money in the bank.



3/  Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.JPG  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en  --  Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Read 24 tweets
Apr 24
Patrick "patio11" McKenzie is a fantastic explainer, the kind of person who breaks topics down in ways that stay with you, and creep into your understanding of other subjects, too. Take his 2022 essay, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero":



1/ bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optima…A rainforest in Chiapas, green and intergrown.
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/2025/04/24/her…

2/
It's a very well-argued piece, and here's the nut of it:

> The marginal return of permitting fraud against you is plausibly greater than zero, and therefore, you should welcome greater than zero fraud.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Apr 22
Astrophysicist Adam Becker knows a bit about science and tech - enough to show, in his book *More Everything Forever* that claims tech bros make about space colonies, mind uploading, and other skiffy subjects are nonsense dressed up as prediction:



1/ hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-be…The Basic Books cover for Adam Becker's 'More Everything Faster.'
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/2025/04/22/vin…

2/
Becker investigates the personalities, the ideologies, the coalitions, the histories, and crucially, the *grifts* behind various science fictional pursuits.

3/
Read 24 tweets

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