As voters across the country begin to rally against the unchecked construction of data centers, artificial intelligence companies are panicking and investing millions into propaganda to paint the energy-sucking facilities in a more positive light.
By 2030, the amount of energy demanded by US data centers is expected to more than double, according to the International Energy Agency.
Energy costs have spiked considerably in the states with the most data centers. And as the industry continues its breakneck expansion, one watchdog report found that consumers on America’s largest electric grid are expected to pay hundreds of dollars more to meet increased power demand from now until 2027.
These costs became an unexpected point of emphasis for Democrats in November, whose calls for greater transparency from tech companies seeking to build data centers propelled them to victory in elections from New Jersey to Virginia.
But tech companies want to keep building, and as AI threatens to become a central villain of the 2026 midterm elections, Politico reports that companies are putting the wheels in motion to portray themselves “as job creators and economic drivers rather than resource-hungry land hogs.”
fukijama on
And now its time for voters to ramp up their propaganda to defund the billionaires
BigDaddyCoolDeisel on
I’m already seeing it.
“China is ENTHUSIASTIC about ai…. THEY’RE WINNING… why arent YOU excited about ai, America? Are you unpatriotic? Its exciting!!”
Fuck that noise.
Edit: Lest anyone think I’m a luddite opposed to ai; I know it has some immense potential positives for humanity. I also know it carries massive risks for all of us and I have zero faith in men like Musk, Sachs, Altman, trump and his sons, and this entire cabal to look out for anyone’s interests but their own. They have given us no reason to trust them. Eventually we have to start looking out for ourselves. Fuck em.
cassanderer on
Too bad establishment dems are beholden to tech, they will not do anything of note even if they could. It is why they lose.
marlinspike on
What is the Progressive plan for Energy, because I think that is the critical area of concern. We aren’t building enough energy production for a variety of reasons, and there’s blame to share across parties. We should have been building Nuclear and Small Modular reactors. We should have been building more wind and solar.
We should be building a whole lot more than we are.
dlc741 on
There was a huge propaganda push in this morning’s Gannett newspaper. One section talking about how awesome data centers are and another section talking about how amazing AI is. I threw-up a little in my mouth.
Optimoprimo on
LinkedIn is lousing with it
every-day_throw-away on
Don’t let em bamboozle you. AI is garbage and needs to highly regulated.
Separate-Spot-8910 on
the tech bros can go fuck themselves
[deleted] on
[deleted]
Actual__Wizard on
Cool man! From the people who didn’t value our democracy enough to stop the flood of election manipulating propaganda from foreign countries!
Now, they’re going to lie to us ever more!
Capable-Spinach10 on
Cant make this shit up 🤣 job creators right right
Antique_Grapefruit_5 on
They should be toxic to voters. We’re all going to be paying substantially more for electronics and electricity because of their uncontrolled growth. We’re doing that so that billionaires can become even richer and eliminate the jobs of millions, while simultaneously destroying farmland and increasing pollution. It’s stupid to support this.
Make it political suicide to allow these to happen. Not just to support it, but to not fight it all the way.
SkinnedIt on
They’re leeches. No surprise. Disinterest is where it’s at!
ericDXwow on
Yeah. Tech bros are sucking resources into their AI wet dream, causing layoffs and refusing UBI. Then asking “why everyone hates us?!?” Lol
oh_my316 on
Screw these stinking oligarchs 🖕
Raa03842 on
Yeah I love the guy (paid actor) who’s so happy that meta build a data center in his town so that he now has supposedly more time with his family. Of course he’ll need a second job to pay for the increased cost of electricity and will only hold that job until they figure out how to replace him with AI.
BayouBait on
Big Tech and their data centers can lick my balls.
Slap-Toast on
We need to prevent anymore from being built and destroy all the ones that have been built.
KnotSoSalty on
Why don’t they invest as much money into renewable energy as they do AI? In 2025 spending on data centers was 3x renewable energy, 210b$ vs 70b$.
If every data center was powered by new renewable energy and all of our power bills went down at the same time I’d change my opinion.
Ok_Astronomer_8667 on
Solidgoldmagikarp
NomadFH on
You know they could just do a profit sharing deal with their neighbors or simply subsidize the energy costs for their communities instead of doing the opposite.
Chrimaho on
The Meta ad for an AI center in Altoona or wherever, is on CONSTANTLY now.
Yah, good for you, you used to drive a truck and farm and are now stuck in a poisonous building all day.
Stupid ad and some simps will fall for the propaganda.
Ridiculous.
Y0___0Y on
I attended a city council meeting in a small town as part of my work and many residents showed up to this meeting to express their disapproval of an AI data center that was in early proposal stages.
