Pluralistic: Sovereign citizens, but for news (26 Oct 2026)


Today's links

  • Sovereign citizens, but for news: By reading the LA Times, you agree…
  • Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
  • Object permanence: Patenting tax dodges; 6-word sf; Newscorp shareholders v Murdoch; Ancient German ophthalmology cult; Trolley problem is stupid; Trump's influence peddling to Chinese millionaire; Al Franken v binding arbitration; Yoga pants spite parade; Dems' secret Congressional committee; RIAA v your PC; "Going Under"; "Machine Man"; Aging goths; "Everfair"; Kremlin will destabilize Ukraine; FCC fronts for Big Cable; Straight Outta Vagina; Remixed TED Talk about remixing; Authoritarian debt.
  • Upcoming appearances: Vienna, Kilkenny, Courtenay, Vancouver, Oxford, Sheffield, Virtual, Oxford, Montreal.
  • 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 original Art Deco LA Times building. Draped over it is a fringed naval flag. Superimposed over the building is the text of the LAT's outrageous dickover 'consent' dialog.

Sovereign citizens, but for news (permalink)

When it comes to terrible practices by website operators, it takes a lot to shock me. I literally wrote the book on the subject. But last night, I encountered a piece of genuinely appalling fuckery and I can't get it out of my head, because it's such a perfect storm of outrageous conduct and institutional decay.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/10/26/abandon-hope/#all-ye-who-enter-here

It happened when I followed a link to an LA Times article. Having lived in LA three times (and having been an Angeleno for a decade and counting this time around) I generally have warm feelings for the Times. The Times's Festival of Books is a great event that I speak at most years, and I'm broadly happy to have a daily newspaper covering my city.

That said, the Times has been chipping away at my goodwill for the past decade. First, there's the personal: after a Festival of Books appearance some years ago, the books editor approached me and asked if I'd contribute regular book reviews to the paper. I said yes, and then immediately my editor got laid off, reportedly so they could avoid giving him benefits that would come with seniority.

I wrote several reviews for a new editor, though the paper never sent me a contract for any of them – or a payment! Many months (and published reviews) later, an editor I'd never had contact with at the paper got in touch to get the paperwork squared away, and the Times sent me a contract with broad, one-sided language that I would never sign onto.

Given that they'd already published my work, there wasn't much they could do to make me sign the contract, so, after quite a lot of wrangling, I eventually got the offensive clauses removed and got paid (but I never got invited to write another review for them).

To be honest, this is par for the course. The last time the New York Times asked me to write for them, they refused to remove some similar clauses from their contract (something they'd done previously), and the contracts person just ghosted me after a couple of volleys.

A similar thing happened with the Washington Post the last time I wrote for them, except they (like the LAT) published the work and then sent me a one-sided, manifestly unfair contract that I refused to sign. Given they'd already published the op-ed there wasn't anything they could do about it, so eventually I got a better contract and a payment (and again, that was the last time the Post asked me to write for them).

Basically, there's an epidemic of bad legal terms sweeping the American media industry, and while the LA Times isn't the worst offender (at least they didn't ask me to assign any related patents, trademarks and copyrights to fictional characters, as Conde Nast does!), they're not what you'd call "writer-friendly" in their contracting terms.

But again, that's hardly unique. If I disqualified news outlets because they tried to shift liability to, and grab rights from, their writers, I'd be left with damned few media outlets.

But on the editorial side, the Times has a bunch of billionaire-shaped red flags. The paper's owner is the Trump-allied, severely AI-pilled biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, whose editorial interference in the Times is comparable to Bezos's interference in the Post. Like Bezos, Soon-Shiong killed the paper's endorsement for Kamala Harris:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/los-angeles-times-endorsement-soon-shiong.html

And I have my suspicions that Soon-Shiong might have been behind the layoff that killed Brian Merchant's beat as the country's first technology critic, from which perch Merchant assayed some acerbic, well-reasoned criticism of tech billionaires and AI:

https://talkingbiznews.com/media-news/ex-la-times-tech-columnist-merchant-joining-ai-now-institute/

Again, that's not disqualifying. If I boycotted every newspaper owned by a reprehensible billionaire, I'd have to turn my back on e.g. the NYT with its morbidly wealthy, union-busting owners:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-illegally-busted-union-campaign-national-labor-relations-board-alleges/

But unlike the NYT, the LA Times has followed the playbook of Alden Capital papers (like the Chicago Tribune), shipping a skinnier paper with less original reporting at a higher price (which is why I canceled my subscription):

https://archive.is/hOhpu

But even that isn't disqualifying. Like the Tribune, the LAT still employs dedicated, talented reporters who do excellent work, which is how I came to be following a link to a recent article yesterday…and how I came to find myself confronted by an enshittificatory gambit that shocked even me.

