About the secret industry everyone should know about because it’s trying to manipulate everyone for the benefit of a few.
Notes, references, transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/the-conquest-of-everything-via-pr
References:
The Town with Matthew Belloni - “The Secret Industry That Makes Movies Go Viral - June 18, 2026 • 36 min “It’s tricky because it’s the studios’ marketing departments that usually hire outside marketing departments. And then these other outside marketing departments then hire the clipping shops. And so then the clipping shops go into the discord service and hire freelance regular people to actually do the work. And so between the clips and the studio you have 4 layers of plausible deniability.”
The Messenger Gets Shot · episode 002 psych grind Dec 12, 2025 MATT STRACKBEIN “Which is why it’s ironic when these same people essentially, shooting the messenger also wonder, why wasn’t I told about this?” CHLOE HUMBERT “Yes, it’s frustrating. I’ve been in situations where I’ve tried to warn people over and over again not to trust some online account, trying to show them evidence that the account is inauthentic. And then there would be times that finally things would go too far and everybody would act like they were shocked. Yeah. People get attached to influencers to the point where they start defending them. So there’s like this level of denial and motivated reasoning. People even become vindictive sometimes. Sometimes people go back to the bad actor or the con artist or the snake oil salesperson or whatever. The person who deceived them. you know, or otherwise gave them bad information. And they end up telling that person, hey, I’ve been warned about you. of course, the bad actor is going to say, well, who’s making that accusation against me? And then they tell them. Then the person who’s tried to warn people gets put on like a shit list and And often these bad actors are not acting alone. They have both people who are in on the deception, and they have fans and followers who have been cultivated and convinced to stan to be loyal, fiercely loyal. So you know what happens then. Once all the stands and fans are informed, there’s a critic.” MATT STRACKBEIN “More lawfare and more online dogpiles.” CHLOE HUMBERT “Most of the time, they just mention it to their fans and followers who then go after the person. So there’s a plausible deniability for the bad actor. Though in recent years, people haven’t bought that as much. We’re much more willing to hold people with large platforms accountable for inciting their loyal fans. But unless they’re on a ballot, apparently. But basically, they get to work smearing the person. They dogpile them on social media. They find people in their network and try to tell their friends or even their family members rumors or whatever. This is certainly not a new tactic, though. Back in the 60s, the automotive industry didn’t want to have to put seatbelts. or any safety features in cars. So what did they do? They went after Ralph Nader because he wrote a book called Unsafe at Any Speed, and that was published in 1965. And he was the face of the seatbelt law movement. He was an advocate. There was a legal case you could read from 1970 where it’s described Ralph Nader’s reports about attempted honey traps and how they approached his acquaintances to question them and, quote, cast aspersions.” MATT STRACKBEIN “I’ll read from the case, quote, specifically, the plaintiff alleges that the appellant agents conducted a series of interviews with acquaintances of the plaintiff, questioning them about and casting aspersions upon his political, social, racial and religious views. his integrity, his sexual proclivities and inclinations, and his personal habits, unquote. CHLOE HUMBERT: “Very unseemly.”
Don’t wait for the influencers. Don’t Wait For Everybody - Episode 010 Chloe Humbert Sep 21, 2024
The Feed Is Fake - That “viral” song, movie, meme, influencer, and celebrity drama was probably the product of a stealth marketing campaign. By Lane Brown, a features writer for New York Magazine. May 15, 2026 Why would someone as famous as Justin Bieber need clipping? The people I asked seemed touched by my naïveté. “Anyone who wants to go megaviral now, they need to pour fuel on the fire,” says Lim, who admits he has no specific knowledge of the campaign but knows there is so much spam and pretend hype on the internet that nothing cuts through without artificial help anymore, not even huge artists with real audiences. Keith Presley, the co-founder of Gudea, a behavioral-intelligence firm that uses AI to track the sources of viral phenomena, put it more broadly: “I don’t know if we’ve found a true viral trend in a while. All of them are going to have some sort of inauthentic behavior behind them.”
Marketplace Jun 4, 2026 Your social media feed is probably full of stealth advertisments by Kai Ryssdal and Sean McHenry “When you’re scrolling, chances are most of the things you’re seeing are actually stealth paid advertisements,” said Lane Brown at New York Magazine. “You have no idea they are ads, but they are.”
Detroit Today: Author Sarah Kendzior explains why misinformation spreads so easily - August 22, 2023 She says lack of access to good information can contribute to the spread of bad information. “When well-researched investigative reporting is hidden behind a paywall, you’re going to end up with a population that — even if they’re making their best attempts to find the truth — is going to have a very difficult job doing so,” Kendzior explains.
Project Hazelnut, RTK emails revealed PA govt + AWS coverup. Don’t Wait For Everybody - Episode 038 Chloe Humbert May 03, 2026 This email from Rick Seiger is going to Ben Kirshner. According to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania government website, quote, Benjamin Kirshner serves as the inaugural Chief Transformation and Opportunity Officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania unquote. And then it goes on to say that, quote, Prior to his current role, Mr. Kirshner founded Elite SEM in 2004, which later became Tinuiti, an esteemed leader in digital performance marketing. The Tinuiti LinkedIn page says it’s, quote, Largest independent full-funnel marketing agency in the U.S. across the media that matters most, unquote.
Office of Transformation & Opportunity About the CTO Ben Kirshner, Chief Transformation Officer Benjamin Kirshner serves as the inaugural Chief Transformation and Opportunity Officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Prior to his current role Mr. Kirshner founded Elite SEM in 2004, which later became Tinuiti — an esteemed leader in digital performance marketing. Under his leadership, the agency boasted an average compound annual growth rate of 50% from inception until its acquisition by Mountaingate Capital in 2017. Following this, the company expanded through the acquisition of three additional agencies, growing to a workforce of over 700 employees by 2020, and was subsequently acquired by New Mountain Capital. Presently, Tinuiti employs over 1,200 professionals across the United States. Mr. Kirshner’s innovative approach to corporate culture has earned widespread acclaim, securing accolades such as the foremost workplace for Millennials in the USA — a recognition featured on the Today Show — and top rankings in Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Best Company to Work For, and Crain’s. In 2018, he was ranked the 12th Best CEO in the U.S. by Glassdoor. Prior to his appointment to the Shapiro Administration, Mr. Kirshner taught digital marketing at Harvard Business School as an instructor for second-year MBA students.
Don’t blame the messenger. Don’t Wait For Everybody - Episode 015 Chloe Humbert Dec 27, 2024
Florida Realtors - August 30, 2024 Your Guide to Becoming an Influencer Analyzing consumer behavior, you’ll notice that influencers create a sense of community around a brand. When influencers engage with their audience, they’re not just promoting products; they’re fostering relationships. This emotional connection drives loyalty.
TribalGrowth - 7 Best Marketplaces To Buy & Sell Social Media Accounts (Ranked). by John Gordon Social Tradia, Instagram. The Toronto-based firm boasts an easy-to-use website that categorizes accounts for sale based on niche and number of followers. One of the best things about this marketplace is that all transactions are carried out over well-established payment portals.
sami sage says Live with sami sage - sami sage and Frazz - Apr 11, 2026
The Jammers · episode 004 psych grind Chloe Humbert and The Letterhack Jan 10, 2026 Matt “This is from a 2023 Twitter thread by Alistair McAlpine, M.D. Quote, We’ve all wondered why scientists or M.D.’ ‘s turn. How respective folk can find themselves deep in the anti-vax community. It’s a decidedly simple but dangerous and malicious process. Below is a thread on how people become red-pilled. Imagine you’re a YouTuber and you think you explain science well. Imagine you’ve built a loyal following on mostly reliable stuff and get 50,000-ish views per video. Now imagine you dip your toe into contrarian waters. There’s this new drug, ivermectin. One, you read a meta-analysis, which is favorable, and you have on your show an enthusiastic guest with all the right qualifications. This seems legit. Could this work? Is science missing out on something big? Have you stumbled onto the cure for COVID-19? Two, suddenly 700,000 views. With those extra views comes a significant bump in revenue. You’re now earning fairly substantial amounts. You go back to the fuddy mainstream stuff and interest in your videos tanks. You’re back to 50,000 again and minimal cash. And so, three, you once again do something controversial. You start wondering about the vaccine. Views skyrocket. People in the comments are telling you what an extraordinary truth seeker you are. What a great mind, unquote.” Chloe “Even the indirect payments where people don’t really know where it’s coming from, it’s influential. And if doctors get pulled into that, imagine what... the working-class YouTuber from some small town in the Midwest where a few hundred dollars a month for a few months can change somebody’s life.”
AI Grifters Are Making Anti-Data Center Slop With AI Matthew Gault · Jun 1, 2026 at 9:49 AM
Quinn’s using AI for flyer generation - Stop Archbald Data Centers · June 10 at 10:57 PM
Ketan Joshi - Linkedin - June 2026 I’m hearing more and more of climate, sustainability and environment orgs with expensive Anthropic or Google AI subscriptions. Anthropic and Google are both relying on data centre capacity from xAI, a company running illegal gas plants to power this obscene, Bitcoin-style energy waste. To be blunt: I don’t think the climate movement has ever been so direct a participant in illegal fossil fuel infrastructure expansion. Truly, I don’t think there’s any precedent for what is happening here. These organisations are choosing to subscribe to a new form of software so bloated with inefficiency that companies like Anthropic and Google cannot continue without desperately turning to illegally built fossil fuel plants that need to be propped up by fascist governments - very specifically a shocking example of environmental racism, too. It bothers me a lot. I think it’s a nightmare of moral and purpose collapse.
The GameStop Cult: An Untold Story James Jani Premiered Sep 25, 2024
Speech by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island, May 27, 2021 - The Scheme 1: The Powell Memo Powell recommended a propaganda effort staffed with scholars and speakers, a propaganda effort to which American business should devote “10 percent of its total advertising budget,’” including an effort to review and critique textbooks, especially in economics, political science, and sociology. “National television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance,” he said. Corporate America should aggressively insist on the right to be heard, on “equal time,” and corporate America should be ready to deploy, and I am quoting him here, “whatever degree of pressure — publicly and privately — may be necessary.” This would be “a long road,” Powell warned, “and not for the fainthearted.” In his section entitled “The Neglected Political Arena,” Powell recommended using political influence to stem “the stampedes by politicians to support any legislation related to `consumerism’ or to the `environment.’” And, yes, Powell put the word “environment” in derogatory quote marks in the original. “Political power,” Powell wrote, “is necessary; … [it] must be assiduously cultivated; and … when necessary … must be used aggressively and with determination.” He concluded that “it is essential [to] be far more aggressive than in the past,” with “no hesitation to attack,” “not the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas,” and no “reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose” the corporate effort. In a nutshell, no holds barred.
Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. doi:10.1086/225469 Imagine, to begin with, a community completely partitioned into cliques, such that each person is tied to every other in his clique and to none outside. Community organization would be severely inhibited. Leafletting, radio announcements,or other methods could insure that everyone was aware of some nascent organization; but studies of diffusion and mass communication have shown that people rarely act on mass-media information unless it is also transmitted through personal ties (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Rogers 1962) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/225469
The Home Front podcast - Fascism, Modern Masculinity, and TikTok with Jonathan Buchwalter Feb 6, 2025 “For the Putin regime the state controlled media will actively contradict itself in the same broadcast and you will get um for example I was listening to a podcast uh where an expert on Russian propaganda was being interviewed and they described a plane crash where the plane crash was real and the dates and times presented were real but all of the news coverage is speculation about what happened where the facts of the issue beyond the absolute concrete facts like day and time they changed throughout the day where the same broadcasters would run different versions of events such that when you leave the the screen and you go and interact with people in the world you’re both only vaguely talking about the same event and this prevents the Russian population from really engaging with reality at all that they don’t know anything about what is happening around them”
Rick Wilson on Why Trump’s Ignoring Every Warning Sign Fast Politics w/ Molly Jong-Fast Apr 12, 2026
How the Creators Create with Maria Comstock The Home Front Apr 1, 2026
Honor the Earth - Understanding the Threat of Green Colonialism
Physicians for Social Responsibility PA A Slippery Slope: A New Data Centers Bill Could Strip Power Away from Pennsylvania Communities. Writer: Matthew Shorraw May 2, 2026 PSR PA Remains Opposed to HB 2151 House Bill 2151, a proposal aimed at guiding how municipalities regulate data centers, has now passed the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. While amendments were made during the legislative process, PSR PA remains opposed to this bill and urges the Pennsylvania State Senate not to advance it. If the state wants to help municipalities, it should provide neutral guidance and support, not a model ordinance embedded in law that could be used to pressure or challenge local decision-making. Communities deserve the freedom to adopt strong, protective standards without fear of legal retaliation or state interference. At first glance, HB 2151 may seem helpful. It offers what is described as a “model ordinance” to guide local governments as they respond to the rapid expansion of data centers. But in practice, this particular approach creates real risks for communities.
Wrecking Amendment (aka Poison Pill) - Wikipedia
Dialogue Earth - Solar power boom stokes disputes with communities in Brazil’s Caatinga. The growth in solar farms in the country’s north-east has led to criticism from traditional communities over impacts on landscapes and water in the Caatinga biome Lilian Caramel October 25, 2024 Health worker Deuziene da Silva has worked in the rural village of Pau de Leite in Malta, in the Paraíba hinterland, for more than two decades. In 2018, farmers leased out their land for the installation of a solar power plant, forcing out the smallholders that had been using it. As a result, dozens of families had to leave their homes and move to the city. “They are small farmers who used to live off the land and now live from small jobs on the outskirts,” Silva says. “They received a pittance in the cancellation of their contract with their bosses and they were displaced. “As if that wasn’t enough, we believe that the herbicide used to stop the bush from growing under the panels has contaminated the Arcoverde reservoir, which supplies Malta,” she adds.
