Jailbreaking
CANADA

OCAD U’s Digital Futures program welcomes Cory Doctorow to OCAD University for a public lecture as part of “Jailbreaking Canada”, a three-day playshop presented by Super Ordinary Lab and game:play Lab with SFI Alum Madeline Ashby to playfully co-fabulate possible futures for Canada in the contemporary climate of late-stage capitalism.

Cory’s talk will be “(Digital) Elbows Up: How Canada Can Become a Nation of Jailbreakers, Reclaim Our Digital Sovereignty, Win the Trade-War, and Disenshittify Our Technology”.

“The internet sucks, and it's not your fault. The monopolies that dominate our digital environment didn't gain power because you were a careless shopper. Nor is this the fault of the ketamine-addled zuckermuskian monsters who run the shitty companies of the enshitternet. Those jerks owe their power to the enshittogenic *policy environment* that rewards cheating, greed and cruelty with wealth and power.

The internet sucks because of *policy*. Named individuals, in living memory, enacted pro-enshittification policies that gave tech giants the power to cheat their way to dominance, and to prey upon us with impunity. Those policies also left us defenseless, creating new IP crimes that felonise modifying your own property so that it respects your privacy, your human rights, and your pocketbook.

It doesn't have to be this way. We need not be eternal prisoners of the terrible policy blunders of the first quarter of this century. There has never been a more urgent need to pursue digital sovereignty and a post-American internet. That internet is ours - if we want it badly enough. It's time to seize the means of communication” – Cory Doctorow.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist. He is a contributor to many magazines, websites and newspapers. He is a special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties.

He holds an honourary doctorate in laws from York University (Canada) and an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Professor. He is also a Cornell University AD White professor-at-large, a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate and a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science. In 2024, the Media Ecology Association awarded him the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

In 2022, he earned the Sir Arthur Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Awardee for lifetime achievement. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

His novels have been translated into dozens of languages and are published by Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), Verso Books (UK), Beacon Press (US), SCRIBe (UK), Titan Books (UK) and HarperCollins (UK). He has won the Locus, Prometheus, Copper Cylinder, White Pine and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards.

He is the author of dozens of books, most recently ENSHITTIFICATION: WHY EVERYTHING SUDDENLY GOT WORSE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT (nonfiction); and the novels PICKS AND SHOVELS and THE BEZZLE (followups to RED TEAM BLUES). Other notable books include the solarpunk novels WALKAWAY and THE LOST CAUSE; the tech policy books THE INTERNET CON and CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM; and the internationally bestselling YA LITTLE BROTHER series; and the picture book POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER. He maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net.