Cory DoctorowToday's threads (a thread)
Inside: Jailbreaking isn't theft; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/25/thieve-different/
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I'm on tour with my new book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI. Catch me TONIGHT (Jun 23) with David Williams in #PHILADELPHIA at the Fitler Club:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
And TOMORROW (Jun 24) in #CHICAGO with Rick Perlstein at Exile in Bookville:
https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628
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Jailbreaking isn't theft: It wasn't progress when they did it, it's not piracy when we do it back to them.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116810080970519909
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Hey look at this
* How to Passive-Aggressively Shame People Who Use LLMs Selfishly https://joshmoody.org/blog/selfish-ai/
* We have a union https://unitedwizardsofthecoast.com/news/2026-06-23-we-have-a-union
* Nearly Half of LG Smart TV Apps Are Laced with Proxies https://spur.us/blog/smart-tv-apps-residential-proxy-sdks
* The Right — and Wrong — Way to Criticize AI https://jacobin.com/2026/06/ai-bubble-layoffs-workers-copyright
* How to burst the AI bubble: Strike at its roots https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/how-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-strike-at-its-roots/
#25yrsago Major AI breakthrough is imminent https://web.archive.org/web/20010625114014/https://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/lat_cyc010621.htm
#25yrsago Webcomic reply to Scott McCloud on microtransactions https://web.archive.org/web/20010708225439/https://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-06-22&res=l
#25yrsago School censorware blocks LBGTQ sites https://web.archive.org/web/20010803114449/https://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/14/net_filtering/print.html
#25yrsago SCOTUS backs freelance writers https://edition.cnn.com/2001/LAW/06/25/scotus.copyright/index.html
#20yrsago Canadian Gov’t Pays Copyright Lobby to Lobby https://web.archive.org/web/20060720230403/http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1151273413030&call_pageid=971794782442&col=971886476975
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#20yrsago How can we keep the Bells from committing net-neutricide? https://web.archive.org/web/20060714044219/http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189600971
#20yrsago Disney: We [will|won’t] sue if you put Pooh on a baby’s headstone https://web.archive.org/web/20060711194928/http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060623-093710-8391r
#15yrsago Comic Book Legal Defense Fund backs traveller arrested at Canadian border for “pornographic” manga on his hard drive https://cbldf.org/2011/06/cbldf-forms-coalition-to-defend-american-comics-reader-facing-criminal-charges-in-canada/
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#15yrsago Rochester police use selective enforcement of parking laws to harass attendees at a meeting in support of Emily Good https://rochester.indymedia.org/node/7516
#15yrsago What happened before the Vancouver riot kiss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mtURc7mkUg
#15yrsago Mexican Congress votes to reject ACTA https://www.techdirt.com/2011/06/22/mexican-congress-says-no-to-acta/
#15yrsago “Hot News” doctrine gets a body-blow https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/hot-news-doctrine-surviving-life-support
#15yrsago Solar-powered 3D sand-printer https://web.archive.org/web/20110627035221/https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/06/markus-kayser-builds-a-solar-powered-3d-printer-that-prints-glass-from-sand-and-a-sun-powered-laser-cutter/
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#10yrsago Australian educational contractor warns of wifi, vaccination danger to “gifted” kids’ “extra neurological connections” https://web.archive.org/web/20180211151730/https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/antivaccination-program-offered-to-gifted-children-in-primary-schools-20160621-gpnzzp.html#ixzz4CYBYf4Bl#ixzz4CYBYf4Bl
#10yrsago US Customs and Border Protection wants to ask for your “online presence” at the border https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/24/12026364/us-customs-border-patrol-online-account-twitter-facebook-instagram?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
#10yrsago Stasi radio monitoring department, hard at work, 1980s https://web.archive.org/web/20160625190241/https://visualhistory.livejournal.com/1039990.html
#10yrsago Apps help women bypass states’ barriers to contraception https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/health/birth-control-options-websites.html
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#10yrsago The blacker a city is, the more it fines its residents (especially black ones) https://priceonomics.com/the-fining-of-black-america/
#10yrsago The demographics of Brexit https://web.archive.org/web/20160626130820/http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit/
#10yrsago The morning after the Brexit vote, Nigel Farage admits money for the NHS was a lie https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/24/the-morning-after-the-brexit-vote-nigel-farage-admits-money-for-the-nhs-was-a-lie/
#10yrsago How to protect the future web from its founders’ own frailty https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/24/how-to-protect-the-future-web-from-its-founders-own-frailty/
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#10yrsago More than 30 people burned during Tony Robbins “motivational” firewalk https://web.archive.org/web/20160627054938/https://bigstory.ap.org/c7872f6db09e4656a612ee13aab74d50
#10yrsago Google’s version of the W3C’s video DRM has been cracked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CkWjOvpZJw
#10yrsago Undercover reporter spent four months as a prison guard in a Louisiana pen run by CCA https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer/
#10yrsago Sanders will vote Hillary https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/bernie-sanders-says-he-will-vote-hillary-clinton-n598251
#10yrsago Brexit: a timeline of the coming slow-motion car-crash http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/06/tomorrow-belongs-to-me.html
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#5yrsago The pandemic showed remote proctoring to be worse than useless https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/24/proctor-ology/#miseducation
#1yrago Surveillance pricing lets corporations decide what your dollar is worth https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/
#1yrago What's a "public internet?" https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/25/eurostack/#viktor-orbans-isp
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Tuesday's threads: Spying on kids to save kids from spying is very, very stupid; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116799239756447396
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My latest nonfiction book is the "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/
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My previous nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It":
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:
* #Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
* #Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628
* #London: Idler Festival, Jul 11
https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales
* #Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/
* #Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/
* #London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn
* #SouthBend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/
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Recent appearances
* How to Mess with Big Tech Oligarchs (Fighting Fascism)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-mess-with-big-tech-oligarchs-w-cory-doctorow/id1888647397?i=1000773711479
* Reverse Centaur with Angie Coiro (Kepler's Books)
https://www.youtube.com/live/cWN6XBa73xA
* How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late (Galaxy Brain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPQNPJ0CEPo
* The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order)
https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY
* How to Think About Artificial Intelligence (KUER)
https://radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2026-06-16/cory-doctorow-on-how-to-think-about-artificial-intelligence
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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net/post/3mp456nf5q22s
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) (@doctorow.pluralistic.net)
It's not often that someone on a panel says something that makes my jaw drop, but that's what happened earlier this week when the moderator of a panel I was on in Toronto described jailbreaking an iPhone as "rampant theft of IP." 1/
I'm on tour with my new book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI. Catch me TONIGHT (Jun 23) with David Williams in #PHILADELPHIA at the Fitler Club:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
And TOMORROW (Jun 24) in #CHICAGO with Rick Perlstein at Exile in Bookville:
https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628
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Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧Yeah, this one's a must read.
Along with everything else, it illustrates the level to which we’re programmed to pre-surrender to corporate grift -- the toxic byproduct of a longstanding little-talked-about substance problem of ours with 'convenience'.
CavyherdA phrase that has come to mind starting back in the days of Amazon's "1-Click" purchase: "Seduced by the Convenient side of the Force."
*sigh*Ber nard@pluralistic makes me think of the Dutch company Philips... Another often monopolist that was built on intellectual property theft.
One of the founders spent over a year in the US to get the company that built the machine that stretched tungsten into the tiny threads (filament) that made electric lighting way more reliable to sell Philips a clone.
Working there a century later distantly involved with their IP Protection spend, I found the cognitive dissonance strong.
This machine (or a slightly later derivative) is still on display in the atrium of the main office in Eindhoven.