Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he told police he had heard that former US ambassador was planning to leave the country

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published figures showing that local authorities in England dealt with 1.26m flytipping incidents in 2024/25 – 9% increase on the previous year.

And there was an 11% increase in incidents involving a “tipper lorry load” amount of rubbish. There were 52,000 of these, up from 47,000 in 2023/24. Defra said these alone cost councils £19.3m.

These figures show the equivalent of 142 monster landfills a day took place, confirming what communities across the country know all too well – our beautiful countryside is being used by criminal gangs as their personal landfill.

For far too long, waste gangs have pocketed millions in illegal earning, poisoning our environment and our health without consequence. The Liberal Democrats are demanding an end to this environmental vandalism.

Rovier Carrington thought his cases against MTV and Paramount executives should have been the biggest of the #MeToo era. Instead, they raised unsettling questions about victimhood

One unseasonably warm afternoon in February 2023, in a very brown New York City courtroom, Rovier Carrington did the inconceivable: he admitted to a lie. On that day, the aspiring screenwriter told a federal judge that he had altered evidence to support his legal claim of being systematically raped and blacklisted by a bevy of Hollywood powerbrokers.

His 11th-hour capitulation came as a shock.

He was at the heart of 1960s counterculture, then paved the way for the libertarian mindset of Silicon Valley. At 87, Brand is still keen to ensure the world is maintained properly – not just today, but for the next 10,000 years

Stewart Brand thinks big and long. He thinks on a planetary scale – as suggested by the title of his celebrated Whole Earth Catalog – and on the longest of timeframes, as with his Long Now Foundation, which looks forward to the next 10,000 years of human civilisation. He has had a lifelong fascination with the future, and anything that could get us there faster, from space travel to psychedelic drugs to computing. In fact, he was arguably the bridge between the San Francisco counterculture of the 60s and present-day Silicon Valley: in his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs eulogised the Whole Earth Catalog and Brand’s philosophy, and echoed its farewell mantra: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

You could say that Brand has also lived big and long. He is now 87 years old, in the final chapters of an eventful and adventurous life that has crossed paths with some of the most consequential events and figures of his era. He has been a writer, an editor, a publisher, a soldier, a photojournalist, an LSD evangelist, an events organiser, a future-planning consultant, even a government adviser (to the California governor Jerry Brown in the late 70s). “There was a time when people asked me, ‘What do you do?’ I said, ‘I find things and I found things,’” says Brand, as in he is a founder. He is speaking from a library where he likes to work in Petaluma, California, not far from his houseboat in Sausalito. “I’m always searching for good stuff to recommend, and good people.”

Italian giants were well beaten by side who dazzled despite Norway’s domestic season not starting until next month

There was a moment after the final whistle at San Siro on Tuesday night when the head coaches, Bodø/Glimt’s Kjetil Knutsen and Inter’s Cristian Chivu, stood chatting, seemingly discussing some tactical element of the game that had just finished.

Chivu appeared genuinely interested in what Knutsen had to say, smiling politely, but above all he looked utterly bemused. What the hell had just happened? His Inter team, top of Serie A by 10 points and undefeated in the league since 23 November, had not only lost the home leg of their Champions League playoff against the Norwegian side but been well beaten: 2-1 on the night and 5-2 on aggregate.

Quansah left Ghana for Ajax as a boy but injury ended his career before it started. He now earns £5 a day as a builder and strives to find a new purpose in life

By The Blizzard

John Quansah looks at a glass display case hanging on the wall of his living room in Obuasi, Ghana. Inside are three trophies from his days as a youth player at Ajax. For years, they lay tucked away in the back of a cupboard, but two years ago, that changed. “I’m an adult now,” John says. “It’s time to look at the past differently. When I look at the trophies now, I don’t just feel pain. I am grateful too – for those beautiful years.”

Of course, he didn’t fulfil his big dream. But not everyone can say they have played for Ajax. He has every reason to be proud, to look back at that time with satisfaction. During a move, he finds the trophies again and decides to mount a display case on the wall of his new living room. Inside, he places three trophies. One for the best player at a youth tournament in Belgium. Next to that, one from another competition, and one he received for sportsmanship, also awarded in Belgium.

Davidson said he ‘can’t begin to explain how upset and distraught I have been’ over slurs he shouted during the award ceremony

• With N-word incident, Bafta has shot itself in the foot
• Why the Baftas must pivot to broadcasting live

John Davidson, the Tourette syndrome (TS) activist at the centre of the Baftas N-word controversy, says that Bafta and the BBC “should have been aware of what to expect” from TS, and that he had been told that any offensive words would be removed.

