Cory DoctorowToday's threads (a thread)
Inside: Billionaires are a danger to themselves and (especially) us; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/09/autocrats-of-trade/
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Billionaires are a danger to themselves and (especially) us: A billionaire is a machine for producing policy failures at scale.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116200392773231841
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Hey look at this
* How Live Nation allegedly terrorized the concert industry https://www.theverge.com/report/891241/live-nation-ticketmaster-week-one-jury-trial
* Canada's One-Man Air Force – and His Calculated Airline Crusade https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/canadas-one-man-air-force-and-his
* Cloud Sovereignty Framework Self Assessment https://www.suse.com/cloud-sovereignty-framework-assessment/
* EFF, Ubuntu and Other Distros Discuss How to Respond to Age-Verification Laws https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/03/09/0544224/eff-ubuntu-and-other-distros-discuss-how-to-respond-to-age-verification-laws
* Reading “The Ethnography of Infrastructure” https://www.not-so-obvious.net/reading-the-ethnography-of-infrastructure/
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#20yrsago Indie label uses heartfelt note instead of copy-restriction http://blog.resonancefm.com/archives/48
#20yrsago Clay Shirky’s ETECH presentation on the politics of social software https://craphound.com/youshutupetech2006.txt
#20yrsago Judge quotes Adam Sandler movie in decision blasting defendant https://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/motion-denied-because-youre-idiot
#15yrsago Video game in your browser’s location bar web.archive.org/web/20110309212313/http://probablyinteractive.com/url-hunter
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#15yrsago Extinct invertebrates caught in a 40 million year old sex act https://web.archive.org/web/20110303234001/http://news.discovery.com/animals/40-million-year-old-sex-act-captured-in-amber.html
#15yrsago Improvised toilets of earthquake-struck Christchurch https://web.archive.org/web/20110310044912/https://www.showusyourlongdrop.co.nz/
#15yrsago Canadian MP who shills for the record industry is an enthusiastic pirate https://web.archive.org/web/20110310163136/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5673/125/
#15yrsago The Monster: the fraud and depraved indifference that caused the subprime meltdown https://memex.craphound.com/2011/03/07/the-monster-the-fraud-and-depraved-indifference-that-caused-the-subprime-meltdown/
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#15yrsago Self-destructing ebooks: paper’s fragility is a bug, not a feature https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/08/ebooks-harpercollins-26-times
#10yrsago Senior U.S. immigration judge says 3 and 4 year old children can represent themselves in court https://web.archive.org/web/20160304201631/http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/03/04/us-judge-says-3-and-4-year-olds-can-represent-themselves-in-immigration-court.html
#10yrsago Crimefighting for fun and profit: data-mining Medicare fraud and likely whistleblowers https://www.wired.com/2016/03/john-mininno-medicare/
#10yrsago Extensive list of space opera cliches https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/03/towards-a-taxonomy-of-cliches-.html
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#10yrsago Verizon pays $1.35M FCC settlement for using “supercookies” https://web.archive.org/web/20160308111653/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/verizon-settles-over-supercookies
#10yrsago Group chat: “an all-day meeting with random participants and no agenda” https://signalvnoise.com/svn3/is-group-chat-making-you-sweat/#.1chnl7hf4
#10yrsago Less than a year on, America has all but forgotten the epic Jeep hack https://www.wired.com/2016/03/survey-finds-one-4-americans-remembers-jeep-hack/
#10yrsago Racial justice organizers to FBI vs Apple judge: crypto matters to #blacklivesmatter https://theintercept.com/2016/03/08/the-fbi-vs-apple-debate-just-got-less-white/
#1yrago Gandersauce https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play
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Saturday's threads: The web is bearable with RSS; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116189311117746551
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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
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My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, 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:
* #SanFrancisco: Launch for Cindy Cohn's "Privacy's Defender" (City Lights), Mar 10
https://citylights.com/events/cindy-cohn-launch-party-for-privacys-defender/
* #Barcelona: Enshittification with Simona Levi/Xnet (Llibreria Finestres), Mar 20
https://www.llibreriafinestres.com/evento/cory-doctorow/
* #Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27
https://conference.bioneers.org/
* #Montreal: Bronfman Lecture (McGill) Apr 10
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disrupter-tickets-1982706623885
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU)
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691
* #Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow
* #Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html
* #HayOnWye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2
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Recent appearances:
* Chicken Mating Harnesses (This Week in Tech)
https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1074
* The Virtual Jewel Box (U Utah)
https://tanner.utah.edu/podcast/enshittification-cory-doctorow-matthew-potolsky/
* Tanner Humanities Lecture (U Utah)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Yf1nSyekI
* The Lost Cause
https://streets.mn/2026/03/02/book-club-the-lost-cause/
* Should Democrats Make A Nuremberg Caucus? (Make It Make Sense)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWxKrnNfrlo
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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net/post/3mgndq2n2mc2z
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) (@doctorow.pluralistic.net)
Even if rich people were no more prone to believe stupid shit than you or me, it would still be a problem. After all, I believe in my share of stupid shit (and if you think none of the shit you believe in is stupid, I'm afraid we've just identified at least one kind of stupid shit you believe). 1/
Laura J Mixon@pluralistic Sending love wavicles to you and yours, you awesome bean.
@LauraJMG You too!
#15yrsago Wondrous, detailed map of the history of science fiction https://web.archive.org/web/20110310152548/http://scimaps.org/submissions/7-digital_libraries/maps/thumbs/024_LG.jpg
#15yrsago American Library Association task forces to take on ebook lending https://web.archive.org/web/20110310085634/https://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=5749
#15yrsago Wisconsin capitol bans recording, flags, reading, balloons, chairs, bags, backpacks, photography, etc etc etc https://captimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/more-rules-released-for-state-capitol-visitors/article_f044044f-6183-5128-b718-d5dffbfdb573.html
#15yrsago Librarians Against DRM logo https://web.archive.org/web/20110308170030/https://readersbillofrights.info/librariansagainstDRM
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