Eric Schmidt Full Controversial Interview on AI Revolution (Former Google CEO) Aug 18, 2024 — Eric Schmidt: “I talked Sam Altman is a close friend he believes that it’s going to take about 300 billion maybe more I pointed out to him that I done the calculation on the amount of energy Acquired and I and I then in the spirit of full disclosure went to the White House on Friday and told them that we need to become best friends with Canada because Canada has really nice people helped invent AI and lots of Hydra power because we as a country do not have enough power to do this the alternative is to have the Arabs fund it and I like the Arabs personally uh spent lots of time there right but they’re not going to adhere to our national security rules whereas Canada and the US are part of a triumvirate it where we all agree.” Erik Brynjolfsson: “so these 300 billion data centers, electricity starts becoming the scarce resource.”
AI is BAD for the ENVIRONMENT w/ CHLOE HUMBERT! The Letterhack Streamed live on Apr 15, 2025
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app May 25, 2026 You thought religious leaders of organizations endowed with billions were gonna side with you rather than the dudes who are about to make billions with their IPOs? What I’ve learned in the nonprofit space is that all of these people you thought were independent from each other, hang out in the same places, Davos or a bunch of closed door meetings for the world’s power brokers. Leaders of corporations, foundations, entrenched religious institutions, they hear from each other much more so than anyone else. They’re all in the same echo chamber. It’s the same lesson I learned about academia and industry, Stanford and Silicon Valley being the same, etc. The only one who fights for your rights is you. Don’t look to anyone powerful to do that, they only respond to your pressure.
The world’s biggest problem? Powerful psychopaths. | Brian Klaas Big Think Jul 12, 2023
Jessica Misfire A Reiteration Red Herring Chloe Humbert · Jul 9, 2024 Social media success is built on rage, which for the influencer must be prioritized over truth and effective action, because that’s how social media works as a business model sadly. And Jessica is telling you to consume more of her content at best, and worse, providing enabling encouragement to voluminously unhealthy levels of social media use. She’s encouraging people to try to outshout the paid bots, troll farms, and billionaire funded PR. That level of social media engagement probably isn’t healthy for the people who actually get paid to do it as their job, never mind spending so much of your personal free time on social media. Only to still be outnumbered by the endless money of big money. Of course part of this is that we all want to be told our social media habits are okay, or even beneficial actually. But wishing it doesn’t make it true.
“The opposition to the data centers is overwhelming” May 11th, 2026 Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan in Pennsylvania, February 2026: “The opposition to the data centers is overwhelming. I’ve been hearing from literally hundreds and hundreds of my constituents throughout the county over the last several weeks, and I have serious concerns. When you look at the specific proposal that’s being bandied about tonight, the water consumption, the electricity consumption, it’s very, very concerning. And then when you look at what is happening around the country, specifically Georgia, there are really, really big problems with data centers.”
WVIA - Keystone Edition Data Centers: Deal or Dilemma? Season 2026 Episode 2
Lackawanna County Commissioners 2-18-26 ECTV Streamed live on Feb 18, 2026
People know what’s going on with data centers and that it’s bad, and of course it’s reasonable to want to stop it. May 10th, 2026 Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan in Pennsylvania, February 18th, 2026: “There are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who are lining the hallways, who are spending three to four hours at these public meetings. It’s not because they don’t know what’s going on. I sat and watched this ignorant, arrogant data center developer, who by the way wore a turtleneck, which for some reason annoyed me in the worst way. but he had this turtleneck and he was the most ignorant, arrogant person I had ever seen speak and a woman got up in Archibald and was asking this man questions and his response was don’t you use Google? Don’t you use Google? So let’s eviscerate all of the hundreds and thousands of acres of land in Lackawanna County so we can use Google, so we can help this guy make a billion dollars.”
Chris Kelly Opinion: Shapiro is ‘Patient Zero’ of ‘Data Center Virus’ By Chris Kelly | The Times-Tribune PUBLISHED: May 31, 2026 at 12:00 AM EDT | UPDATED: May 31, 2026 at 12:02 AM EDT Maybe the governor was cautious over concern that commenting on a specific project could spark legal action by the developer. OK, but Shapiro chose to visit a specific site threatened by a specific project. He got political use of the park as a symbol without insisting it be spared. The same is true of the governor’s “real concerns” for Archbald. Sentiment doesn’t pay the rent. Voters naturally viewed Shapiro’s unannounced visit as a photo-op using the park and the borough as props. As news of the visit spread, public outrage mushroomed. Antisocial media erupted with rage against Shapiro for “sneaking into town” and at Mullins for hosting him. In statewide cases of Data Center Virus this election cycle, Shapiro is “Patient Zero.” Standing beside him was bound to be unhealthy for Mullins, who is facing a grassroots write-in challenge from Stop Archbald Data Centers co-founder Tamara Misewicz-Healey.
Shapiro wants to incentivize data centers to be better neighbors. Will that work? by Kate Huangpu of Spotlight PA | March 9, 2026 During Shapiro’s budget address, he outlined that developers must “commit to bringing their own power generation” or pay for new generation they’ll need — a principle designed to assuage local concerns that data centers will siphon too much electricity from the grid and lead to higher costs and instability.
Team Pennsylvania Foundation About Leadership
Fox 56 Wolf - Council questions noise study for proposed Archbald power plant by Elizabeth Haikes Mon, June 22, 2026 at 11:16 PM Updated Tue, June 23, 2026 at 4:54 PM The project, proposed by Essential Energy LLC, would transform a roughly 17-acre site along Eynon Jermyn Road into a nearly 500,000-square-foot power generation facility capable of producing approximately 400 megawatts of electricity. The proposal is one piece of a much larger wave of development proposed throughout the borough, where six data center campuses totaling 51 buildings are also seeking approvals. Residents packed council chambers once again as borough officials continued conditional use hearings on the project.
Chris Kelly Opinion: Sound and Fury in Archbald By Chris Kelly | The Times-Tribune PUBLISHED: June 24, 2026 at 12:00 AM EDT | UPDATED: June 24, 2026 at 9:12 AM EDT “Attenuation” is one of many technical terms with which I’ve become grudgingly familiar over untold hours of “expert” testimony coughed up by a parade of paid apologists for the data center invasion. In the science of acoustics, attenuation describes “the muffling or dampening of sound waves as they travel through air or physical barriers.” Distance, trees, topography and structures serve as buffers that “attenuate” sound, theoretically softening the impacts of harmful noise. Attenuation is the opposite of amplification. Sounds good, but how does attenuation apply to sources of sound that are entirely speculative and as such may as well be imaginary? This ridiculous question was the underlying theme of Monday’s Archbald Borough Council hearing on Essential Energy LLC’s proposed 400-megawatt power plant next to Staback Park in Archbald. A crowd of about 200 gathered in the auditorium of Valley View High School (which at this point seems to have been built exclusively to host data center hearings) for testimony on how much or how little noise pollution the proposed plant would bring to one of the borough’s most peaceful public spaces. Acoustical engineer James D. Barnes presented a seven-page “preliminary sound study” that despite its airy contents landed with a thunderous thud. Council and residents who regularly attend these hearings are grudgingly familiar with “expert” testimony that offers scant detail and abundant insults to their intelligence, but Barnes’ testimony plumbed exciting new depths of futility. “This is insulting,” Councilwoman Lisa Osborne said, triggering raucous cheers that might have been heard at the proposed power plant site, less than a mile from the high school. Barnes’ report, which he described as a “paper study,” used computer modeling to show that the proposed power plant “could” meet borough zoning noise regulations. The “study” did not consider the equipment that would be used or its layout, which apparently remain unknown even to the witnesses tasked with selling the project. The “study” also didn’t include on-site measurements of ambient sound. Barnes didn’t consult with the borough’s acoustical consultant, which he said he might have done had he known the borough hired one. Due to its threadbare methodology, Barnes’ seven-page “paper study” isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. It was literally a sound study that signified nothing.
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Did Amazon just deliver a blow to Josh Shapiro’s White House dreams? As public revolts against data centers, emails expose cozy relationship between a tech giant and Pennsylvania’s governor. by Will Bunch | Columnist Published May 7, 2026, 4:09 p.m. ET At the same time Shapiro was promising stricter controls on new data centers in his 2026 budget address, the head of Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) wrote Amazon to reassure the giant retailer that new standards were only voluntary, and that the governor was “not proposing to ban or even discourage data centers or other large loads that don’t agree to implement them from siting here.” “When I see these emails, it’s like, ‘Boy, like I feel like I’m getting represented without any true representation in this matter right now,’” Wesner said. “Like, our state government is just rolling out the red carpet for this” — with no real say for everyday Pennsylvanians like him or his rural neighbors. Wesner and the so-far-successful crusade to keep Amazon and its AI facilities out of Montour County are the cutting edge of a coast-to-coast political revolution against big, noisy, water-and-electricity-sucking AI data centers. This uprising has shifted the ground under politicians like Shapiro, who originally gave a bear hug to Silicon Valley and its multibillion-dollar investments. The issue cuts especially hard for Shapiro because Pennsylvania — now the nation’s third-largest energy-producing state because of fracking, and crisscrossed by waterways — is ground zero for the big-money surge into data centers, with dozens up and running or nearly completed, with as many as 200 more on the drawing boards.
The Times-Tribune - Letter: State leaders behind data-center push PUBLISHED: June 12, 2026 at 10:00 AM EDT State leaders behind data-center push Editor: Gov. Josh Shapiro’s remarks were far too vague regarding the data centers planned in Archbald. The governor’s stubborn condition seems linked to him being on the board of Team Pennsylvania Foundation, which is partnered and fiscally sponsors the industry-led group AI Strike Team, which describes itself as advancing the AI industry. Team PA Foundation has a “public private partnership” and a long list of business people on the board. Top state agency leaders are also on the board, including the secretaries of the DEP, the Department of Education, Agriculture, Labor & Industry, and the DCED, along with elected state representatives Rep. Kyle Mullins, Sen. Amanda Cappelletti and Sen. Devlin Robinson. How could any of these people be trusted to regulate the industry while simultaneously acting in capacity with this organization that exists to facilitate industry? The Right to Know request emails reported in Will Bunch’s column in The Philadelphia Inquirer have revealed various Pennsylvania government officials acting as a concierge to Amazon. Every bill those lawmakers advance related to AI and data centers must be suspected of being written by AI Strike Team, including one Kyle Mullins is expected to introduce to “codify GRID.” Focus on the electric grid appears to be a decoy. U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan was pushing the idea that data center power demand will magically “unleash” affordability, when that doesn’t make sense. I know that “bringing their own power” means data centers with gas plants and diesel turbines right in neighborhoods in our valley, unleashing various and sundry pollution. All these officials must choose a side and step down from one or the other, because it’s a conflict of interest. They can’t stand on both sides and fully serve we the people. Chloe Humbert, Scranton
Citations Needed - Episode 239: The Vague, Capital-Serving Co-Optation of “Affordability” Politics | June 17, 2026 | Transcript Yeah, they have this very narrow idea of what a voter is. They don’t see voters as what they typically are, which is, you know, busy people who are curious and conflicted, who have complicated inner lives that can’t be measured in a focus group or a survey. Instead, they see them as consumers, right? And what do consumers want? They want to buy things, they want to hear a story about how the things that they might want to buy maps onto their personal narratives and preferences, and they want things to be cheaper. So, a lot of what we’re discussing here is also just about the conquest of politics by marketing and the logic of advertising and consumerism colonizing the political sphere, because of the influence of consultants.
Transcript:
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So I subscribe to a lot of podcasts and some I listen to a lot of the episodes
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and others I listen to just the topics I’m interested in.
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And if an episode title catches my eye, which...
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That should be a lesson to people who put out podcasts to put something descriptive
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and make sure you do a description because I might pass it over otherwise.
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So there’s this one podcast that I mostly listen to occasionally because they,
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it’s a podcast about Hollywood,
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but yeah,
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they cover the PR and advertising stuff sometimes and it’s called The Town.
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The episode for June 18,
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2026 is titled, quote, The Secret Industry That Makes Movies Go Viral, unquote.
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So, you know, this has caught my eye, of course.
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And it’s amazing to me that this is still a, quote, unquote, secret industry.
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Because I was talking about this in the early 2000s.
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I mean, I distinctly remember, you know, how...
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I remember talking about this on blogs and to friends and stuff
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who were getting online at the time and saying, listen...
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You know, these things that they say go viral, that doesn’t usually happen naturally.
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It’s not organic, is the point.
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And we’ve known this for decades now.
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I think, honestly, the word doesn’t get out because that’s deliberate.
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And it’s not deliberate in a way of where I think,
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you know,
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people are always necessarily being shadow banned on purpose,
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you know, specifically and individually.
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No,
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I think it’s more a confluence of things coming together because essentially people
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who do the boosting and do make things go viral aren’t going to push stuff
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that reveals them and their tricks.
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You see the inherent catch-22 there.
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The people who promote things aren’t going to promote someone exposing them
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as inauthentic, right?
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So that...
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is kind of a problem.
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But there’s also this culty nature to it, like a culty kind of thing that’s leveraged.
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And so the people pulling the strings leverage this,
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and then it kind of takes on a life of its own
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where other people are doing their bidding and get very defensive
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of their favorite influencers and stuff.
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And
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This is something we went over in Psychgrind,
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a podcast series I did with Matt Strachbein, The Letterhack cartoonist.
