Post · BT Free Social

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Stock swindles; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/

@pluralistic I was going to tell my mother (whose parents were early participants in Amway) that Amway founder Richard DeVos was one of the founders of the Heritage Foundation, but from what I could tell from Wikipedia, it was Joseph Coors and Richard Mellon Scaife who did the initial funding of Heritage. Did the Wikipedia editors miss something?

Stock swindles: A buyback is not just a dividend by another name.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116001748863545707

Hey look at this

* Wherein I have some thoughts on food delivery apps https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2026/02/01.html

* A Letter On Justice And Open Debate About Raping Children https://www.popehat.com/p/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate-about-raping-children

* Impeach President Miller https://prospect.org/2026/01/31/impeach-president-miller/

* Google Settlement May Bring New Privacy Controls for Real-Time Bidding https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/google-settlement-may-bring-new-privacy-controls-real-time-bidding

* U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-has-lost-more-10-000-stem-ph-d-s-trump-took-office

@pluralistic Wow, 25 years ago!

It looks like the ampersands in the License Maker URL have an extra level of escape, which prevents the web site from accepting them as separators. On my browser anyway.

#10yrsago A would-be clinic-bomber & friends are terrorizing a charter school for being too close to a future Planned Parenthood office https://web.archive.org/web/20160318235447/https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/inside-the-bizarre-war-anti-abortion-zealots-are-waging-against-school-kids

#10yrsago Ross and Carrie become Scientologists: an investigative report 5 years in the making https://ohnopodcast.com/investigations/2016/2/1/ross-and-carrie-audit-scientology-part-1-going-preclear

#10yrsago Exclusive: Snowden intelligence docs reveal UK spooks’ malware checklist https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/02/exclusive-snowden-intelligence-docs-reveal-uk-spooks-malware-checklist/

#5yrsago The free market and rent-seeking https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#poor-doors

Friday's threads: Threads' margin is the Eurostack's opportunity; and more!

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115984540352861262

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:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

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:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

#10yrsago Ross and Carrie become Scientologists: an investigative report 5 years in the making https://ohnopodcast.com/investigations/2016/2/1/ross-and-carrie-audit-scientology-part-1-going-preclear

#10yrsago Exclusive: Snowden intelligence docs reveal UK spooks’ malware checklist https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/02/exclusive-snowden-intelligence-docs-reveal-uk-spooks-malware-checklist/

#5yrsago The free market and rent-seeking https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#poor-doors

BT Free is a non-profit organization founded by @ozoned@btfree.social . It's goal is for digital privacy rights, advocacy and consulting. This goal will be attained by hosting open platforms to allow others to seamlessly join the Fediverse on moderated instances or by helping others join the Fediverse.