Here's what got me: when I visited the Times, I got a dickover that blocked all the content on the page until I clicked "Continue," and the text of that dickover is a breathtaking piece of enshittified legal fuckery:

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver, and our Privacy Policy. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.

This is wildly illegal and incredibly immoral. The paper claims that by simply reading an article, you agree that you can never, ever sue them for virtually any reason, and that you have consented to effectively unlimited surveillance and commercial exploitation of your private data.

It's hard to overstate how dangerous this kind of binding arbitration waiver is, but to give one example: Disney makes people who sign up for free trials of Disney Plus "consent" to one of these waivers. When a woman was killed by a Disney World restaurant that lied about the allergens in its food, the company told a judge that her grieving widower couldn't sue them because he'd waived that right by signing up for a trial of D+:

https://lawreview.missouri.edu/infinite-arbitration-how-one-click-can-take-you-out-of-court-forever/

The company later backed off for that one specific case, but subsequently doubled down on binding arbitration. By putting an arbitration clause in its terms, the LAT could head off my right to sue them if they stiffed me on those reviews I wrote for them, Brian Merchant's right to sue them for wrongful termination, and your right to sue them if you get run over by a newspaper delivery van.

Then there's the privacy clause: the LAT is a California paper, and in California, we have the CCPA, a reasonably good privacy law. Under the CCPA, privacy waivers have to be explicit, informed and can be withdrawn at any time. What's more, the CCPA has broad prohibitions against "dark patterns" that this dickover almost certainly violates:

https://cppa.ca.gov/announcements/2024/20240904.html

In theory, there's a way to avoid all of this: you could just use the "Kill Sticky" bookmarklet or an adblock filter to block or dismiss the dickover without ever clicking "continue":

https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/21/dickovers/#block-element

But this is an industrial strength dickover; it uses advanced tricks to block existing dickover killers, likely a combination of shadow DOM and an "important" scroll-lock in the html.

Like I say, this shocks the conscience. Under this standard, the Times's reporters could find themselves bound to legal "agreements" with the companies they investigate online that could interfere with their reporting. Just as bad is how these illegal measures mislead the Times's readership on two of the most important consumer issues facing Californians (and all internet users) today.

As Jargoggles points out, this is the corporate version of the bizarre nonsense that Sovereign Citizens gabble at cops when they get pulled over for driving with a special "sheriff's license plate," and at judges to insist that they lack jurisdiction due to the tassels on the courtroom flag:

https://kolektiva.social/@jargoggles/117503729678727400

A newspaper's job is to inform its readership, not mislead it.

The very idea that everyone who reads a single article on a newspaper's website "consents" to an 8,865-word privacy policy (that would take 53-67 minutes to read according to Firefox's "Reader Mode" estimate) is a bad joke:

https://www.latimes.com/privacy-policy

The joke gets even worse when you add in the 7,103-word Terms of Service (estimated read: 41-50 minutes):

https://www.latimes.com/terms-of-service

So what can you do? Well, you can use this uBlock filter that blocks the dickover without setting the LAT's "consent" cookie to "1":

latimes.com##+js(trusted-set, window.ctUser, { "loggedIn": true, "ready": true, "subStatus": "1" })

https://infosec.exchange/@deFractal/117505049281552873

If you're a Californian, you can file a complaint with the California Privacy Protection Agency:

https://cppa.ca.gov/webapplications/complaint

As Don Marti points out, businesses dealing with Californians are legally required to acknowledge and honor the Global Privacy Control signal from your browser:

https://federate.social/@dmarti/117504985464483210

Here's an ambitious countermove. Buried in that 7,103-word terms of service is this gem: you can opt out of the binding arbitration within 30 days of "agreeing" to it by sending an email to termsofservice@latimes.com with the subject line "MANDATORY ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER OPT-OUT". Someone could build a browser mod that automatically sends that email to the company whenever you land on an latimes.com page. You could even include my all-purpose email footer:

By reading this email, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

All of this is fun to contemplate, but it's hardly enough. It should be illegal for a company to knowingly offer unenforceable contracting terms, especially in its non-negotiable, boilerplate contracts. It's already illegal for California companies to put noncomplete clauses in their contracts. In other words, noncompetes aren't just unenforceable in California, they're illegal, and we should extend that prohibition (with sanctions for noncompliant firms and their general counsels) to privacy and arbitration:

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-issues-consumer-alert-reminding-california-workers-their

Because the LAT isn't the only news outlet that's engaged in this kind of illegal, immoral, conscience-shocking, dickover-delivered enshittification. It's also SOP at Bloomberg:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kaagvvv22ki4ccsymevrpfxk/bafkreia4yxewg2chpwgki3ftzq7fnl7s454efx5oev6h6siqlsnenrjpe4

These gambits are infectious, and they're spreading. Time to bend the curve.

