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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Feb 20, 2023 • 20 tweets • 22 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Pluralistic is three; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/dre…

#Pluralistic 1/ William Blake's watercolor of Cerebrus, the three-headed hel
Pluralistic is three: Time flies when you're writing blogs.

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/1… 2/
Hey look at this

* 'Landlords Are a Scum Class': Everything I've Learnt About London Renting vice.com/en/article/n7z…

* The Lie That's Destroying the Economy

* What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-i… (h/t Tom Jennings) 3/
#20yrsago 1974 D&D review www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timel…

#20yrsago @Ev on the Blogger buyout web.archive.org/web/2003032421…

#15yrsago Tor Books confirms sf supersite plans web.archive.org/web/2008022517… 4/
#15yrsago #Gitmo’s torturers decry negative portrayal of gulag in new #HaroldAndKumar comedy nytimes.com/2008/02/18/us/…

#15yrsago @StevenBrust’s unauthorized #Firefly #fanfic novel memex.craphound.com/2008/02/18/ste… 5/
#10yrsago Understanding the #ComputerFraudAndAbuseAct: can you go to jail for violating a clickthrough agreement? web.archive.org/web/2013030318…

#10yrsago Students get class-wide As by boycotting test, solving #PrisonersDilemma insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/1… 6/
#5yrsago China’s Internet Czar has been purged qz.com/1206816/chinas…

#5yrsago #Wikipedia discontinues its “#ZeroRating,” will focus on research-driven outreach diff.wikimedia.org/2018/02/16/par… 7/
#5yrsago @alooghobi’s “The Prince and the Dressmaker”: a #genderqueer graphic novel that will move and dazzle you memex.craphound.com/2018/02/18/jen… 8/
#5yrsago Incentives matter: after back surgery, a routine urine test resulted in a $17,800 bill the patient was expected to pay mprnews.org/story/2018/02/…

#1yrago The #ChildLabor story hidden by the #GreatResignation pluralistic.net/2022/02/17/liv… 9/
#1yrago The last days of Myspace: Facebook is following the steep decline playbook pluralistic.net/2022/02/17/liv…

#1yrago Tech platforms' playbook inevitably produces dumpster-fires pluralistic.net/2022/02/18/bro…

#1yrago #Pluralistic is two pluralistic.net/2022/02/19/now… 10/
Friday's threads: Google's chatbot panic; and more!

11/ Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wi
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… 12/
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… 13/
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/ 14/
Upcoming appearances:

* #Antitrust, Regulation & Political Economy (#Brussels), 3/2:
brusselsconference.com/registration

* @SXSW #ChokepointCapitalism reading (#Austin), 2/10
schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP… 15/
Recent appearances:

* @ANUmedia/@canberratimes Meet The Author
soundcloud.com/experience_anu…

* The Gould Standard
pod.link/thegouldstanda…

* @RNDrive:
abc.net.au/radionational/… 16/
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/2023/02/19/dre… 17/
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 "Twiddler: Configurability for Me, But Not For Thee"

doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9… 18/
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 19/
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). 20/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Aug 16
When LLM users describe their experience with their chatbots, the results are so divergent that it can sound like they're describing two completely different products.

1/ A vintage photo of two men in front of a slot machine. The men's heads have been replaced by the heads of hooded figures wearing Guy Fawkes mask. The image is sepia toned: the only color is the pay-line of the slot-machine, which is showing three glaring red eyes of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The slot machine has a sign over the rotor-window that displays the Openai logo and wordmark. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en -- Frank Schwichtenberg (modified...
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/2025/08/16/jac…

2/
Previously, I've hypothesized that this is because there are two distinct groups of *users*: "centaurs" (people who are assisted by a machine - in this case, people who get to decide when, whether and how to integrate an LLM into their work)...

3/
Read 27 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Aug 13
It's not just that Texas DA Gocha Ramirez charged a woman with murder for having an abortion (not t allowed even in Texas). It's that Ramirez paid for his mistress's abortion, after he impregnated her while having an affair with her *and* her sister:



1/ archive.is/20250812192203…A red, angry mushroom cloud. Sitting atop it, surrounded by blue skies and fluffy clouds, is a smirking business-suited man reclining in an armchair. He wears a MAGA hat and reads a magazine turned to a page showing Donald Trump's face.
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/2025/08/13/the…

2/
This is perfect Magaism, as captured by Wilhoit's Law:

> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.



3/crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/lib…
Read 52 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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

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