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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Feb 24, 2023 • 20 tweets • 21 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: This is your brain on fraud apologetics; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/pas…

#Pluralistic 1/ A modified version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'The Conju
Next Thu (3/2) I'm in #Brussels for #Antitrust, Regulation & Political Economy, with a who's-who of EU and US trustbusters. Both in-person and virtual attendance are free:

brusselsconference.com/registration

On Fri (3/3), I'll be in #Graz for @ElevateFestival:

elevate.at/diskurs/progra… 2/
This is your brain on fraud apologetics: The curious comfort of victim-blaming.

3/
Hey look at this

* Infinite-Storage-Glitch github.com/DvorakDwarf/In… (h/t Joshua Bradley)

* Network Usage Fees Will Harm European Consumers and Businesses eff.org/deeplinks/2022…

* I asked Popehat: Why isn't SBF in jail? newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/i-asked-pope… 4/
#20yrsago Ghanan gov’t shuts down ISPs to keep email from displacing long-distance web.archive.org/web/2003042409…

#20yrsago Doctorow on @GreatDismal in Mindjack mindjack.com/books/gibsonpr… 5/
#15yrsago Government and corporate employees engage in an “epidemic” of snooping into databases web.archive.org/web/2008022900…

#15yrsago Science Fiction Writers of America election is a referendum on copyright extremism whatever.scalzi.com/2008/02/18/a-g… 6/
#15yrsago Knowledge isn’t property theguardian.com/technology/200…

#10yrsago Marriage proposal in the form of a physics paper reddit.com/r/funny/commen…

#10yrsago Pastafarian denied religious freedom in New Jersey driver’s license scandal web.archive.org/web/2013022509… 7/
#5yrsago Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was surrounded by cowering “good guys with guns” edition.cnn.com/2018/02/23/pol…

#5yrsago Gothamist unionized and its evil Trumpist billionaire owner shut it down; now public radio is bringing it back wired.com/story/gothamis… 8/
#5yrsago Paul Manafort’s inability to save Word files as PDFs provided the evidence necessary to indict him for fraud arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#1yrago #MassArbitration attack could bring #Intuit to its knees pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/ube… 9/
Yesterday's threads: Fighting the privacy wars, state by state; and more!

10/
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… 11/
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… 12/
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/ 13/
Upcoming appearances:

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

* @ElevateFestival (#Graz), 3/3
elevate.at/diskurs/progra…

* @utsdct (#Austin), 2/9
eventbrite.com/e/the-buckman-… 14/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture (@umanitobasci), 2/9
eventscalendar.umanitoba.ca/site/science/e…

* @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/2023/02/24/pas… 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
Mar 25
A law professor friend tells me that LLMs have completely transformed the way she relates to grad students and postdocs - for the worse. And no, it's not that they're cheating on their homework or using LLMs to write briefs full of hallucinated cases.

1/ Norman Rockwell’s ‘self portrait.’ All the Rockwell faces have been replaced with HAL 9000 from Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ His signature has been modified with a series of rotations and extra symbols. He has ten fingers on his one visible hand. 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/2025/03/25/com…

2/
The thing that LLMs have changed in my friend's law school is *letters of reference*. Historically, students would only ask a prof for a letter of reference if they knew the prof really rated them.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 22
I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire.



1/ mystgalaxy.com/32425DoctorowA bloody mary stacked high with many absurd, over-the-top garnishes. Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/ CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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/2025/03/22/omn…

2/
Which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):

3/
Read 50 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 19
Paula Le Dieu is one of the smartest, most committed archivists I know. Many years ago, she shared a neat analogy with me about the paywalling of public archives.

1/ The Columbia University library, a stately, columnated building, color-shifted to highlight reds and oranges. The sky behind it has been filled with flames. In the foreground, a figure in a firefighter's helmet and yellow coat uses a flamethrower to shoot a jet of orange fire. Image: Ajay Suresh https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/52009406881/ CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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/2025/03/19/sel…

2/
This phenomenon has become rampant as public institutions have been pushed to seek private funding to close the gaps left by swingeing cuts.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 18
AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:



1/ pcmag.com/news/amid-job-…The capital building, crossed by a yellow hazmat tape emblazoned 'DANGER ASBESTOS.' Behind the tape stands a figure in an old-fashioned hazmat suit. In the background are the blown-up faces of a group of grubby, miserable child miners. The capital dome has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.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://creati...
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/2025/03/18/asb…

2/
If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 15
Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing.

1/ A cylindrical black Alexa speaker on a coffee table; it is wearing a Darth Vader helmet. Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexa_%2840770465691%29.jpg Sam Howzit (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWC_6_-_Darth_Vader_Costume_(7865106344).jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/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/2025/03/15/alt…

2/
This will happen even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:



3/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…
Read 48 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 13
My theory of the "shitty technology adoption curve" holds that you can predict the future impact of abusive technologies on you by observing the way these are deployed against people who have less social power than you:



1/ pluralistic.net/2023/06/11/the…A magnified image of the inside of an automated backup tape library, with gleaming racks of silver tape drives receding into the distance. In the foreground is a pile of dirt being shoveled by three figures in prisoner's stripes. Two of the figures' heads have been replaced with cliche hacker-in-hoodie heads, from which shine yellow, inverted Amazon 'smile' logos, such that the smile is a frown. The remaining figure's head has been replaced with a horse's head. Behind the figure is an impatiently poised man in a sharp business suit, glaring at his watch. His head has been replaced with the ...
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/2025/03/13/ele…

2/
When you have a new, abusive technology, you can't just aim it at rich, powerful people, because when *they* complain, they get results.

3/
Read 71 tweets

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