In an interview with Variety, Davidson said that Bafta had told him and the film’s backers StudioCanal “that any swearing would be edited out of the broadcast”. He said: “I have made four documentaries with the BBC in the past, and feel that they should have been aware of what to expect from Tourette’s and worked harder to prevent anything that I said – which, after all, was some 40 rows back from the stage – from being included in the broadcast.”

All it takes to poison AI training data is to create a website:

I spent 20 minutes writing an article on my personal website titled “The best tech journalists at eating hot dogs.” Every word is a lie. I claimed (without evidence) that competitive hot-dog-eating is a popular hobby among tech reporters and based my ranking on the 2026 South Dakota International Hot Dog Championship (which doesn’t exist). I ranked myself number one, obviously. Then I listed a few fake reporters and real journalists who gave me permission….

Less than 24 hours later, the world’s leading chatbots were blabbering about my world-class hot dog skills. When I asked about the best hot-dog-eating tech journalists, Google parroted the gibberish from my website, both in the Gemini app and AI Overviews, the AI responses at the top of Google Search. ChatGPT did the same thing, though Claude, a chatbot made by the company Anthropic, wasn’t fooled.

Sometimes, the chatbots noted this might be a joke. I updated my article to say “this is not satire.” For a while after, the AIs seemed to take it more seriously.

These things are not trustworthy, and yet they are going to be widely trusted.

Broccoli of bloemkool: welke is écht gezonder? Een korte, heldere duiding over vitaminen, vezels, afvallen en waarom variatie belangrijker is dan één ‘supergroente’.

Beide horen tot de kruisbloemigen, rijk aan vezels, vitamine C, K en folaat, en de zogeheten glucosinolaten waaruit onder meer het beschermende stofje sulforafaan ontstaat. Broccoli loopt nét voor op pure voedingsdichtheid: per 100 gram bevat het doorgaans meer vitamine C, vitamine K, folaat, vezels én bèta‑caroteen dan bloemkool. Bloemkool is weer iets lager in calorieën en levert relatief meer choline, een voedingsstof die onder meer belangrijk is voor hersenen en lever.

Broccoli wint op micronutriënten Uit verschillende voedingsvergelijkingen blijkt dat broccoli per portie duidelijk meer vitamine C (tot ruim de volledige dagbehoefte), vitamine K en folaat levert dan bloemkool. Maar wie wil afvallen of minder koolhydraten eet, heeft juist voordeel van bloemkoolrijst, ‑puree of pizzabodem: heel laag in kilocalorieën, maar wel met vezels en antioxidanten. De belangrijkste gezondheidswinst zit overigens niet in één “supergroente”, maar in dagelijks zo’n 250 gram gevarieerde groente, zegt ook het Voedingscentrum.

Wat betekent dit in de praktijk?

Voor je immuunsysteem, bloeddruk en darmgezondheid maakt het weinig uit of er broccoli of bloemkool op tafel staat, zolang ze regelmatig terugkomen. Broccoli is een logische keuze als je maximaal vitaminen en beschermende plantenstoffen wilt, terwijl bloemkool uitblinkt als veelzijdige, lichte basis voor gezonde comfortfood‑klassiekers. Het slimste? Wissel ze af – en zet vooral beide wat vaker op het menu.getlabtest+5[ ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]​

Broccoli of bloemkool: welke is écht gezonder? Een korte, heldere duiding over vitaminen, vezels, afvallen en waarom variatie belangrijker is dan één ‘supergroente’.

ROTTERDAM (ANP) - Het Openbaar Ministerie onderzoekt de grote cyberaanval bij telecombedrijf Odido, waarbij miljoenen klantgegevens zijn gestolen. Dat heeft een woordvoerder van het OM bevestigd aan het ANP. Meer informatie kan hij op dit moment nog niet over de zaak geven.

Odido meldde eerder deze maand dat de persoonsgegevens van 6,2 miljoen accounts zijn gestolen bij een cyberaanval. Het gaat onder meer om naam, adres, rekeningnummers en nummers van identificatiepapieren.

Deze week werd duidelijk dat hackers van de groep ShinyHunters op het dark web hebben gedreigd de gestolen data openbaar te maken. De cybercriminelen zouden er alleen van afzien als ze een bedrag van meer dan 1 miljoen euro ontvangen voor de deadline donderdagochtend. Volgens cyberdeskundigen staat Odido voor de lastige keuze om te betalen of niet te betalen.

