Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Apr 12, 2023 31 tweets 36 min read Read on X
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…

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#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…

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#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-…

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#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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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.

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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-…

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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…

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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).

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

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More from @doctorow

Mar 25
A law professor friend tells me that LLMs have completely transformed the way she relates to grad students and postdocs - for the worse. And no, it's not that they're cheating on their homework or using LLMs to write briefs full of hallucinated cases.

1/ Norman Rockwell’s ‘self portrait.’ All the Rockwell faces have been replaced with HAL 9000 from Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ His signature has been modified with a series of rotations and extra symbols. He has ten fingers on his one visible hand.    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/2025/03/25/com…

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The thing that LLMs have changed in my friend's law school is *letters of reference*. Historically, students would only ask a prof for a letter of reference if they knew the prof really rated them.

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Read 36 tweets
Mar 22
I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire.



1/ mystgalaxy.com/32425DoctorowA bloody mary stacked high with many absurd, over-the-top garnishes.   Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/  CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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/2025/03/22/omn…

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Which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):

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Read 50 tweets
Mar 19
Paula Le Dieu is one of the smartest, most committed archivists I know. Many years ago, she shared a neat analogy with me about the paywalling of public archives.

1/ The Columbia University library, a stately, columnated building, color-shifted to highlight reds and oranges. The sky behind it has been filled with flames. In the foreground, a figure in a firefighter's helmet and yellow coat uses a flamethrower to shoot a jet of orange fire.   Image: Ajay Suresh https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/52009406881/  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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/2025/03/19/sel…

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This phenomenon has become rampant as public institutions have been pushed to seek private funding to close the gaps left by swingeing cuts.

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Read 26 tweets
Mar 18
AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:



1/ pcmag.com/news/amid-job-…The capital building, crossed by a yellow hazmat tape emblazoned 'DANGER ASBESTOS.' Behind the tape stands a figure in an old-fashioned hazmat suit. In the background are the blown-up faces of a group of grubby, miserable child miners. The capital dome has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'     Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en  --  Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creati...
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/2025/03/18/asb…

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If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong.

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Read 26 tweets
Mar 15
Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing.

1/ A cylindrical black Alexa speaker on a coffee table; it is wearing a Darth Vader helmet.  Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexa_%2840770465691%29.jpg  Sam Howzit (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWC_6_-_Darth_Vader_Costume_(7865106344).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/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/2025/03/15/alt…

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This will happen even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:



3/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…
Read 48 tweets
Mar 13
My theory of the "shitty technology adoption curve" holds that you can predict the future impact of abusive technologies on you by observing the way these are deployed against people who have less social power than you:



1/ pluralistic.net/2023/06/11/the…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 poised man in a sharp business suit, glaring 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/2025/03/13/ele…

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When you have a new, abusive technology, you can't just aim it at rich, powerful people, because when *they* complain, they get results.

3/
Read 71 tweets

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