The rumor is going around on X that foreign enemies of the US (especially China) are trying to influence Americans through social networks against building data centers.
Billionaries like Kevin O'Leary and his ilk are behind those rumors because they want to discredit the local resistance. There's one activist in Utah, Caroline Gleich, has been exceptionally outspoken against O'Leary and he's said she's part of Chinese led resistance. It's pure insanity.
> The rumor is going around on X that foreign enemies of the US (especially China) are trying to influence Americans through social networks against building data centers.
X is owned by a guy who builds data centers.
Also I don't trust rumors that oh-so-conveniently support the interests of some very wealthy people doing unpopular things. Heuristics say it's probably propaganda planted by their PR operations, and they do not get the benefit of the doubt.
In fairness, a lot of Red Scare propaganda did stem from grounded and realistic espionage concerns.
McCarthyism was a total overreaction in hindsight, but had roots in pervasive foreign meddling. For the past 100 years, America has been a target of influence campaigns from both foreign and domestic organizations.
I’m extremely suspicious of this, but have no way to prove it or collect data related to it.
Even more, I’d really doubt that is a US interest to let the public know if such campaign is happening against non-US countries, so I don’t expect Meta, X or whatever to kindly inform me about that.
Zoom out and ask yourself which injustices the popular voice care about and which they don't.
There is a hard to miss tendency for the things which get the most noise to be the most useful to national adversaries.
You can't mention specific incidents here for comparison because the comments will be filled with disagreements and accusations about the specifics not the big picture.
Search yourself for things that are getting attention and not getting attention and judge for yourself how useful each would be to external powers.
I can't think of a faster way to permanently solidify someone's opinion than being told "you only have this opinion because an enemy foreign government told you to; get your opinions from your friendly local government instead."
When I see stories about how a hardware startup like SpinLaunch has had to move over and over because no matter where they go, locals flood the town hall meetings to declare their relatively boring technology is too scary, I'm not surprised town halls are being flooded over AI datacenters.
There are plenty of reasons to be against datacenters and I see some people trying to say the possibility that it's foreign influence illegitimates the opposition.
Maybe it's my bubble, but most people around me who are against AI cite job loss and Replacement as their concerns.
And guess who has been boasting about replacing workers and making everyone unemployed by 2030? Certainly not china.
Maybe they say different things domestically but I don't even recall any Chinese AI personality going around preaching about the upcoming AI doomsday while also building the doomsday device themselves, either.
Of course a company like X has an incentive to push a narrative like that, given their AI position. People are concerned about their property values, utility prices, etc. It's not hard to see why the average person doesn't want one of these built in their backyard.
I wonder, if indeed there is astroturfing going on, if instead of a foreign actor it’s competing AI companies. Eg OpenAI astroturfing opposition to when Anthropic wants to build a datacenter, and vice versa
I think it deliberately avoids censorship of any kind, which makes it both more open to truth (if anyone posts it there) and more susceptible to manipulation.
No. First, it will censor you for any number of reasons, but it's a shadow censor so they can point you to your own post and say it's not censored since you and anyone you share the link to can see it. Second, it's known to be manipulated. A few years back they accidentally leaked that one of the key factors influencing a post's ranking was - I kid you not - whether Elon posted it. I'm sure they've only gotten better at manipulation since then.
Nope. People don’t want them because they fear the DC will further increase utility bills. These companies openly talk about eliminating their jobs via AI with glee. Why would anybody help them? They are against the average persons best interests for their profit.
It’s debatable if a DC will affect local energy costs but people don’t want to risk it. Big tech has lost all their social capital. I would say at this point all of corporate America has. They have too much power over the public. People are starting to push back.
These data centers will be a net loss for people, higher electricity cost, pollution, etc... The idea that if you don't comply with big tech plans, you are being dissuaded by a foreign entity is dumb at best. Simping for billionaires and their plans, won't make you one of them.
