BC TWITTER
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

Today's threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Twitter's Project Blue Sky; Brazil's world-beating data breach; Evictions and utility cutoffs are covid comorbidities; "North Korea" targets infosec researchers; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/eCzogk14kg

#Pluralistic

1/

 Join me this Thursday for the launch of the print edition of my 2020 book HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM!

https://t.co/8Op6IEocPB

2/
Twitter's Project Blue Sky: Fix the internet, not the platforms.

https://t.co/KoZNABMJrE

3/
Brazil's world-beating data breach: More than 100% of the population doxed.

https://t.co/6tcbcX2gQ6

4/
Evictions and utility cutoffs are covid comorbidities: 143,000 covid deaths due to economic precarity.

https://t.co/pZM80W5DuR

5/
"North Korea" targets infosec researchers: Fourth party collection, taken to the logic endpoint.

https://t.co/nqM1s1grK0

6/
#15yrsago How the malicious software on Sony CDs works https://t.co/kaqb9KI4jT

#15yrsago Censorship: Comparisons of Google China and Google https://t.co/zKjVvGK63g

#10yrsago DHS kills color-coded terror alerts https://t.co/vOObWGx21x

7/
#5yrsago Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky: smartass, soulful novel https://t.co/KtLxI1jgqp

#1yrago Banks have returned to the pre-2008 world of automatic credit-limit increases for credit cards used by already indebted people https://t.co/3X47Gqpfll

8/
#5yrsago Profile of James Love, “Big Pharma’s worst nightmare” https://t.co/8CYsrxohGk

#1yrago Fatal car wrecks are correlated with stock-market fluctuations https://t.co/1nRWT502tf

9/
#1yrago Andrew Cuomo’s naked hostility drives out MTA president Andy Byford, the “Train Daddy” who has transformed the world’s rail systems https://t.co/sm0rm2EZhp

10/
#1yrago Two years after a federal law banning shackling women during childbirth was passed, prisoners in America are still giving birth in chains https://t.co/NLlkb51iZa

11/
Yesterday's threads: Plute buys mayor's house and serves eviction papers; Podcast of Someone Comes to Town; and more!

https://t.co/VQKlwJNHHv

12/
My latest novel is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books. @washingtonpost called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance."

Get signed books from @darkdel: https://t.co/HfWfdx8sIu

13/
My 2020 book "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" is a critique of Big Tech connecting conspiratorial thinking to the rise of tech monopolies and proposing a way to deal with both:

https://t.co/Us0SPxlcmD

Now, it's available in paperback!

https://t.co/2BsLPCBj1K

14/
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, 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."

https://t.co/vpGcSZiPZ2

15/
Upcoming appearances:

* Launch for the print edition of HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, Jan 28, https://t.co/8Op6IEocPB

* Launch for the young adult edition of Edward Snowden's memoir PERMANENT RECORD, Feb 9, https://t.co/BY6hqpJFeO
16/
Recent appearances:

* Monocle Reads https://t.co/ENWPDLYVXg

* Hedging Bets on the Future (Motherboard Cyber):
https://t.co/7YeNDAjLfc

* Applying the Pandemic Mindset to Climate Change:
https://t.co/syTXEF1gFz

17/
My first picture book is out! It's called Poesy the Monster Slayer and it's an epic tale of bedtime-refusal, toy-hacking and monster-hunting, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller. It's the monster book I dreamt of reading to my own daughter.

https://t.co/yQLVua4WkB

15/
You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at https://t.co/iSBh8s9m7q: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: https://t.co/eCzogk14kg

16/
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is also ad- and tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🦹🏽". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

Subscribe here: https://t.co/TwPzz87nAw

17/
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at //twitter.com/[email protected]." target="_blank">@[email protected].

Here's today's edition: https://t.co/thVrcDaPM7

18/
Today's top sources: Bruce Schneier (https://t.co/0DrcqmGPnN), Naked Capitalism (https://t.co/iNjUCBfMr0), The Grugq (https://t.co/mTuxJtZmYb).

eof/

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
It's been twenty years, to the day, since I published my first blog-post.

