Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 20, 2023 38 tweets 47 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Podcasting "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk"; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/lov…

#Pluralistic 1/
Today (Mar 20), I'm doing a remote talk for the @Ostrom_Workshop's Beyond the Web Speaker Series

iu.zoom.us/meeting/regist…

On Weds (Mar 22), I'm doing a remote talk for the @IFTF's "Changing the Register" series:

iftf.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 2/
Podcasting "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk": Why today's Luddites should be smashing apps.

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

* Hospitals require nurses to pay back as much as $15,000 in training fees if they are fired nbcnews.com/politics/econo… (h/t @Jstruan)

* Burning Men crookedtimber.org/2023/03/08/bur… (h/t @Metafilter)

* Dana Sibera's Alt-Universe Tech bitbang.social/@NanoRaptor 4/
#20yrsago Revolution is Not an #AOL Keyword web.archive.org/web/2003032215…

#20yrsago United Way will provide cheap #WiFi and PCs to poor people in Philly web.archive.org/web/2005031613…

#20yrsago Indigineous prior-art database to fight #biopiracy news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technolog… 5/
#20yrsago Disney parks are #NoFlyXones cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/03…

#20yrsago #MITPress takes gutsy #FairUse stand web.archive.org/web/2003031323…

#15yrsago Every issue of #Elfquest free — oldest independent comic goes online web.archive.org/web/2008031919… 6/
#15yrsago How #MortgageDerviatives tanked the economy nytimes.com/2008/03/19/bus…

#15yrsago #StateDepartment employees canned for snooping in #Obama’s passport records web.archive.org/web/2008032211… 7/
#15yrsago CEO of #SubprimeMortgage broker fined $29,000 for dropping 73 f-bombs during deposition web.archive.org/web/2008032210…

#10yrsago Canadian government trying to launder secret #copyright treaties into law web.archive.org/web/2013032315… 8/
#10yrsago Is it worth spending half your profits “fighting piracy”? techdirt.com/2013/03/19/ind…

#10yrsago #RayBradbury’s fan letter to #RobertAHeinlein flavorwire.com/377707/10-illu… 9/
#10yrsago #HTML5’s overseer says #DRM’s true purpose is to prevent legal forms of innovation memex.craphound.com/2013/03/20/htm…

#10yrsago #Heinlein on #Kirtsaeng memex.craphound.com/2013/03/19/hei… 10/
#10yrsago My talk on copyright, ebooks and #libraries for the #LibraryOfCongress

#10yrsago #SCOTUS to #Wiley publishers: your bananas theory of copyright is wrong yro.slashdot.org/story/13/03/19… 11/
#10yrsago More on the impact of UK #PressRegulation on blogs, websites, tweeters, and social media theguardian.com/media/2013/mar…

#10yrsago #BrianKrebs talks to hacker who may have #SWATted him and attacked Wired’s Mat Honan krebsonsecurity.com/2013/03/the-ob… 12/
#10yrsago In-depth explanation of @eff’s courtroom victory over the #FBI’s “#NationalSecurityLetterseff.org/deeplinks/2013…

#10yrsago Tavi “Style Rookie” Gevison on strong female characters and being a young feminist 13/
#10yrsago Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom read-aloud part 01 ia903200.us.archive.org/8/items/Cory_D…

#10yrsago Casino cheats used house #CCTVs to score $32M web.archive.org/web/2013040919…

#10yrsago Minimalist #Parenting: Getting Things Done meets childrearing memex.craphound.com/2013/03/19/min… 14/
#10yrsago #Oklahoma Republicans are tearing themselves apart as they confront the economic wreckage of their policies apnews.com/article/us-new… 15/
#5yrsago People are stashing irrevocable child porn links, dox, copyright infringement, and leaked state secrets in the #blockchain fc18.ifca.ai/preproceedings… 16/
#5yrsago #GPS routing increases city throughput by shifting traffic jams onto residential streets ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/77956…

#5yrsago Machine learning has a #reproducibility crisis petewarden.com/2018/03/19/the… 17/
#5yrsago More than a decade’s worth of #Facebook catastrophes techcrunch.com/2018/03/18/mov…

#5yrsago For #GoldmanSachs execs, momentarily working for the government means hundreds of millions in tax savings nypost.com/2018/03/18/why… 18/
#5yrsago Now that public companies must publish the CEO-median worker wage ratio, cities and states can tax the most unequal firms theguardian.com/business/2018/…

#5yrsago #Marx’s birthplace celebrates his bicentennial with #Communist traffic-lights bbc.com/news/world-eur… 19/
#5yrsago Chinese surveillance/tech giant #Alibaba joins #ALEC, will start co-authoring US legislation theintercept.com/2018/03/20/ali…

#5yrsago The future legal shenanigans that will shift liability for pedestrian fatalities involving self-driving Ubers antipope.org/charlie/blog-s… 20/
#5yrsago Alabama Sheriff legally appropriated $750K from #prison meal budgets to build himself a beach house, locked up his whistleblowing gardener npr.org/sections/thetw… 21/
#5yrsago 1.7 million viewers tuned into @SenSanders’ Inequality Town Hall webcast huffpost.com/entry/bernie-s…