Half the people were earnest and had strong arguments against the data center
The other half were Qanon kooks. A woman got up and said the Chinese are going to take over America with a robot army. One woman said dirty electricity causes autism. Lots of appeals to “think of the children”. One man brought up school shootings and said kids are scared to go to school, but with AI data centere near town, they will be scared to go home because of “light and noise pollution” and went in for two minutes about how children shouldn’t have to live in fear. What??
The conspiracy theorists are going to cripple public backlash against data centers. Big tech will just dimiss anyone who has a problem with them as whacky conspiracy theorists.
Kahnza on
I wonder how many bots big tech uses to try and sway peoples opinion to align with theirs? 🤔
khanempire on
Hard to blame locals when they see the costs but not the benefits.
MegaMaster1021 on
For people that love to claim AI is the future. They sure have to throw a lot of money around to convincing people it is.
Specialist_Heron_986 on
Unless NIMBYism wins, AI data centers in rural areas will be the 2030s equivalent of chemical plants and oil refineries near poor neighborhoods. Few will be aware or care unless they’re directly affected.
rkmkthe6th on
Cmon, society, can’t we all pull together and make AI work really well? So we can all get fired and a few tech companies get all the benefit?
Cosack on
It’s not about if they’ll build them, it’s at what price tag for local utility enhancements and sound proofing. No amount of propaganda makes someone want to live with water rationing or the sound of a swarm of locusts in their back yard
Daimakku1 on
There’s a Google data center being built near me. It’s a red state with all Republicans in here. They’re not going to do shit to stop it and I expect my electricity bills to go up because of it.
EmergencyRace7158 on
Lol this is like unscrambling an egg. Big tech has already shown its true intentions in the early days of the AI bubble – they want an unregulated shot at an AI oligopoly while pushing as much of the costs as they can on to everyone else. People struggling to meet basic needs are asked to pay more for everything just so that the wealthiest people in the world can become even richer. No amount of PR spin is going to change this perception. The next election cycle will be defined by regulating big tech, breaking them up and making them pay. You’re seeing politicians on both the left and right run on this. They flew too close to the sun and now they’ll burn.
genericnewlurker on
This is happening in my county. They got their toe hold in with one center approved in an abandoned industrial area and are trying to get the area to build in to doubled to where the data center will back up to a school and houses that bordered farmland, and to have floating zoning areas available for data centers wherever they want. It’s extremely heavily opposed by the residents here. They had to add more meetings on it because there were too many people signed up to speak out against it.
On top of this, there is a fight because the power company wants to run high voltage power lines from Pennsylvania down to Virginia for the data centers there and are cutting through areas with a lot of agri-tourism. And the biggest problem of all is that the electrical customers in Maryland are going to be expected to pay for these electrical lines that do nothing to benefit us.
Yet we get near daily flyers in the mail, targeted ads on YouTube, and a whole lot of astroturfing online about supporting this crap. The same lies about how it will bring hundreds of jobs to the area, which is a huge lie, and it will supposedly make the county better. Despite overwhelming opposition by the people who live in these areas, the mood is that the politicians on the county council will sell us out for the tax money, after watching the county to the south of us in Virginia get choked to death with data centers for the tax revenue.
Practical-Positive34 on
Once these are built the construction work vanishes, that’s the only things that props up the local community. These data centers do usually give some money to the local counties but it’s usually not much
knotatumah on
Doesn’t surprise me. An entire enterprise aimed at replacing your jobs, takes your information, is needlessly shoved into your face in everything, and each new data center gets your tax dollars, your power while raising power rates, and sucking up your water. Its a net negative for everybody *except* the company.
UnknwnUser on
Fucking Eddington was prophetic
mowotlarx on
Good news for them, most elected officials (any party) care more about what corporations and donors want than their own voters. That’s why we end up with a bunch of casinos and fracking on one hand and school lunch and crippling medical debt for normal people on the other.
AintEverLucky on
I must have missed a memo sometime after the pandemic. The internet has been utterly **awash** with data for decades as it is. So why, just in the last 5 years or less, do we suddenly need SO MUCH MORE data infrastructure?? 🤔
Hour_Ordinary_4175 on
They got the TV, we got the truth
They own the judges and we got the proof
We got hella people, they got helicopters
They got the bombs and we got the, we got the
We got the guillotine
We got the guillotine, you better run.
Big-Meeting-6224 on
It’s been obvious there’s a campaign being waged on reddit, which has been dialed up in just the past week or so.
panic_talking on
We should not be developing these centers before AI proves itself.
roodammy44 on
We’re going to steal the world’s IP, make your computers expensive, double your power bills, take your town’s water, pollute your air, take your jobs and we’re not gonna pay tax. But you’re gonna support us, right?
