Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 25, 2023 35 tweets 47 min read Read on X
Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: To save the news, shatter ad-tech; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/05/25/str…

#Pluralistic

1/ EFF's banner for the save n...
I'm at @HTLGIFestival in #HayOnWye:

28/5 1130h: The AI Enigma
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-ai-…

29/5 12h: Danger and Desire at the Frontier
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-dan…

Next, #Oxford!

29/5: @blackwelloxford's 1930h w/@TimHarford:
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctoro…

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To save the news, shatter ad-tech: Structural separation will help the news claim their fair share.



3/ Image: EFF https://www.eff....
Hey look at this

* There's No Antitrust Exception to Statutory Interpretation promarket.org/2023/05/19/the…

* @Bandcamp workers have voted to unionize bandcampunited.org/updates

* Glorious new @foliosociety edition of Hitchhiker's Guide gizmodo.com/hitchhikers-gu…

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#20yrsago Turn a floppy into a Klingon ship memex.craphound.com/2003/05/25/tur…

#20yrsago “Facts” about printing and book-design nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ar…

#20yrsago Dear Hollywood: neener neener web.archive.org/web/2003052417…

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#20yrsago @EFF on #TotalInformationAwareness web.archive.org/web/2003052823…

#15yrsago Villagers from three continents will confront @Chevron execs at annual meeting web.archive.org/web/2008052012…

#15yrsago Former @RIAA CEO is the @HuffPost’s new political director wired.com/2008/05/the-hu…

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#15yrsago Canadian spooks think punk band “#SuicidePilots” are terrorists web.archive.org/web/2008053002…

#15yrsago #Punk House: communal homes of the anarcho-syndicalist lifestyle web.archive.org/web/2008052617…

#10yrsago Laptop w/thermite self-destruct mechanism hackaday.com/2013/05/23/lap…

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#10yrsago 3D-printable model of the cover of #JoyDivision’s “#UnknownPleasuresweb.archive.org/web/2013060716…

#10yrsago Game designer creates a never-played-by-humans titanium boardgame and buries it for play in 2700 years polygon.com/2013/3/28/4157…

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#10yrsago Hardwood #Escher tesselated interlocking lizard tiles evolulignum.blogspot.com/2011/02/diseno…

#10yrsago How London cops use social media to spy on protest movements itnews.com.au/news/police-ta…

#10yrsago Vermont passes anti-#PatentTroll law cbc.ca/news/business/…

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#10yrsago #RIAA losing money, firing employees, giving execs raises torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-dra…

#10yrsago Forging £1 coins is apparently profitable bbc.com/news/uk-englan…

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#10yrsago Globe and Mail: Toronto Mayor #RobFord’s family are, variously, a drug kingpin, a gangster, and affiliated with the KKK theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/g…

#10yrsago Lamps made from cassette tapes cassetteisnotdead.com

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#5yrsago A guide to the valuable electronics inside #Bird’s illegal-in-San Francisco scooters jwz.org/blog/2018/05/l…

#5yrsago #Facebook is worth much less to its users than search and email, but it keeps a larger share of the value timharford.com/2018/05/how-mu…

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#5yrsago The paleocomputing miracle of the 76477 #SpaceInvaders sound effects chip righto.com/2018/05/inside…

#5yrsago Texas high-school principal fires award-winning, nationally famous journalism teacher to rein in critical student newspaper reporting splc.org/2018/05/0522pr…

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#5yrsago 500,000 home routers have been infected with #VPNFilter, malware that steals data and bricks devices arstechnica.com/information-te…

#5yrsago The #FBI’s mountain of uncrackable #crimephones was nearly entirely imaginary emptywheel.net/2018/05/23/did…

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#5yrsago A free internet is a configurable internet oreilly.com/content/cory-d…

#5yrsago The Democratic candidate for the Georgia governorship is a Black woman running on an “unapologetic progressive” platform web.archive.org/web/2018052306…

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#5yrsago A hard look at the wastefulness of “#ProofOfWork,” the idea at the core of the blockchain davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/201…

#5yrsago @cstross on the “soft genocide” of eugenics-tainted, alt-right climate dystopia antipope.org/charlie/blog-s…

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#5yrsago @ComputerHistory Museum just published the sourcecode for #Eudora computerhistory.org/blog/the-eudor…