#5yrsago Billionaire #Cartier boss returns from fishing holiday gripped with terror that the poors are going to start building #guillotines bloomberg.com/news/articles/… 22/
#5yrsago Why no one has made a tool to turn off Facebook oversharing eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

#5yrsago Just because #CambridgeAnalytica tells its customers it can sway elections, it doesn’t follow that they’re any good at it wired.com/story/the-nois… 23/
#5yrsago RIP #AnnaCampbell, a British woman who joined an all-woman #KurdishProtectionUnit in #Syria telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/1…

#5yrsago A recipe for the deliberately obscured task of changing your Facebook settings to opt out of “platform” sharing eff.org/deeplinks/2018… 24/
#5yrsago Sara Varon’s New Shoes: a kids’ buddy story about the jungles of Guyana and redemption memex.craphound.com/2018/03/20/sar…

#1yrago @KatheKoja's Dark Factory: Taking Bohemia seriously pluralistic.net/2022/03/20/a-w… 25/
Saturday's threads: SVB's investors will get $2b in public bailout money; and more!

26/
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… 27/
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… 28/
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/ 29/
Upcoming appearances:

* @Ostrom_Workshop: Beyond the Web Speaker Series, 3/20
iu.zoom.us/meeting/regist…

* @IFTF Changing the Register, 3/22
iftf.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 30/
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… 31/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

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

* @uclcs Peter Kirstein Lecture, 6/1 (#London):
eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirste… 32/
Recent appearances:

* @RuBlackListNET Privacy Day


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

* Making Big Tech Better vs Making it Smaller (@BruxConf2023):
33/
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/2023/03/19/lov… 34/
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. 35/
My latest @Medium column is "Culture War Bullshit Stole Your Broadband: Your internet sucks because telco monopolists kept Gigi Sohn off the FCC"

doctorow.medium.com/culture-war-bu… 36/
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 37/
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). 38/

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More from @doctorow

Feb 9
It's hard to talk about the Epstein class without thinking about "The Economy" (in the sense of a mystical, free-floating entity whose health or sickness determines the outcomes for all of us, whom we must make sacrifices to if we are to prosper).

1/ A detail of a US $100 bill. Jeffrey Epstein's mugshot has been overlaid over Benjamin Franklin's portrait. Peter Theil's portrait has been swapped for the US Dept of Treasury seal. Trump's signature has been swapped for the US Treasurer's signature. The line of zeroes after the 100, top and bottom, has been extended to the edge of the image. The image has been roughed up and recolored in a hellish mix of reds and yellows.  Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Thiel_(51876609719).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/2026/02/09/slo…

2/
As nebulous as "The Economy" is as an entity, there's an economic priesthood that claims it can measure and even alter the course of the economy using complex mathematics. We probably won't ever understand their methods, but we can at least follow an indicator or two.

3/
Read 31 tweets
Jan 26
The best summary of Trump's trade "philosophy" comes from Trashfuture's November Kelly, who said that Trump is flipping over the table in a poker game that's rigged in his favor because he resents having to pretend to play the game at all.

1/ A detail from a US $100 bill. The bill has been tinted orange. Ben Franklin's face has been replaced with an indistinct blur surmounted by Trump's hair. The lettering in the scrollwork beneath the portrait reads 'TRUMP.' The '100's have been turned into '000's. The writing 'ONE HUNDRED' now reads 'NONE HUNDRED.' The series issue has been changed to '47.' The Secretary of the Treasury's signature has been replaced with Trump's.
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/2026/01/26/i-d…

2/
After all, the global system of trade was designed and enforced by American officials, especially the US Trade Representative.

3/
Read 84 tweets
Jan 17
Ireland is a tax haven. In the 1970s and 1980s, life in the civil-war wracked country was hard - between poverty, scarce employment and civil unrest, the country hemorrhaged its best and brightest. As the saying went, "Ireland's top export is the Irish."

1/ A green Irish pillarbox, standing before a verdant, rolling Irish countryside. The pillarbox is emblazoned with the poop emoji from the cover of 'Enshittification,' with angry eyebrows and a grawlix-scrawled black bar over its mouth.  Image: Stuart Caie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_aperture_Irish_pillar_box_in_Dublin_2008.jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en  --  Sourabh.biswas003 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PXL_20231216_105219694-Ballygalley_Larne_UK-_Irish_Countryside-Northern_Ireland_06.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 ht...
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/2026/01/17/eri…

2/
In desperation, Ireland's political class hit on a wild gambit: they would weaponize Ireland's sovereignty in service to corporate tax evasion.

3/
Read 35 tweets
Jan 6
Code is a liability (not an asset). Tech bosses don't understand this. They think AI is great because it produces 10,000 times more code than a programmer, but that just means it's producing 10,000 times more liabilities.

1/ A shredder, shredding a giant US$100 bill. Benjamin Franklin's head has been replaced with a cliched 'hacker in a hoodie' illustration. The machine's faceplate bears the Claude Code wordmark. The background is the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'  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/2026/01/06/100…

2/
AI is the asbestos we're shoveling into the walls of our high-tech society:



Code is a liability. Code's *capabilities* are assets.

3/pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/eco…
Read 48 tweets
Dec 16, 2025
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
Dec 13, 2025
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

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