SillyAlternative420 on
The US has so much empty, rural, private land that can be used for this. Why bring it close to cities to exploit their resources?
Bmorgan1983 on
Every time I see the Meta ad about opening up a datacenter and creating all these jobs in a small rural town, I laugh. There will be a short term boom in construction and then everyone leaves with the exception of maybe a dozen or so datacenter techs. They’re largely there, and on call, to replace failing hardware or address other mechanical issues with the building.
mortalcoil1 on
They are also literally toxic to your town’s water supply.
45 Comments
As voters across the country begin to rally against the unchecked construction of data centers, artificial intelligence companies are panicking and investing millions into propaganda to paint the energy-sucking facilities in a more positive light.
By 2030, the amount of energy demanded by US data centers is expected to more than double, according to the International Energy Agency.
Energy costs have spiked considerably in the states with the most data centers. And as the industry continues its breakneck expansion, one watchdog report found that consumers on America’s largest electric grid are expected to pay hundreds of dollars more to meet increased power demand from now until 2027.
These costs became an unexpected point of emphasis for Democrats in November, whose calls for greater transparency from tech companies seeking to build data centers propelled them to victory in elections from New Jersey to Virginia.
But tech companies want to keep building, and as AI threatens to become a central villain of the 2026 midterm elections, Politico reports that companies are putting the wheels in motion to portray themselves “as job creators and economic drivers rather than resource-hungry land hogs.”
And now its time for voters to ramp up their propaganda to defund the billionaires
I’m already seeing it.
“China is ENTHUSIASTIC about ai…. THEY’RE WINNING… why arent YOU excited about ai, America? Are you unpatriotic? Its exciting!!”
Fuck that noise.
Edit: Lest anyone think I’m a luddite opposed to ai; I know it has some immense potential positives for humanity. I also know it carries massive risks for all of us and I have zero faith in men like Musk, Sachs, Altman, trump and his sons, and this entire cabal to look out for anyone’s interests but their own. They have given us no reason to trust them. Eventually we have to start looking out for ourselves. Fuck em.
Too bad establishment dems are beholden to tech, they will not do anything of note even if they could. It is why they lose.
What is the Progressive plan for Energy, because I think that is the critical area of concern. We aren’t building enough energy production for a variety of reasons, and there’s blame to share across parties. We should have been building Nuclear and Small Modular reactors. We should have been building more wind and solar.
We should be building a whole lot more than we are.
There was a huge propaganda push in this morning’s Gannett newspaper. One section talking about how awesome data centers are and another section talking about how amazing AI is. I threw-up a little in my mouth.
LinkedIn is lousing with it
Don’t let em bamboozle you. AI is garbage and needs to highly regulated.
the tech bros can go fuck themselves
[deleted]
Cool man! From the people who didn’t value our democracy enough to stop the flood of election manipulating propaganda from foreign countries!
Now, they’re going to lie to us ever more!
Cant make this shit up 🤣 job creators right right
They should be toxic to voters. We’re all going to be paying substantially more for electronics and electricity because of their uncontrolled growth. We’re doing that so that billionaires can become even richer and eliminate the jobs of millions, while simultaneously destroying farmland and increasing pollution. It’s stupid to support this.
Make it political suicide to allow these to happen. Not just to support it, but to not fight it all the way.
They’re leeches. No surprise. Disinterest is where it’s at!
Yeah. Tech bros are sucking resources into their AI wet dream, causing layoffs and refusing UBI. Then asking “why everyone hates us?!?” Lol
Screw these stinking oligarchs 🖕
Yeah I love the guy (paid actor) who’s so happy that meta build a data center in his town so that he now has supposedly more time with his family. Of course he’ll need a second job to pay for the increased cost of electricity and will only hold that job until they figure out how to replace him with AI.
Big Tech and their data centers can lick my balls.
We need to prevent anymore from being built and destroy all the ones that have been built.
Why don’t they invest as much money into renewable energy as they do AI? In 2025 spending on data centers was 3x renewable energy, 210b$ vs 70b$.
If every data center was powered by new renewable energy and all of our power bills went down at the same time I’d change my opinion.
Solidgoldmagikarp
You know they could just do a profit sharing deal with their neighbors or simply subsidize the energy costs for their communities instead of doing the opposite.
The Meta ad for an AI center in Altoona or wherever, is on CONSTANTLY now.
Yah, good for you, you used to drive a truck and farm and are now stuck in a poisonous building all day.
Stupid ad and some simps will fall for the propaganda.
Ridiculous.
I attended a city council meeting in a small town as part of my work and many residents showed up to this meeting to express their disapproval of an AI data center that was in early proposal stages.