I'm a blogger.

Blogging - publicly breaking down the things that seem significant, then synthesizing them in longer pieces - is the defining activity of my days.

https://t.co/lksXhU6HKM

1/


Over the years, I've been lauded, threatened, sued (more than once). I've met many people who read my work and have made connections with many more whose work I wrote about. Combing through my old posts every morning is a journey through my intellectual development.

2/

It's been almost exactly a year I left Boing Boing, after 19 years. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't fun, but it was definitely time. I still own a chunk of the business and wish them well. But after 19 years, it was time for a change.

3/

A few weeks after I quit Boing Boing, I started a solo project. It's called Pluralistic: it's a blog that is published simultaneously on Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr, a newsletter and the web. It's got no tracking or ads. Here's the very first

I don't often do "process posts" but this merits it. Here's how I built Pluralistic and here's how it works today, after nearly a year.

I get up at 5AM and make coffee. Then I sit down on the sofa and open a huge tab-group, and scroll through my RSS feeds using @newsblur.

5/
CULTURE
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
The Night of the Short Fingers saw many of the US's largest tech companies blocking Trump and trumpist platforms like Parler, provoking a storm of punditry about What It All Means for the tech companies to have taken this content moderation step.

1/


The best expert I know on the subject is @jilliancyork, my @eff colleague. She's published "an ongoing list" of "everything pundits are getting wrong about this current moment in content moderation."

You should read it.

Here's some highlights:

“Deplatforming Trump sets a precedent."

York: "The only 'precedent' set here is that this is indeed the first time a sitting US president has been deplatformed by a tech company."

3/

But political leaders around the world have already received this treatment: Lebanon, Burma, etc. Even the reach of the deplatforming is nothing new: last summer's US Iran ban saw blocks of everything, up to and including Etsy listings for "Persian dolls."

4/
HISTORY
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Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
I spend a lot of time looking in detail at abusive situations where tech plays a starring role: stalkerware, bossware, remote proctoring, etc. But nothing I'd read really prepared me for the tale of @arisevsinc, an abuser without parallel.

https://t.co/olExnSwEcW

1/


Arise sells itself as a "virtual call center" and boasts of blue-chip clients like Disney, Carnival Cruises, Comcast, Airbnb, Intuit etc. If you've ever called one of these companies, you may have spoken to an Arise worker.

2/

But that "worker" was not an employee. Arise is a pioneer in worker misclassification, and treats all the people who work for it as "independent contractors." So even though these workers are more tightly supervised and managed than any regular employee, they have no rights.

3/

You have to pay Arise for the privilege of working for them. Not just buying your own computer, but also paying to be trained in how to pretend to be an employee of Disney or Airbnb and Arise's other customers.

4/

Execs at these giant corps listen in on your calls while they are in progress or after the fact - and if they detect so much as a squeak from a child, or a noisy neighbor, they can terminate your contract and you lose the money and unpaid labor you spent on training.

5/
SOCIETY , SOCIETY
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
One of the most Monkey's Paw things about my life is my relationship to books. When I was a teenager, I read all the way through the school and public libraries, spent everything I had on books, and still couldn't get enough and dreamt of more.

1/


Today, as a reviewer, I have more books than I can possibly read, huge, teetering mountains of books that I'm desperate to read, far beyond my ability to ever get through them. Periodically, I declare "book bankruptcy," sweep away the backlog and start over.

2/

Even then, my eyes are bigger than my stomach: I keep back a few books that I can't bear to part with and promise myself I'll read them someday. Usually I don't, but I just did, and boy did I ever make the right call with @TheUniverse's BROAD

I have read a LOT of histories of computing, and I had a front row seat for a lot of the events depicted in this book - people I worked with, people I worked against - and yet I was surprised over and over again with details and perspectives I'd never encountered.

