July 18, 2026

Summary:

  • Organizers demand transparency, resource safeguards, community benefits and developer accountability
  • Only 14% back an AI data center in their community, June Reuters/Ipsos poll showed
  • Texas hosted 18 protests, the most of any state
  • Turnout lower than expected at some rallies, local organizers say

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[–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Have a nice fire themed playlist I played at the last Tesla dealership protest I went to.

    Seems like I'll get more use out of it.

    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnQUDI2beEZ9rOVZ48pC5Lw1tBa1EgdEC

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  • [–] -2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I work with health data.

    You want datacenters. Believe me you really want them. You don't want resources wasted on Ai, but this protest is about killing datacenters, and there is a baby in that bathwater.

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  • 15 comments in c/technology@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 22 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    I still can't believe the grotesquely huge amounts of copper they use in those data centers. Now we know why they got rid of the penny. Copper everywhere. As far as the eye can see!

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago* (2 children)

    It will never be anywhere near the grotesque amounts of non-recyclable gasoline, diesel, fossil methane and collective emissions. You know these are measured in BILLIONS of TONS per YEAR, right? Being liquid and gaseous instead of solid is not a reason to dismiss them.

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  • [–] 32 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Amazing! The one thing capable of uniting Americans right now is a warehouse full of GPUs. Turns out people love AI until the power bill, water use and mystery zoning meeting show up. Maybe transparency should scale as fast as compute for once, because trust clearly is not keeping pace.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I was surprised to find that frustrations over the data center "explosion" are very bipartisan. Basically no one except rich tech bros are happy about it.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago

    {Donarhea Drumpf does disgusting and terrible things for decades, including sexual assaults and rape. Then fucks the world up in the first term. Then incites an insurrection when ousted, then steals top secret documents and stores them in an unlocked room next to a fax machine. Is friends with Epstein is a kiddie fiddler and won't release the files. Kidnaps then deports and/or kills people in broad daylight. Blatant corruption. Corruption everywhere. So much corruption. Bombs a little girls school killing nearly 200 of them. All that plus loads more and also does much more heinous shit}
    Most of the american population {tumbleweed and crickets}

    {Fuel prices go up due to the war}
    The american population: "This is affecting me directly now, how outrageous. I didn't vote for this."

    {Data centres happen and energy prices go up}
    The american population: "This is affecting me directly now, how outrageous. I didn't vote for this."

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  • [–] 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    Little Marco abt to designate them as anti-tech extremist terrorists. This is gonna get interesting given how many people are aligned on this.

    In case you think I'm joking.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    This machine kills clankers.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago*

    The fact they've gobbled up all memory and storage supply to the point where there's none left over for anyone else, and the fact the little stock you do find is extortionately expensive is disgusting. We're literally seeing an entire era and industry collapsing, jobs being stolen from people and huge negative economical impacts, just for the sake of AI.

    It's so not worth it, this shit has gone way beyond going out of hand...

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  • [+] -18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    This is gonna go really well when people find out the only way to safely store health and justice data is in a specialized building.

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  • 12 comments in c/news@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 43 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    “Data center protests are now left wing terrorism” - some Trump shithead

    Good thing it seems almost everyone fucking hates data centers including rural people.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago

    In an interview with Forbes last year, Flock CEO Garrett Langley described DeFlock as a “terroristic organization.” But now, as Flock faces an increasingly vitriolic public backlash, Langley says he regrets that label.

    Pretty close to reality actually

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago*

    "Its socialism to not raise your utility bills by 25-50% " will play well lmao

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  • [–] 25 points 3 months ago

    Calling it SOCIALISM to HATE Data Centers will NOT backfire on your REALLY DUMB Followers who hate Data Centers and are being told THAT makes them Socialist!

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  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago
    [–] 15 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    This is all so easily avoidable if they would spend a little more money to make them quieter, water efficient, and pay for their own energy. The technology exists. We could engineer a solution.

    But I guess it's cheaper to bribe a few councilmen.

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  • [–] 18 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    My company does exactly these and more.

    Top-of-the line ultra-quiet low sulfur generators used only for utility outages.

    Closed-loop water cooling means the toilets use more water in a day than the cooling does in a year.

    Paying for the construction of the local infrastructure needed for twice our usage of electricity. We leave things better after we build.

    We do these every day. No one notices because bad news leads. There are certainly bad actors. And no one cares to think any further than that. Subtlety and nuance in understanding technology is dead.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago

    I feel like this is less a subtly and nuance thing and moreso a quite a few data centers particularly AI ones are built and maintained like shit. Frankly this is moreso a discussion of corporate malfeasance and lack of regulations on certain industries than a technology discussion, though obviously a lot of it is wrapped up in the AI shit because it's the current fuckfest of a nothing tech that's causing problems but I do remember similar issues building up during the crypto shit it's just now with AI.

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  • [–] -5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    They'll get protested anyway since those aren't the real motive behind the protests to begin with.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    Environmental concerns are certainly among the genuine reasons people are protesting, though there are also other reasons.

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  • [–] -4 points 3 months ago

    Except that the environmental impact of AI data centers is actually quite small compared to tons of other things that they could be protesting.

    It's quite ironic, there's an old golf course near my home town that's likely going to be replaced with a data center in the near future (it's shutting down and being rezoned, that's enough to get the protests started) but golf courses are way more water-hungry than data centers are.

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