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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
May 19, 2023 • 23 tweets • 29 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Venture predation; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fak…

#Pluralistic

1/ A giant pile of manure with...
Tomorrow I'm at @GburgBookFest with *Red Team Blues*:

gaithersburgbookfestival.org/featured_autho…

Mon (5/22), I'm at @publicknowledge's Emerging Tech in #DC:

eventbrite.com/e/emerging-tec…

On 5/23, it's #Toronto for #WEPFest, w/@hockeyesque @RonDeibert & @DrNancyOlivieri:

westendphoenix.com/shop/wepfest-s…

2/ Image
Venture predation: A pile of shit this big MUST have a pony underneath it!



3/ Image: Eli Duke (modified)...
Hey look at this

* #DebtCeiling: What Are þe Fallback Threat Points? braddelong.substack.com/p/debt-ceiling…

* ‘Sorry To Bother You’ Director #BootsRiley On #WGA Strike deadline.com/2023/05/wga-st… (h/t Payday Report)

* #ChurchMolestationLiabilityInsurance exists jwz.org/blog/2023/05/t…

4/ Image
#20yrsago Pal Mickey: A location-aware wireless famulus for #WaltDisneyWorld web.archive.org/web/2003052319…

#20yrsago #PressPlay being sold to #Napster nytimes.com/2003/05/19/bus…

#15yrsago UK gov’t wants database of every phone call and email news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/740959…

6/ Image
#15yrsago Microsoft: we listen to broadcasters, not customers eff.org/deeplinks/2008…

#10yrsago What the #Mounties pirate pirateparty.ca/2013/05/17/rcm…

#10yrago #PatentLawyers: Help! The evil Makers won’t let us apply for bullshit #3DPrinting patents! finnegan.com/en/insights/ar…

7/ Image
#5yrsago An interview with #JordanPeterson, who believes in witches and dragons somethingawful.com/news/jordan-pe…

#5yrsago A data-broker has been quietly selling realtime access to your cellphone’s location, and they suck, so anyone could get it for free krebsonsecurity.com/2018/05/tracki…

8/ Image
#1yrago The impossible scam of US drug plans pluralistic.net/2022/05/19/the…

#1yrago Your mom is a tech ninja pluralistic.net/2022/05/19/the…

9/ Image
Yesterday's threads: How to save the news from Big Tech; and more!



10/ Image: EFF https://www.eff...
My latest novel is Red Team Blues, available wherever books are sold!

Signed copies at @DarkDel:

darkdel.com/store/p2873/We…

11/
My latest nonfiction 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…

12/
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/

13/ Image
Upcoming appearances:

* @GburgBookFest, (#Gaithersburg) 5/20
gaithersburgbookfestival.org/featured_autho…

* @publicknowledge Emerging Tech keynote (#DC), 5/22
eventbrite.com/e/emerging-tec…

* #WEPFest with @RonDeibert, @hockeyesque and @DrNancyOlivieri (#Toronto), 5/23
westendphoenix.com/shop/wepfest-s…

14/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @HTLGIFestival (#Hay), 5/28
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-ai-…

* @HTLGIFestival (#Hay), 5/29
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-dan…

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

15/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues event with @christreilly (#Nottingham), 5/30
waterstones.com/events/an-even…

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

* @CymeraF, 6/3 (#Edinburgh)
cymerafestival.co.uk/cymera23-event…

16/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues with @Marthalanefox at the @bl, 6/5 (#London):
bl.uk/events/an-even…

* @republica keynote, 6/7 (#Berlin)
re-publica.com/de/news/rp23-k…

* Otherland event for Red Team Blues, 6/8 (#Berlin)
otherland-berlin.de/de/event-detai…

17/ Image
Recent appearances:

* Crime and Crypto | CYBER (@VICE @motherboard)


* Shakedowns, Shell Games & Silicon Valley Shenanigans (@MMTpodcast)
pileusmmt.libsyn.com/170-cory-docto…

* Chokepoint Capitalism's Arts Stranglehold (@USNewsBeat)
radiopublic.com/news-beat-GKkd…

18/ Image
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/2023/05/19/fak…

19/
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - and previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

20/
My latest @Medium column is "Google's AI Hype Circle: We have to do Bard because everyone else is doing AI; everyone else is doing AI because we're doing Bard"

doctorow.medium.com/googles-ai-hyp…

21/
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…

22/
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).

23/
Today's top sources: Dan Gillmor (mastodon.social/@dangillmor).

eof/ Image

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Aug 13
It's not just that Texas DA Gocha Ramirez charged a woman with murder for having an abortion (not t allowed even in Texas). It's that Ramirez paid for his mistress's abortion, after he impregnated her while having an affair with her *and* her sister:



1/ archive.is/20250812192203…A red, angry mushroom cloud. Sitting atop it, surrounded by blue skies and fluffy clouds, is a smirking business-suited man reclining in an armchair. He wears a MAGA hat and reads a magazine turned to a page showing Donald Trump's face.
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/2025/08/13/the…

2/
This is perfect Magaism, as captured by Wilhoit's Law:

> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.



3/crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/lib…
Read 52 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 30
Delta's announced new surveillance pricing: they're feeding an AI your nonconsensually harvested personal info that data-brokers and credit bureaux hold to predict the maximum you're willing to pay, and then price their tickets accordingly:



1/ fortune.com/2025/07/16/del…Hieronymus Bosch's 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a sleight-of-hand artist doing a cup-and-balls routine for a group of amazed yokels. It has been altered. The head of the conjurer has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' He wears a Delta Airlines logo over his breast. The table on which the cup-and-balls game is playing out sports a crashed jet in Delta livery, smoke rising from the wreckage. 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/2025/07/30/eff…

2/
Data-brokers sell all kinds of data, from the "legitimate" info about everywhere your car's been, to everywhere place the Bluetooth radios on your phone and headphones has been, to everything you've bought, to every sit you've visited and every search you've performed.

3/
Read 61 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 22
Ever notice how many right wing influencers are on the grift?

1/ A carny barker at a podium, gesticulating with a MAGA cap. He wears a Klan hood, and his podium features products from Nu-skin, Amway and Herbalife. Behind him is an oil-painted scene of a steamship with a Trump Tower logo, at a pier in flames.
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/2025/07/22/all…

2/
Like Alex Jones - that guy is basically Gwyneth Paltrow for conservative bros, selling the same "wellness" crap to a male audience (and not for nothing, Paltrow's victims are reliable boosters for RFK Jr's MAHA movement):



3/theweek.com/speedreads/709…
Read 66 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 3
As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are *not popular*.

1/ A kneeling figure, shackled hand-and-foot with ball-and-chains at his ankles. His face is that of a turn-of-the-century newsie, grinning broadly under a torn cloth cap. Behind him is a heavily halftoned neon HELP WANTED sign, askew over a indistinct black hellscape ganked from the third panel of Boschs's 'Garden of Earthly Delights.'
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/2025/07/03/sta…

2/
Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is *extremely* unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 1
If there's one are where tech has shown a consistent aptitude for innovation, it's in accounting tricks that make money-losing companies appear wildly profitable. And AI is the greatest innovator of all (when it comes to accounting gimmicks).

1/ A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill. 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/2025/06/30/acc…

2/
Since the dotcom era, tech companies have boasted about giving stuff away but "making it up in volume," inventing an ever-sweatier collection of shell-games that let them hide the business's true profit and loss.

3/
Read 42 tweets

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