Je denkt dat je het huis hebt. Bod geaccepteerd, de champagne kan open. En dan komt er na de deadline nog een hoger bod binnen. Weg droomwoning. Uit onderzoek van het Radar Panel onder ruim 3500 betrokkenen bij woningverkoop blijkt dat het biedingsproces allesbehalve waterdicht is. 86 procent van de deelnemers wist niet eens dat je na de deadline nog kunt bieden.

Van de bieders die de afgelopen vijf jaar meededen aan een verkoop op inschrijving, deed 13 procent al eens een bod na sluitingstijd. En met succes: 35 procent wist zo alsnog een huis te bemachtigen. Dat betekent dat woningen die in feite al vergeven leken, toch naar een ander gingen.

Deadline is niet heilig

Wat gebeurt er met zo’n laat bod? In 54 procent van de gevallen werd het gewoon meegenomen. Bij slechts 24 procent kregen andere bieders daarna nog een herkansing. Bij 46 procent werd het proces niet heropend. Soms gebeurt het zelfs nadat een bod al is geaccepteerd. “Zelfs na het accepteren van het bod, is nog iemand aan de deur geweest bij verkopers om 20k bovenop ons bod te doen.”

Een ander schrijft: “2 weken na acceptatie van ons bod, bouwtechnische keuring en 12 uur voor tekenen bij de notaris ging de verkoper toch nog nadenken over een ander bod was hij had gekregen die dag.”

Makelaar speelt vies spel

Transparantie is er nauwelijks. Slechts 24 procent kreeg achteraf inzicht in biedingen na de deadline. En wie wél inzage kreeg, zag soms vreemde dingen: “We zagen in het biedlogboek dat het winnende bod 2 uur na sluiting door de makelaar zelf was ingevuld.”

Opvallend: 43 procent van de bieders kreeg tijdens het proces informatie van de verkoopmakelaar die het bod moest bijsturen. Bijvoorbeeld: “Ik werd gebeld dat ik het hoogste bod had, maar anderen zaten dichtbij en hadden geen bouwkundige keuring. Of ik die wilde laten vallen.”

Of deze: “De makelaar belde ons op van uw bod is niet het hoogst, maar wilt u toch nog meer bieden? (...) Allemaal intimidatie om meer geld te krijgen. Vies spel, schandalig.”

Maar liefst 64 procent paste het bod aan na zulke informatie.

Mondeling is niets waard

Makelaars wijzen op het schriftelijkheidsvereiste: zolang de koopakte niet is getekend, is er juridisch niets rond. Slechts 38 procent van de bieders noemt het proces eerlijk en transparant.

Bron: Radar

DEN HAAG (ANP) - GroenLinks-PvdA gaat "niet onderhandelen" over het versnellen van de verhoging van de pensioenleeftijd, zoals het minderheidskabinet van D66, VVD en CDA wil. Die waarschuwing gaf Jesse Klaver af in een debat woensdag over de regeringsverklaring. "Haal deze van tafel", riep de leider van de grootste oppositiepartij op.

In het regeerakkoord staat dat de AOW-leeftijd omhoog moet. Op dit moment is het zo dat de AOW-leeftijd met acht maanden stijgt als mensen een jaar langer leven. De nieuwe regering wil dat dat vanaf 2033 gelijk opgaat; voor elk jaar dat de levensverwachting stijgt, moet de AOW-leeftijd ook met een jaar omhoog.

Deze maatregel is niet alleen bij GroenLinks-PvdA slecht gevallen, maar bij een groot deel van de oppositie. En die steun heeft het kabinet wel nodig, want het heeft geen meerderheid in zowel de Tweede als de Eerste Kamer.

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Mona Keijzer is woensdagochtend niet aanwezig bij het debat over de regeringsverklaring. Maandag werd bekend dat ze uit BBB stapt, nadat niet zijzelf maar Henk Vermeer werd aangewezen als partijleider. Als zelfstandig Tweede Kamerlid gaat Keijzer dus nog niet direct in debat met het kabinet.

Het is niet bekend waarom Keijzer niet bij het debat aanwezig is. Zij was niet bereikbaar voor commentaar.

