Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Six years of Pluralistic; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/
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Post
Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Six years of Pluralistic; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/
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@pluralistic Congratulations! While I'm not sure you'll engage with criticism of this piece given how you framed it, there's a great, methodical breakdown of your problematic LLM section here https://tante.cc/2026/02/20/acting-ethical-in-an-imperfect-world/
@pluralistic One of the reasons I like Mastodon is that's so trivially easy to filter out stuff I don't want to see, which is Using Mastodon Right imho.
This is good one.
Readable, informative, thought provoking (my view of AI having been adjusted somewhat in line with inklings I know I'd been having that were given voice here), and a cool look inside a thought factory.
@pluralistic is that you Rover?
Be seeing you 😎
@pluralistic Congratulations and a huge thank you for pluralistic!
Six years of Pluralistic: Time flies when you're writing the web.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116097712856639117
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Hey look at this
* Mass Call All Laid-Off Tech Workers and Allies Welcome: https://wwwrise.org/
* Understood: The Dawn of Fake Porn https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16198164-e1-the-dawn-of-fake-porn?featuredPodcast=true
* Socialism is the big tent — w/Avi Lewis https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/socialism-is-the-big-tent-wavi-lewis
* The “Enshittification” of NATO https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-enshittification-of-nato (h/t Roz Doctorow)
* Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Channeling FDR https://jacobin.com/2026/02/aoc-fdr-economic-populism-democracy/
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#20yrsago HOWTO resist warrantless Best Buy searches https://www.die.net/musings/bestbuy/
#20yrsago RIAA using kids’ private info to attack their mother https://web.archive.org/web/20060223111437/http://p2pnet.net/story/7942
#20yrsago Sony demotes CEO for DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060219233817/http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060210/germany_sony_bmg_ceo.html?.v=7
#20yrsago Sistine Chapel recreated through 10-year cross-stitch project https://web.archive.org/web/20060214195146/http://www.austinstitchers.org/Show06/images/sistine2.jpg
#20yrsago J Edgar Hoover loved Lucy https://web.archive.org/web/20060425120915/http://www.lucylibrary.com/pages/lucy-news-fbi.letter.html
#20yrsago Bad Samaritan family won’t return found expensive camera https://web.archive.org/web/20060222200300/https://lostcamera.blogspot.com/2006/02/camera-unlost-but-not-quite-found.html
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#15yrsago What does Libyan revolution mean for bit.ly? https://domainnamewire.com/2011/02/18/is-bit-ly-toast-if-libya-shuts-down-the-internet/
#15yrsago Optical illusion inventor goes on to invent copyright threats against 3D printing company https://web.archive.org/web/20110221185839/https://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/02/18/copyright-and-intellectual-property-policy/#respond
#15yrsago Crappy themepark operators convicted of “engaging in a commercial practice which was a misleading action” https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/feb/18/lapland-theme-park-brothers-convicted
#15yrsago HBGary’s high-volume astroturfing technology and the Feds who requested it https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All
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#15yrsago Authors Guild argues in favor of censorship (also: they don’t know shit about Shakespeare) https://volokh.com/2011/02/17/there-should-be-a-name-for-this-one-too/
#15yrsago Hollywood hospital ransoms itself back from hackers for a mere $17,000 https://web.archive.org/web/20160227094254/https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-me-ln-hollywood-hospital-bitcoin-20160217-story.html
#15yrsago Chinese millionaire sues himself through an offshore shell company to beat currency export controls https://web.archive.org/web/20180526235055/https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/02/16/china-capital-flight-2-0-lose-a-lawsuit-on-purpose/?guid=BL-CJB-28691&dsk=y
#15yrsago Selling cookies like a crack dealer, by dangling a string out your kitchen window https://laughingsquid.com/cookies-sold-by-string-dangling-from-san-francisco-apartment-window/
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#15yrsago Midwestern Tahrir: Workers refuse to leave Wisconsin capital over Tea Party labor law https://www.theawl.com/2011/02/wisconsin-demonstrates-against-scott-walkers-war-on-unions/
#10yrsago Back-room revisions to TPP sneakily criminalize fansubbing & other copyright grey zones https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/sneaky-change-tpp-drastically-extends-criminal-penalties
#10yrsago Russian Central Bank shutting down banks that staged fake cyberattacks to rip off depositors https://web.archive.org/web/20160220100817/http://www.scmagazine.com/russian-bank-licences-revoked-for-using-hackers-to-withdraw-funds/article/474477/
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#10yrsago Stop paying your student loans and debt collectors can send US Marshals to arrest you https://web.archive.org/web/20201026202024/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/02/us-marshals-forcibly-collecting-student-debt.html?mid=twitter-share-di
#5yrsago Reverse centaurs and the failure of AI https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-centaur
#5yrsago Strength in numbers https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/18/ink-stained-wretches/#countless
#5yrsago America and "national capitalism" https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/18/pikettys-productivity/#reaganomics-revenge
#1yrago Business school professors trained an AI to judge workers' personalities based on their faces https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/17/caliper-ai/#racism-machine
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Tuesday's threads: What's a "gig work minimum wage"; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116085858493483804
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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
--
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:
* #Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24
https://fedimtl.ca/
* #Oslo (remote): Seminar og lansering av rapport om «enshittification»
https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/digital/seminar-og-lansering-av-rapport-om-enshittification/
* #Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5
https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/
* #Victoria: Enshittification at Russell Books, Mar 4
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-is-coming-to-victoria-tickets-1982091125914
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #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/
* #Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #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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