In the days after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) published 3.5 million pages of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, multiple users on X have asked Grok to “unblur” or remove the black boxes covering the faces of children and women in images that were meant to protect their privacy. 

While some survivors of Epstein’s abuse have chosen to identify themselves, many more have never come forward. In a joint statement, 18 of the survivors condemned the release of the files, which they said exposed the names and identifying information of survivors “while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected”. 

After the latest release of documents on Jan. 30 under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, thousands of documents had to be taken down because of flawed redactions that lawyers for the victims said compromised the names and faces of nearly 100 survivors. 

But X users are trying to undo the redactions on even the images of people whose faces were correctly redacted. By searching for terms such as “unblur” and “epstein” with the “@grok” handle, Bellingcat found more than 20 different photos and one video that multiple users were trying to unredact using Grok. These included photos showing the visible bodies of children or young women, with their faces covered by black boxes. There may be other such requests on the platform that were not picked up in our searches.

The images appeared to show several children and women with Jeffrey Epstein as well as other high-profile figures implicated in the files, including the UK’s Prince Andrew, former US President Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and director Brett Ratner, in various locations such as inside a plane and at a swimming pool.

From Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, we reviewed 31 separate requests from users for Grok to “unblur” or identify the women and children from these images. Grok noted in responses to questions or requests by some users that the faces of minors in the files were blurred to protect their privacy “as per standard practices in sensitive images from the Epstein files”, and said it could not unblur or identify them. However, it still generated images in response to 27 of the requests that we reviewed. 

We are not linking to these posts to prevent amplification.

The generations created by Grok ranged in quality from believable to comically bad, such as a baby’s face on a young girl’s body. Some of these posts have garnered millions of views on X, where users are monetarily incentivised to create high-engagement content.

Of the four requests we found during this period that Grok did not generate images in response to, it did not respond to one request at all. In response to another request, Grok said deblurring or editing images was outside its abilities, and noted that photos from recent Epstein file releases were redacted for privacy. 

The other two requests appeared to have been made by non-premium users, with the chatbot responding: “Image generation and editing are currently limited to verified Premium subscribers”. X has limited some of Grok’s image generation capabilities to paid subscribers since January amid an ongoing controversy over users using the AI chatbot to digitally “undress” women and children. 

X did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

However, shortly after we first reached out to X on Feb. 6, we noticed that more guardrails appeared to have been put in place. Out of 16 requests from users between Feb. 7 to Feb. 9, which we found using similar search terms as before, Grok did not attempt to unredact any of the images. 

In most cases, Grok did not respond at all (14), while in two cases, Grok generated AI images that were completely different from the images uploaded in the user’s original request. 

When a user commented on one of these requests that Grok was no longer working, Grok responded: “I’m still operational! Regarding the request to unblur the face in that Epstein photo: It’s from recently released DOJ files where identities of minors are redacted for privacy. I can’t unblur or identify them, as it’s ethically and legally protected. For more, check official sources like the DOJ releases.”

As of publication, X had not responded to Bellingcat’s subsequent query about whether new guardrails had been put in place over the weekend.

Fabricated Images

This is not the first time AI has been used to fabricate images related to Epstein file releases. Some images that were shared on X, which appeared to show Epstein alongside famous figures such as US President Donald Trump and New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani as a child with his mother, were reportedly AI-generated. Some of the individuals shown in the false images, such as Trump, do appear in authentic photos, which can be viewed on the DOJ website.

X users also previously used Grok to generate images in relation to recent killings in Minnesota by federal agents. 

For example, some users asked Grok to try to “unmask” the federal agent who killed Renee Good, resulting in a completely fabricated face of a man that did not look like the actual agent, Jonathan Ross, and a false accusation of a man who had nothing to do with the shooting.

After Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, people used AI to edit video stills, resulting in AI images that showed a completely different gun than the one actually owned by Pretti. In another instance, an AI-edited image of Pretti’s shooting falsely depicted the intensive care unit nurse holding a gun instead of his sunglasses. 

Grok has also been at the centre of a controversy for generating sexually explicit content.

