Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 21, 2022 23 tweets 23 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: How Apple could open its App Store without really opening its App Store; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/12/21/mal…

#Pluralistic 1/ An EU flag. The blue background has a fine tracery of etched
#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/
How Apple could open its App Store without really opening its App Store: ...and what we should do about it.

3/ Image: Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/fi
Hey look at this

* No Nudity Allowed: Censoring Naked Yoga eff.org/deeplinks/2022…

* Henry Ford, Elon Musk, and the Dark Path to Extremism theintercept.com/2022/12/20/elo…

* The Great Autonomous Vehicle Capitulation wolfliving.tumblr.com/post/704170405… 4/
#15yrsago Trade court allows #Antigua to violate US #copyright nytimes.com/2007/12/22/bus…

#10yrsago New Orleans schools ban teaching Creationism, reject Texas Creationist “science” textbooks web.archive.org/web/2012122119… 5/
#10yrsago Book digitization: 1971-present blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2012…

#10yrsago Go opt out of #Instagram’s bullshit #ArbitrationClause, right now consumerist.com/2012/12/21/her… 6/
#5yrsago @ArsTechnica’s @dangoodin001 is being sued by Keeper Security over an article about a defect in its password manager documentcloud.org/documents/4333…

#5yrsago #Daranide, a 1958 drug, used to be free – now it costs your insurer at least $109,500/year latimes.com/business/la-fi… 7/
#5yrsago #Trump’s #SpaceCouncil chief says space is “not a commons” and promises that it will become property of US corporations qz.com/1159540/space-… 8/
#5yrsago The majority of US workers live in “employment #monopsonies” where there is little or no #competition for workers papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

#5yrsago After #Grenfell, local UK governments pay the developers who chose lethal cladding to replace it web.archive.org/web/2017121310… 9/
#5yrsago “Blatantly unlawful”: companies use Facebook targeting to ensure older workers don’t see help-wanted ads propublica.org/article/facebo… 10/
#5yrsago The Australian health authority believed it had “anonymised” a data-set of patient histories, but academics were easily able to unscramble it pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/under… 11/
#5yrsago @PropOTP sues the @FBI for details on “Gravestone,” its reassuringly named secret mass-surveillance tool sparrowmedia.net/wp-content/upl… 12/
Yesterday's threads: 2023's public domain is a banger; and more!

13/
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… 14/
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… 15/
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/ 16/
Upcoming appearances:

* Library Learning Experience/@ALALibrary (#NewOrleans), 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… 17/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy (#Brussels), 3/2:
brusselsconference.com/registration
fwean 18/
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… 19/
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/2022/12/21/mal… 20/
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… 21/
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 22/
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). 23/

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More from @doctorow

Nov 7
While I formulated the idea of enshittification to refer to digital platforms and their specific technical characteristics, economics and history, I am very excited to see other theorists extend the idea of enshittification beyond tech and into wider policy realms.

1/ A Gilded Age editorial cartoon depicting a muscular worker and a corpulent millionaire squaring off for a fight; the millionaire's head has been replaced with the poop emoji from the cover of 'Enshittification,' its mouth covered in a grawlix-scrawled black bar.
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/2025/11/07/pos…

2/
There's an easy, loose way to do this, which is using "enshittification" to refer to "things generally getting worse." To be clear, I am *fine* with this:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pea…
Read 89 tweets
Oct 29
Amazon made $35b profit last year. They're celebrating by firing 14k workers (a number they say will rise to 30k). It's the kind of thing Wall St loves. It comes after a string of pronouncements from Andy Jassy about how AI is going to let him fire *tons* of workers.

1/ A black and white image of an armed overseer supervising several chain-gang prisoners in stripes doing forced labor. The overseer's head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The prisoners' heads have been replaced with hackers' hoodies.   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/2025/10/29/wor…

2/
That's the AI story, after all. It's not about making workers more productive or creative.

3/
Read 45 tweets
Oct 11
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.

1/ A field of utility scale solar. Behind the mountains on the horizon line loom two logos: the original EFF 'clenched fist and lightning bolt' logo and the first Earth Day logo. They are reflected in the solar panels. Behind them roils hellish red-shot smoke.
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/2025/10/11/cyb…

2/
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:



3/eff.org
Read 53 tweets
Sep 27
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"

1/ A Zimbabwean one hundred trillion dollar bill; the bill's iconography have been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' and a stylized, engraving-style portrait of Sam Altman.  Image: TechCrunch https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Altman_-_TechCrunch_Disrupt_SF_2017_(36522988343).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/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
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/2025/09/27/eco…

2/
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.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Sep 24
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":



1/ pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/see…  An oil painting of a French king atop a throne, draped in sumptuous robes. His head has been replaced with a screaming, toothless man wearing a top-hat. Over his shoulder looms 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/2025/09/24/rob…

2/
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.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Sep 23
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:



1/ billmckibben.com/books/here-com…A rooftop solar installation. Behind the roof rages a blazing forest fire. Reflected in the solar panels is the poop emoji from the cover of my book 'Enshittification,' which has angry eyebrows and a black, grawlix-filled bar across its mouth."    Image: Bastique (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Panels_on_Church_Roof_full.jpg  CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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/2025/09/23/our…

2/
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.

3/
Read 80 tweets

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