Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 6, 2023 23 tweets 29 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/per…

#Pluralistic 1/ A bombed out neighborhood. Over the crumbling houses is the
Tomorrow (3/7) I'm doing a remote talk for #TUWien:

informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2373

On 3/9, I'm in person in #Austin at @utsdct:

eventbrite.com/e/the-buckman-…

And remote at #UManitoba:

eventscalendar.umanitoba.ca/site/science/e…

On 3/10, @Rgibli and I kick off @SXSW's readings:

schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP… 2/
Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed: Janice Eberly provided cover for Tim Geithner's policy of No Banker Left Behind.

3/  Image: Medill DC (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
Hey look at this

* Dumb Password Rules dumbpasswordrules.com (h/t Schneier)

* How to Photobash Art for your Zines! (h/t @Jstruan)

* can everyone kindly shut the fuck up about AI botharetrue.substack.com/p/can-everyone… (h/t @Metafilter) 4/
#15yrsago #TSA endangers child’s life by contaminating his feeding tube despite pleas web.archive.org/web/2008030817…

#15yrsago Treasury Dept confiscates domain names of Brit travel agent who booked #Cuba tours nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/… 5/
#15yrsago TSA: laptops will stop making planes explode if you just build a bag like this one web.archive.org/web/2008030616…

#15yrsago @NineInchNails made at least $750k from @CreativeCommons release in two days gondwanaland.com/mlog/2008/03/0… 6/
#10yrsago @Wikipedia and #libraries: a match made in heaven everybodyslibraries.com/2013/03/04/fro…

#10yrsago Transcript of @Lessig’s talk: “Aaron’s Law” nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/transc…

#10yrsago How to be better at being pissed off at #BigTech locusmag.com/2018/03/cory-d… 7/
#10yrsago Access files on locked, encrypted Android phones by putting them in a freezer for an hour cs1.tf.fau.de/research/syste…

#10yrsago Fix the #DMCA! Repeal #AntiCircumvention and truly own your devices web.archive.org/web/2013031111… 8/
#10yrsago Random House launches ebook imprint that’s run like a predatory vanity press memex.craphound.com/2013/03/06/ran…

#5yrsago Six immortal superweapons the Democrats made for the president, which Trump gets to wield truthdig.com/articles/six-w… 9/
#5yrsago How #401k's created a class of suckers to be fleeced by the investor class nytimes.com/2018/03/05/opi…

#5yrsago Rhode Island proposes blocking all online porn and charging $20 to unblock it arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 10/
#5yrsago @GeekSquad’s secret spying on behalf of the #FBI went on for a decade and involved constant, ongoing collaboration eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

#5yrsago #Stalkerware vendor #RetinaX capitulates to vigilante hacker, shuts down “indefinitely” vice.com/en/article/neq… 11/
#5yrsago The UK government declined a chance to get £364m out of #Carillion before it failed, and public purse is now on the hook for that money theguardian.com/business/2018/…

#1yrago #StudentDebt strike called for May 1 pluralistic.net/2022/03/06/i-w… 12/
Saturday's threads: Solving the Moderator's Trilemma with Federation; 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:

* Seize the Means of Computation (TU Wien), 3/7
informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2373

* @utsdct (#Austin), 3/9
eventbrite.com/e/the-buckman-…

* Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture (@umanitobasci), 3/9
eventscalendar.umanitoba.ca/site/science/e… 17/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @SXSW #ChokepointCapitalism reading (#Austin), 3/10
schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP…

* @Ostrom_Workshop: Beyond the Web Speaker Series, 3/20
events.iu.edu/ostromworkshop…

* Red Team Blues event with @TimHarford (#Oxford), 5/29
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctoro… 18/
Recent appearances:

* Making Big Tech Better vs Making it Smaller (@BruxConf2023):


* @elevatefestival
elevate.at/medienarchiv/e…

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

* The Gould Standard
pod.link/thegouldstanda… 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/2023/03/06/per… 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 "They’re still trying to ban cryptography"

doctorow.medium.com/theyre-still-t… 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

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
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
Jun 28
In 2014, I read a political science paper that nearly convinced me to quit my lifelong career as an activist: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," published in *Perspectives on Politics*:



1/ cambridge.org/core/journals/…An inflatable pig balloon against a blue sky, bearing the Zohran for Mayor logo. The Chrysler Building sits to one side.  Image: Frank Vincentz (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geeste_-_Biener_Stra%C3%9Fe_-_Speicherbecken_-_Drachenfest_38_ies.jpg  Petri Krohn https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_building-_top.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/06/28/mam…

2/
The paper's authors are Martin Gilens, a UCLA professor of Public Policy; and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, a professor of Decision Making. Gilens and Page studied a representative sample of 1,779 policy issues.

3/
Read 49 tweets
Jun 24
When a company sells you something for $2 that someone else can buy for $1, they're revaluing the dollars in your pocket at half the rate of the other guy's.

1/ A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light.  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/2025/06/24/pri…

2/
Economists praise "price discrimination" as "efficient." That's when a company charges different customers different amounts based on inferences about their willingness to pay.

3/
Read 50 tweets
Jun 20
Private equity firms are the demon princes of the hellspace that is the imploding, life-destroying, plutocrat-generating American economy.

1/ A billionaire in a tuxedo with dollar-sign cufflinks, stands at a podium, yanking a lever shaped like a gilded dollar sign with one gloved hand. From the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a bloody corpse. His head has been replaced with the head of a doctor in a surgeon's blue cap, with red, glaring eyes. The background is the text of Oregon's new Corporate Practice of Medicine law, in blown-out, red type.
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/2025/06/20/the…

2/
Their favorite scam, the "leveraged buyout" is a mafia bustout dressed up in respectable clothes, and if you mourn a beloved, failed business, chances are that an LBO was the murder weapon, and PE was the killer:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spi…
Read 44 tweets
May 27
On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":



1/ soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…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 posed man in a sharp business suit, frowning 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/2025/05/27/ran…

2/
> One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

3/
Read 98 tweets

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