Zowel Keijzer als Vermeer sprak deze week van een vertrouwensbreuk. Volgens Keijzer was haar het partijleiderschap beloofd, als opvolger van Caroline van der Plas. Vermeer zei dat het weliswaar "logisch" was genoemd dat Keijzer partijleider zou worden, maar dat dat later veranderde. Het speelde mee dat Keijzer "meerdere" gesprekken met de afgesplitste PVV'er Gidi Markuszower zou hebben gevoerd.

BRUSSEL (ANP) - De Belgische wielerbond Belgian Cycling is een campagne gestart tegen wangedrag tegen wielrenners. "Moedig aan met je hart, niet met haat. Langs de kant maak jij het verschil. Respecteer de renners, respecteer de koers", is de boodschap van de campagne met de naam #respecttherace. Komend weekend begint het Belgische wielervoorjaar met de Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Onder anderen Mathieu van der Poel was de afgelopen jaren regelmatig slachtoffer van gegooide voorwerpen uit het publiek. Zo kreeg hij vorig jaar op weg naar zijn zege in de wielerklassieker Parijs-Roubaix een bidon in zijn gezicht. Daarop sprak de oud-wereldkampioen van "een poging tot doodslag".

Belgian Cycling merkt dat de grenzen soms worden overschreden. "Dat raakt niet alleen de renners, maar ook het imago en de toekomst van het wielrennen zelf. De koers moet een feest zijn voor iedereen: supporters mogen passie tonen en hun favoriet aanmoedigen, maar nooit ten koste van anderen", aldus sportief directeur Massimo Van Lancker.

Als bij langdurige stroomuitval telefoons niet meer werken en de meldkamer van brandweer, politie en ambulance niet te bereiken is, staan de radiozendamateurs van Dares klaar. Via een officiële noodfrequentie kunnen ze hulp bieden. „In Nederland is niemand echt voorbereid.”

Galaxy S25 sheds 63% in 12 months as reseller questions LLM emphasis

Smartphone makers love touting AI, but the technology may be quietly destroying resale values.…

Today's links

• The whole economy pays the Amazon tax: You can't shop your way out of a monopoly.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Math denial; Disney v young Tim Burton; Make v Sony; American oligarchs' wealth (2011); New Librarian of Congress; The Mauritanian; Bossware.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

The whole economy pays the Amazon tax (permalink)

Selling on Amazon is a tough business. Sure, you can reach a lot of customers, but this comes at a very high price: the junk fees that Amazon extracts from its sellers amount to 50-60% of the price you pay.

That's a hell of a lot of money to hand over to a middleman, but it's not like vendors have much choice. The vast majority of America's affluent households are Prime subscribers (depending on how you define "affluent household" it's north of 90%). Prime households prepay for a year's worth of shipping, so it's only natural that they start their shopping on Amazon, where they've already paid the delivery costs. And because Amazon reliably meets or beats the prices you'd pay elsewhere, Prime subscribers who find a product on Amazon overwhelmingly stop their shopping at Amazon, too.

At this point you might be thinking a couple things:

I. Why not try to sell the non-affluent households, who are far less likely to subscribe to Prime? and

II. If Amazon has the lowest prices, what's the problem if everyone shops there?

The answers to these two questions are intimately related, as it happens.

Let's start with selling to non-affluent households – basically, the bottom 90% of American earners. The problem here is that everyone who isn't in that top 10% is pretty goddamned broke. It's not just decades of wage stagnation and hyperinflation in health, housing and education costs. It's also that every economic crisis of this century has resulted in a "K-shaped" recovery, in which "economic recovery" means that rich people are doing fine, while everyone else is worse off than they were before the crisis.

For decades, America papered over the K-shaped hole in its economy with debt. First it was credit cards. Then it was gimmicky mortgages – home equity lines of credit, second mortgages and reverse mortgages. Then it was payday lenders. Then it was "buy-now/pay-later" services that let you buy lunch at Chipotle on an installment plan that is nominally interest-free, but is designed to trap the unwary and unlucky with massive penalties if you miss a single payment.