4/

For example, for some reason, my ninth grade computer science course included lengthy readings on ENIAC, Univac, the Mark I and the Mark II, but none of those mentioned that they were all programmed exclusively or primarily by women.

5/
CULTURE
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
The remix culture of the early 2000s left an indelible impression on me, an enduring delight in the power of whimsy, juxtaposition, virtuosity and ingenuity - and the ability of strangers all over the world to collaborate without any explicit coordination.

1/


The recent Bernie-mittens meme was a sterling example of this, tickling me right to my core, and I just happened on an especially delightful apex example of the form: @ToastedShoes's video of Sanders incorporated into eight AAA

Toasted Shoes got @JoeMashups to create a 3D model of Sanders, then tapped a bunch of different mashup artists to turn the Sanders sprite into playable characters in the games, showing them off in a narrated video.

3/

I'm not much of a fan of video-game streamers' narration, and I confess that I found the video more entertaining without the narration, but to each their own - Shoes was clearly enjoying himself, as were the commenters on the video.

4/

They had a lot to be pleased by.

Sanders as a Sith Lord in Star Wars Battlefront 2:

5/
FUN

More from Twitter

Logan | Landing Pages \U0001f4da
Logan | Landing Pages ...
@LoftedLearning
7 Tactics To Increase Engagement on Your Threads

// THREAD //

People are constantly seeing the same stuff over and over again on their timeline.

This is why you need to learn how to stand out.

When they’re scrolling you need to grab their attention and reel them into something they want to read.

If you think about it, your job is just to get them to click your tweet. Once that’s done, they’ll be reading your other ones in no time.

In order to get them to click you need to show one of these 7 things:
> authority
> experience
> value
> lesson
> mystery
> opinion
> numbers

The easiest way to write headlines based off of these things is to write out your audience’s objections.

Then, indirectly counter their objection within your headline (sounds cool right?).

An old copywriting trick 😉

1. Authority

“Why should I read your thread? What have you done that makes me trust you”

Headline:
“$97,840 in Profit This Month Using This 5-Step Plan to Make Landing Pages”

Authority shows people you know what you’re doing by telling them a true stat/claim.
INTERNET , TWITTER
pohjie
pohjie
@pohjie_pj
After hearing about @JanelSGM from @csallen, I spent the past few hours digging into her Twitter feed to see how she has been building Newsletter OS in public, from ideation to launch.

Here are some highlights in chronological order and what you can learn from the process:

1/ August 5 2020: Janel digs into '50+ newsletters' (note the number to build credibility) and creates a thread to discuss the lessons learnt. She also mentions that this is for a side project, which raises awareness of something she may be working


2/ August 5 2020 (cont): Each tweet in the thread is focused on a key message, with clear pointers for newsletter writers to


3/ September 1 2020: Janel tweeted about #buildinginpublic (note the hashtag) with @pabloheredia24 for @makerpad's challenge. While the project is https://t.co/tMb1qCnxVY and not NewsletterOS, Janel is getting in the reps on how to build in

4/ October 18 2020: Janel hints at building her new product using @NotionHQ and @gumroad. But instead of telling the audience directly what the product is, she invites her audience to take a guess.
TWITTER
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Ghost Rat (Rata Fantasma) \U0001f47b\U0001f400\U0001f637
Ghost Rat (Rata Fantas...
@The_Ghost_Rat
My updated recommended follows for February 20, 2021. Let me know if you want to be removed or added. To be added, we need to be following each other.

Faves (1/1)
@AndyPopeInTheW1
@CHQM8_tx
@Dubes123
@daralynn13
@_HypoLuxa_
@KtBoBt
@kharly
@ImpeachmentHour
@liberal_elder
@LtUhura2017
@MysterySolvent
@Natgcoh
@officialHJesus
@orangepeel18
@RancidGinger
@RKJ65
@robinskyleigh
@Ronnis_Joy
@Texan_21C
@umanoid
@wendimyb
@Wikweko