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And I’ll play a clip from that here from the first episode titled The Messenger Gets Shot.
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Which is why it’s ironic when these same people essentially,
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you know, shooting The Messenger also wonder, why wasn’t I told about this?
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Yes, it’s frustrating.
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I’ve been in situations where I’ve tried to warn people over and over again not
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to trust some online account,
(00:03:09.033):
trying to show them evidence that the account is inauthentic.
(00:03:12.295):
And then there would be times that finally things would go too far
(00:03:15.296):
and everybody would act like they were shocked.
(00:03:19.665):
But people get attached to influencers to the point where they start defending them. So there’s like this level of denial and motivated reasoning. People even become vindictive sometimes. Sometimes people go back to the bad actor or the con artist or the snake oil salesperson or whatever. The person who deceived them. you know, or otherwise gave them bad information.
(00:03:44.222):
And they end up telling that person, hey, I’ve been warned about you.
(00:03:48.989):
And of course the bad actor is going to say, well, who’s making that accusation against me?
(00:03:55.379):
And then they tell them.
(00:03:56.741):
Then the person who’s tried to warn people, gets put on like a shit list and And often these bad actors are not acting alone. They have both people who are in on the deception, and they have fans and followers who have been cultivated and convinced to stan to be loyal, fiercely loyal. So you know what happens then. Once all the stands and fans are informed there’s a critic.
(00:03:58.964):
More lawfare and more online dogpiles.
(00:04:24.674):
Most of the time they just mention it to their fans and followers who then go after the person.
(00:04:30.697):
So there’s a plausible deniability for the bad actor,
(00:04:34.760):
though in recent years people haven’t bought that as much.
(00:04:39.042):
We’re much more willing to hold people with large platforms accountable
(00:04:42.844):
for inciting their loyal fans, but unless they’re on a ballot apparently.
(00:04:49.148):
But basically, they get to work smearing the person.
(00:04:53.314):
They dogpile them on social media.
(00:04:55.237):
They find people in their network and try to tell their friends
(00:04:58.923):
or even their family members rumors or whatever.
(00:05:01.667):
This is certainly not a new tactic, though.
(00:05:04.630):
Back in the 60s,
(00:05:06.231):
the automotive industry didn’t want to have to put seatbelts or any safety features
(00:05:11.214):
in cars.
(00:05:12.014):
So what did they do?
(00:05:13.355):
They went after Ralph Nader because he wrote a book called Unsafe at Any Speed,
(00:05:18.158):
and that was published in 1965.
(00:05:22.500):
And he was the face of the seatbelt law movement.
(00:05:25.402):
He was an advocate.
(00:05:26.843):
There was
(00:05:27.963):
a legal case you can read from 1970 where it’s described Ralph Nader’s reports
(00:05:35.047):
about attempted honey traps and how they approached his acquaintances
(00:05:40.049):
to question them and, quote, cast aspersions.
(00:05:44.884):
I’ll read from the case.
(00:05:46.805):
Quote, I’ll read from the case, quote, specifically, the plaintiff alleges that the appellant agents conducted a series of interviews with acquaintances of the plaintiff, questioning them about and casting aspersions upon his political, social, racial and religious views. his integrity, his sexual proclivities and inclinations, and his personal habits, unquote.
(00:06:13.458):
very unseemly.
(00:06:18.547):
And sure, it’s not new.
(00:06:19.669):
I don’t know if, you know...
(00:06:23.828):
This will go on forever, maybe.
(00:06:25.870):
And maybe this is an ironic coincidence,
(00:06:28.692):
but I should have heard about this article by Lane Brown at New York Magazine
(00:06:32.795):
before June 18th episode of the Hollywood genre podcast, The Town.
(00:06:39.701):
And that’s because and that’s because it was on Marketplace Podcast,
(00:06:43.464):
an interview with Lane Brown from June 4th, 2026, but this wasn’t in my feed.
(00:06:48.809):
And I subscribed to the Marketplace Podcast and...
(00:06:54.088):
I went back and I even searched the podcast subscriptions,
(00:06:58.613):
not just the Marketplace All-in-One,
(00:07:00.895):
where you can get all of the podcasts of Marketplace All-in-One.
(00:07:04.018):
I searched all of the separate Marketplace podcasts,
(00:07:07.542):
and it was not put out in the RSS feeds coming from Marketplace
(00:07:12.788):
This particular segment wasn’t in any of them.
(00:07:16.993):
So you would have only heard this if it happened to be played on a radio
(00:07:20.037):
on some NPR station that picked that segment up,
(00:07:23.361):
or if you go listen to the Marketplace podcast on their website.
(00:07:26.926):
And who does that?
(00:07:28.654):
Who does that?
(00:07:29.294):
Other than if you just get it linked to it from another podcast like I’m going to in
(00:07:35.456):
the show notes.
(00:07:36.776):
So the podcast description of the Marketplace segment,
(00:07:40.117):
which was a short interview with the author of that New York Magazine piece,
(00:07:47.599):
The marketplace segment is titled,
(00:07:49.400):
Your Social Media Feed is Probably Full of Stealth Advertisements.
(00:07:53.342):
And the description of this interview reads, quote,
(00:07:56.824):
When you’re scrolling,
(00:07:58.184):
chances are most things you’re seeing are actually stealth paid advertisements,
(00:08:02.727):
said Lane Brown at New York Magazine.
(00:08:05.648):
You have no idea they are ads, but they are, unquote.
(00:08:09.830):
So the episode of The Town with Matthew Belloni
(00:08:13.353):
is titled The Secret Industry That Makes Movies Go Viral.
(00:08:16.938):
And this is from June 18th, 2026.
(00:08:20.162):
The episode description says, quote,
(00:08:22.045):
Matt is joined by journalist Lane Brown from New York Magazine
(00:08:25.329):
to discuss his latest article digging into the insidious world of online clipping and narrative campaigning
(00:08:29.513):
Lane explains how virality and popularity are manufactured and engineered
(00:08:37.195):
to resemble the improvised enthusiasm of human strangers.
(00:08:43.156):
The companies behind these simulated trends,
(00:08:45.657):
which movies, shows, bands, and viral moments were influenced by these tactics.
(00:08:50.618):
How prevalent this is in the media, how AI will play a role, and what to expect in the future. Unquote.
(00:08:57.003):
And they even discuss how there were bots on either side of
(00:09:00.385):
the Bad Bunny Super Bowl controversy feeding the hype.
(00:09:03.706):
Like there were, you know, Bad Bunny is bad, Bad Bunny is good.
(00:09:07.508):
Oh, how, you know, people are mad about Bad Bunny.
(00:09:11.009):
And it was largely just a hype engine.
(00:09:14.571):
And, you know, it got me because I think that that Bad Bunny...
(00:09:20.609):
That Super Bowl half show is probably the only one I’ve ever seen,
(00:09:25.132):
like I’ve ever watched in my life, probably.
(00:09:28.334):
And one of the things I’d like to point out here is that the New York Magazine piece
(00:09:34.258):
by Lane Brown is behind a paywall.
(00:09:37.540):
So a lot of these things wind up behind paywalls.
(00:09:42.483):
And I just think of how Sarah Kendzior had said something like, you know, all of the
(00:09:48.367):
important information is behind paywalls and all the disinformation
(00:09:52.910):
and propaganda is free and yeah because that’s how it works if you want people
(00:09:57.773):
to get the information you wouldn’t put it behind a paywall but all of the you know
(00:10:02.256):
the very important information is behind paywall now there’s ways
(00:10:06.238):
to you know find it outside the paywall I mean the Lane Brown article if you try but
(00:10:12.862):
the point being that you know it’s not going to be seen by everybody
(00:10:18.611):
And in this podcast interview,
(00:10:22.055):
I thought this was a very pertinent and important thing that I’ve been trying
(00:10:27.460):
to explain for ages about how these are indirect influence operations.
(00:10:34.988):
It’s always like an indirect.
(00:10:36.830):
It’s never, oh...
(00:10:39.105):
This person is paying directly to have this hyped,
(00:10:42.510):
and here you could draw a direct line and see the money trail.
(00:10:45.875):
It’s too many layers beyond that to be able to do that.
(00:10:50.522):
And in the podcast, Lane Brown says, quote, It’s tricky because it’s the studios’ marketing departments that usually hire outside marketing departments. And then these other outside marketing departments then hire the clipping shops. And so then the clipping shops go into the discord service and hire freelance regular people to actually do the work.
(00:10:54.307):
And so between the clips and the studio
(00:10:55.747):
you have 4 layers of plausible deniability unquote
(00:11:20.554):
So yeah,
(00:11:21.455):
this is how I’ve been trying to explain this for ages,
(00:11:24.477):
how just like politicians get supported by super PACs that aren’t,
(00:11:30.182):
ostensibly aren’t coordinating with the campaign,
(00:11:32.824):
but they actually are kind of, but with the legal deniability.
(00:11:37.087):
So a person or an operation or an industry looking to do PR marketing
(00:11:42.572):
or even spread disinformation or, you know, even a government actor, that entity is
(00:11:50.005):
or company hires a PR operation.
(00:11:54.250):
And this includes like nonprofits too.
(00:11:56.573):
And there’s, I have found, I have found, you know, evidence of this, of
(00:12:03.420):
These marketing operations being,
(00:12:06.002):
you know,
(00:12:06.342):
in the expenses or just articulated in various government filing forms like
(00:12:13.808):
the SEC S1s or 10Ks for publicly traded companies or for the nonprofit,
(00:12:22.694):
the 990 forms.
(00:12:24.275):
And you can see it in there.
(00:12:25.436):
Their expenses are for digital media.
(00:12:28.018):
Usually it’ll say something like that.
(00:12:30.720):
And...
(00:12:32.403):
Yeah, digital media,
(00:12:33.604):
much like the marketing agency called Tinuiti,
(00:12:37.126):
which was founded by Ben Kirshner,
(00:12:38.887):
who was appointed by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to lead
(00:12:43.069):
a newly created Transformation and Opportunity department in the state government.
(00:12:49.053):
I found this out when digging into people who figured in
(00:12:53.475):
The Project Hazelnut cover-up that was exposed in a right-to-know request
(00:12:58.318):
by concerned citizens of Montour County,
(00:13:00.799):
and they got an email tranche detailing what the government
(00:13:04.761):
and Amazon Web Services were up to in 2025 with the Project Hazelnut Data Center,
(00:13:10.964):
which people didn’t know who was behind it,
(00:13:13.485):
and eventually later it was revealed, and in these right-to-know emails that...
(00:13:19.348):
The state government was actively acting like a concierge service to AWS
(00:13:25.712):
and covering their involvement in the Project Hazelnut Data Center project.
(00:13:32.235):
And I’ll play an excerpt from the presentation I did on Project Hazelnut Right to Know emails.
(00:13:41.060):
According to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania government website, quote,
(00:13:44.401):
Benjamin Kirshner serves as the inaugural chief transformation
(00:13:48.883):
and opportunity officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, unquote.
(00:13:52.784):
And then it goes on to say that, quote,
(00:13:55.786):
prior to his current role, Mr.
(00:13:57.826):
Kirshner founded Elite SEM in 2004,
(00:14:01.248):
which later became Tinuiti, an esteemed leader in digital performance marketing.
(00:14:07.970):
The Tinuiti LinkedIn page says it’s quote,
(00:14:12.096):
largest independent full funnel marketing agency in the US across the media
(00:14:17.224):
that matters most, unquote.
(00:14:19.227):
According to a report in PR Newswire from 2022,
(00:14:22.952):
Quote, Tinuiti,
(00:14:25.676):
the first independent U.S.
(00:14:27.379):
agency to earn TikTok’s campaign management badge,
(00:14:30.843):
is uniquely positioned to help brands utilize influencers across
(00:14:34.869):
the entire customer journey.
(00:14:37.032):
Through its deep
(00:14:37.753):
suite of media capabilities, exclusive partnerships, and proprietary tech stack. This unique breadth of in-house tools allows for better strategy and tactical activation across the entire funnel to accelerate performance outcomes within a client’s larger media mix. Tinuiti drives multi-channel distribution plans beyond the post, pushing out Influencer campaigns into Paid Social, OTT, Programmatic, websites, and more.
(00:14:52.995):
Unquote.
(00:14:53.296):
(00:15:12.377):
So this basically refers to all the PR pushes you see out on social media.
(00:15:19.400):
This is the kind of company that orchestrates and the coordination of
(00:15:23.061):
the influencers and the social media ops and all of that.
(00:15:26.002):
And so the guy
(00:15:27.042):
behind this company is Pennsylvania State Government’s chief Transformation
(00:15:33.004):
and Opportunity officer.
(00:15:36.336):
So there’s a significant revolving door for one thing
(00:15:39.220):
between industry and government, obviously.
(00:15:42.305):
But one has to think that the reason Governor Josh Shapiro appointed the founder of
(00:15:46.771):
an online influence operations company to his cabinet is
(00:15:51.538):
is because he previously knew this guy somehow.
(00:15:54.142):
Did he use Tinuiti services?
(00:15:56.686):
Does he still?
(00:15:57.988):
Did he hire Ben Kirshner to this newly created government agency to do that kind
(00:16:02.835):
of influence operations to advance business interests?
(00:16:06.620):
on the taxpayer dime?
(00:16:08.161):
I don’t know, but it’s unclear what this new agency is supposed to do or why it was needed.
(00:16:13.485):
But the emails,
(00:16:14.966):
the right to know request emails reveal that he was involved
(00:16:19.789):
in covering up connections between the government and
(00:16:23.092):
a big tech company hiding their
(00:16:26.347):
being behind a data center project.