This produced a median American who isn't just cash-poor – they are cash-negative, drowning in debt. And – with the exception of a brief Biden intercession – every presidential administration of the 21st century has enacted policies that favor creditors over debtors. Bankruptcy is harder to declare, and creditors can hit you with effectively unlimited penalties and confiscation of your property and wages once your cash is gone. Trump has erased all the small mercies of the Biden years – for example, he just forced 8,000,000 student borrowers back into repayment:

https://prospect.org/2025/12/16/gop-forcing-eight-million-student-loan-borrowers-into-repayment/

The average American worker has $955 saved for retirement:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/955-saved-for-retirement-millions-are-in-that-boat-150003868.html

There's plenty to worry about in a K-shaped economy – big things like "political instability" and "cultural chaos" (the fact that most people are broke has a lot to do with the surging fortunes of gambling platforms). But from a seller's perspective, the most important impact of the K-shaped economy is that only rich people buy stuff. Selling to the bottom 90% is a losing proposition because they're increasingly too broke to buy anything:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/16/k-shaped-recovery/#disenshittification-nations

Combine the fact that the richest 10% of Americans all start their shopping on Amazon with the fact that no one else can afford to buy anything, and it's easy to see why merchants would stay on Amazon, even when junk fees hit 60%.

Which brings us to the second question: if Amazon has the best prices, what's the problem with everyone shopping there?

The answer is to be found in the California Attorney General's price-fixing lawsuit against Amazon:

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-exposes-amazon-price-fixing-scheme-driving-costs

The suit's been running for a long time, but the AG's office just celebrated a milestone – they've finished analyzing the internal memos they forced Amazon to disgorge through civil law's "discovery" process. These internal docs verify an open – and very dirty – secret about Amazon: the company uses its power to push up prices across the entire economy.

Here's how that works: sellers have to sell on Amazon, and that means they're losing $0.50-$0.60 on every dollar. The obvious way to handle this is by raising prices. But Amazon knows that its power comes from offering buyers prices that are as low or lower than the prices at all its competitors.

Amazon could ban its sellers from raising prices, but if they did that, they'd have to accept a smaller share of every sale (otherwise most of their sellers would go broke from selling at a loss on Amazon). So instead, Amazon imposes a business practice called "most favored nation" (MFN) pricing on its sellers.

Under an MFN arrangement, sellers are allowed to raise their prices on Amazon, but when they do, they must raise their prices everywhere else, too: at Walmart, at Target, at mom and pop indie stores, and at their own factory outlet store. Remember: Amazon doesn't have to have low prices to win, it just needs to have the same prices as everyone else. So long as prices rise throughout the economy, Amazon is fine, and it can continue to hike its junk fees on sellers, knowing that they will pay those fees by raising prices on Amazon and everywhere else their products are sold.

Like I say, this isn't really a secret. MFN terms were the basis of DC Attorney General Ken Racine's case against Amazon, five years ago:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#prime-facie

Amazon's not the only company that does this. Under the Biden administration, the FTC brought a lawsuit against Pepsi because Pepsi and Walmart had rigged the market so that when Walmart raised its prices, Pepsi would force everyone else who carried Pepsi products to raise their prices even more. Walmart still had the lowest prices, but everything everywhere got more expensive, both at Walmart and everywhere else:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/secret-documents-show-pepsi-and-walmart

Trump's FTC dropped the Pepsi/Walmart case, and Amazon wriggled out of the DC case, but the California AG's office has a lot more resources than DC can muster. This is a timely reminder that America's antitrust laws can be enforced at the state level as well as by the federal authorities. Trump might be happy to let Amazon steal from Americans so long as Jeff Bezos neuters the Washington Post, writes a check for $1m to sit on the inaugural dais, and makes a garbage movie about Melania; but that doesn't stop California AG Rob Bonta from going after Amazon for ripping off Californians (and, in so doing, develop the evidentiary record and precedent that will allow every other state AG to go after Amazon).

The fact that Amazon's monopoly lets it control prices across the economy highlights the futility of trying to fix the Amazon problem by shopping elsewhere. A "boycott" isn't you shopping really hard, it's an organized movement with articulated demands, a theory of change, and a backbone of solidarity. "Conscious consumption" is a dead-end:

https://jacobin.com/2026/02/individual-boycotts-collective-action-ice/

Obviously, Californians have more to worry about than getting ripped off by Amazon (like getting murdered or kidnapped by ICE agents who want to send us all to a slave labor camp in El Salvador), but the billions that Amazon steals from American buyers and sellers are the source of the millions that Bezos uses to support Trump's fascist takeover of America. Without billionaires who would happily support concentration camps in their back yards if it means saving a dollar on their taxes, fascism would still be a fringe movement.

