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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Apr 12, 2023 • 31 tweets • 36 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/alg…

#Pluralistic A complex mandala of knobs ...
There's 5 days left in the @Kickstarter for the audiobook of my upcoming anti-finance finance thriller about #SiliconValley scams, *Red Team Blues*. #Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they're #DRM free. Crowdfunding makes them possible!

redteamblues.com

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Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes: Twiddled to death through algorithmic wage discrimination.



3/ Image: Stephen Drake (mod...
Hey look at this

* The Beltway’s Favorite Bogus Budget Model prospect.org/economy/2023-0…

* The brilliant @OhJoySexToy is 10 - they're having a pledgedrive (I backed it!) ohjoysextoy.com/pledgedrive202…

* #AlJaffee, King of the #MadMagazine Fold-In, Dies at 102 nytimes.com/2023/04/10/art…

4/ Image
#15yrsago Countering the FUD about the “#OrphanWorks” copyright bill (that doesn’t exist) maradydd.livejournal.com/374886.html

#15yrsago Cities making #RedLightCameras more profitable by making them less safe web.archive.org/web/2008041501…

5/ Image
#15yrsago EU forced to release list of objects you’re not allowed to take on planes nytimes.com/2008/04/10/bus…

#10yrsago Ordered list of credible fictions wired.com/2013/04/design…

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#10yrsago WA grants MSFT $1.5B tax amnesty, resorts to taxing dance-clubs to make up shortfall jeffreifman.com/2013/04/12/sea…

#5yrsago #Parkland teacher who was open to the idea of arming teachers forgets his loaded Glock in a public bathroom bbc.com/news/world-us-…

7/ Image
#5yrsago Zuck to Congress: “I’ll get back to you” (42 times) wired.com/story/mark-zuc…

#5yrsago Peak Zuck: “What’s a #ShadowProfile?” techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/fac…

#5yrsago American banks’ secret #subprime exposure stretches into the billions wolfstreet.com/2018/04/11/how…

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#5yrsago Wisconsin clears the way for #Foxconn by bulldozing working peoples’ homes and paying them pennies on the dollar beltmag.com/blighted-by-fo…

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#5yrsago Between Trump, @AjitPai and a GOP Congress, there’s never been a better time for a terrible Sprint/T-Mobile merger techdirt.com/2018/04/11/com…

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#5yrsago @evictionlab: a comprehensive database of every eviction proceeding in America for the past 16 years evictionlab.org

#5yrsago Cities’ emergency sirens will play anything you send them over an unencrypted radio protocol wired.com/story/this-rad…

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#5yrsago #JohnBoehner pledged eternal support for imprisoning marijuana users, now he’s in the #LegalWeed business bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

#5yrsago We won’t have @SpeakerRyan to kick around anymore cnn.com/2018/04/11/pol…

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#5yrsago MIT students create and circulate open source, covert #RFID rings to subvert campus tracking system boingboing.net/wp-content/upl…

#5yrsago More DRM-bustin’ stuff for the #CatalogOfMissingDevices, courtesy of @EFF supporters eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

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#5yrsago How abusive bosses and #Slack led software engineers to #unionize and demand justice jacobin.com/2018/04/laneti…

#1yrago The "#algospeak" dialect pluralistic.net/2022/04/11/coe…

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#1yrago When Automation Becomes Enforcement pluralistic.net/2022/04/11/coe…

#1yrago @DanielPinkwater's "Crazy in Poughkeepsie" pluralistic.net/2022/04/12/klo…

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Monday's threads: Alissa Quart's 'Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream'; 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…

17/
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…

18/
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/
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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…

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues at @DarkDel (#Burbank), 4/26
darkdel.com/store/p2873/We…

* Red Team Blues at @SFPublicLibrary with @Annaleen (#SanFrancisco), 4/30
sfpl.org/events/2023/04…

* @BayBookFest (#Berkeley/#BABF2023), 5/6-7
baybookfest.org/session/cory-d…

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

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

* @MassyArts Red Team Blues event with @seancranbury (#Vancouver), 5/10
eventbrite.ca/e/red-team-blu…

* Red Team Blues at @WordfestTweets (#Calgary), 5/11
wordfest.com/2023/event/wor…

22/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @GburgBookFest, 5/20
gaithersburgbookfestival.org/featured_autho…

* 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…

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

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Recent appearances:

* The "Enshittification" of Online Life (@CulturallyDet)
shows.acast.com/6204030b185070…

* @Mindplex_AI


* @HackerRadioShow (@2600)
2600.com/offthehook/202…

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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/2023/04/12/alg…

26/
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.

27/
My latest @Medium column is "How To Make a Child-Safe TikTok: Have you tried not spying on kids?"

doctorow.medium.com/how-to-make-a-…

28/
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: mail.flarn.com/mailman/listin…

29/
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).

30/
Today's top sources: @jstruan (superpunch.net). Image

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Dec 9, 2025
I have a weird fascination with early-stage Bill Gates, after his mother convinced a pal of hers - chairman of IBM's board of directors - to give her son the contract to provide the operating system for the new IBM PC.

1/ A 1960s ad for IBM mainframes, featuring a woman in an office chair seated at a console, surrounded by large processing and storage units. It has been modified. A man in a business suit, impatiently checking his watch, looms out from between two of the cabinets. His head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The woman's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie. Both the woman and the man have been tinted red. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommon...
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/2025/12/09/tem…

2/
Gates and his pal Paul Allen tricked another programmer into selling them the rights to DOS, which they sold to IBM, setting Microsoft on the path to be one of the most profitable businesses in human history.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 20, 2025
Well, this fucking *sucks*. A federal judge has decided that Meta is not a monopolist, and that its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp were not an illegal bid to secure and maintain a monopoly:



1/ gizmodo.com/meta-learns-th…The classic Puck Magazine editorial cartoon entitled 'The King of All Commodities,' depicting John D Rockefeller as a man with grotesquely tiny body and a gigantic head, wearing a crown emblazoned with the names of the industrial concerns he owned. Rockefeller's head has been replaced with that of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar. The names of the industrial concerns have been replaced with the wordmarks for Scale AI, Instagram, Oculus and Whatsapp. The dollar-sign at the crown's pinnacle has been replaced with the Facebook 'f' logo. The chain around Rockefeller's neck sports the charm th...
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/2025/11/20/if-…

2/
This is particularly galling because Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly, explicitly declared that these mergers were undertaken *to reduce competition*, which is the only circumstance in which pro-monopoly economists and lawyers say that mergers should be blocked.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 18, 2025
Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called *Who Censored Roger Rabbit?* which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*

1/ The final scene of Disneyland's 'Roger Rabbit's Toontown Spin,' in which Roger Rabbit is deploying a pair of portable holes; the holes have been replaced with copyright symbols, which are partially cropped. Image: Ken Lund (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/16775732643/ CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/11/18/im-…

2/
But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn't made any feature-length sequels.

3/
Read 52 tweets

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