Skip to content
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • Moments Moments Moments, current page.

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
doctorow's profile
Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH
Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH
Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH
Verified account
@doctorow

Tweets

Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISHVerified account

@doctorow

Author, journalist, activist. My latest is ATTACK SURFACE http://attacksurface.com  Books: http://craphound.com  Blog: http://pluralistic.net .

Beautiful Downtown Burbank
craphound.com
Joined March 2007

Tweets

  • © 2022 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    1. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      2. The number of people to whom these ideas seem plausible has grown and/or Youtube has made it more efficient to reach those people. I think it's 2. I think that the rise of conspiratorial thinking is connected most closely to a rise in actual conspiracies. 11/

      4 replies 36 retweets 172 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Not elaborate flying saucer conspiracies, but everyday ones, like the Sacklers conspiring to get rich by lying about the safety of opioids, or prosecutors and lawmakers covering up for their pals like Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. 12/

      2 replies 27 retweets 137 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Conspiracies to ignore the evidence about Flint's water, or the failures of Universal Credit in the UK, or to pretend that private equity funds are anything but engines for turning productive companies into mangled wreckages while enriching plutes: https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets … 13/

      1 reply 26 retweets 133 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Why do people believe in public health conspiracies, from antivax to 5G? Well, maybe because public health authorities spent two decades ignoring the opioid crisis in order to protect ultrarich opioid profiteers. 14/

      2 replies 43 retweets 176 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Maybe they doubt journal articles because major journal publishers have repeatedly published fake journals through their marketing divisions that allowed pharma companies to pay to publish unsubstantiated studies. https://bibwild.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/shame-on-elsevier/ … 15/

      2 replies 25 retweets 125 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Maybe they don't believe in their doctors' advice because their doctors accept a continuous stream of payments from pharma companies, and then prescribe in ways that fatten their bottom lines. https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/  16/

      3 replies 21 retweets 114 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Maybe they don't trust regulators because they sign off on procedures that kill people, despite a lack of evidence for their safety AND a wealth of evidence about their risks: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-bleeding-edge-review-20180726-story.html … 17/

      2 replies 16 retweets 100 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      One of the best books I read in 2019 was @annamerlan's Republic of Lies, a history of conspiratorial thinking in America and a look at the rise of conspiracism in the 21st century: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/21/from-opioids-to-antivax.html … 18/

      1 reply 27 retweets 126 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Merlan describes how conspiracists aren't ignorant, but rather lavishly misinformed. UFO conspiracists can go chapter-and-verse on aerospace conspiracies, of which there are so. many. including, most recently, the 737 Max scandal. 19/

      1 reply 12 retweets 96 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Antivaxers know tons about opioid coverups and other medical malpractice. People who believe that the levees were dynamited during Katrina to drown black neighborhoods and spare white ones know all about when that actually happened in Tupelo, MS. 20/

      1 reply 14 retweets 95 likes
      Show this thread
      Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

      Susceptibility to conspiratorialism arises when someone is exposed to actual conspiracies, and trauma. And while both have been abundant during the neoliberal era, coronavirus is peak trauma and peak conspiracy. 21/

      6:43 AM - 6 Apr 2020
      • 36 Retweets
      • 134 Likes
      • Fight for someone you don’t know. hgj ersatz Ron Payne 🦖+🕛=🐦 Johnnemann 🌹 Åse (social-distancing for 38 yrs & counting) Kyrla A. Ramone rcrsv Billy Smith
      1 reply 36 retweets 134 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Just think of the spectacle of official inaction, combined with official calls for all the old people to die, combined with the annihilation of huge swathes of the economy, combined with a stream of revelations about corruption and profiteering in the response. 22/

          2 replies 10 retweets 96 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          No wonder so many people are primed to believe in conspiracies at this moment, and so maddened with grief and anxiety that they take rash - and foolish - action. Which brings me back to what Youtube is doing. 23/

          1 reply 6 retweets 76 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Youtube is not a mind-control ray, it's a people-finding machine. That's because advertisers need people-finding machines. The median person buys <1 fridge/lifetime, so it's really hard to find people thinking of buying fridges. 24/

          3 replies 18 retweets 95 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          That's why fridge ads appear on highways near airports: "People who fly have money, people need money to buy fridges." Those ads have 0.00000000000000000001% conversion rates. 25/

          2 replies 6 retweets 70 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Targeting ads to people who've searched for refrigerator reviews can make them thousands of times more effective, and even if the new rate is only 0.000000000001%, that's massive improvement for fridge advertisers. YT is ad-supported so it is good at finding people. 26/

          1 reply 5 retweets 62 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Ad-tech companies make two claims, though: the first is that they know where to find your customers. The second is that they can convince them of things that are otherwise unsupportable. 27/

          2 replies 12 retweets 64 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          This was Cambridge Analytica's pitch: not that they would find racists and tell them about Trump, but that they would make decent people into Trump voters. There's some narrow truth to this Running ads that tell lies (especially harmful ones) is often illegal. 28/

          1 reply 11 retweets 70 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          At the very least, it can mire you in scandal. Targeting allows you to place secret ads: ads whose content is only seen by people who won't narc you out. That gives targeted ads a persuasive advantage that billboards can't have. 29/

          1 reply 14 retweets 82 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Finding people who want to believe lies and lying to them is not mind-control. It's fraud. Because everyone in the entire history of the world who'd claimed to have invented a mind-control ray was a fraud, from NLPers and PUAs, to Mkultra and the Cultural Revolution. 30/

          1 reply 28 retweets 110 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Back to conspiracies, Youtube, secrecy and people-finding. There are lots of things wrong with Youtube (spying, monopolization, and its hospitality to copyfraud and censorship), but people-finding and spying are both double-edged swords. 31/

          2 replies 10 retweets 65 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          People-finding is how fringe ideas accumulate adherents, yes. Some of those are terrible, like "scientific racism." Some are laudable, like the rise of trans identity. Privacy is how lies are spun, but it's also how truths are whispered before they can be spoken aloud. 32/

          1 reply 11 retweets 82 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Secrets like "I believe interracial marriage should be legal" or "cannabis isn't harmful" or "gender is not a binary." There are lots of things we should do to fix Youtube and tech, but on balance, finding people who share your ideas is a force for good. 33/

          1 reply 10 retweets 71 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Debunking false conspiratorial beliefs is important, but not as important as ending actual conspiracies among wealthy and powerful people to corrupt our political and economic system to enrich themselves regardless of the consequences to the rest of us. 34/

          1 reply 56 retweets 149 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          Fighting conspiracism is like fighting a wildfire. When the town is on fire, you have to put it out. But if you want to keep your town from catching fire again, you have to eliminate the fuel that causes it to burn, clear out the brush. 35/

          2 replies 12 retweets 102 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Cory Doctorow MOSTLY AFK UNTIL MID-FEB-ISH‏Verified account @doctorow 6 Apr 2020

          The problem with locating the problem with Youtube - instead of seeing Youtube and its monopoly as a consequence of policies that promote inequality and monopolism - is that it's just fighting blazes, not preventing them. eof/

          16 replies 18 retweets 116 likes
          Show this thread
        17. End of conversation

      Loading seems to be taking a while.

      Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

        Promoted Tweet

        false

        • © 2022 Twitter
        • About
        • Help Center
        • Terms
        • Privacy policy
        • Cookies
        • Ads info