The Rat follows… (1/9)
@1Angry_lioness
@admiralmpj
@AFlyover
@afrugal1
@agent_orangutan
@ALT_MyName
@american2084
@AquaVelvaBoy
@AndraDoesCare
@AreYouis
@AryaKicksButt
@AshidMapanzigan
@bamableu
@benFranklin2018
@BeyondBlonde3
@bfs2020
@BiglyPrez
@bkaydw
@Black2thBone

The Rat follows… (2/9)
@Blackbear5
@Brasilmagic
@Brian_Chovanec
@briansantacruz
@CajunSiouxsie
@Carpediem4989
@CaliPhil
@carlisamantha
@ChafedCharlie
@ChampagneSane
@ChanningStephe5
@chaturner
@Chewythewookie1
@ChrisA_425
@CIAnderson3
@ColleenHenley
@Cosette2016
@da_kotarski

The Rat follows… (3/9)
@DarbysCastle
@DarrollHough
@DawnChristine2
@dawnwc
@DeepInTheHills
@DocAtCDI
@DonPayne17
@DrEttaM1
@Eiggam5955
@elle_desylva
@fleurdeliselle
@georginapond1
@GirlNamedBoston
@GonzoBaggins
@grammytammyd
@grannieof10kids
@gypsyphototaker
@HIHKatharine
TWITTER
Khadijah *a centered voice*
Khadijah *a centered v...
@UpFromTheCracks
The twitter ban on 45 is a victory in some sense for the immediate but a warning in the long term, not on the curtail of free speech but as gesture towards the expansive power commercial tech has on every aspect of our governance and our lives, I don’t quite have the words but-

What I’m trying to get at, is not just that Twitter’s decision allows us to see—in ways that have been obscured—how much control they have over content moderation—

but as @Elinor_Carmi points out “platforms don’t just moderate or filter “content”; they alter what registers to us and our social groups as “social” or as “experience.” https://t.co/GSByAOoDWg changed

I’m worried that the celebration of Twitter’s intervention on fascist rhetoric-however too little and too late- directs us to desire tech companies enforcement of liberal and democratic procedures rather than towards an investigation of

how they’ve developed computational infrastructures which exceed the power of the nation state, are hollowing out our institutions for frictionless (see removing human contact) optimization and are insufficiently described by neoliberalism
TWITTER
Barney Panofsky's Best Intentions
Barney Panofsky's Best...
@mynamesnotgordy
What I learnt on the Twitter this week:

1. Doug Ford declares State of Emergency. Says he doesn't understand what people don't understand about the rules. Either stay home or go to Walmart to buy essential cream cheese.
2. Ford announces his French lessons are going tray bueno.

3. Kenney announces Alberta will begin procuring their own vaccine because they only have most of the Fed's supply left now.
4. O'Toole announces he just doesn't know how to quit Ezra.
5. Freak storm in Morden, MB; MAGA hat kicked up in the wind; lands on Candace Bergen's head.

6. Canadian Conservative politicians and staffers mourn the loss of Parler which they have never heard of.
7. Kenney signs giant cardboard guarantee saying coal will be mined from Rockies without loss of a single acre of protected land unless it's accidentally delisted and sold.

8. Ford defenestrates MPP Baber from caucus after Baber complains about lockdown. Ford says he's already busy enough locking down Phillips and Oosterhoff.
9. Ontario's Minister of LTCs adheres to lockdown rules and takes three-week vacation under her bed.
10. Où est la Fullerton?

11. Just when you thought Andrew Scheer couldn't defenestrate his reputation any further, Andrew Scheer fully defenestrates himself. Like, maaaddd defenestration going on here.
12. Moments before Parler shuts down, thousands of Canadians post "What does defenderthestation mean?"
TWITTER

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STEALTH JEFF
@drawandstrike
Here is Editor-in-Chief of the @EpochTimes, @JasperFakkert's response to the slanted hit piece that @Buzzfeed's @HayesBrown put up 2 days ago:

Brown's article at Buzzfeed starts off pretending it's some kind of really off-the-wall notion that Hillary Clinton paid for the creation of the Steele Dossier that was then used to justify the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign & transition team.