Multiple countries including the UK and France have launched investigations into Elon Musk’s chatbot over reports of people using it to generate deepfake non-consensual sexual images, including child sexual abuse imagery. Malaysia and Indonesia have also blocked Grok over concerns about deepfake pornographic content. 

One analysis by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Grok had publicly generated around three million sexualised images, including 23,000 of children, in 11 days from Dec. 29, 2025 to Jan. 8 this year. X’s initial response, in January, was to limit some image generation and editing features to only paid subscribers. However, this has been widely criticised as inadequate, including by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said it “simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service”. The social media platform has since announced new measures to block all users, including paid subscribers, from using Grok via X to edit images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here and Mastodon here.

The post Epstein Files: X Users Are Asking Grok to ‘Unblur’ Photos of Children appeared first on bellingcat.

This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. Subscribe to them here.

The FBI got a search warrant for X to provide details on the Grok prompts a man allegedly used to create more than 200 nonconsensual sexual videos of a woman he knew in real life, according to court records.

The details of the investigation are contained in an FBI affidavit about the alleged actions of Simon Tuck, who is accused of extensively harassing and threatening the woman’s husband. Tuck regularly worked out with and texted with the woman and, according to the affidavit, secretly filmed her while she was working out in his garage. Over the course of the last several months, Tuck swatted their home, made a series of anonymous reports to the man’s employer claiming that he was a child abuser and a drug addict, posed as the man and made a series of mass shooting and suicide threats. Tuck also made a series of other threats and bizarre actions, which included reaching out to a funeral home to say that the man would be dead soon and sending threats to the man while posing as a member of Sector 16, a Russian hacking crew.

The affidavit notes that, in January, the FBI got a search warrant for the man’s conversations with Grok. The FBI says that it received “prompts provided to GrokAI that generated approximately 200 pornographic videos of a woman who closely resembled VICTIM’s wife’s physical appearance.”

“For example, in one prompt, TUCK queried: ‘In a sensual sports style, a confident blonde woman playfully undresses on a tennis court, starting with her white crop top pulled up to expose her bare breasts. She has long wavy hair, a toned athletic body, and a flirtatious smile, wearing a short navy pleated skirt and holding a racket. She slowly lowers her top, revealing full nudity, tosses her hair, and swings the racket teasingly, with a surprising clumsy spin like a comedic twirl,’” the affidavit says. 

The FBI says that Tuck also allegedly used Grok to create a complaint about the woman’s husband that was then filed to the company he works for. 

The actions described in the affidavit are extreme and horrifying, but are not terribly out of the ordinary for harassment cases that we have reported on before. What’s notable here is that this case shows that law enforcement is looking at chats with AI bots as potential sources of evidence and that X is complying with these requests.

Most importantly, it highlights X’s role in allowing Grok to create nonconsensual sexual material in a criminal case that involves extreme cyberstalking and real life harm. According to the affidavit, Tuck used Grok to create this nonconsensual sexual material at the same time that Grok was being heavily criticized for creating child sexual abuse material. This all happened during the “undress her” phenomenon, which showed just how terribly Grok’s content moderation is. Last week, we also reported that Grok was used to reveal the real name of an adult performer.

Correction: This piece originally said the FBI issued Grok with a subpoena. It was a search warrant.

There’s a new agentic AI called Einstein that will, according to its developers, live the life of a student for them. Einstein’s website claims that the AI will attend lectures for you, write your papers, and even log into EdTech platforms like Canvas to take tests and participate in discussions. 

Educators told me that Einstein is just one of many AI tools that can do homework for students, but should be seen as a warning to schools that are increasingly seen by students as a place to gain a diploma and status as opposed to the value of education itself. 

If an AI can go to school for you what’s the point of going to school? For Advait Paliwal, Brown dropout and co-creator of Einstein, there isn’t one. “I think about horses,” he said. “They used to pull carriages, but when cars came around, I'd argue horses became a lot more free,” he said. “They can do whatever they want now. It would be weird if horses revolted and said ‘no, I want to pull carriages, this is my purpose in life.’”

But humans aren’t horses. “This is much bigger than Einstein,” Matthew Kirschenbaum told 404 Media. “Einstein is symptomatic. I doubt we’ll be talking about Einstein, as such, in a year. But it’s symptomatic of what’s about to descend on higher ed and secondary ed as well.”