(00:16:28.850):
So one has to assume that there’s some reason that he ended up appointed in
(00:16:33.937):
the government by Josh Shapiro.
(00:16:38.684):
So The Town podcast interview with Lane Brown also where
(00:16:43.801):
they talk about how cheap it is to run these influence operations so it’s apparently
(00:16:49.984):
a lucrative business if people are becoming founders
(00:16:53.125):
and becoming you know powerful people in government by doing it
(00:16:58.988):
but they say how cheap it is to run and they’re just saying
(00:17:02.129):
a few thousand dollars can you know get you an operation to do a smear campaign or
(00:17:09.573):
a promotional campaign and
(00:17:14.349):
what they don’t really go super into is the reason it’s so cheap and uh
(00:17:21.743):
it’s because they’re using people who are desperate for work and willing
(00:17:24.984):
to be exploited in contract work you know it’s probably not even paying minimum wage
(00:17:30.084):
because these are contractors they’re not employees so I think a lot of these people
(00:17:37.686):
who are involved in operations like that and these PR operations
(00:17:41.746):
and these influencers and political or otherwise for industry or causes or whatever
(00:17:49.728):
a lot of them
(00:17:51.728):
seem to have and this is just a something I noticed is a lot of them seem
(00:17:56.329):
to do are connected to Hollywood um in that they’re often like people who have
(00:18:02.371):
a history of trying to break into acting or maybe they have
(00:18:05.832):
in some way they have you know when you look up people I’ve looked up people
(00:18:11.193):
on LinkedIn and stuff I’ve found past like acting gigs mentioned or acting as one
(00:18:18.235):
of their things.
(00:18:20.659):
So there’s considerable overlap with that is what I mean.
(00:18:25.967):
And exploitation.
(00:18:27.529):
You know,
(00:18:27.830):
these are people outside of the acting guilds and union coverage,
(00:18:33.238):
because it’s not, they’re not.
(00:18:35.561):
they’re not being employed by Hollywood employers and that’s
(00:18:39.542):
the thing is it’s not directly so it would be one thing if
(00:18:43.123):
a movie studio hired actors to go out and be influencers they would have
(00:18:48.925):
to be you know abiding by
(00:18:51.606):
the union standards,
(00:18:53.348):
but because there’s so many layers of deniability of the indirect,
(00:18:57.591):
you know, labor, they don’t.
(00:19:00.414):
So it’s a way to get around that kind of thing too,
(00:19:03.597):
I believe, for Hollywood employers, but also any others, you know, that’s the thing.
(00:19:10.243):
And another part of the reason that it’s so cheap is
(00:19:14.682):
is because actually they’re getting a lot of free labor from people
(00:19:20.287):
who are just trying to break into being an influencer or just people who are fooled
(00:19:26.412):
into thinking they’re getting into something else.
(00:19:30.556):
They don’t realize that they’re joining this,
(00:19:34.599):
what they think is a social community or maybe even an activist group,
(00:19:39.705):
And they think that that’s what they’re getting into,
(00:19:42.328):
but really what they’re getting into is a product cult where they’re going
(00:19:45.632):
to be trained up to promote a cause or an interest or an industry or a product.
(00:19:55.424):
And they don’t see that at first.
(00:19:57.366):
And it can be very...
(00:19:59.528):
tricky.
(00:20:00.308):
So don’t think that, oh, it would only be stupid people would only be fooled by this.
(00:20:05.331):
No, no, no, no, no.
(00:20:06.751):
Because I’ve been drawn into stuff like this.
(00:20:09.292):
I think a lot of people have been drawn into groups where,
(00:20:15.295):
you know,
(00:20:15.555):
you get into this group and you’re thinking,
(00:20:17.476):
why isn’t this group actually doing effective activism?
(00:20:21.257):
Like, why are they bothering with this other stuff?
(00:20:23.678):
And then you find out it was because it wasn’t an activist group at all.
(00:20:27.760):
Like,
(00:20:28.180):
Sometimes it could be in a whole organization.
(00:20:30.122):
There are front groups like this.
(00:20:32.645):
And there are actual nonprofits that do this.
(00:20:35.729):
They’re doing something, but they don’t let you know what their goal is.
(00:20:40.454):
So anything that volunteers want to do that’s effective kind of gets sidelined
(00:20:45.940):
because it’s not the core aim of the organization. And they’re not always honest about that. They don’t always come to you and say well we’re not doing that because this is our goal. You know Because maybe they wouldn’t get so many volunteers if people really knew their goals? I’m just saying. So.
(00:20:48.270):
Yeah, and this is...
(00:21:06.883):
Creating a community like this,
(00:21:09.988):
you know,
(00:21:10.288):
I know that sounds strange that this happens in social clubs and support groups
(00:21:15.976):
and stuff that are really astroturfed to, you know, promote something.
(00:21:21.585):
And
(00:21:21.825):
And it sounds weird.
(00:21:23.286):
Like, well,
(00:21:23.806):
how would you be,
(00:21:25.487):
why would you have a support group and like,
(00:21:28.388):
you know, fake out to try to get people to promote something?
(00:21:32.530):
And, but it’s natural.
(00:21:34.511):
First of all, it’s natural for people to want community.
(00:21:39.188):
that isn’t weird you know and it’s a known marketing tactic
(00:21:43.749):
to quote unquote create community around a brand this is
(00:21:48.291):
a known thing this has been reported on this is I found this article from
(00:21:54.152):
the Florida Realtors website and it said it was titled Your Guide to Becoming
(00:22:02.274):
an Influencer okay and this is for realtors this was this is a website
(00:22:08.477):
and a publication for realtors in Florida.
(00:22:11.759):
So it’s a guide for them.
(00:22:14.461):
And it’s your guide to becoming an influencer, quote,
(00:22:17.403):
analyzing consumer behavior,
(00:22:19.525):
you’ll notice that influencers create a sense of community around a brand.
(00:22:23.888):
When influencers engage with their audience,
(00:22:26.150):
they’re not just promoting products, they’re fostering relationships.
(00:22:29.733):
This emotional connection drives loyalty.
(00:22:33.982):
So I found this article from the Florida Realtors website from August 30th, 2024.
(00:22:39.530):
And I’m glad I often save articles to the Wayback Machine because this article is gone.
(00:22:45.538):
It’s gone from their website.
(00:22:47.701):
Maybe because they found out people like me or maybe just me, using it to pull back the curtain on their tactics. But it is saved on the Wayback Machine. And a lot of stuff like this only gets reported in industry press, by industry interested people. So.
(00:22:48.863):
It’s marketing for marketing people.
(00:22:50.344):
so...
(00:23:09.488):
Just like it says, your guide to becoming an influencer, right?
(00:23:13.414):
When I say industry press, I mean, it’s not in the mainstream press.
(00:23:18.081):
It’s not meant for average Joes.
(00:23:20.705):
It’s not meant for the hoi polloi.
(00:23:22.548):
It’s meant for people in those industries. And every industry has its specialized press like that. And you won’t find about things unless you go looking for it.
(00:23:24.350):
And it’s one of the reasons that I tell people,
(00:23:26.814):
if you want more straight news, if you’re having trouble.
(00:23:39.292):
distrusting the news,
(00:23:41.173):
you might want to look at the business press,
(00:23:43.655):
because the business press caters to business people
(00:23:46.717):
who need actual real information to make financial decisions,
(00:23:51):
and a lot of them wouldn’t keep subscribing to Bloomberg
(00:23:54.703):
if it was all just propaganda and didn’t have any basis in reality, right?
(00:24:00.327):
So...
(00:24:02.248):
Not to say that there isn’t plenty of propaganda in the business press.
(00:24:07.010):
There is, but there is actually a lot more, you know, real information about stuff, too.
(00:24:16.634):
But the fact that a lot of this stuff doesn’t make it into,
(00:24:20.115):
like, the pop culture zeitgeist is that, you know, it leads to...
(00:24:26.097):
For example,
(00:24:26.979):
for years I’ve had to argue with people, like,
(00:24:29.462):
believing I was making stuff up when I tried to explain to them
(00:24:33.828):
that their favorite animal character,
(00:24:36.432):
mascot, influencer account, like an anonymous influencer account.
(00:24:41.779):
was probably sold.
(00:24:43.222):
And that’s why they suddenly turned and started posting things that were opposite
(00:24:47.788):
to what they thought they were like,
(00:24:49.651):
or they were so disappointed in this influencer.
(00:24:52.295):
And it was just, you know, it was anonymous influencer account, and they sold it. And there’s actually people who do this as a job essentially they build up a social media following in a certain niche interest category. And once they have a big following
(00:24:55.780):
they sell it to PR operations who want to reach that audience.
(00:25:21.777):
And this has been happening for ages.
(00:25:23.898):
This is not something new,
(00:25:25.539):
but I’ve had people really get angry and say that’s conspiracy theory and stuff.
(00:25:31.261):
And I have always had to pull out this article.
(00:25:33.702):
I’ve been pulling out this article for years that was titled,
(00:25:37.624):
The Seven Best Marketplaces to Buy and Sell Social Media Accounts, Ranked.
(00:25:43.757):
So, I mean,
(00:25:44.077):
this is a marketing outlet doing a marketing piece,
(00:25:49.619):
you know, of where you should buy and sell your social media accounts.
(00:25:54.560):
It says, quote,
(00:25:55.440):
The Toronto-based firm boasts an easy-to-use website that categorizes accounts
(00:26:00.141):
for sale based on niche and number of followers.
(00:26:03.362):
One of the best things about this marketplace is
(00:26:05.403):
that all transactions are carried out over well-established payment portals,
(00:26:09.924):
unquote.
(00:26:11.890):
So, but a lot of people get lured in,
(00:26:16.553):
you know,
(00:26:18.814):
by these influencers,
(00:26:21.376):
and they get lured in then to these groups, and they really do believe it’s real.
(00:26:28.040):
And why wouldn’t you?
(00:26:29.381):
I mean, your own, if somebody’s nice, and somebody is offering...
(00:26:34.785):
You know, to invite you into a social group, why wouldn’t you say yes?
(00:26:40.031):
This is normal.
(00:26:41.032):
What if you care about a topic and you’re looking to get involved in organizing?
(00:26:45.277):
Of course you’re going to join groups.
(00:26:47.520):
This is normal and you should do that.
(00:26:50.223):
The problem comes in is that not all groups are the...
(00:26:53.547):
For real, you know, they’re not all grassroots.
(00:26:56.770):
And knowing the difference between those is where it becomes a problem.
(00:27:00.712):
And basically,
(00:27:01.733):
if you have a mindset of where you know what you need to do,
(00:27:07.217):
and the group just isn’t doing it,
(00:27:10.738):
Like that, I mean,
(00:27:12.100):
at first,
(00:27:12.881):
because I was lured into many, many,
(00:27:15.105):
many of these group chats in public health organizing online,
(00:27:20.132):
and some of the activist groups were real, and real activists.
(00:27:26.581):
And some were just doing, like,
(00:27:29.506):
Twitter DM groups to promote some big shot influencer or some hot shot scientist
(00:27:35.534):
or whatever who wanted more, you know, boosting or whatever.
(00:27:39.800):
And they’d often...
(00:27:42.104):
They often set these up.
(00:27:43.386):
It’s very culty like.
(00:27:45.809):
They give tidbits to their followers in the group chat.
(00:27:48.854):
So you’re in this group chat,
(00:27:52.779):
and it seems like you’re getting insider information or direct contact.
(00:27:56.985):
with the influencer and ordinary people in
(00:27:59.287):
the group chat feel like they’re getting special information or special attention.
(00:28:04.630):
And they’ll often, like,
(00:28:07.152):
drop hints about their high-level power connections and their network connections,
(00:28:14.456):
you know,
(00:28:14.736):
who they know and, you know, that they’re emailing somebody in the government and
(00:28:21.472):
Some real change is going to happen or whatever.
(00:28:24.894):
And it reminds me now about the 1944 sabotage field manual that
(00:28:30.438):
the government put out to help people sabotage in the war.
(00:28:40.189):
This is from 1944,
(00:28:41.430):
but the field manual I think everybody should read because all of
(00:28:47.032):
the basic stuff really could be translated to today.
(00:28:51.494):
And I did a post describing the parts that I thought were directly transferable.
(00:28:58.756):
And one section under office workers, like sabotage that office workers can do,
(00:29:05.800):
in a resistance to fascism.
(00:29:08.722):
It says, quote, spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.
(00:29:15.709):
And the truth is that anything that sounds like you’re getting inside dope
(00:29:19.112):
or inside information, people clamor for it.
(00:29:22.174):
Our species is hardwired for gossip and networking for survival.
(00:29:26.959):
I mean, that’s our survival of human beings
(00:29:31.062):
is based on communities.
(00:29:33.284):
And so anything that hijacks like these cognitive biases that,
(00:29:38.328):
you know, tend us toward this is going to be very effective.
(00:29:43.513):
So I’d see these groups who were staging virality behind the scenes, basically.
(00:29:49.238):
And some people may have been earnestly trying to promote something decent and good.
(00:29:53.221):
That is true, too.
(00:29:54.622):
Okay, so a lot of people are leveraging this
(00:29:58.385):
ostensibly for good work.
(00:30:01.106):
Like that is a thing.
(00:30:03.606):
I’m just not sure if it’s right to trick people.
(00:30:09.388):
And if that’s going to be really the answer in the end,
(00:30:12.349):
because will the good guys really outwit the people with all the money?
(00:30:17.370):
And you see where I’m going, you know, like when you’re outspent, there’s a problem.
