Surveillance is inequality's stabilizer: Guard labor vs guillotine insurance.

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11475084…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-06-26 17:28:43

The "dictator's dilemma" pits a dictator's desire to create social stability by censoring public communications in order to prevent the spread of anti-regime messages with the dictator's need to know whether powerful elites are becoming restless and plotting a coup:

pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dic…

--

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/2025/06/26/aut…

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Pluralistic: The surprising truth about data-driven dictatorships (26 July 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

Hey look at this

* "Hey Google" thisecommercelife.com/blogs/co…

* The Rise And The Fall Of The Mail Chute hackaday.com/2025/06/25/the-ri…

* Bezos Wedding Guests Given Monogrammed Plastic Bottles To Urinate In During Ceremony theonion.com/bezos-wedding-gue…

* NPR staffers pick their favorite fiction reads of 2025 so far npr.org/2025/06/25/nx-s1-53561…

* Inside the UFC Settlement Fighters Actually Deserve leftsideofthev.substack.com/p/…

4/

#15yrsago Adventurer’s Club from Walt Disney World recreated in painstaking detail with Half-Life engine insidethemagic.net/2010/06/wal…

#15yrsago Texas GOP comes out against oral sex, the UN, and the Supreme Court web.archive.org/web/2010062600…

#15yrsago Monkey-Pirate-Robot-Ninja-Zombie: Rock Paper Scissors 9.0 web.archive.org/web/2010062500…

#10yrsago Harry Reid tells BLM’s Burning Man squad to suck it up web.archive.org/web/2015062819…

5/

Walt Disney World's Adventurers Club Virtually Recreated for Fans to Once Again Explore

Adventurers Club at Walt Disney has virtually recreated with enough impressive detail to entice fans to shout "Kungaloosh!" in excitement.

^{Ricky Brigante (Inside the Magic)}

#10yrsago Supreme Court upholds marriage equality! theguardian.com/law/live/2015/…

#10yrsago Wil Wheaton on depression youtube.com/watch?v=K6ACzT6PCD…

#10yrsago 2.5 million data points show: America’s ISPs suck, and AT&T sucks worst measurementlab.net/blog/interc…

#5yrsago Microcontent guidelines for 2020 pluralistic.net/2020/06/26/pol…

#5yrsago "Violent protests" vs "violent police" pluralistic.net/2020/06/26/pol…

6/

#5yrsago Sympathy for the mask-shy pluralistic.net/2020/06/26/pol…

#5yrsago Let's get rid of nursing homes pluralistic.net/2020/06/26/pol…

#5yrsago Splash Mountain to purge Song of the South pluralistic.net/2020/06/26/pol…

#5yrsago Copyright keeps police use-of-force training a secret pluralistic.net/2020/06/26/pol…

#1yrago Cleantech has an enshittification problem pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unp…

7/

Yesterday's threads: What's a "public internet?"; and more!

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11474611…

8/

Cory Doctorow

2025-06-25 21:26:05

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: What's a "public internet?"; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/06/25/eur…

#Pluralistic

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My last nationally bestselling novel was "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench.

us.macmillan.com/books/9781250…

Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:

chevaliersbooks.com/product-pa…

--

My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:

seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Signed copies available from Book Soup:

booksoup.com/book/978180429124…

Both are national bestsellers!

9/

The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (Hardcover) | Book Soup

A USA TODAY BESTSELLERWinner of the 2024 Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity"An essential read for anyone that wants to understand how we lost control of our digital spaces and infrastructure to Silicon Valley’s …

^{www.booksoup.com}

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."

craphound.com/shop/

10/

Upcoming appearances:

* Virtual: Surveillance Capitalism: Who owns your data? (World Salon), Jun 26
world-salon.com/event/95

* #London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
howtoacademy.com/events/cory-d…

* #Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell's Bookshop, Jul 2
eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-…

* #Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 4
uk.coop/events-and-training/ev…

* Virtual: ORG at 20: in conversation with Maria Farrell, Jul 16
openrightsgroup.org/events/org…

11/

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #DC: Enshittification at Politics and Prose, Oct 8
politics-prose.com/cory-doctor…

* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
app.gopassage.com/events/docto…

* #NewOrleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
contraflowscifi.org/

* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
app.gopassage.com/events/docto…

12/

Recent appearances:

* If We Had a Choice, Would We Invent Social Media Again? (The Agenda/TVO)
youtube.com/watch?v=KJw38uIcmE…

* Forward Kentucky
youtube.com/watch?v=LpMxBBMBkZ…

* Democrats Abroad
creators.spotify.com/pod/profi…

13/

You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2025/06/26/aut…

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If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🚱". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

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pluralistic.net/feed/

14/

I'm at the end of my 24-city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*!

Catch me in #LONDON with RILEY QUINN from #TRASHFUTURE NEXT TUESDAY (July 1):

howtoacademy.com/events/cory-d…

And in #MANCHESTER at Blackwell's Bookshop on July 2:

eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-…

eof/