Taylor Lorenz
@taylorlorenz.bsky.social
Subscribe to my tech and online culture newsletter UserMag.co Listen/watch Power User podcast on all platforms!! Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz
If you read one piece today make it @mollytaft.com's excellent new piece out on the politics of data centers
How Data Centers Broke American Politics
What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.
wired.com
Right now @cosmepolitics.bsky.social is interviewing @taylorlorenz.bsky.social about KOSA, tech oligarchs, and how to keep free speech truly free in this age of corruption.
John Lithium@johnlithium.bsky.social · 18h agowww.youtube.com/live/aRO1hEz... via @thisspacetv.bsky.social @cosmepolitics.bsky.social w/ @devilsadvocatec.bsky.social currently on deck. #leftisbest
Oh my god the dietician who is telling everyone in the White House to only eat steak and sauerkraut doesn't wipe his ass.
"Until the deeper cultural problems are addressed, the data center backlash will only recreate itself in other forms. If people are this angry at a building sitting and paying taxes on unused land, something deep has gone very wrong."
No Data Centers In My Backyard
money, power, and populism in the AI buildout
jasmi.news
33k people are cancelling me on Threads and I’ve been trending for 2 days straight bc I said that Minnesota’s AI nudification law is bad and has serious first amendment concerns, meaning xAI is actually right to try to get it overturned: www.bedrockprinciple.com/p/minnesotas...
progressives trust what feels true; conservatives trust what they want to be true. both are big problems.
Indeed. Because many, many people don't do their homework when something 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙨 true. heritageaction.com/press/herita... www.heritage.org/press/herita...
Heritage Applauds Advancement of Kids Online Safety Act
WASHINGTON— Heritage Action Executive Vice President Ryan Walker and Heritage Foundation Tech Policy Center Director Kara Frederick released the following…
heritageaction.com
No. Centrists and right wingers do not claim to be against mass surveillance, they are not fundamentally ideologically opposed to it. Leftists claim to be opposed to mass surveillance, yet continually back surveillance laws. That's why I call them out. They are supposed to be OPPOSED to this stuff
vincentvecchione.bsky.social@vincentvecchione.bsky.social · 7d agoCan you please stop doing that thing where you single out the "the left" when you are absolutely smart enough to know it's worse with centrists and right-wingers?
Yes, but important to note that Biden did the same thing. Biden removed all protections and admin said the vulnerable would “fall by the wayside” and be killed off and that was necessary basically. It’s bc of Biden liberals & leftists unmasked and bought into Trump’s disease denialism to this day
Mehdi Hasan@mehdirhasan.bsky.social · last wk.Hey, remember when Fauci privately told a reporter on Feb 7th 2020 that Covid was "more deadly than even your strenuous flus... This is deadly stuff" but then told a public press conference on Feb 27th 2020: "This is a flu. This is like a flu"? Oh wait! That was... Donald Trump.
As usual, Kathryn explains in more detail and with much more patience, the issues related to the Minnesota law and why the lawsuit against it is (at the same time) gross, problematic... but legally correct.
Kathryn Tewson@kathryntewson.bsky.social · 7d agoOK! I have read the complaint in the "Grok (OK, fine, xAI) (OK, fine, SpaceX) sues Minnesota over obscene deepfake law" lawsuit, and I'm here to break it down. Link to the complaint below, so you can follow along. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
It's for a teenage girl who doesn't know what the name is for the feelings she has and is so happy to discover that queer means you don't have to fit in a box. It's for someone who needs to hear that the violence they experienced is not their fault, and the fears it unleashed aren't theirs to hold.
Taylor Lorenz@taylorlorenz.bsky.social · 3w agoHere's who online anonymity is for. expression.fire.org/p/in-defense...
