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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Feb 16, 2023 • 25 tweets • 29 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Google's chatbot panic; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/twe…

#Pluralistic 1/ Tweedledee and Tweedledum, standing at the bottom of Humpty
This is the last day (Feb 17) of my #Australian tour for my book #ChokepointCapitalism with my co-author, #rgibli. We'll be in #Canberra at the Australian Digital Alliance Copyright Forum:

digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 2/
Google's chatbot panic: On the infinite insecurities of a self-styled creative genius who really just buys other people's ideas.

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

* Homemade soccer balls around the world jessicahilltout.com/work/personal/… (h/t @Kottke)

* Amazon Takes a 50% Cut of Seller's Revenue marketplacepulse.com/articles/amazo… (h/t @DanGillmor)

* A Concerning Trend neil-clarke.com/a-concerning-t… (h/t @Metafilter) 4/
#20yrsago Google buy #Pyra interconnected.org/notes/2003/02/…

#20yrsago Altrustic routers would optimize the Internet web.archive.org/web/2003020100…

#10yrsago Economic recovery in the US actually made 99% of Americans poorer, top 1% captured 121% of gains nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/yes-vi… 5/
#10yrsago #BBC betrays the public, demands #DRM for #HTML5 web.archive.org/web/2013021604…

#10yrsago Holmes scholar files suit to put #Sherlock unambiguously into the public domain web.archive.org/web/2013021902… 6/
#10yrsago Memoir of raising an autistic boy who found himself with ##DisneyWorld’s help memex.craphound.com/2013/02/16/mem…

#5yrsago FDAAA Trials Tracker: leaderboard for pharma companies that break FDA clinical trial rules biorxiv.org/content/10.110… 7/
#5yrsago A public-key #cryptography primer in the form of #Ikea instructions idea-instructions.com/public-key/

#5yrsago Once again, a #stalkerware company’s had its servers pwned and wiped by a hacker who thinks they’re selling an immoral product vice.com/en/article/3k7… 8/
#5yrsago Surge-taxing Uber as a way relieve urban congestion wired.com/story/uber-lyf…

#5yrsago Debullshitifying #Uber’s financial statement reveals a hemorrhaging fountain of red ink with no path to profitability nakedcapitalism.com/2018/02/can-ub… 9/
#5yrsago The #DHS’s “#ActiveShooter” printable wallet card, for when “thoughts and prayers” fail web.archive.org/web/2018021719…

#5yrsago New York Federal judge rules that embedding tweets can violate copyright law eff.org/deeplinks/2018… 10/
#5yrsago The independent experts who favorably evaluated #Facebook’s “Messenger Kids” were funded by Facebook wired.com/story/facebook…

#5yrsago Judge slams ICE for targeting migrants based on their political opposition to ICE shadowproof.com/2018/02/09/fir… 11/
#5yrsago The #pharma billionaires whose family company created the #opioid epidemic are disintegrating into a bickering mess theguardian.com/us-news/2018/f…

#5yrsago London demonstrates the stupid, janky future of #SmartCities theatlantic.com/technology/arc… 12/
#5yrsago The West Virginia Democrat candidate who was dragged away for calling out gas-money-dependent lawmakers has raised record-breaking sums theintercept.com/2018/02/13/can…

#1yrago #McKinsey For Kids (no, really) pluralistic.net/2022/02/15/man… 13/
#1yrago Oh great, there's #DRM in printer PAPER now pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/una…

#1yrago The extremely shady "educational integrity" industry pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/una… 14/
Wednesday's threads: Nathan J. Robinson's "Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments"; and more!

15/
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… 16/
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… 17/
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/ 18/
Upcoming appearances:

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

* #Antitrust, Regulation & Political Economy (#Brussels), 3/2:
brusselsconference.com/registration 19/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @SXSW #ChokepointCapitalism reading (#Austin), 2/10
schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP… 20/
Recent appearances:

* The Gould Standard
pod.link/thegouldstanda…

* @RNDrive:
abc.net.au/radionational/…

* How popular movements can topple Big Tech monopolies (@tninstitute)
tni.org/en/podcast/how… 21/
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/2023/02/16/twe… 22/
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 "Of Course Mastodon Lost Users"

doctorow.medium.com/of-course-mast… 23/
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 24/
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). 25/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 16
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
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
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 20
Well, this fucking *sucks*. A federal judge has decided that Meta is not a monopolist, and that its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp were not an illegal bid to secure and maintain a monopoly:



1/ gizmodo.com/meta-learns-th…The classic Puck Magazine editorial cartoon entitled 'The King of All Commodities,' depicting John D Rockefeller as a man with grotesquely tiny body and a gigantic head, wearing a crown emblazoned with the names of the industrial concerns he owned. Rockefeller's head has been replaced with that of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar. The names of the industrial concerns have been replaced with the wordmarks for Scale AI, Instagram, Oculus and Whatsapp. The dollar-sign at the crown's pinnacle has been replaced with the Facebook 'f' logo. The chain around Rockefeller's neck sports the charm th...
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/2025/11/20/if-…

2/
This is particularly galling because Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly, explicitly declared that these mergers were undertaken *to reduce competition*, which is the only circumstance in which pro-monopoly economists and lawyers say that mergers should be blocked.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 18
Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called *Who Censored Roger Rabbit?* which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*

1/ The final scene of Disneyland's 'Roger Rabbit's Toontown Spin,' in which Roger Rabbit is deploying a pair of portable holes; the holes have been replaced with copyright symbols, which are partially cropped. Image: Ken Lund (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/16775732643/ CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/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/2025/11/18/im-…

2/
But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn't made any feature-length sequels.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 8
A blockbuster Reuters report by Jeff Horwitz analyzes leaked internal documents that reveal that: 10% of Meta's gross revenue comes from ads for fraudulent goods and scams, and; the company knows it, and; they decided not to do anything about it, because...

1/ A tuxedoed figure dramatically shoveing greenish pigs into a tube, from whose other end vomits forth a torrent of packaged goods. He has the head of Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse' avatar. He stands upon an endless field of gold coins. The background is the intaglioed upper face of the engraving of Benjamin Franklin on a US$100 bill, roughed up to a dark and sinister hue.
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/2025/11/08/fae…

2/
...The fines for facilitating this life-destroying fraud are far less than the expected revenue from helping to destroy its users' lives:



3/reuters.com/investigations…
Read 59 tweets

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