(00:30:22.472):
So I feel like
(00:30:24.873):
Maybe this isn’t the way to go, right?
(00:30:27.295):
For grassroots activists need to do their own work.
(00:30:31.658):
You know, not hire these influence operations or influencers and whatnot.
(00:30:38.384):
Like, maybe we need to do something a little bit differently.
(00:30:43.347):
But the people are lured in with a promise of organizing with others doing some kind
(00:30:48.591):
of activism.
(00:30:50.052):
And then...
(00:30:51.375):
Just too often, they’re exposed to marketing for products.
(00:30:54.178):
And even – here’s the thing is that even, like,
(00:30:57.181):
groups that ostensibly don’t, like,
(00:31:00.784):
you know,
(00:31:01.725):
are doing good work and are trying to organize for good things, they still –
(00:31:06.570):
They’re afraid to exclude anybody,
(00:31:08.912):
so they let in people promoting products and scams and all kinds of stuff.
(00:31:13.895):
And I’ve seen this over and over again.
(00:31:16.557):
Unless you have things tamped down, the marketing will get in.
(00:31:22.481):
People will try to use your platform for...
(00:31:26.391):
Like free advertising, essentially.
(00:31:29.132):
So a lot of times people get lured into these organizing groups,
(00:31:32.954):
and maybe they are totally AstroTurfed groups,
(00:31:36.136):
or maybe they’re real groups that AstroTurf has co-opted and is now leveraging,
(00:31:41.999):
and they’re exposed to these marketing tactics.
(00:31:45.140):
So you have people thinking...
(00:31:47.454):
They can make a little money with their activism,
(00:31:49.537):
you know, the affiliate links thing by promoting some product or something.
(00:31:54.304):
And I’ve seen it even get to the point where real organizations, like, have people intervening and promoting products and
(00:32:01.995):
getting the organization that exists for a good cause.
(00:32:10.007):
It’s legitimate,
(00:32:10.928):
but then they’re promoting these products that are not legitimate
(00:32:14.754):
or are just unproven or sketchy. Or something’s wrong there, right.
(00:32:19.178):
Or it’s just a product that they’re just using a non-profit
(00:32:24.121):
to promote for-profit industry products, which is a problem right there. How.
(00:32:31.625):
And it gets in, and the reason that it gets in...
(00:32:36.295):
is they say you must promote this product or you’re hurting the movement
(00:32:43.981):
or you’re hurting the community or even you’re hurting immunocompromised people
(00:32:48.224):
by not promoting this like unproven COVID product.
(00:32:52.027):
Not kidding.
(00:32:53.888):
Even like this happened with a product that the makers themselves admit that they’ve specially
(00:32:59.372):
design the product to thwart regulations against unproven COVID products.
(00:33:04.394):
Yeah, that’s a thing.
(00:33:05.734):
So if you don’t promote the product,
(00:33:07.875):
you’re not in their in crowd and you’re not in the community and you’re not in
(00:33:11.757):
the movement and the people that are promoting this stuff are getting paid to do
(00:33:16.578):
that.
(00:33:16.839):
So they could really,
(00:33:18.039):
you know,
(00:33:18.419):
make it very hostile to people who push against it and say, no, we don’t want that.
(00:33:24.121):
And it’s
(00:33:26.699):
It’s really, I mean, you want to talk about viral, it’s insidious that they do this.
(00:33:33.185):
And a lot of the people promoting it,
(00:33:34.827):
like just by the way,
(00:33:36.548):
some of the people who come and they say,
(00:33:38.190):
you’re hurting the movement if you don’t allow these advertisements
(00:33:41.213):
in your support group.
(00:33:43.215):
A lot of the people who are saying this are unwitting.
(00:33:46.217):
They don’t realize that they are doing free product promotion.
(00:33:51.507):
they don’t realize it they really believe in the product they have become the belief
(00:33:56.711):
that the product is going to save people they believe that
(00:34:00.173):
the product is you know whatever and even if it was there’s a problem here
(00:34:04.976):
if there’s profit involved okay but a lot of times it’s fake right so but people
(00:34:10.680):
if they’re true believers and they believe in these products of course they believe
(00:34:14.503):
if you’re not allowing people to find out about these products with this advertising
(00:34:19.266):
that you’re the bad guy
(00:34:20.968):
And yeah, so I’ve seen that many, many times.
(00:34:24.673):
And another example of these Discord servers like this is that there were a shit ton
(00:34:31.843):
of Discord servers at the start of the Ukraine invasion.
(00:34:36.589):
And I know because I joined a lot of them to see what they were doing and learn
(00:34:39.994):
from,
(00:34:40.495):
you know, what they were promoting and how they were doing it behind the scenes.
(00:34:45.503):
And some of these forums were actually quite interesting where people were listening
(00:34:49.288):
to shortwave radio transmissions. And translating them for people.
(00:34:51.351):
And, you know,
(00:34:54.936):
there was,
(00:34:55.457):
you know,
(00:34:55.958):
when people feel helpless watching a war from afar,
(00:35:00.384):
it is quite enticing to get this information that seems like,
(00:35:04.430):
again, inside dope.
(00:35:05.592):
Or something.
(00:35:06.492):
And it makes you feel less powerless, I think, in some way.
(00:35:10.854):
But also,
(00:35:13.456):
it does make people a little give a little people power because I’m convinced
(00:35:18.678):
that this is at least partly why Ukraine quickly won the social media meme war is
(00:35:24.500):
because they had all these operations all ready to go and they rolled them out
(00:35:27.762):
and people from around the world got involved in promoting Ukraine’s interests.
(00:35:33.865):
Obviously,
(00:35:35.268):
This is a lot of authentic support for their cause, and I’m not, you know, bashing it.
(00:35:40.290):
Being the invaded nation,
(00:35:42.310):
most people do tend to take the side of the underdog,
(00:35:45.411):
the put-upon, the attacked, naturally, for good reason.
(00:35:49.352):
But that was a lot of the organizing going on behind the scenes, behind the meme war.
(00:35:54.374):
And...
(00:35:56.533):
To take this further about just social media influencers and the YouTubers and
(00:36:02.963):
the TikTok influencers,
(00:36:04.645):
these creators,
(00:36:06.167):
like for whatever their topics are, whether it be music or politics or...
(00:36:11.675):
or even movie reviews or whatever the case may be.
(00:36:16.617):
All of these influencers and content creators,
(00:36:20.198):
they have communities of their own where they’re behind the scenes sharing tips
(00:36:24.739):
on how to work the YouTube algorithm or how to go viral on TikTok.
(00:36:30.441):
And some of these creators are actually involved in professionally
(00:36:35.142):
and well-funded operations and
(00:36:38.063):
Yes, by like Hollywood that, you know, they hire the marketing and even in politics.
(00:36:47.658):
So there are political consultancies who hire marketing operations and influence.
(00:36:52.965):
operations.
(00:36:54.007):
And for example, that was reported on the chorus.
(00:36:57.872):
People were part of this without making it disclosed.
(00:37:01.318):
So of course, they were promoting, you know, stuff.
(00:37:04.562):
And of course, it’s a coordinated thing where it looks like it’s going viral.
(00:37:07.847):
It looks like it’s coming from many, many different directions.
(00:37:12.049):
And everybody’s saying the same things.
(00:37:13.590):
But really,
(00:37:14.130):
behind the scenes,
(00:37:15.551):
you know, it’s one outlet, like disseminating it from other people.
(00:37:20.574):
And this could be used for good.
(00:37:22.175):
I’m not saying it can’t be used for good.
(00:37:24.236):
But if there’s money behind it, often, you know, it’s the money that’s talking.
(00:37:29.318):
So is it grassroots then?
(00:37:33.109):
There’s a problem there, and people rightly point out the problem with stuff like Chorus.
(00:37:39.719):
And for example,
(00:37:40.620):
it explains why there is this one education content creator who was part of Chorus.
(00:37:48.131):
the Ms. Frazz Ariel she is an education she’s a teacher an education content creator
(00:37:57.959):
and she helped people break the story about Eric Swalwell and his abuse
(00:38:05.044):
that has been alleged over time and has been apparently silenced
(00:38:11.429):
and kept secret maybe behind NDAs or who knows what and she
(00:38:16.872):
was the one who kind of behind the scenes and
(00:38:20.316):
through her platform helped people break the story about this and connected people
(00:38:25.121):
with journalists who were willing to write about it.
(00:38:30.146):
And because she was involved in this...
(00:38:34.170):
and basically the takedown of Eric Swalwell,
(00:38:37.931):
she was swarmed and attacked by people who were ostensibly her own fan base.
(00:38:43.532):
Okay, so the truth is that a lot of these quote unquote fans were not real people at all.
(00:38:48.773):
I mean, there are real people behind these accounts,
(00:38:51.674):
but they weren’t like just authentic, organic fans.
(00:38:56.875):
But they were part of PR operations, again, hired by marketing, you know, to do deliberate
(00:39:03.893):
Basically a deliberate attempt to do audience capture.
(00:39:07.178):
It’s inauthentic audience capture, which is going on here with a lot of these influencers.
(00:39:12.225):
Don’t even realize they’re being indirectly paid
(00:39:15.450):
because their content is being promoted by people who are paid to promote certain ideas. So if you just happen to be somebody, a content creator, you can say well I’m not taking money from X business I’m just giving you my honest idea about that. But X business comes along and says ooh this person is promoting our stuff so we’ll boost them up a bit. So then maybe they’ll hit subscribe maybe they’ll hit paid subscribe. There’s money to do this. So anyway as soon as she was like the bad guy who was attacking their guy
(00:39:18.835):
Eric Swalwell you have to realize that Eric Swalwell had the full backing of a whole political influence operation.
(00:39:33.837):
(00:39:57.839):
so of course they attacked her immediately and they attacked her as soon as she was
(00:40:01.985):
that this was uh you know probably behind
(00:40:04.868):
the scenes these PR operations were probably in full DEFCON you know
(00:40:09.414):
or whatever um you know they were probably um
(00:40:13.847):
trying to tamp it down like oh my goodness this scandal is coming out
(00:40:18.414):
about Eric Swalwell and we have
(00:40:19.816):
to discredit anybody saying this stuff immediately right that’s what I’m imagining I
(00:40:25.845):
have no proof of that but
(00:40:27.916):
There’s plenty of inference evidence that this is what happened.
(00:40:32.137):
So they started attacking this content creator for this and attacking anybody who is whatever.
(00:40:39.780):
And it’s because in our inauthentic audience capture is
(00:40:43.661):
a thing like every influencer has a certain and I’ll see it even
(00:40:47.982):
in small time influencers and I have them too.
(00:40:50.623):
And I’m like nobody like I have
(00:40:53.505):
I don’t have a big following.
(00:40:54.967):
But even I have those people,
(00:40:56.589):
and you know who you are, in my audience who try to kind of nudge me.
(00:41:02.518):
And sometimes they’re obvious about it.
(00:41:05.042):
I always talk about the crypto people.
(00:41:08.206):
who reply my Substack and are like, well, you need to educate.
(00:41:13.050):
You just need to educate yourself about crypto.
(00:41:15.712):
Whatever.
(00:41:16.333):
Okay, but this audience captures stuff.
(00:41:19.115):
There are people who are paid to go out and try to nudge and...
(00:41:24.455):
influence or even befriend influencers to get them to do certain things.
(00:41:30.504):
So that’s probably why once Nancy Pelosi told Eric Swalwell to stand down,
(00:41:36.593):
all of those followers all came quick.
(00:41:39.337):
Quote, unquote, crawling back.
(00:41:41.758):
And that’s Ms. Frazz’s description of it, that she gave in an interview.
(00:41:48.559):
It was a video on Substack, an interview with Sami Sage.
(00:41:53.680):
I highly recommend listening to the whole interview.
(00:41:56.441):
It was from April 11, 2026.
(00:41:57.441):
And...
(00:42:01.451):
She said that like a lot of the people who were attacking her,
(00:42:04.534):
they came crawling back and said, oh, you were right.
(00:42:08.578):
And it, you know,
(00:42:09.959):
I’m sure a lot of those people were legitimately just were very protective
(00:42:15.544):
of Eric Swalwell.
(00:42:16.385):
Maybe there were true fans of his that that’s certainly possible.
(00:42:20.469):
But I think a lot of them may have been inauthentic trolls.
(00:42:24.610):
And, you know, once they got the go ahead, it’s like, oh, no, no, now we’re reversing course.
(00:42:30.172):
And then because it probably took it probably took hours or days for the orders
(00:42:36.354):
to come down,
(00:42:37.415):
filter down through those,
(00:42:38.855):
you know,
(00:42:39.175):
four layers of deniability,
(00:42:42.076):
you know,
(00:42:42.556):
to get to the actual people who are doing the work on the ground
(00:42:45.777):
of influencing influencers.
(00:42:49.572):
So, yeah,
(00:42:50.372):
for an example of how audience capture works
(00:42:53.434):
and how inauthentic astroturfed audience capture works,
(00:42:57.555):
I’ll play a clip from Psych Grind,
(00:42:59.656):
you know,
(00:42:59.876):
the podcast series I did with The Letterhack Matt Strackbein,
(00:43:04.338):
and the episode is titled The Jammers, so here’s an excerpt.
(00:43:08.700):
This is from a 2023 Twitter thread by Alistair McAlpine, M.D.,
(00:43:15.452):
We’ve all wondered why scientists or MDs turn,
(00:43:19.654):
how respective folk can find themselves deep in the anti-vax community.
(00:43:25.075):
It’s a decidedly simple but dangerous and malicious process.
(00:43:30.017):
Below is a thread on how people become red-pilled.