Kirschenbaum teaches English at the University of Virginia and has written at length about artificial intelligence. He’s also a member of the Modern Language Association (MLA) where he serves as member of its Task Force on AI Research and Teaching. Einstein isn’t the first agentic AI to do the work of a student for them, it’s just one that got attention online recently. Kirschenbaum and his fellow committee members flagged their concerns about these AIs in October, 2025.

“Agentic browsers are becoming widely available to the public. These offer AI ‘agents’ that can navigate [learning management systems] and complete assignments without any student involvement,” the MLA’s statement from October said. “The recent and hasty integration of generative AI features into those systems is already redefining student and instructor relationships, evaluative standards, and instructional outcomes—with no compelling evidence that any of it is for the better.”

The statement called on educators, lawmakers, and learning management system providers like Canvas, too cooperate in order to give academic institutions the abilities to block AI agents like Einstein. 

Canvas did not respond to a request for comment. 

Einstein is explicit in its pitch: it will log into Canvas (one of the most popular and ubiquitous pieces of education software) and do your classwork for you, just like Kirschenbaum and his fellows warned about last year.

The attractiveness of agentic AIs is a symptom of a decades-long trend in higher education.  “Universities…by and large adopted a transactive model of education,” Kirschenbaum said. “Students see their diploma as a credential. They pay tuition and at the end of four years, sometimes five years, they receive the credential and, in theory at least, that is then the springboard to economic stability and prosperity.”

Paliwal seems to agree. He told 404 Media that he attempted to change the university from the inside while working as a TA, but felt stymied by politics. “The only way to force these institutions to evolve is to bring reality to their face. And usually the loudest critics are the ones who can't do their own job well and live in fear of automation,” he said.

For Paliwal, agentic AIs are a method of freeing people from the labor of education. “I think we really need to question what learning even is and whether traditional educational institutions are actually helping or harming us,” he said. “We're seeing a rise in unemployment across degree holders because of AI, and that makes me question whether this is really what humans are born to do. We've been brainwashed as a society into valuing ourselves by the output of our productive work, and I think humanity is a lot more beautiful than that. Is it really education if we're just memorizing things to perform a task well?”

Kirschenbaum said that programs like Einstein are the inevitable conclusion of viewing higher education as a certification and transactive process. “What we’re finding is that if forms of education can be transacted then we’ve just about arrived at the point where autonomous software AI agents are capable of performing the transaction on your behalf,” he said. “And so the whole educational paradigm has come back to essentially bite itself in the ass.”

He said that one solution he’s seen work is to retreat from devices entirely in the classroom. “Colleagues who have done it report that students are almost universally grateful. They understand the reasoning. They understand the logic,” he said. “And they appreciate the opportunity to be freed from the phones and the screens and to focus and engage with other people in a meaningful dialogue.”

But the abandonment of EdTech platforms and screens won’t work for every student. Anna Mills, an English professor at the College of Marin and a colleague of Kirschenbaum’s on the MLA AI task force, compared the fight against agentic AI in education to cybersecurity. “We could decide that bots need to be labeled as bots and that we need to be able to distinguish human activity from AI activity online in some circumstances and that we want to build infrastructure for that,” she said. “That would be an ongoing project, as cybersecurity is.”

Mills is not a luddite. She’s an expert in artificial intelligence systems as well as English, frequently uses Claude, and has been documenting the rise of agentic AIs in EdTech on her YouTube channel for months. She said that using agentic AI like Einstein was cheating, full stop, and academic fraud. “This is in direct violation of these foundational agreements that we make in order to use technology for human communication, human exchange, and human work online,” she said. “And yet that’s not obvious to us. It seems like it’s just another tool, right? But it’s not.”

Mills said she understands Paliwal’s frustrations with education. “But what you need to understand is that online learning spaces are critical for students to access any kind of education,” she said. For her, the proliferation of tools like Einstein do more than help a student bypass the labor of the classroom. They poison the educational well. Online learning has been a boon to many kinds of non-traditional students and that the rise of agentic AI is a threat to that not just because it trivializes traditional forms of education, but because it hurts the credibility of EdTech itself and other online platforms.