That's why, when we hold new Nuremberg trials for Trump and his collaborators, we should also unwind every merger that was approved under Trump:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification

The material support for Trump's ideology of hate, violence and terror comes from Trump's program of unregulated corporate banditry. A promise to claw back every stolen dime might cool the ardor of Trump's corporate supporters, and even if it doesn't, zeroing out their bank-balances after Trump is gone will be an important lesson for future would-be billionaire collaborators.

Hey look at this (permalink)

• One Year In: The Good and The (Mostly) Bad and Ugly of Trump Antitrust and Consumer Protection https://economicpopulist.substack.com/p/one-year-in-the-good-and-the-mostly

• 2025 State of Clutter Report https://yorba.co/state-of-clutter

• A.I. Isn't People https://www.todayintabs.com/p/a-i-isn-t-people

• Color Game https://dialed.gg/

• Paediatricians’ blood used to make new treatments for RSV and colds https://www.newscientist.com/article/2516079-paediatricians-blood-used-to-make-new-treatments-for-rsv-and-colds/

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Princeton prof explains watermarks’ failures https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2006/02/24/how-watermarks-fail/

#20yrsago Palm Beach County voting machines generated 100K anomalies in 2004 https://web.archive.org/web/20060225172632/https://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/19421.html

#15yrsago Sharing the power in Tahrir Square https://www.flickr.com/photos/47421217@N08/5423296010/

#15yrsago 17-year-old Tim Burton’s rejection from Walt Disney Productions https://web.archive.org/web/20110226083118/http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/giant-zlig.html

#15yrsago Rare Alan Turing papers bought by Bletchley Park Trust https://web.archive.org/web/20110225145556/https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/news/docview.rhtm/635610

#15yrsago Sony considered harmful to makers, innovators and hackers https://web.archive.org/web/20151013140820/http://makezine.com/2011/02/24/sonys-war-on-makers-hackers-and-innovators/

#15yrsago MPAA: record-breaking box-office year is proof that piracy is killing movies https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/piracy-once-again-fails-to-get-in-way-of-record-box-office/

#15yrsago Super-wealthy clothes horses and their sartorial habits https://web.archive.org/web/20110217045201/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704409004576146420210142748.html

#15yrsago Visualizing the wealth of America’s super-rich ruling class https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph/

#10yrsago Obama’s new Librarian of Congress nominee is a rip-snortin’, copyfightin’, surveillance-hatin’ no-foolin’ LIBRARIAN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU8vXDoBB5s

#10yrsago Math denialism: crypto backdoors and DRM are the alternative medicine of computer science https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/24/the-fbi-wants-a-backdoor-only-it-can-use-but-wanting-it-doesnt-make-it-possible

#10yrsago Uganda’s corrupt president just stole another election, but he couldn’t steal the Internet https://web.archive.org/web/20160225095947/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/uganda-election-day-social-media-blackout-backlash-mobile-payments

#10yrsago Archbishop of St Louis says Girl Scout Cookies encourage sin https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/23/girl-scouts-cookies-missouri-catholics-st-louis-archbishop

#10yrsago After appointed city manager illegally jacked up prices, Flint paid the highest water rates in America https://eu.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/02/16/study-flint-paid-highest-rate-us-water/80461288/

#10yrsago Baidu browser isn’t just a surveillance tool, it’s a remarkably sloppy one https://citizenlab.ca/research/privacy-security-issues-baidu-browser/

#5yrsago Why Brits can no longer order signed copies of my books https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#brexit-books

#5yrsago Court rejects TSA qualified immunity https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#junk-touching

#5yrsago The Mauritanian https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#gwb-and-gitmo

#5yrsago EVs as distributed storage grid https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#mobile-batteries

#5yrsago Bossware and the shitty tech adoption curve https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

#1yrsago How an obscure advisory board lets utilities steal $50b/year from ratepayers https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/24/surfa/#mark-ellis

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Oslo (remote): Seminar og lansering av rapport om «enshittification», Feb 27
  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

• 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/

• Montreal: Bronfman Lecture (McGill) Apr 10
  https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disrupter-tickets-1982706623885

• 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

• Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
  https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Making The Internet Suck Less (Thinking With Mitch Joel)
  https://www.sixpixels.com/podcast/archives/making-the-internet-suck-less-with-cory-doctorow-twmj-1024/

• Panopticon :3 (Trashfuture)
  https://www.patreon.com/posts/panopticon-3-150395435

• America's Enshittification is Canada's Opportunity (Do Not Pass Go)
  https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas

• Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein)
  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html

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

Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1020 words today, 37190 total)

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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