(00:43:33.638):
Imagine you’re a YouTuber and you think you explain science well.
(00:43:38.112):
Imagine you’ve built a loyal following on mostly reliable stuff
(00:43:41.753):
and get 50,000-ish views per video.
(00:43:45.855):
Now imagine you dip your toe into contrarian waters.
(00:43:49.796):
There’s this new drug, ivermectin.
(00:43:52.797):
One, you read a meta-analysis which is favorable and you have on your show
(00:43:58.819):
an enthusiastic guest with all the right qualifications.
(00:44:02.360):
This seems legit.
(00:44:04.361):
Could this work?
(00:44:06.306):
Is science missing out on something big?
(00:44:09.107):
Have you stumbled onto the cure for COVID-19?
(00:44:13.207):
Two, suddenly 700,000 views.
(00:44:17.248):
With those extra views comes a significant bump in revenue.
(00:44:21.809):
You’re now earning fairly substantial amounts.
(00:44:25.209):
You go back to the fuddy mainstream stuff and interest in your videos tanks.
(00:44:30.990):
You’re back to 50,000 again and minimal cash.
(00:44:35.305):
And so, three, you once again do something controversial.
(00:44:40.046):
You start wondering about the vaccine.
(00:44:43.247):
Views skyrocket.
(00:44:45.268):
People in the comments are telling you what an extraordinary truth seeker you are.
(00:44:49.669):
What a great mind, unquote.
(00:44:54.250):
Even the indirect payments where people don’t really know where it’s coming from,
(00:44:58.452):
it’s influential.
(00:44:59.992):
And if doctors get pulled into that, imagine what...
(00:45:03.432):
the working class YouTuber from some small town in the Midwest where
(00:45:08.476):
a few hundred dollars a month for a few months can change somebody’s life.
(00:45:15.157):
Yeah, so a few hundred dollars can change somebody’s life in some places.
(00:45:19.559):
And that’s why a lot of labor has traditionally been offshored, right?
(00:45:23.100):
To places where people can be paid less.
(00:45:24.881):
I mean, back in the 1990s,
(00:45:26.962):
a call center that set up in Wilkes-Barre,
(00:45:28.982):
Pennsylvania,
(00:45:30.063):
the HR person actually told employees that that’s why they decided,
(00:45:33.924):
the company decided to open an operation in Luzerne County because of
(00:45:37.246):
the low wages they could pay here in northeastern Pennsylvania.
(00:45:40.567):
So...
(00:45:43.952):
So this is why this type of PR and marketing influence operation is so cheap to execute.
(00:45:49.400):
You have people duped into doing it for free
(00:45:51.924):
because they think they’re helping some cause or because there’s tons
(00:45:55.569):
of people out there who need money and they’re being exploited by that.
(00:45:58.914):
Or you know people who are just trying to make a name for themselves for whatever reason and they’re influenced by the layers and layers of PR operations. And I think about the anti
(00:46:13.976):
data center AI slop being passed around on social media now by click farm influencers.
(00:46:20.079):
This is people who put out specifically content to get clicks
(00:46:23.420):
to their advertisements so then they can get paid for having lots of clicks
(00:46:26.942):
to their advertisements.
(00:46:29.283):
And they put out viral contact.
(00:46:31.204):
They tend to grab onto anything that’s, you know, in the current cycle of virality.
(00:46:38.287):
And because anti-data center, you know, issue has gotten hot,
(00:46:42.990):
um finally finally I mean I’ve been you know on this for a while now but uh
(00:46:50.006):
Now it’s a hot commodity,
(00:46:51.566):
so you have foreign operations getting in on this with their click farms
(00:46:55.627):
and creating AI slop, anti-data center AI slop, which is really upside down, right?
(00:47:02.468):
Because it just highlights how data center resistance should not be spreading AI slop.
(00:47:08.290):
And most aren’t.
(00:47:09.410):
And most aren’t.
(00:47:10.470):
But some do.
(00:47:11.470):
I mean, I’ve seen somebody in a Pennsylvania org use...
(00:47:16.037):
A.I.
(00:47:16.458):
Slop on a blog post criticizing A.I.
(00:47:20.104):
Data centers and, you know, and praising the A.I.
(00:47:25.151):
in their...
(00:47:27.317):
I think it was a Photoshop subscription and it’s like this is why a lot
(00:47:32.320):
of us have switched away from Adobe honestly and I did so a while back because of
(00:47:39.185):
the subscription model is you know the feudalism there yeah a lot of us have
(00:47:46.510):
the subscription model kind of did it in for me but
(00:47:51.845):
Yeah, so some of these people do and they get called out for it.
(00:47:56.592):
And by the way, I’ve been put on shit lists.
(00:47:58.815):
And, you know, of course, I’m on people’s shit lists for calling that out.
(00:48:03.582):
And I don’t care because, like, I don’t think you should be using AI slop.
(00:48:07.287):
and I’ve written about this how I’ve been accused of being against AI slop because
(00:48:13.350):
of the environmental harms but really I’m not even I’m more of I’m
(00:48:18.412):
a public health activist more than I am an environmentalist not that I don’t care
(00:48:23.394):
about you know climate issues or environment obviously that is related but
(00:48:29.217):
but second of all
(00:48:30.677):
I was skeptical of the AI chatbots right out of the gate, right?
(00:48:34.260):
So I saw problems before I even knew about the data centers per se.
(00:48:39.823):
And then I was the data centers issue.
(00:48:42.165):
I was I had a problem with and I was worried about when I didn’t even
(00:48:45.767):
before I even knew it was in my county.
(00:48:47.889):
Right.
(00:48:48.189):
So these are two separate things and they they stand on their own,
(00:48:53.012):
even if it had zero impact on the environment.
(00:48:57.115):
and needed zero fossil fuels or whatever.
(00:48:59.896):
I’d still have a problem with AI slop because it sucks, right?
(00:49:04.198):
But anyway,
(00:49:05.279):
and recently I saw someone posted about this in
(00:49:09.160):
the Stop Archibald Data Center’s Facebook group that an Archibald,
(00:49:14.342):
Pennsylvania grocery store was using AI slop in advertising
(00:49:19.065):
on their Facebook and in their like their flyer ads as the people
(00:49:25.432):
in their town are fighting dozens of data centers in the borough right
(00:49:28.695):
and somebody posted about this like stop that like we don’t want you to use AI slop
(00:49:34.595):
and it’s like because it’s related to the data centers but also just
(00:49:38.159):
because most people don’t want to see AI slop like really people don’t I don’t know
(00:49:43.144):
who thinks that they’re getting away with something but
(00:49:45.346):
that marketing is it’s simply unappetizing it’s simply unappetizing
(00:49:52.193):
and like I actually wrote a postcard to um
(00:49:56.987):
the grocery store.
(00:49:58.708):
And I said, dear management, AI slop is really off-putting and certainly unappetizing.
(00:50:06.190):
And it’s mind-blowing for a grocery store in Archibald to do this.
(00:50:10.572):
Read the room.
(00:50:11.392):
Because, wow, yeah, like, what are you doing?
(00:50:16.474):
But no, like, it’s just, it’s not, it’s unappetizing.
(00:50:20.016):
It’s off-putting.
(00:50:20.896):
People don’t like it.
(00:50:21.956):
Plus, it’s bad for the environment.
(00:50:25.518):
Nevertheless,
(00:50:26.259):
you have ostensibly,
(00:50:27.661):
and I use that word a lot for a reason,
(00:50:31.006):
about nonprofits and orgs,
(00:50:33.610):
ostensibly environmental groups with big enterprise subscription accounts
(00:50:38.017):
for chatbots and generative AI.
(00:50:41.001):
Ketan Joshi, who writes about climate, recently had a LinkedIn post about this.
(00:50:47.010):
And I’ll quote from his LinkedIn,
(00:50:49.293):
his LinkedIn post from June 2026, quote, I’m hearing more and more
(00:50:55.482):
of climate,
(00:50:56.262):
sustainability,
(00:50:57.283):
and environment orgs with expensive Anthropic or Google AI subscriptions.
(00:51:03.046):
Anthropic and Google are both relying on data center capacity from XAI,
(00:51:07.949):
a company running illegal gas plants
(00:51:10.130):
to power this obscene Bitcoin-style energy waste.
(00:51:14.393):
To be blunt,
(00:51:15.273):
I don’t think the climate movement has ever been so direct a participant
(00:51:19.776):
in illegal fossil fuel infrastructure expansion.
(00:51:23.798):
Truly, I don’t think there’s any precedent for what is happening here.
(00:51:27.922):
These organizations are choosing to subscribe to a new form of software so bloated
(00:51:33.067):
with inefficiency that companies like Anthropic and Google cannot continue
(00:51:37.892):
without desperately turning to illegally built fossil fuel plants that need to be propped up by fascist governments. Very specifically a shocking example of environmental racism too. It bothers me a lot. I think it’s a nightmare of moral and purpose collapse. Unquote.
(00:51:42.917):
And yeah, I mean, I agree wholeheartedly.
(00:52:03.143):
So yeah, I mean, and this is, of course, it’s all back.
(00:52:06.428):
I started with this Hollywood music industry,
(00:52:09.172):
or it’s politics,
(00:52:10.714):
it’s the Hollywood or whatever,
(00:52:12.036):
and it comes back to data centers and big tech,
(00:52:14.840):
because everything does, it’s all related to what
(00:52:18.125):
Cory Doctorow has called enshittification and what Ed Zitron calls
(00:52:23.527):
the Rot Economy it’s what Yanis Varoufakis calls cloud feudalism uh yeah it’s all
(00:52:29.728):
related and it’s and of course it’s all related to crypto too because crypto has
(00:52:34.390):
to make an appearance in anything when it comes to like any
(00:52:37.470):
of this topic you you know crypto is going to be involved and um
(00:52:43.818):
And we’re back to Pennsylvania politics too,
(00:52:46.242):
and Pennsylvania government, because now I have to bring up Brian Regli.
(00:52:51.109):
Brian Regli is now a data center developer consultant in Pittsburgh,
(00:52:56.156):
or in the Pittsburgh area, but he was previously
(00:52:58.640):
named by Governor Josh Shapiro in January 2023 to the chair
(00:53:04.028):
of Pennvest, which is the PA Infrastructure Investment Authority.
(00:53:08.595):
From January 2023 to April 2025, he was
(00:53:13.682):
in the Shapiro administration in the role of executive director critical investment.
(00:53:19.550):
And Brian Regli’s in LinkedIn says it was to, quote,
(00:53:24.317):
oversee Pennsylvania’s implementation of more than $21 billion in federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Unquote.
(00:53:28.643):
Before and during Brian Regli serving in Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration,
(00:53:32.145):
Brian Regli was the director of Asset Entities Incorporated.
(00:53:35.206):
And this is according to the Asset Entities Incorporated 10-K form for 2024.
(00:53:55.657):
Asset Entities Incorporated merge with and is now known as Strive Incorporated,
(00:54:00.521):
a Bitcoin company that was co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy,
(00:54:04.504):
who stepped down to run for president in 2023.
(00:54:07.206):
In the SEC IPO S1 form,
(00:54:11.670):
For Asset Entities,
(00:54:13.091):
it says, quote,
(00:54:14.753):
Asset Entities is a technology company providing social media marketing
(00:54:19.116):
and content delivery services across Discord,
(00:54:22.198):
TikTok and other social media platforms, unquote.
(00:54:27.543):
Yeah, we’re back to that, right?
(00:54:29.484):
Brian Regli.
(00:54:31.065):
In the Asset Entities
(00:54:32.476):
incorporated 10k form for 2022 and the 10k form for 2023 the narrative
(00:54:38.741):
on business background actually cited the GameStop meme stock debacle as an example
(00:54:44.326):
for their business plans referring to it as a phenomenon and I mean the SEC had
(00:54:51.152):
an analysis of how this like the GameStop stocks got so far afield from a reality um
(00:54:58.518):
You know, with the short selling and whatever.
(00:55:00.980):
And there are documentaries about how that became like a cult-like experience for
(00:55:06.825):
a lot of people who are pulled into this financial whirlwind of investment
(00:55:10.969):
and lost money and stuff.
(00:55:12.610):
Like, that’s not what you want.
(00:55:14.171):
We don’t want...
(00:55:15.553):
An economy built on businesses like the GameStop thing.
(00:55:20.179):
But this is what the Strive Incorporated 10K form said the company thought of as
(00:55:25.407):
an enticing business model.
(00:55:27.510):
And the report says that the business
(00:55:30.194):
Went about making what they called education and entertainment discord server communities. And they called them for example STOCKS in all caps, or CRYPTO in all caps, or NFTs, or even REALTY.
(00:55:45.236):
And yeah,
(00:55:46.658):
the SEC forum brags about having big reach with influencers
(00:55:50.744):
in these quote unquote communities across platforms.
(00:55:54.009):
Like I said,
(00:55:54.750):
I’ve been invited into these discords or these DM groups or these chat groups
(00:55:59.056):
where people
(00:56:00.198):
Characterize them as communities or activism or support groups.
(00:56:04.905):
And really,
(00:56:05.326):
it’s a paid PR marketing operation and people are trained up
(00:56:08.891):
to do essentially free labor or they are hoping
(00:56:12.897):
to get their influencer business off the ground or who knows.
(00:56:15.500):
And this is not anything new.
(00:56:18.585):
Again, I have to quote from a speech by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from May 27,
(00:56:25.635):
2021, and it’s about the Powell Memo.
