Cory DoctorowToday's threads (a thread)
Inside: Shifting $677m from the banks to the people, every year, forever; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/01/bankshot/
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I'll be in Tucson, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the Guest of Honor at the TusCon science fiction convention:
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Shifting $677m from the banks to the people, every year, forever: The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is going to let you change banks with a click.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113407988753227338
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Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)
Attached: 1 image "Switching costs" are one of the great underappreciated evils in our world: the more it costs you to change from one product or service to another, the worse the vendor, provider, or service you're using today can treat you without risking your business. -- 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: https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/01/bankshot/#personal-financial-data-rights 1/
Hey look at this
* Uncovered: Big Tech’s network sabotaging the DMA https://corporateeurope.org/en/2024/10/uncovered-big-techs-network-sabotaging-dma
* Court Orders Google (a Monopolist) To Knock It Off With the Monopoly Stuff https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/court-orders-google-monopolist-knock-it-monopoly-stuff
* A complete guide to luddite horror films https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/a-complete-guide-to-luddite-horror
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Uncovered: Big Tech’s network sabotaging the DMA | Corporate Europe Observatory
In March 2024, the European Commission set up a series of public workshops to test Big Tech companies' compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The workshops counted nearly 4000 registrations from businesses, law firms, civil society organisations, academia, public regulators, and industry associations.
#20yrsago Bhutan: World’s biggest book https://kottke.org/04/10/bhutan-book
#20yrsago Audio/transcript from BBC Creative Archive talk https://web.archive.org/web/20060306155902/http://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/2004.10.28-BBC-Creative-Archive-Q&A.mp3
#15yrsago Heavy illegal downloaders buy more music https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html
#15yrsago Scenting the Dark: outstanding debut short story collection from Mary Robinette Kowal, exploring our relationship to technology and each other https://memex.craphound.com/2009/11/01/scenting-the-dark-outstanding-debut-short-story-collection-from-mary-robinette-kowal-exploring-our-relationship-to-technology-and-each-other/
#15yrsago Anti-vaccine fear versus science https://web.archive.org/web/20091022235649/https://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/all/1
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#10yrsago Sen Lindsay Graham promises a fine future for “white men in male-only clubs” https://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/sen-lindsey-graham-white-men-joke-112338
#10yrsago Hungary cancels proposed Internet tax in the face of mass opposition https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29846285
#10yrsago David Graeber and Thomas Piketty on whether capitalism will destroy itself https://thebaffler.com/odds-and-ends/soak-the-rich
#10yrsago USPS usage declines, but sloppy postal surveillance is way, way up https://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/snail-mail-snooping-safeguards-not-followed-108056
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#10yrsago Surveillance and stalkers: how the Internet supercharges gendered violence https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahjeong/2014/10/28/surveillance-begins-at-home/
#10yrsago Secret recording of corporate lobbyist is a dirty-tricks playbook https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/us/politics/pr-executives-western-energy-alliance-speech-taped.html
#10yrsago NZ Trade Minister: we keep TPP a secret to prevent “public debate” https://www.techdirt.com/2014/10/31/new-zealands-trade-minister-admits-they-keep-tpp-documents-secret-to-avoid-public-debate/
#5yrsago Blizzard’s corporate president publicly apologizes for bungling players’ Hong Kong protests, never mentions Hong Kong https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/1/20944022/blizzard-blizzcon-hearthstone-china-hong-kong-response-j-allen-brack
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Surveillance Begins at Home
As women’s shelters across the country have learned, privacy tools are not just for journalists, whistleblowers, spies, and criminals. About 12 million people are victims of intimate partner violence each year. Privacy is about power, and undermining privacy serves the powerful at the cost of the powerless, even inside families.
#5yrsago My review of Sandworm: an essential guide to the new, reckless world of “cyberwarfare” https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2019-11-01/sandworm-andy-greenberg-cybersecurity
#5yrsago Report from a massive Chinese surveillance tech expo, where junk-science “emotion recognition” rules https://twitter.com/suelinwong/status/1190194625572569093
#5yrsago Toronto approves Google’s surveillance city, despite leaks revealing Orwellian plans https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/sidewalk-labs-waterfront-toronto-quayside-vote-1.5342294
#5yrsago Chicago teachers declare victory after 11-day strike https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/31/chicago-teachers-strike-union-tentative-agreement-makeup-days/4106271002/
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#5yrsago Airbnb’s easily gamed reputation system and poor customer service allow scammers to thrive https://www.vice.com/en/article/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb/
#5yrsago Suppressed internal emails reveal that the IRS actively helped tax-prep giants suppress Free File https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-tried-to-hide-emails-that-show-tax-industry-influence-over-free-file-program
#5yrsago Massive spike in young people registering to vote in the UK https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/01/massive-spike-in-young-people-registering-to-vote-in-the-uk/
#5yrsago How the British left should seize this moment to strip finance of its political clout https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/thatcher-had-a-battle-plan-for-her-economic-revolution-now-the-left-needs-one-too/
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#5yrsago After suing NSO Group for hacking Whatsapp, Facebook kicks NSO employees off its services https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/facebook-permanently-deletes-the-accounts-of-nso-workers/
#5yrsago The right is bankrolled by self-interested one-percenters making long-term investments; the left, by one-percenters with “moral whims” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/how-did-democrats-lose-the-states-money-money-money.html
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#5yrsago Leaked document reveals that Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto plans for private taxation, private roads, charter schools, corporate cops and judges, and punishment for people who choose privacy https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-sidewalk-labs-document-reveals-companys-early-plans-for-data/
#1yrago The impoverished imagination of neoliberal climate "solutions" https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff
#1yrsago Social Security is class war, not intergenerational conflict https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/01/intergenerational-warfare/#five-pound-blocks-of-cheese
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Sidewalk Labs document reveals company’s early vision for data collection, tax powers, criminal justice
Known internally as the ‘yellow book,’ 437-page report from 2016 describes life in a Sidewalk neighbourhood such as Toronto’s proposed Quayside site as an experience based, in part, on how much data people are willing to share
Wednesday's threads: AI's "human in the loop" isn't; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113396497993443852
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My latest nationally bestselling novel is "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle
Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:
https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/product-page/the-bezzle
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My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:
http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org
Signed copies available from Book Soup:
https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245
Both are national bestsellers!
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My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) 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."
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Upcoming appearances:
* TusCon (Tucson), Nov 8-10
https://tusconscificon.com/
* International Cooperative Alliance (New Delhi), Nov 24
https://icanewdelhi2024.coop/welcome/pages/Programme
* ACM Conext-2024 Workshop on the Decentralization of the Internet (Los Angeles), Dec 9
https://conferences.sigcomm.org/co-next/2024/#!/din
* IA et “merdification“ d’internet: peut-on envisager un nouveau web? (Remote), Dec 12
https://www.unige.ch/comprendre-le-numerique/conferences-publiques1/cycle-5-2024-2025/ia-et-merdification-dinternet-peut-envisager-un-nouveau-web/
* ISSA-LA Holiday Celebration keynote (Los Angeles), Dec 18
https://issala.org/event/issa-la-december-18-dinner-meeting/
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Recent appearances:
* Enshittification Was a Choice (SOSS Fusion)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSelmMUO0c
* Maximum Iceland Scenario (@TWiT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5MkCwktKz0
* Speciale intervista a Cory Doctorow (@digitaliafm)
https://digitalia.fm/744/
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Keynote: Enshittification Was a Choice - Cory Doctorow, Science Fiction Author
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I'll be in Tucson, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the Guest of Honor at the @sf_tus science fiction convention:
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