After that awful start, he swerves to making accusations that the Epoch Times is connected to the 'cult' Falon Gong.

You can read the article here:

Brown insinuates with no real evidence whatsoever that the Epoch Times is 'Falon Gong-linked'.

The 'evidence' he supplies in his article to 'prove' @EpochTimes is 'Falon Gong-linked is this:

1) the Epoch Times' extensive *news coverage* of China's attempts to wipe out Falon Gong with intense persecution directed at the group since 1999.

2) a reporter *shouting a question in 2006* at then-President George W. Bush about China's persecution of Falon Gong members.
ALL
Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio García Martíne...
@antoniogm
Observing the public conversation around FB, and the private ones happening among techies and ex-FBers, I think the mutual misunderstanding is worse than when I set out two years (and 500 pages) ago to (in a small way) bridge that gulf.

We're basically fucked.

The tech world has gotten so huge, self-reinforcing, and insulated from reality they can no longer even vaguely look at themselves (and their actions) as others do. They just live on a different planet than most people.

Conversely, the average tech consumer doesn't understand the technology that has slowly taken over their lives, and their designated emissaries to figure it out--politicians, pundits, regulators, journalists--understand it barely better than they do, and have their own agendas.

To say more than generalities for a moment, here's what I think is likely the core problem.

Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.

Most people work inside a legacy industry that's evolved that way over time (usually for good reasons), and they think about the future via some analogy with their present (which is a function of a long-ago past). The interruption that tech will introduce is often hard to grasp.
TECH
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Rudy Havenstein, listening to Nas all day.
Rudy Havenstein, liste...
@RudyHavenstein
I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991." https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.
EPSTEIN NETWORK
XVIII Airborne Corps\U0001f409
XVIII Airborne Corps🐉...
@18airbornecorps
1 of 16: WE ARE ALL JEWS HERE: THE STORY OF RODDIE EDMONDS

One of the most moving and relevant stories of the Battle of the Bulge, or any American Soldier in any war, is that of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, who served with the 106th Infantry.


2 of 16:

Roddie was captured early on in the Battle of the Bulge, on December 19th, when Panzer forces plowed through his unit.

He, along with almost his entire regiment, was forced to surrender.


3 of 16:

The men were transported to the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Ziegenhain, Germany.

Roddie was the senior enlisted American Soldier at the site. As such, he was the conduit between all American Soldiers and their German captors.


4 of 16:

In late January, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann [pictured here], ordered Roddie, a Christian, to identify all Jewish Soldiers and order them to stand in formation by themselves the next day.

[Jewish Soldiers were a minority within American units]


5 of 16:

Throughout WWII, captured Jewish Soldiers were often tortured and then killed by their German captors.

In fact, Jewish Soldiers had been told to bury their dog tags before capture. The dog tag identified Jews with the letter “H” for Hebrew.
SOCIETY
Edwin Hayward
Edwin Hayward
@uk_domain_names
Ok, it's high time to look at the REAL effects of Brexit. As the Tories implode & Labour sits on its hands, companies are executing contingency plans, shifting jobs & assets, slashing investments, or redomiciling (accounting exercise). Happening NOW, not in a fantasy future. 1/95

Barden Corporation is closing down its Plymouth factory after 51 years, putting 400 jobs at risk, as its parent company Schaeffler shifts production to various sites outside the UK due to Brexit.

8 health providers have warned of medicine shortages in the event of a no-deal Brexit: "we do not believe that the current medicine supply plans will suffice, and we will have widespread shortages if we do not respond urgently."

Pfizer - $100 million on Brexit prep: "Pfizer’s preparations are well advanced to make the changes necessary to meet EU legal requirements after the U.K. is no longer a member state, especially in the regulatory, manufacturing and supply chain areas."

The Government has spent £4.2 billion pounds on Brexit preparations (£2.2 billion in previous Budgets, plus an additional £2 billion in the most recent Budget.)
POLITICS