The vast majority of college students aren’t attending Ivy League schools, they’re grinding away at night classes in community colleges across the country. Distance and online learning has been an enormous boon for those students. “If there’s no credibility to that, then you’ve just ruined the investment and the learning goals and the access to meaningful learning that that they can then also use for employment of students who are underprivileged, who can’t come to the classroom, who are working full time and raising families and trying to get an education,” Mills said.

Students aren’t horses and there is no greater freedom they can buy themselves by using AI tools to cheat in the classroom. And worse, the more these tools proliferate, the more suspect the entire enterprise becomes. It’s one thing to cheat yourself out of an education, it’s quite another to muddy the waters of EdTech platforms and online learning for everyone else.

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

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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.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Bread crackling, trays clanking, and cutlery clinking as pieces of stainless steel silverware meet their ceramic counterparts. These are some of the sounds emanating from Baker Bleu, Cremorne. Designed by IF Architecture for Melbourne’s cult-favorite bakery, the flagship café transforms the daily ritual of buying a loaf into a spatial narrative about craft, process, and continual refinement. Here, dark-crusted sourdough and still-warm bagels are displayed like sculptural objects, set against an interior that is at once industrial and intimate—precise in its execution, deeply human in sensory experience.

The project marks an evolution for the Baker Bleu brand, shaped through an ongoing collaboration between architect and baker. That dialogue most directly influenced the spatial choreography. Bread moves from oven to trolley to customer with minimal interruption. If you arrive at the right moment, your loaf is handed over warm. Immediacy is preserved not just as a culinary value, it is also baked into the design as an architectural principle. The proximity between back-of-house production and front-of-house display was carefully compressed, ensuring that operational efficiency and experiential authenticity work in tandem.

From the outset, the bakery was conceived as a stage for bread-making. The contrast is deliberate: raw, gnarly loaves set against a monolithic, reductionist backdrop. A textured aluminium point-of-sale rises to meet a polished stainless-steel counter, punctuated by baked goods meticulously arranged. Even angled shelving and peg displays reinforce the ritual of handling––each loaf lifted, turned, and passed across the counter with care.

At the heart of the material narrative is recycled aluminium panelling, its surface subtly referencing the alveoli, which are the airy cavities formed during sourdough’s three-day fermentation process. The metaphor is both poetic and pragmatic. Composed of recycled content, the panelling reinforces Baker Bleu’s broader commitment to sustainability while embedding meaning directly into the walls and ceiling. The material wraps upward, lining the ceiling plane and softening acoustics, while exposed services retain an industrial frankness. In this way, the architecture quietly tells the story of how bread is made through texture, repetition, and atmosphere.

Against the restrained material palette, the graphic identity—developed by Studio Round—emerges with clarity and precision. The neutrality of terrazzo, aluminium, and galvanised steel creates a backdrop where branding can breathe. An integrated digital menu board is framed within the L-shaped joinery wall with a placement that is both functional and compositional.

Wayfinding is embedded rather than applied: a self-serve water station is highlighted by feature lighting and subtle graphic cues, reinforcing intuitive flow. The visual language feels neither ornamental nor overly branded. Instead, graphics operate as an extension of architecture—crisp, legible, and aligned with the bakery’s no-nonsense ethos.

The tenancy itself presented challenges due to an irregular footprint that required rationalisation. IF Architecture’s primary intervention, an L-shaped joinery wall, resolves the plan, clarifying circulation while preserving operational efficiency. Queues form naturally around a central American Oak display table, separating bread, coffee, and dine-in customers into subtly distinct paths. The result is circulation that feels intentional rather than transactional. Congestion is reduced and stress dissipates.

Where movement dominates the retail zone, stillness is carved into the seating alcove. Awning windows open onto the street activating the frontage and allowing the city to bleed into the café. Folded galvanised steel bench seating rests atop a structural I-beam base, while a curved banquette doubles as both espresso bar and café seating. Timber stools and American Oak tabletops soften the industrial palette at touch points to allow for warmth.

Discerning guests may draw the elusive parallel between architecture and bread-making that is embedded in the project’s philosophy. Both rely on repetition, refinement, and time to perfect. Here––where space, graphic detail, and baking converge––artisinal bread is refining the bakery typology while acting as both product and final flourish. It’s something warm to be touched, a texture translated into the walls, and a ritual embedded in the very structure of the space itself.