(00:56:30.502):
Sheldon Whitehouse had said, quote
(00:56:53.089):
Powell recommended a propaganda effort staffed with scholars and speakers, a propaganda effort to which American businesses should devote “10 percent of its total advertising budget,’” including an effort to review and critique textbooks, especially in economics, political science, and sociology. “National television networks should be monitored in
(00:56:55.370):
the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance,” he said.
(00:56:59.772):
Corporate America should aggressively insist on the right to be heard, on
(00:57:04.534):
Equal time. And corporate America should be ready to deploy whatever degree.
(00:57:08.890):
Equal time, unquote.
(00:57:10.573):
Equal time, yeah.
(00:57:11.995):
And that just reminds me of how, like,
(00:57:14.058):
under the Pennsylvania law,
(00:57:15.981):
all industries are,
(00:57:17.182):
quote-unquote,
(00:57:17.883):
equal in zoning because otherwise it would be discrimination to discriminate
(00:57:22.811):
against really horrible industry.
(00:57:24.472):
You can’t have discrimination against a corporation,
(00:57:27.753):
because corporations are people, my friend, right?
(00:57:30.814):
Anyway, yeah, so this is something that has been in the works for many, many years.
(00:57:37.656):
And I found this interesting journal article from 1973 called The Strength of Weak Ties.
(00:57:46.339):
And it was in the American Journal of Sociology.
(00:57:49.600):
And it said, quote, Imagine, to begin with, a community completely partitioned into cliques, such that each person is tied to every other in his clique and to none outside. Community organization would be severely inhibited. Leafletting, radio announcements, or other methods could insure that everyone was aware of some nascent organization; but studies of diffusion and mass communication have shown that people rarely act on mass-media information unless it is also transmitted through personal ties
(00:57:53.502):
Unquote.
(00:58:22.062):
Yeah, so you see how this is an outgrowth of the algorithmic silos we’re in.
(00:58:30.048):
So that’s why there are these operations that try to get into those silos.
(00:58:35.993):
So it’s all...
(00:58:38.785):
We’ve all been there where it’s a social media silo where you know something
(00:58:42.911):
and your friend doesn’t even know about it because it wasn’t in their feed.
(00:58:46.036):
It didn’t tailor to their tastes.
(00:58:48.179):
And that’s even worse because there’s a form of disinformation leverage that is this too.
(00:58:53.707):
It tricks people into thinking they have heard the same story,
(00:58:57.412):
but in fact they’ve heard two different stories about it so that they can think
(00:59:00.737):
that they’re talking about the same thing, but they’re not.
(00:59:03.200):
And this was mentioned in an interview by Reed Galen’s podcast.
(00:59:08.868):
where the guest Jonathan Buchwalter described this.
(00:59:12.754):
Quote, for the Putin regime,
(00:59:14.517):
the state controlled media will actively contradict itself in the same broadcast
(00:59:18.242):
and you will get,
(00:59:18.963):
for example, I was listening to a podcast where an expert on Russian propaganda was
(00:59:23.710):
was being interviewed and they described a plane crash where
(00:59:26.254):
the plane crash was real and the dates and times presented were real.
(00:59:29.999):
But all of the news coverage is speculation about what happened,
(00:59:33.645):
where the facts of the issue beyond the absolute concrete facts like day and time
(00:59:38.912):
They change throughout the day,
(00:59:40.435):
where the same broadcasters would run different versions of events such that
(00:59:45.282):
when you leave the screen and you go and interact with people in the world,
(00:59:49.267):
you’re both only vaguely talking about the same event,
(00:59:52.432):
and this prevents the Russian population from really engaging with reality at all, that they don’t know anything about what is happening around them. Unquote.
(00:59:53.734):
And so that’s why I have repeatedly said don’t use shorthand for anything.
(00:59:55.937):
Don’t use shorthand because somebody might not have the same definition of far left as you do, you might think far left means tankies, where somebody else saying far left means Joe Biden, and there’s everything in between.
(01:00:08.756):
Right. So you cannot use shorthand.
(01:00:23.958):
And that’s a real problem in a buzzword world.
(01:00:27.203):
So, but you gotta break things down.
(01:00:30.047):
You have to break things down and explain what you’re talking about.
(01:00:32.771):
You can’t use shorthand.
(01:00:34.594):
And there was also a Molly Jong Fast interview with Rick Wilson of the Lincoln
(01:00:38.820):
project fame.
(01:00:40.681):
It’s from April 12, 2026.
(01:00:43.222):
And he references these things in relation to MAGA influencers,
(01:00:47.203):
these inauthentic promotional things.
(01:00:50.804):
And of course,
(01:00:51.184):
this all dates back to MAGA3X 2015 or 2016,
(01:00:55.246):
where it was revealed that the Trump campaign was fueled by alt-right people on
(01:00:58.947):
the internet organized into a so-called digital army and all of that.
(01:01:03.508):
And another podcast interview that I would recommend
(01:01:09.770):
that Reed Galen interviewed Democratic political influencer Maria Comstock
(01:01:14.952):
about what it’s like to be an influencer.
(01:01:16.712):
And she spills a lot of the tea.
(01:01:18.493):
I mean, I think people should hear about how the influencer sausage gets made, so to speak.
(01:01:24.654):
That’s from April 2026.
(01:01:25.434):
And...
(01:01:30.011):
So back to The Town episode about the fake is feed article that I started out with.
(01:01:37.042):
At the end of it, the host mentions that the fake is feed article, it says, quote, Joe Lim estimates 90% of what you see on the internet is advertising in disguise. Unquote.
(01:01:45.193):
I mean, that sounds like dead internet theory, right?
(01:01:51.883):
So like that nothing is real.
(01:01:53.706):
And that’s not really true for everybody.
(01:01:56.069):
So like, but if you are just going to the for
(01:01:59.995):
you feed of a social media and that’s where you get all your quote-unquote news
(01:02:04.540):
or connection with the community or something yes a lot of it is going
(01:02:08.725):
to be advertising unless it’s in a like a privately grassroots
(01:02:16.113):
curated and moderated, which is a lot of work to do that kind of thing.
(01:02:20.059):
That’s why these really popular active ones are usually AstroTurfed,
(01:02:25.928):
because it’s a lot of work that goes into moderating something to keep out
(01:02:29.954):
the advertising, the marketing, and the fake stuff.
(01:02:33.879):
You could hear Reddit moderators complain about this.
(01:02:36.904):
And there was a recent story about how they’re trying to prompt inject Reddit
(01:02:42.111):
with peptides, you know, the wellness snake oil.
(01:02:45.957):
Coil basically sales stuff is trying to prompt inject AI chatbots
(01:02:51.760):
to do their advertising by infecting the Reddit posts with basically testimonials
(01:02:59.384):
and advertising in disguise and this has been happening for
(01:03:03.747):
a long time I’ve seen product you know it’s always oh it’s just
(01:03:06.588):
a personal testimonial but it’s really somebody who’s being paid to do that and even
(01:03:11.011):
if it’s close to true like
(01:03:13.540):
That means the internet isn’t someplace that you’re connecting reasonably
(01:03:16.541):
with other people to do real communication anymore.
(01:03:20.183):
But I don’t think it’s necessarily the internet,
(01:03:21.864):
because the internet encompasses more than social media.
(01:03:25.525):
So you are having one-to-one conversations, like I said.
(01:03:29.848):
you know people may try to um work you like you could have a handler so to speak
(01:03:35.476):
a handler um sure that could happen but not everything on
(01:03:39.342):
the internet you could still have emails one-on-one with your family members
(01:03:42.727):
and that’s a real thing you could still
(01:03:44.429):
You still have FaceTime or video calls with people,
(01:03:47.353):
your friends and stuff, and that is meaningful interpersonal relationships.
(01:03:52.040):
I’ve had many,
(01:03:53.402):
even pre-dating the internet,
(01:03:55.245):
I have had pen pals and still do through the regular mail.
(01:04:00.011):
um all over the world and I’ve had real friendships with people
(01:04:03.353):
who I never met um I only ever talked to in letters written on paper and
(01:04:09.196):
in fact I’ve met some of those pen pals later uh in person uh I have met them but uh
(01:04:15.759):
but anyway the point is is that if you’re on social media though there’s algorithms and they’re worked and they’re gamed and it’s a cesspool it really is. And some are worse than others. Certainly some platforms are far worse than others.
(01:04:18.328):
Uh, but, uh,
(01:04:33.470):
This also happens, you have to be on your guard from even advocacy groups.
(01:04:39.015):
Like I said,
(01:04:39.695):
people join advocacy groups,
(01:04:43.198):
volunteer organizations and stuff,
(01:04:46.361):
and they join specifically to promote products or promote something
(01:04:49.944):
of their own agenda or,
(01:04:51.925):
you know,
(01:04:52.246):
even to poach volunteers from those groups to other financially motivated groups.
(01:04:57.150):
I’ve seen that too, poaching.
(01:05:02.995):
And of course,
(01:05:03.476):
there’s also the non-profits that put themselves out there as activist groups
(01:05:07.642):
and are actually industry lobbying groups.
(01:05:10.346):
So, for example, organizations that are clearly renewable industry lobbyists.
(01:05:15.113):
Now, you may say that renewable, solar, wind...
(01:05:18.177):
energy, that’s so much better than fossil fuel.
(01:05:20.721):
And I’d agree with you with that.
(01:05:22.644):
I think a lot of us would.
(01:05:24.386):
But there’s a difference between industry interests
(01:05:26.669):
and community grassroots interests,
(01:05:29.413):
and between the interests of a business in the industry and the end users. I mean this is most obvious when you look at things like with the solar industry and the fact that these groups are characterized by politicians as environmental groups and they will say oh environmental groups are backing this project
(01:05:33.098):
but in fact
(01:05:47.920):
It’s the solar industry org that’s backing the project or the bill or whatever it is.
(01:05:54.690):
And this happened recently with PA HB2151.
(01:05:59.156):
That was put out by Kyle Mullins.
(01:06:02.922):
And he was saying oh well all these environmental groups were backing this bill, but it had poison pills in it, and you know there were public health groups and environmental groups who were saying no this bill has problems, you know the solar focused orgs were pushing it. But notice how they’re not pushing the hoi polloi like me getting rooftop solar. They’re not pushing free solar for regular people to put on their houses.
(01:06:18.004):
That’s because it’s not as lucrative as a mega project covering
(01:06:32.926):
acres of farmland
(01:06:34.608):
you know,
(01:06:34.849):
farmland we need for food,
(01:06:36.892):
where somebody gets a windfall on a real estate deal,
(01:06:40.157):
and there’s a taxpayer giveaway,
(01:06:42.540):
it’s a big grant,
(01:06:44.243):
and a few people get a cut of the vig on the project, and so people, a few people make a lot of money on it. And that’s the reality. That that’s what they push rather than something that would actually be good for you know the grassroots regular person in the community.
(01:06:47.968):
And here’s a headline for you.
(01:07:02.930):
from,
(01:07:03.871):
you know,
(01:07:04.252):
the Springer Nature article,
(01:07:06.435):
quote, expansion of solar farms and deforestation in northern Minas Gerais, Brazil.
(01:07:12.544):
This is from October 2025, quote, the installation of photovoltaic solar farms is increasing in Brazil leading to environmental impacts especially deforestation Unquote.
(01:07:19.452):
And yeah, so like they’re deforesting the land.
(01:07:28.834):
Like this is not grassroots.
(01:07:30.635):
The community didn’t want it.
(01:07:32.495):
And they deforested the land anyway.
(01:07:34.675):
And it was called green because it was solar powered to power a data center.
(01:07:39.396):
So that’s your quote unquote green data center, right?
(01:07:42.157):
(01:07:43.017):
And there’s lots of greenwashing going on around data centers generally and AI generally.
(01:07:49.021):
And that’s why the solar industry signs off on it, right?
(01:07:54.024):
Because it might be good for their industry.
(01:07:56.986):
Like, is it better than fossil fuel?
(01:07:59.868):
Yeah, but why?
(01:08:01.269):
Like, why are we doing – if you power a data center with solar,
(01:08:05.632):
that means that that place first doesn’t get – the forest is gone.
(01:08:10.915):
then they don’t they also a farmland could be gone and then also if
(01:08:15.316):
that data center exists demanding AI AGI god
(01:08:19.637):
for making this huge huge chatbot that’s huge hugest um to make AGI and realize
(01:08:27.239):
the AGI god or whatever and they need so much energy and Eric Schmidt was talking
(01:08:32.900):
about this talk Sam Altman is a close friend he believes that it’s going to take
(01:08:38.421):
about 300 billion maybe more
(01:08:41.316):
I pointed out to him that I’d done the calculation on the amount of energy required
(01:08:45.057):
and I then,
(01:08:47.998):
in the spirit of full disclosure,
(01:08:49.519):
went to the White House on Friday and told them that we need to become best friends
(01:08:53.480):
with Canada because Canada has really nice people,
(01:08:58.361):
helped invent AI, and lots of hydropower.
(01:09:01.449):
because we as a country do not have enough power to do this.
(01:09:05.433):
The alternative is to have the Arabs fund it.
(01:09:08.356):
And I like the Arabs personally.
(01:09:10.278):
I spent lots of time there, right?
(01:09:12.540):
But they’re not going to adhere to our national security rules,
(01:09:15.503):
whereas Canada and the U.S. are part of a triumvirate where we all agree.
(01:09:19.407):
So these $100 billion,
(01:09:20.408):
$300 billion data centers, electricity starts becoming the scarce resource.
