#10yrsago You can’t “boost” your immune system with “health food,” nor would you want to https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/24/health-foods-immune-system-colds-vitamins

#10yrsago Stop taking “probiotics” https://www.statnews.com/2016/01/21/probiotics-shaky-science/

#10yrsago Swiss pro-privacy email provider forces a referendum on mass surveillance https://web.archive.org/web/20160125153009/https://theintercept.com/2016/01/25/how-a-small-company-in-switzerland-is-fighting-a-surveillance-law-and-winning/

#10yrsago Howto social-engineer someone’s address and other sensitive info from Amazon https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-customer-service-backdoor-be375b3428c4#.jkx7fwbqv

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#10yrsago Uptown Funk as a mashup of 66 classic movie dance routines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1F0lBnsnkE

#10yrsago Starve: the best, meanest new graphic novel debut since Transmetropolitan https://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/25/starve-the-best-meanest-new-graphic-novel-debut-since-transmetropolitan/

#10yrsago Fury Road is still comprehensible at 12x speed https://vashivisuals.com/the-fastest_cut/

#10yrsago Police sergeant: 16 year old girl probably saw penises before I showed her mine, NBD https://www.wcvb.com/article/bpd-sergeant-may-plead-guilty-job-on-the-line/8230846

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#10yrsago Chinese snatch-squads roam the globe, kidnapping dissidents and critics https://web.archive.org/web/20160416214222/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pursuing-critics-china-reaches-across-borders-and-nobody-is-stopping-it/2016/01/26/cd4959dc-6793-473f-8b74-6cbac3f46422_story.html?postshare=7221453857631693&tid=ss_tw

#10yrsago Shootout in Oregon: one terrorist killed, eight arrested https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/us/oregon-wildlife-refuge-siege-arrests/index.html

#10yrsago Health insurer loses 1m customers’ health records https://web.archive.org/web/20170224042328/http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=130443&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=2132066

#10yrsago All your booze comes from a handful of titanic global corporations https://www.eater.com/drinks/2016/1/26/10830410/liquor-brands-hierarchy-diageo-beam-suntory-pernod-ricard

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#10yrsago Man gasps dying words into officer’s bodycam: “They’re killing me right now… I can’t breathe.” https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/body-cam-captures-mans-final-words-begging-the-cops-to-get-off-of-him/

#10yrsago Help wanted: Burning Man’s Chief Fed https://web.archive.org/web/20160205123132/https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/426715200

#5yrsago Goldman CEO gets $17.5m reward for $4.5b fraud https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/27/viral-colonialism/#failing-up

#5yrsago Facebook champions (its own) privacy https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/27/viral-colonialism/#ico-schtum

#5yrsago Casino mogul steals First Nation's vaccine https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/27/viral-colonialism/#seriously-fuck-that-guy

12/

#5yrsago Plute buys mayor's house and serves eviction papers https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/25/money-is-power/#money-is-power

#5yrsago Trump's swamp gators find corporate refuge https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/24/1a/#gator-park

#5yrsago Stop saying "it's not censorship if it's not the government" https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/24/1a/#talk-hard

#1yrago The first days of Boss Politics Antitrust https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/24/enforcement-priorities/#enemies-lists

#1yrago It's not a crime if we do it with an app pluralistic.net/2025/01/25/potatotrac/#carbo-loading

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#1yrago It's pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/27/beltway-bandits/#henhouse-foxes

#20yrsago Danny O’Brien’s Open Source con presentation on Evil https://www.spesh.com/danny/talks/evil/

#20yrsago Can DRM be future-proof? https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2006/01/28/cd-drm-compatibility-and-software-updates/

#15yrsago Francis Ford Coppola, copyfighter https://web.archive.org/web/20110125035605/http://the99percent.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-On-Risk-Money-Craft-Collaboration

#15yrsago HOWTO make health-care cheaper by spending more on patients who need it https://web.archive.org/web/20140727223819/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/24/the-hot-spotters?currentPage=all

14/

#15yrsago William Gibson on Stuxnet https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/opinion/27Gibson.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1296233597-MyRiudJI0Nso7Tm/YIw4yw

#10yrsago Guess who donated all the money to Black Americans for a Better Future Super PAC? Rich white men. https://web.archive.org/web/20160129001243/https://theintercept.com/2016/01/28/black-americans-for-a-better-future-super-pac-100-funded-by-rich-white-guys/

#10yrsago Bill Gates sold rights to the Tiananmen 1989 pictures to a Chinese company https://qz.com/601830/bill-gates-has-sold-a-set-of-iconic-images-to-a-beijing-firm-including-of-tiananmen-in-1989

#10yrsago Michael Moore: Flint needs a revolution, not bottled water https://web.archive.org/web/20160128161328/https://michaelmoore.com/DontSendBottledWater

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#10yrsago The surveillance business model goes to war against the FTC https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/267070-businesses-are-invading-your-privacy/

#10yrsago Florida mayors write to GOP presidential hopefuls demanding action on climate change https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/florida-mayors-to-rubio-were-going-under-take-climate-change-seriously/

#10yrsago The Onion’s new owner is Hillary Clinton’s most lavish financial backer https://web.archive.org/web/20160126213016/https://theintercept.com/2016/01/26/ha-ha-hillary-clintons-top-financial-supporter-now-controls-the-onion/

#10yrsago Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen wipes out coral reef with his superyacht https://caymannewsservice.com/2016/01/billionaire-boater-destroys-wb-reef/

16/

#10yrsago Head of NSA’s hacker squad explains how to armor networks against the likes of him https://www.wired.com/2016/01/nsa-hacker-chief-explains-how-to-keep-him-out-of-your-system/

#10yrsago Anaheim: the happiest surveillance state on earth https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/city-cops-in-disneylands-backyard-have-had-stingray-on-steriods-for-years/

#5yrsago Knowledge is why you build your own apps https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/28/payment-for-order-flow/#knowledge-is-power

#5yrsago Understanding /r/wallstreetbets https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/28/payment-for-order-flow/#wallstreetbets

#5yrsago How apps steal your location https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/28/payment-for-order-flow/#trackers-tracked

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#5yrsago Mexican indigenous telco wins spectrum fight https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/28/payment-for-order-flow/#tic-victory

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Thursday's threads: The petty (but undeniable) delights of cultivating ungovernability as a habit; and more!

Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: The petty (but undeniable) delights of cultivating ungovernability as a habit; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/22/optimized-for-unoptimization/ #Pluralistic 1/

Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)

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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:

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

--

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:

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

20

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."

https://craphound.com/shop/

21/

Upcoming appearances:

* #Ottawa: Enshittification at Perfect Books, Jan 28
https://www.instagram.com/p/DS2nGiHiNUh/

* #Toronto: Enshittification and the Age of Extraction with Tim Wu, Jan 30
https://nowtoronto.com/event/cory-doctorow-and-tim-wu-enshittification-and-extraction/

* #SaltLakeCity: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18
https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/

* #Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5
https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/

22/

Upcoming appearances:

* #Ottawa: Enshittification at Perfect Books, Jan 28
https://www.instagram.com/p/DS2nGiHiNUh/

* #Toronto: Enshittification and the Age of Extraction with Tim Wu, Jan 30
https://nowtoronto.com/event/cory-doctorow-and-tim-wu-enshittification-and-extraction/

* #SaltLakeCity: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18
https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/

* #Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5
https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/

23/

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #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

* #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

24/

Recent appearances:

* How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo

* Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline):
https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/

* Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0

* Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast)
https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/

* Enshittification with Plutopia
https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/

25/

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

Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/26/i-dont-want/

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