Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 30, 2023 27 tweets 29 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: We should ban TikTok('s surveillance); and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik…

#Pluralistic 1/ A modified vintage editorial cartoon. Uncle Sam peeks out ov
I'm kickstarting the #audiobook for my next novel, an anti-finance finance thriller about #SiliconValley scams called *Red Team Blues*. #Amazon's #Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they're #DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible:

redteamblues.com 2/
We should ban TikTok('s surveillance): And Google's, Apple's, and Facebook's surveillance, too.

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

* The Three-Legged Stool: A Manifesto for a Smaller, Denser Internet publicinfrastructure.org/2023/03/29/the…

* A misleading open letter about sci-fi #AI dangers ignores the real risks aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/a-misleading… 4/
#20yrsago @Weezer’s symbolic value web.archive.org/web/2019051902…

#15yrsago Griefers deface #epilepsy message-board with seizure-inducing animations wired.com/2008/03/hacker… 5/
#15yrsago London’s #Spitalfields market: shoot the architecture, we take away your camera memex.craphound.com/2008/03/30/rem…

#15yrsago Remixed generic thrift-store clothes memex.craphound.com/2008/03/30/rem… 6/
#10yrsago Embarrassingly obvious undercover cops take to Twitter looking for #HouseShows slate.com/news-and-polit…

#10yrsago Mr Unpronounceable Adventures, spectacularly weird graphic novel in a Lovecraftian/Burroughsian vein memex.craphound.com/2013/03/30/mr-… 7/
#10yrsago Group whose #Wikipedia entry was deleted for non-notability threatens lawsuit against Wikipedian who participated in the discussion mako.cc/copyrighteous/…

#5yrsago Georgia criminalizes routine #SecurityResearch eff.org/deeplinks/2018… 8/
#5yrsago Trump administration will require every visitor to the USA to divulge all social media identities bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

#5yrsago Facebook deathwatch: a decade ago, it was impossible to imagine the fall of #Myspace memex.craphound.com/2018/03/30/fac… 9/
#5yrsago #Oklahoma #teachers walk out, sensing weakness from GOP legislators who caved on taxing the oil industry jacobin.com/2018/03/oklaho…

#5yrsago #Referendums and low-engagement voters produce catastrophic outcomes (but what about corruption?) timharford.com/2018/03/how-re… 10/
#5yrsago Five years after Google conquered and abandoned #RSS, the news-reader ecosystem is showing green shoots wired.com/story/rss-read…

#5yrsago “Kingpin: The Hunt for El Chapo”: Game designers review the #CIA’s declassified tabletop training game vice.com/en/article/3kj… 11/
#1yrago Hackers' code-free exploit: pretend to be cops pluralistic.net/2022/03/30/law… 12/
Yesterday's threads: Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy; 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:

* 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… 17/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues at @darkdel (#Burbank), Apr 26
darkdel.com/store/p2873/We…

* @baybookfest (#Berkeley/#BABF2023), 5/6-7
baybookfest.org/session/cory-d… 18/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #OSSummit (#Vancouver), 5/10
events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-su…

* Red Team Blues at @WordfestTweets (#Calgary), 5/11
wordfest.com/2023/event/wor… 19/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

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

* Red Team Blues event with @cubicgarden (Manchester), 5/31
waterstones.com/events/in-conv… 20/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @uclcs Peter Kirstein Lecture, 6/1 (#London):
eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirste… 21/
Recent appearances:

* Is Copyright Good For Authors? (@TWiT)


* @culturejourno: What is chokepoint capitalism?
theculturejournalist.substack.com/p/chokepoint-c…

* Techtonic with @markhurst | @WFMU
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cor… 22/
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/2023/03/30/tik… 23/
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. 24/
My latest @Medium column is "Silicon Valley Noir: Red Team Blues and the Role of Bitterness in Technothrillers"

doctorow.medium.com/silicon-valley… 25/
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 26/
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). 27/

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More from @doctorow

Oct 11
I am an environmentalist, but I'm not a climate activist. I used to be - I even used to ring strangers' doorbells on behalf of Greenpeace.

1/ A field of utility scale solar. Behind the mountains on the horizon line loom two logos: the original EFF 'clenched fist and lightning bolt' logo and the first Earth Day logo. They are reflected in the solar panels. Behind them roils hellish red-shot smoke.
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/2025/10/11/cyb…

2/
But a quarter of a century ago, I fell in with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and became a lifelong digital rights activist, and switched to cheering on environmental activists from the sidelines of their fight:



3/eff.org
Read 53 tweets
Sep 27
Like you, I'm sick to the back teeth of talking about AI. Like you, I keep getting dragged into AI discussions. Unlike you‡, I spent the summer writing a book on why I'm sick of AI⹋, which @fsgbooks will publish in 2026.

‡probably

⹋"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI"

1/ A Zimbabwean one hundred trillion dollar bill; the bill's iconography have been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' and a stylized, engraving-style portrait of Sam Altman.  Image: TechCrunch https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Altman_-_TechCrunch_Disrupt_SF_2017_(36522988343).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en  --  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/2025/09/27/eco…

2/
A week ago, I turned that book into a speech, which I delivered as the annual Nordlander Memorial Lecture at Cornell, where I'm an AD White Professor-at-Large.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Sep 24
Billionaires don't think we're real. How could they? How could you inflict the vast misery that generates billions while still feeling even a twinge of empathy for the sufferer in your extractive enterprise. No wonder Elon Musk calls us "NPCs":



1/ pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/see…  An oil painting of a French king atop a throne, draped in sumptuous robes. His head has been replaced with a screaming, toothless man wearing a top-hat. Over his shoulder looms 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/2025/09/24/rob…

2/
Ever notice how people get palpably stupider as they gain riches and power? Musk went from a cringe doofus to a world-class credulous dolt, and it seems like he loses five IQ points for every $10b that's added to his net worth.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Sep 23
I'm only a few chapters into Bill McKibben's stupendous new book *Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization* and I already know it's going to change my outlook forever:



1/ billmckibben.com/books/here-com…A rooftop solar installation. Behind the roof rages a blazing forest fire. Reflected in the solar panels is the poop emoji from the cover of my book 'Enshittification,' which has angry eyebrows and a black, grawlix-filled bar across its mouth."    Image: Bastique (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Panels_on_Church_Roof_full.jpg  CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/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/2025/09/23/our…

2/
McKibben is one of our preeminent climate writers and activists, noteworthy for his informed and brilliant explanations of the technical limits - and possibilities - of various climate interventions, and for his lifelong organizing work.

3/
Read 80 tweets
Sep 22
One of the dumbest, shrewdest tricks corporate America ever pulled was teaching us all to reflexively say, "If a corporation blocks your speech, that doesn't violate the First Amendment and therefore it's not censorship":



1/ pluralistic.net/2022/12/04/yes…Two figures in royal robes seated back to back atop a pile of gold bars. One wears a tophat, the other, a crown in the form of a gilded crown. A forest of angled broadcast towers sits behind them. The sky is overshadowed by thunderheads.
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/2025/09/22/one…

2/
Censorship isn't limited to government action: it's the act of preventing a message from a willing speaker from reaching a willing listener. The fact that it's censorship doesn't (necessarily) mean that it's illegitimate or bad.

3/
Read 62 tweets
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…

2/
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.

3/
Read 57 tweets

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