(01:09:24.732):
Well,
(01:09:26.329):
like he was saying you need all of
(01:09:28.190):
the energy it’s not gonna you’re not gonna just do it with solar
(01:09:31.431):
because we need energy for other things that are actually legitimate like powering
(01:09:35.833):
the hospitals and electricity to power your lights and whatever um
(01:09:40.395):
so yeah it’s greenwashing to say you’re gonna have a green data center that
(01:09:48.118):
Like, it’s like saying, oh, you’re going to have green Bitcoin.
(01:09:50.681):
It’s like, do we need Bitcoin?
(01:09:51.902):
No.
(01:09:52.663):
No, we don’t.
(01:09:53.704):
And what they’re actually doing to print cryptocurrency
(01:09:56.727):
in Pennsylvania is burning tires, burning tires and coal waste.
(01:10:01.512):
Yes, that’s a thing.
(01:10:03.394):
That Greg Beard, his operation that he founded, and now he’s in the federal government.
(01:10:10.838):
So sometimes there’s overlap between these groups and environmentalists
(01:10:14.562):
or public health advocates.
(01:10:15.983):
I mean, there could be.
(01:10:16.884):
You know,
(01:10:18.605):
there are some – I’m sure that, like,
(01:10:20.767):
a lot of these solar promotional orgs are against that coal – you know,
(01:10:26.333):
the coal plant –
(01:10:28.567):
You know,
(01:10:29.108):
they’re against the coal plant,
(01:10:31.990):
the coal waste burning plant and the tire burning,
(01:10:35.553):
but they just want them to put in solar power.
(01:10:39.036):
It’s like, but I’m saying, no, let’s get rid of this cryptocurrency nonsense.
(01:10:44.760):
You see?
(01:10:45.721):
Yeah, so it’s a problem.
(01:10:48.023):
And even sometimes when an org is normal, and maybe they even have
(01:10:54.588):
certain goals.
(01:10:56.089):
Yeah, I mean, it’s, of course, hashtag not all orgs.
(01:10:59.051):
Obviously, not all orgs are like this.
(01:11:01.353):
But there is a lot of money sloshing around for a lot of these nonprofits.
(01:11:05.695):
If you go look at the nonprofit explorer on ProPublica,
(01:11:08.918):
you could see how much these nonprofit orgs are raking in.
(01:11:13.521):
So I’ll read for you some posts, some social media posts, by Timnit Gebru.
(01:11:19.205):
That really, I feel like everybody needs to hear.
(01:11:22.448):
And so I’m going to read them out.
(01:11:24.690):
And this was in relation to Anthropic getting like a really big marketing hype boost
(01:11:29.055):
from the Vatican, because of their hype doomer stuff.
(01:11:32.819):
And it was related to that, but it’s really translatable.
(01:11:36.822):
Overall, like this is, I’ll just read it.
(01:11:40.044):
Timnit Gebru says, quote,
(01:11:41.744):
You thought religious leaders of organizations endowed with billions were going
(01:11:45.846):
to side with you rather than the dudes who are about to make billions
(01:11:49.708):
with their IPOs?
(01:11:51.529):
What I’ve learned in the nonprofit space is that all
(01:11:54.670):
of these people you thought were independent from each other hang out in
(01:11:58.412):
the same places,
(01:11:59.853):
Davos, or a bunch of closed-door meetings for the world’s power brokers.
(01:12:05.135):
leaders of corporations foundations entrenched religious institutions they hear
(01:12:10.359):
from each other much more so than anyone else they’re all in
(01:12:14.701):
the same echo chamber it’s the same lesson I learned about academia
(01:12:19.144):
and industry Stanford and Silicon Valley being the same etc the one who fights
(01:12:24.587):
for your rights is you don’t look to anyone powerful to do that they only respond
(01:12:30.251):
to your pressure unquote
(01:12:32.902):
I’ve been saying this for years. Right. Don’t count on the elites the celebrities the politicians. Even though the politicians are ostensibly hired by elections to represent the people. They so often have movers and shakers and lobbyists and business leaders in their ear. People who
(01:12:47.804):
are paid a lot of money to spend 40 plus hours a week getting in people’s ears.
(01:12:52.626):
And remember,
(01:12:53.047):
grassroots activists have day jobs,
(01:12:55.168):
you know,
(01:12:55.488):
unconnected to this stuff so that they,
(01:12:58.349):
they aren’t doing like,
(01:12:59.390):
you know,
(01:12:59.610):
they only have so much time in their free time,
(01:13:02.351):
you know, outside of their family obligations and their work 40 hours a week.
(01:13:06.714):
And, you know,
(01:13:07.814):
these people who are in these organizations,
(01:13:10.355):
they have, they’re doing this as a full time job.
(01:13:14.266):
So it’s hard to compete with paid lobbyists, is what I’m saying.
(01:13:18.090):
But we should all be trying to get into the ear of our representatives.
(01:13:21.854):
And it does work.
(01:13:22.635):
I mean,
(01:13:23.096):
apparently it worked with Bill Gaughan because now he’s championing the people
(01:13:27.641):
who are resisting the data centers.
(01:13:30.063):
And it wasn’t always the case.
(01:13:31.445):
And he said, after I heard from hundreds and hundreds,
(01:13:34.574):
The opposition to the data centers is overwhelming.
(01:13:37.715):
I’ve been hearing from literally hundreds and hundreds of my constituents throughout
(01:13:41.556):
the county over the last several weeks, and I have serious concerns.
(01:13:45.797):
There are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who are lining
(01:13:50.478):
the hallways, who are spending three to four hours at these public meetings.
(01:13:54.939):
It’s not because they don’t know what’s going on.
(01:13:58.372):
I sat and watched this ignorant arrogant data center developer who by the way wore
(01:14:04.718):
a turtleneck which for some reason annoyed me in the worst way
(01:14:08.441):
but he had this turtleneck and he was
(01:14:10.683):
the most ignorant arrogant person I had ever seen speak and a woman got up
(01:14:14.687):
in Archbald and was asking this man questions
(01:14:17.689):
and his response was well don’t you use google don’t you use google
(01:14:22.387):
So let’s eviscerate all of the hundreds and thousands of acres of land
(01:14:27.431):
in Lackawanna County so we can use Google,
(01:14:29.893):
so we can help this guy make a billion dollars.
(01:14:32.455):
So I will end with my letter to the editor, but first I have to...
(01:14:38.144):
Read from the article or the Chris Kelly column that my letter to
(01:14:42.070):
the editor was supposed to be a response to,
(01:14:44.954):
though when they published the letter to the editor,
(01:14:46.837):
they cut that sentence off that I started with, but it makes sense anyway.
(01:14:52.966):
I’m going to read from the Chris Kelly column about Josh Shapiro,
(01:14:56.867):
Governor Josh Shapiro’s visit to Archbald,
(01:14:59.528):
Pennsylvania to talk about the data center issue.
(01:15:03.509):
Chris Kelly’s opinion column was titled, Shapiro is Patient Zero of the Data Center Virus.
(01:15:09.751):
Quote, diagnosing Josh Shapiro’s surprise visit to the former Mid-Valley Hospital
(01:15:14.118):
in Peckville on Wednesday,
(01:15:15.480):
even the most inexperienced clinician could spot the symptoms
(01:15:19.105):
of chronic data center virus in the governor’s words and body language.
(01:15:24.673):
This creeping pathogen strikes politicians who have been in close contact with wealthy donors and greedy developers who infect ambitious officials with massive transfusions of campaign cash and snake oil cure-alls for economic and electoral lethargy. Symptoms include generalized anxiety, increased impulsivity and a stubborn reluctance to accept objective reality. Data Center Virus, or “NOVID ‘26,” has progressively proven fatal to political careers across the nation.
(01:15:39.595):
Voters of every political
(01:15:54.577):
persuasion are banding together to reject invasive AI data center development and evict officials who ignore the roaring voice of the people they swore oaths to serve. Locally, that voice is loudest in Archbald, which is facing annihilation in service to Wall Street speculators, predatory developers and Silicon Valley billionaires who plot to wreck the world and rule over the ruins.
(01:16:09.578):
Shapiro finally came to the realization that no politician can afford to ignore
(01:16:13.083):
the overwhelming opposition which
(01:16:24.820):
explains his unannounced stop at the Peckville office of State Representative Kyle Mullins.
(01:16:30.989):
The governor had a closed-door discussion
(01:16:33.713):
with Mullins Archbald Councilwoman Madonna Munley, Mike Pilch of Stop Archbald Data Centers and Archbald Neighborhood Association co-founders Kayleigh Cornell and Sarah Gabriel
(01:16:39.662):
Afterward, Shapiro held a brief press conference with local journalists, unquote. And then the piece later goes on to mention that the governor
(01:16:54.664):
did a photo op at Ed Staback Park, which is, quote, facing ruination.
(01:17:00.406):
That’s a very apt description, Chris Kelly.
(01:17:02.886):
They’re trying to surround it with 30 data centers and
(01:17:06.728):
a full-size methane gas plant tucked right in between townhomes in
(01:17:10.409):
an upscale neighborhood and a park.
(01:17:12.189):
It’s madness.
(01:17:13.310):
And then Chris Kelly goes on to write about this, quote,
(01:17:16.370):
Shapiro lamented the pall a towering data center would cast over children
(01:17:20.792):
and families gathered around a public diamond, but didn’t declare his unequivocal opposition to this particular desecration.
(01:17:21.852):
Maybe the governor was cautious over concern that commenting on a specific project could spark legal action by the developer. OK, but Shapiro chose to visit a specific site threatened by a specific project. He got political use of the park as a symbol without insisting it be spared.
(01:17:36.653):
The same is true of the governor’s real concerns for Archbald.
(01:17:39.094):
Sentiment doesn’t pay the rent.
(01:17:39.935):
Voters naturally viewed Shapiro’s unannounced visit as a photo op using the park and
(01:17:43.057):
the borough as props.
(01:17:43.957):
As news of the visit spread, public outrage mushroomed. Unquote.
(01:18:02.153):
In my letter to the editor,
(01:18:04.557):
for those not in Pennsylvania,
(01:18:06.379):
or even for those who are and don’t know about this,
(01:18:09.744):
GRID, G-R-I-D, refers to basically an energy fix that Governor
(01:18:17.035):
Josh Shapiro thinks could be a cure-all to the data center opposition,
(01:18:21.421):
because that’s been astroturfed from the get-go to focus on energy costs instead of,
(01:18:27.651):
you know, all of the myriad of problems of data centers, and just to focus on behind the meter or bring your own power.
(01:18:32.037):
The Trump administration has promoted this too and Josh Shapiro. A headline from Reuters says Quote Trump says he has told big tech companies to build their own power plants.
(01:18:47.759):
A headline from WHYY, quote,
(01:18:51):
PA Governor Josh Shapiro wants more data centers,
(01:18:54.461):
but they need to bring their own power.
(01:18:56.881):
And from Spotlight PA, quote,
(01:18:59.242):
During Josh Shapiro’s budget address,
(01:19:01.922):
he outlined that developers must commit to bringing their own power generation,
(01:19:06.863):
unquote.
(01:19:07.884):
But the power has to come from somewhere,
(01:19:09.864):
and that’s how you wind up with a gas plant being shoved into a neighborhood
(01:19:14.075):
between a park and residential housing, along with dozens of data centers.
(01:19:17.900):
And why does this get pushed?
(01:19:19.623):
I think this explains some of it.
(01:19:22.046):
This is my letter to the editor,
(01:19:24.169):
published in The Times-Tribune on June 12,
(01:19:27.293):
2026, and later in the print edition that Sunday.
(01:19:31.062):
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s remarks were far too vague regarding
(01:19:34.303):
the data centers planned in Archbald.
(01:19:36.584):
The governor’s stubborn condition seems linked to him being on the board
(01:19:40.385):
of Team Pennsylvania Foundation,
(01:19:42.266):
which is partnered and fiscally sponsors the industry-led group AI Strike Team,
(01:19:47.408):
which describes itself as advancing the AI industry.
(01:19:51.349):
Team PA Foundation has a “public private partnership” and a long list of business people on the board. Top state agency leaders are also on the board, including the secretaries of the DEP, the Department of Education, Agriculture, Labor & Industry, and the DCED, along with elected state representatives
(01:20:10.905):
Rep. Kyle Mullins, Sen. Amanda Cappelletti and Sen. Devlin Robinson.
(01:20:16.706):
How could any of these people be trusted to regulate the industry
(01:20:20.207):
while simultaneously acting in capacity with this organization that exists
(01:20:25.049):
to facilitate industry?
(01:20:26.809):
The Right to Know request emails reported in Will Bunch’s column in
(01:20:30.430):
The Philadelphia Inquirer have revealed various Pennsylvania government officials
(01:20:35.751):
acting as a concierge to Amazon.
(01:20:38.092):
Every...
(01:20:39.361):
Every bill those lawmakers advance related to AI and data centers must be suspected
(01:20:44.028):
of being written by AI Strike Team,
(01:20:46.452):
including one Kyle Mullins is expected to introduce to “codify GRID.”
(01:20:51.739):
Focus on the electric grid appears to
(01:20:54.243):
be a decoy. U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan was pushing the idea
(01:20:58.326):
that data center power demand will magically “unleash” affordability, when
(01:21:02.769):
that doesn’t make sense.
(01:21:04.070):
I know that “bringing their own power” means data centers with gas plants
(01:21:07.432):
and diesel turbines right in neighborhoods in our valley,
(01:21:10.154):
unleashing various and sundry pollution.
(01:21:12.656):
All these officials must choose a side and step down from one or the other,
(01:21:16.439):
because it’s a conflict of interest.
(01:21:18.540):
They can’t stand on both sides and fully serve we the people.
(01:21:22.384):
Chloe Humbert, Scranton. Pennsylvania