If you only read one of them (and you should read all of them before you post about the issue), make it this one. www.jmir.org/2024/1/e59585
Ten Myths About the Effect of Social Media Use on Well-Being
This viewpoint reviews the empirical evidence regarding the association between social media use and well-being, including life satisfaction and affective well-being, and the association between socia...
jmir.org
I am tired of pasting dozens of links at people, so I've loaded a bunch of the papers into Paperpile and exported a bibliography. You can find a collection of 34 papers on social media's effects on teenagers (and sometimes adults) and alternate hypotheses here: paperpile.com/shared/smMqS...
20 shared papers
Hall JA Ten myths about the effect of social media use on well-being J. Med. Internet Res. • Dissing AS et al. Smartphone interactions and mental well-being in young adults: A longitudinal study based...
paperpile.com
Yup. People, especially on the left, simply do not want to engage with facts or reality. It’s easier to spout Heritage foundation talking points
rahaeli@rahaeli.bsky.social · 4mo agoEvery time I make the (correct) statement that social media use is not universally bad for teenagers, or state that the best consensus is that it's beneficial-to-neutral for many and any negative effects are a small subset of teenagers, people demand citations (and then refuse to believe them, sigh)
Every time I make the (correct) statement that social media use is not universally bad for teenagers, or state that the best consensus is that it's beneficial-to-neutral for many and any negative effects are a small subset of teenagers, people demand citations (and then refuse to believe them, sigh)
Tune in to conversations with EFF's lawyers, activists, and technologists with the EFFector podcast! This week we're chatting with EFF Senior Policy Analyst Joe Mullin on what would happen to the open internet if the KIDS Act becomes law. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
🚫 Don't Let Congress Age-Gate the Internet | EFFector 38.13
The effort to age gate the internet is back in Washington—and now it has a new name. Recently passed by the House of Representatives, the KIDS Act is a sprawling package of proposals to control what
eff.org
Gift link. This matters quite a bit for media. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/t...
How Google’s A.I. Search Is Imperiling the Open Web (Gift Article)
As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.
nytimes.com
Data & Society@datasociety.bsky.social · 2w agoAs web searches are increasingly performed by AI chatbots, the number of people visiting websites is falling. It's a change that poses a serious threat to the open web. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/t...
Excited to be here in SF at TrustCon!! If you’re working in the online safety space please come say hi!!! 👋
A rural New York school district has teamed up with a crypto/sex doll company to deploy a "lifelike" robot and avatar teaching assistant in the classroom this fall.
Rural NY School To Launch Humanoid Robot Teacher
Plans to deploy a "lifelike" robot and avatar teaching assistant at Salamanca High School have sparked debate over the role of technology in schools.
nysfocus.com
congrats to all the liberal anti-mask covid minimizers who bought into reactionary propaganda instead of facing the reality that we're looking at a future in which masking becomes a regular part of everyday life thanks to climate collapse
The only research center in the United States focused on disabled parents may close soon due to loss of federal funding. New from me at @motherjones.com. “It is a profound setback for disability rights and family equity.” www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
The only research center for disabled parents is losing federal funding
Staff call it a "profound setback for disability rights and family equity."
motherjones.com
Rolling up to a pickup game with this and getting the shit kicked out of me
"PEN America isn't alone in conflating government censorship with boycotts, and muddying the specific political project of BDS; media coverage of the report and Mengestu's resignation has credulously accepted the organization's framing."
PEN America's "Silent Moratorium" Prompts Very Loud Criticism | Defector
PEN America president Dinaw Mengestu resigned from his position this past Thursday after the troubled free-expression organization published a report reaffirming its opposition to cultural boycotts. T...
defector.com
“Social media is ‘one of the least influential factors’ in teen depression and anxiety; girls who are already depressed go on to use social media more, not the other way around.”
‘Social media bans are likely to make things worse’: psychologist Candice Odgers on kids, tech and mental health
She has studied adolescent mental health for 25 years and fears the debate obscures some of the biggest issues facing teenagers – from the impact of Covid to the health of their adult caregivers
theguardian.com