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago RIAA denies asking for criminal immunity for hacking your computer https://memex.craphound.com/2001/10/26/remember-when-the-riaa-tried/

#20yrsago Big Mac pumpkin https://web.archive.org/web/20061031170037/http://bitsandpieces1.blogspot.com/2006/10/big-mac-pumpkin.html

#20yrsago Going Under: moving kids’ novel https://memex.craphound.com/2006/10/26/going-under-moving-kids-novel/

#20yrsago Accountants patent tax-dodges https://web.archive.org/web/20061029080957/http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/19/business/norris20.php

#20yrsago 6-word sf stories https://web.archive.org/web/20061109183215/https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

#15yrsago Using machine translation techniques to attack ciphers reveals secrets of ancient German ophthalmology cult https://web.archive.org/web/20111025035607/http://www.isi.edu/natural-language/people/copiale-11.pdf

#15yrsago The Homeland Directive: taut technothriller for the paranoid era https://memex.craphound.com/2011/10/25/the-homeland-directive-taut-technothriller-for-the-paranoid-era/

#15yrsago NewsCorp shareholders revolt against Murdoch family https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/08/rupert-murdoch-news-corporation

#15yrsago One-percenter: why I support Occupy https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/10/21/1028500/community/A-Voice-From-the-1/

#15yrsago Debunking the OccupyLondon “empty tents” story https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/25/occupy-london-part-time-protest

#15yrsago Machine Man: a discomfiting novel about the antihuman side of transhumanism https://memex.craphound.com/2011/10/26/machine-man-a-discomfiting-novel-about-the-antihuman-side-of-transhumanism/

#15yrsago Goths age gracefully https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/oct/24/goth-culture-research

#10yrsago Everfair: a diverse, ambitious steampunk novel of Fabian socialists and American Black Zionists in Belgian Congo https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/26/everfair-a-diverse-ambitious-steampunk-novel-of-fabian-socialists-and-american-black-zionists-in-belgian-congo/

#10yrsago Leaked Kremlin memos reveal plan to destabilize Ukraine https://globalvoices.org/2016/10/25/hackers-publish-kremlin-aides-e-mails-allege-plan-to-destabilize-ukraine/

#10yrsago When the FCC asked about unlocking set-top boxes, the Copyright Office ran to the MPAA https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/newly-released-documents-show-hollywood-influenced-copyright-offices-comments-set

#10yrsago Pussy Riot’s “Straight Outta Vagina”: sacrelicious Russian feminist pop anthem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-KeVBNz0A

#10yrsago TED talk about remixes and appropriating made by remixing and appropriating TED talks about remixing and appropriating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLlbzI5HURM

#10yrsago Warner Bros angry that someone other than the MPAA is running an illegal internal movie server https://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-claims-agency-ran-its-own-pirate-movie-site-161025/

#10yrsago AT&T developed a “product” for spying on all its customers and made millions selling it to warrantless cops https://web.archive.org/web/20170504105645/https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/25/at-t-is-spying-on-americans-for-profit

#10yrsago Lawsuit: mayor’s social media blocklists are public records https://www.techdirt.com/2016/10/24/pinac-director-sues-miami-beach-mayor-over-refusal-to-release-social-media-blocklists/

#10yrsago EFF asks court to let American sue Ethiopia for hacking his computer and rounding up his friends https://www.eff.org/press/releases/american-illegally-wiretapped-home-ethiopian-government-deserves-his-day-court-eff

#10yrsago Donald Trump’s super PAC promised a Chinese millionaire access, influence in exchange for a secret $2 million donation https://web.archive.org/web/20161024192242/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/24/exclusive-investigation-donald-trump-faces-foreign-donor-fundrai/

#10yrsago Al Franken and FCC commissioner Clyburn want limits on forced arbitration https://time.com/4541176/al-franken-arbitration-clauses/?iid=sr-link1

#10yrsago Mercedes’ weird “Trolley Problem” announcement continues stupid debate about self-driving cars https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/25/mercedes-weird-trolley-problem-announcement-continues-dumb-debate-about-self-driving-cars/

#10yrsago When Californians vote on legal weed, they’ll also vote on wiping millions of arrest records https://web.archive.org/web/20161027161505/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/california-to-vote-on-wiping-old-weed-arrests

#10yrsago Dickhead’s anti-yoga-pants letter to the editor sparks yoga-pants-parade https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37751422

#10yrsago RIP science fiction great Sheri Tepper https://locusmag.com/2016/10/sheri-s-tepper-1929-2016/

#5yrsago The Dems' most secret Congressional committee https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/25/people-do-stuff/#personnel-are-policy

#5yrsago Maxing out our global credit-card with authoritarian debt https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/26/inequality-and-guard-labor/#just-watch-me

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "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, April 20, 2027

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

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


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. Today's words: 547 (29282 total).

  • "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. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

  • 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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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

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