Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 12, 2023 20 tweets 21 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Spirit warned investors that merging with Jetblue would be illegal; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/the…

#Pluralistic 1/ Image
Spirit warned investors that merging with Jetblue would be illegal: Exhibit A for the prosecution.

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Hey look at this

* Freely readable 2023 #NebulaAwards nominees superpunch.net/2023/03/links-…

* Why Weren't #SiliconValleyBank Depositors Using CDARS? creditslips.org/creditslips/20…

* Users, advertisers – we are all trapped in the net's ‘#enshittificationtheguardian.com/commentisfree/… 3/ Image
#20yrsago #Vonage reviewed mindjack.com/gear/vonage.ht…

#10yrsago Why Tim Berners-Lee is wrong about #DRM in #HTML5 theguardian.com/technology/blo…

#10yrsago Random House reconsiders and improves the standard contracts in its new ebook imprints writerbeware.blog/2013/03/12/ran… 4/ Image
#10yrsago #LibDems leave over support for secret trials; I resign from the party memex.craphound.com/2013/03/12/lib…

#10yrsago Proposed Maryland anti-zero-tolerance law would tell schools to stop suspending kids who point their fingers at each other and say “bang” freerangekids.com/right-to-bear-… 5/ Image
#10yrsago Porno-copyright trolls #PrendaLaw get hauled in front of a very angry judge techdirt.com/2013/03/11/dee…

#10yrsago Using clips from Ed Sullivan in Jersey Boys found to be #FairUse; judges award costs to deter future “chilling” copyright lawsuits web.archive.org/web/2013031411… 6/ Image
#10yrsago Hacking the Xbox, free in honor of @aaronsw nostarch.com/xboxfree

#10yrsago Scowler: nightmare-fuel horror novel about a monstrous father memex.craphound.com/2013/03/12/sco… 7/ Image
#5yrsago America, before the #EPA: the photos that the EPA commissioned to document the conditions that led to its formation popsci.com/america-before…

#1yrago A systemic (not individual) approach to #ContentModeration pluralistic.net/2022/03/12/mov… 8/ Image
Yesterday's threads: Excuseflation; and more!

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

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

* @iftf Changing the Register, 3/22
iftf.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 13/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Antitrust and Competition Conference - Beyond the Consumer Welfare Standard (#Chicago), 4/20-21
chicagobooth.edu/research/stigl…

* Red Team Blues at @MystGalaxyBooks (#SanDiego), 4/25
mystgalaxy.com/event/42523Doc… 14/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues event with @TimHarford (#Oxford), 5/29
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctoro… 15/ Image
Recent appearances:

* @RuBlackListNET Privacy Day


* Factually With @adamconover:
stitcher.com/show/factually…

* Making Big Tech Better vs Making it Smaller (@BruxConf2023):
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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/2023/03/12/the… 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 "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk"

doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-th… 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

Sep 17
Conspiratorialism is downstream of the trauma of institutional failures.

Insitutional failures are downstream of regulatory capture.

Regulatory capture is downstream of monopolization.

Monopolization is downstream of the failure to enforce antitrust law.

1/ A four-doll matrioshke, unpacked and arranged 2x2. In order, the dolls' faces have been replaced with: the Qanon logo; an Oxycontin pill, the face of Robert Bork, and Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar.  Image: Vicent Ibáñez (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nina_Rusa._Mu%C3%B1eca_Rusa.JPG  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en  --  RootOfAllLight (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon.png  CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/09/17/cau…

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Start with conspiratorialism and trauma. I am staunchly pro-vaccine. I have had so many covid jabs that I glow in the dark and can get impeccable 5g reception at the bottom of a coal-mine.

Nevertheless.

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Read 57 tweets
Sep 8
This was the plan: America would stop making things and instead make *recipes*, the "IP" that could be sent to other countries to turn into actual *stuff*.

1/ An organ grinder with a monkey. The organ grinder's head has been replaced with a Gilded Age caricature of a sneering millionaire. The monkey's head has been replaced with the head of a miserable child coal miner. The background is a blurred, halftoned view of a vast square in Beijing with a giant official building in the background, and a Chinese flag on a flagpole. On the organ is a blurred portrait of John Philip Sousa.
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/2025/09/08/pro…

2/
This would happen in distant lands without the pesky environmental and labor rules that forced businesses accept reduced profits because they weren't allowed to maim their workers and poison the land, air and water.

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Read 77 tweets
Sep 6
Trump's doing a lot of oligarch shit, and while some of it very visible and obvious, other moves, like throwing the door open to "stock buybacks" are technical and obscure.

1/ An old-timey carny barker, waving a cane and shouting. He is standing in front of a vintage photo of the NYSE trading floor.
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/2025/09/06/com…

2/
But it's worth paying attention to this, because this form of stock swindle stands to make billionaires a lot richer (and thus more powerful).

3/
Read 48 tweets
Aug 20
Forget surveillance capitalism - let's talk about *surveillance infantalism*: the drive by the wealthy to spy on you in order to pursue the toddler's goals of getting everything they want from the people around them, without any reciprocal obligations.

1/ Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse avatar's head atop the body of a figure from a earth 20th century editorial cartoon; the figure wears a suit, holds a long fork, and stares into the eyepiece of a microscope. The microscope is attached to a sinister scientific apparatus. The microscope is trained on a tiny human figure, limned in red, who shouts through a megaphone back up into the microscope's lens. The background is a 1980s NASA oil painting of the red, rocky surface of Venus.
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/2025/08/20/bil…

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After the Snowden revelations, I started to wonder about something fundamental: why spy at all?



3/theguardian.com/technology/201…
Read 40 tweets
Aug 18
When Elon Musk disagrees with someone, he calls them an "NPC" (non-player character). In video-games, an NPC is a machine-puppeted sprite that engages in predictable movements (e.g. Pac-Man ghosts) and utters some scripted (or AI-generated) dialog:



1/ futurism.com/elon-musk-inte…Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar, perched on a legless nude Ken doll body; its eyes are psychedelic pinwheels. Behind the figure is a group shot of child laborer miners from the 1910s, glitched out, blue tinted, and covered with scan lines. The background is a psychedelic swirl of moody colors. They stand atop a filthy checkerboard floor that stretches off to infinity.
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/2025/08/18/see…

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Seeing people as automata is probably a side-effect of sitting in the command-center of a big online service, in which you primarily interact with users as statistical aggregates in an analytics dashboard.

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Read 30 tweets
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

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