#5yrsago The company that made #GrenfellTower’s flammable, poisonous insulation used dangerous lies to make hundreds of sales independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

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#5yrsago Court rules that Trump can’t block people on Twitter eff.org/press/releases…

#5yrsago @comcast’s $1.2b/year #ModemRental scam picks your pocket, then exposes you to hackers, stalkers and identity thieves vice.com/en/article/mbk…

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#5yrsago Cable industry attains the impossible: makes Americans hate it even more vice.com/en/article/7xm…

#5yrsago Mining the #PanamaPapers and other leaks to reveal the hidden looting of West Africa by its corrupt elite icij.org/investigations…

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#5yrsago Why “#leftism” is parting ways with “liberalism” and what it means for the future of American politics nymag.com/intelligencer/…

#5yrsago Debugging #AI is a “hard problem” ai.stanford.edu/~zayd/why-is-m…

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#5yrsago FBI sinkholes a key domain used by the malware that infected 500,000 home routers, declares partial victory and Russian attribution thedailybeast.com/exclusive-fbi-…

#5yrsago Thoughtful, devastating critique of #JordanPeterson’s “12 Rules for Life” web.archive.org/web/2021031013…

21/
#1yrago @HSBC: "Who cares if Miami is underwater?" pluralistic.net/2022/05/24/mor…

#1yrago #SPACs were hugely successful (for banks) pluralistic.net/2022/05/23/you…

#1yrago #KimStanleyRobinson's "The High Sierra" pluralistic.net/2022/05/25/the…

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#1yrago Talking with Kim Stanley Robinson about "The High Sierra" pluralistic.net/2022/05/25/the…

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Monday's threads: Justice Warriors; and more!



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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…

26/
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/

27/ 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…

29/ 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…

30/ Image
Recent appearances:

* @machinekillspod
soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…

* How Big Tech Captured Culture (@TheAgenda)


* Enshittification Part 3: Saving The Internet (@onthemedia)
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/s…

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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/2023/05/25/str…

32/
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - and previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

33/
My latest @Medium column is "Rich People's Gain is Worth Less Than Poor People's Pain: A new way to think about utilitarianism, courtesy of the Office of Management and Budget"

doctorow.medium.com/rich-peoples-g…

34/
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…

35/
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).

eof/

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More from @doctorow

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
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
Jun 28
In 2014, I read a political science paper that nearly convinced me to quit my lifelong career as an activist: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," published in *Perspectives on Politics*:



1/ cambridge.org/core/journals/…An inflatable pig balloon against a blue sky, bearing the Zohran for Mayor logo. The Chrysler Building sits to one side.  Image: Frank Vincentz (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geeste_-_Biener_Stra%C3%9Fe_-_Speicherbecken_-_Drachenfest_38_ies.jpg  Petri Krohn https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_building-_top.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/2025/06/28/mam…

2/
The paper's authors are Martin Gilens, a UCLA professor of Public Policy; and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, a professor of Decision Making. Gilens and Page studied a representative sample of 1,779 policy issues.

3/
Read 49 tweets
Jun 24
When a company sells you something for $2 that someone else can buy for $1, they're revaluing the dollars in your pocket at half the rate of the other guy's.

1/ A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light.  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/2025/06/24/pri…

2/
Economists praise "price discrimination" as "efficient." That's when a company charges different customers different amounts based on inferences about their willingness to pay.

3/
Read 50 tweets
Jun 20
Private equity firms are the demon princes of the hellspace that is the imploding, life-destroying, plutocrat-generating American economy.

1/ A billionaire in a tuxedo with dollar-sign cufflinks, stands at a podium, yanking a lever shaped like a gilded dollar sign with one gloved hand. From the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a bloody corpse. His head has been replaced with the head of a doctor in a surgeon's blue cap, with red, glaring eyes. The background is the text of Oregon's new Corporate Practice of Medicine law, in blown-out, red type.
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/2025/06/20/the…

2/
Their favorite scam, the "leveraged buyout" is a mafia bustout dressed up in respectable clothes, and if you mourn a beloved, failed business, chances are that an LBO was the murder weapon, and PE was the killer:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spi…
Read 44 tweets
May 27
On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":



1/ soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…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 posed man in a sharp business suit, frowning 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/2025/05/27/ran…

2/
> One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

3/
Read 98 tweets

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