Half the people were earnest and had strong arguments against the data center
The other half were Qanon kooks. A woman got up and said the Chinese are going to take over America with a robot army. One woman said dirty electricity causes autism. Lots of appeals to “think of the children”. One man brought up school shootings and said kids are scared to go to school, but with AI data centere near town, they will be scared to go home because of “light and noise pollution” and went in for two minutes about how children shouldn’t have to live in fear. What??
The conspiracy theorists are going to cripple public backlash against data centers. Big tech will just dimiss anyone who has a problem with them as whacky conspiracy theorists.
I wonder how many bots big tech uses to try and sway peoples opinion to align with theirs? 🤔
Hard to blame locals when they see the costs but not the benefits.
For people that love to claim AI is the future. They sure have to throw a lot of money around to convincing people it is.
Unless NIMBYism wins, AI data centers in rural areas will be the 2030s equivalent of chemical plants and oil refineries near poor neighborhoods. Few will be aware or care unless they’re directly affected.
Cmon, society, can’t we all pull together and make AI work really well? So we can all get fired and a few tech companies get all the benefit?
It’s not about if they’ll build them, it’s at what price tag for local utility enhancements and sound proofing. No amount of propaganda makes someone want to live with water rationing or the sound of a swarm of locusts in their back yard
There’s a Google data center being built near me. It’s a red state with all Republicans in here. They’re not going to do shit to stop it and I expect my electricity bills to go up because of it.
Lol this is like unscrambling an egg. Big tech has already shown its true intentions in the early days of the AI bubble – they want an unregulated shot at an AI oligopoly while pushing as much of the costs as they can on to everyone else. People struggling to meet basic needs are asked to pay more for everything just so that the wealthiest people in the world can become even richer. No amount of PR spin is going to change this perception. The next election cycle will be defined by regulating big tech, breaking them up and making them pay. You’re seeing politicians on both the left and right run on this. They flew too close to the sun and now they’ll burn.
This is happening in my county. They got their toe hold in with one center approved in an abandoned industrial area and are trying to get the area to build in to doubled to where the data center will back up to a school and houses that bordered farmland, and to have floating zoning areas available for data centers wherever they want. It’s extremely heavily opposed by the residents here. They had to add more meetings on it because there were too many people signed up to speak out against it.
On top of this, there is a fight because the power company wants to run high voltage power lines from Pennsylvania down to Virginia for the data centers there and are cutting through areas with a lot of agri-tourism. And the biggest problem of all is that the electrical customers in Maryland are going to be expected to pay for these electrical lines that do nothing to benefit us.
Yet we get near daily flyers in the mail, targeted ads on YouTube, and a whole lot of astroturfing online about supporting this crap. The same lies about how it will bring hundreds of jobs to the area, which is a huge lie, and it will supposedly make the county better. Despite overwhelming opposition by the people who live in these areas, the mood is that the politicians on the county council will sell us out for the tax money, after watching the county to the south of us in Virginia get choked to death with data centers for the tax revenue.
Once these are built the construction work vanishes, that’s the only things that props up the local community. These data centers do usually give some money to the local counties but it’s usually not much
Doesn’t surprise me. An entire enterprise aimed at replacing your jobs, takes your information, is needlessly shoved into your face in everything, and each new data center gets your tax dollars, your power while raising power rates, and sucking up your water. Its a net negative for everybody *except* the company.
Fucking Eddington was prophetic
Good news for them, most elected officials (any party) care more about what corporations and donors want than their own voters. That’s why we end up with a bunch of casinos and fracking on one hand and school lunch and crippling medical debt for normal people on the other.
I must have missed a memo sometime after the pandemic. The internet has been utterly **awash** with data for decades as it is. So why, just in the last 5 years or less, do we suddenly need SO MUCH MORE data infrastructure?? 🤔
They got the TV, we got the truth
They own the judges and we got the proof
We got hella people, they got helicopters
They got the bombs and we got the, we got the
We got the guillotine
We got the guillotine, you better run.
It’s been obvious there’s a campaign being waged on reddit, which has been dialed up in just the past week or so.
We should not be developing these centers before AI proves itself.
We’re going to steal the world’s IP, make your computers expensive, double your power bills, take your town’s water, pollute your air, take your jobs and we’re not gonna pay tax. But you’re gonna support us, right?
The US has so much empty, rural, private land that can be used for this. Why bring it close to cities to exploit their resources?
Every time I see the Meta ad about opening up a datacenter and creating all these jobs in a small rural town, I laugh. There will be a short term boom in construction and then everyone leaves with the exception of maybe a dozen or so datacenter techs. They’re largely there, and on call, to replace failing hardware or address other mechanical issues with the building.
They are also literally toxic to your town’s water supply.