To learn more about all parties involved in the architecture and graphics, visit ifarchitecture.com.au and round.com.au, respectively.

Photography by Sharyn Cairns.

The grid: a never-ending expanse of geometric order and a concept our human brains love––born perhaps from a need to seek order, but we love a beautifully straight line. Dot Objects presents their newest shelving collection with evolution at its core, a clinical removal of all things unnecessary. With a focus on steel and wood, these materials can be appreciated even more through a purity of materiality and form finding harmony.

Helmed by designer Wiktoria Markiewicz, each piece of this collection is crafted with great care. Wooden elements are handmade in-house and steel components welded by skilled local craftsmen in Poland, keeping the production chain short, transparent, and as ethical as possible. The result is a collection that feels both personal and rigorous—industrial in clarity, intimate in execution––born from “a desire to create furniture that feels honest, minimal in form yet rich in material and detail.”

The Grid Shelving Unit anchors the steel series. Crafted from high-quality 2mm steel and available powder-coated in custom RAL colors—or in stainless steel—the piece is modest in size while maximizing useful surface area. Its rigid, minimal design is defined by clean lines and sharp angles, functioning simultaneously as storage and structure. Built to support up to nearly 200 pounds, it is as robust as it is restrained.

Throughout the day, its surface interacts subtly with light, shifting in tone and depth as shadows trace its planes. While the powder-coated finish offers durability and access to over 200 RAL colors, stainless steel variants introduce a more elemental expression—one that can quietly patinate over time, reinforcing the brand’s embrace of material honesty rather than resisting it.

Photo: Sanne Kaal

The Essential Wall Shelf continues this dialogue in a more vertical orientation, also crafted from 2mm steel and precision-cut for a clean, delicately proportioned, minimal profile. The two vertical elements conceal small i-hooks for hanging, and the horizontal ones are simply planes of metal, minimizing visual weight even while retaining its radiant hue.

Essentially, it is designed as a framework for personal belongings, shifting character depending on what it holds—mugs, books, small heirlooms—and allowing daily rituals to animate its structure. The shelf can be finished in any RAL tone, enabling it to either punctuate a wall as a bold accent or blend seamlessly into its surroundings. Its straightforward construction highlights the honesty of the material; nothing is ornamental, yet nothing feels lacking.

Photo: @well.homed

While steel articulates the grid in crisp planes, the wooden series softens it with grain and warmth. The Pine Grid Shelf celebrates the unique vertices of solid pine, crafted entirely in the Netherlands from high-quality 18mm polish pine multiplex plates. Each piece undergoes a meticulous, week-long hand-oiling process using pigmented linseed oil from Linolie, allowing the wood’s natural patterns to emerge while enhancing durability. Each made to order, they are finally finished in a lakpolish coating, ensuring long-lasting durability and easy maintenance. What’s more, it can be customized in More than 60 Linolie.dk satin oil colors as well as an alternative Mini version offering a more compact footprint.

Photo: @well.homed

The Mirror Shelf retains an ergonomic simplicity within relatively strict delineations of form while introducing reflection into the grid language. The compact composition comprises 2mm steel with glass for a subtle interplay of depth and light. Reflective surfaces catch and amplify their surroundings, quietly elevating whatever is placed upon them to turn keys, pens, and keepsakes into curated compositions. A solid palette of white, black, red, bare steel, and blue, does not detract from the form whatsoever. And a small lip at the front keeps things from falling off, creating an optical illusion in their stead.

Across both steel and wood, the philosophy remains consistent: clarity of form, integrity of material, and production rooted in craft. As Markiewicz notes, “Dot Objects grew from a personal search for furniture that truly resonated with my aesthetics and values. I believe artisan-quality design should be both accessible and customizable.”

Born from father-daughter collaboration and sustained by local partnerships, each object carries that sense of shared authorship—quiet, considered, and built to last.

To learn more about the new shelving available from Dot Objects, visit dotobjects.store or follow along for more updates on Instagram.

Photography courtesy of Dot Objects.