Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

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The internet has become the primary way that people get public health information. Especially since the pandemic began in 2020, millions of people have turned to platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and newsletters to keep up to date on things like food recalls, infectious disease reports, and more. 

Bu...

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This is the first video in my new series on data brokers and the dark history of digital surveillance. I dig into how surveillance capitalism evolved, the companies profiting from intimate details about your life, and how it all began long before the internet.

I reveal the industry's origins from early government tracking systems to in...

Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co 

The U.S. government is quietly building the largest surveillance system in modern history. In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I break down how agencies like ICE, DHS are weaponizing your personal data including tax filings, medical records, license plate scans, and more, to hunt innocent people down across...

Last week, a couple featured on the Jumbotron during a Coldplay concert in Boston went viral for being caught cheating. Within minutes of the video spreading on TikTok and X, users rallied together to identify the couple in the video using AI and facial recognition tools.

Crowdsourced social media investigations are becoming more and more common, and the people conducting them are leveraging increasingly dystopian surveillance tech...

There's a bill right now in congress  called the NO FAKES act that claims it will protect you from deepfakes. "In this new era of AI, we need real laws to protect real people,"  Rep. Maria Salazar said when announcing the bill. "The NO FAKES Act is simple and sacred: you own your identity, not Big Tech, not scammers, not algorithms." 

As usual, none of this is what the law actually does!!!!! 

The NO FAKES act ...

Earlier this month, Sean “Diddy” Combs was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering after a high-profile federal trial. The acquittals show how high profile men accused of sexual abuse and wrongdoing still often escape justice. 

Already the outcome is being co-opted by the far right and manosphere spaces who are spinning it as proof that movements like #MeToo are overreaching. 

Today we're talking about why the Diddy case wa...

[FREE SPEECH FRIDAY] For decades, content creators have fought against oppressive copyright law. Copyright claims have been wielded by powerful corporations to take down videos, suppress criticism, and stifle parody through rigid enforcement of online speech.

But now, a troubling shift is unfolding: legal attacks that were once used almost exclusively by powerful media companies, are being weaponized by a big content creator agains...

After years of hype and promises to destroy the deep state, the Department of Justice and FBI publicly declared there is no “client list” linking Jeffrey Epstein to prominent figures, this week. They also confirmed Epstein died by suicide and said told all of MAGA basically to drop the issue. 

Now, MAGA influencers are accusing Trump of a cover up, the right wing internet is in disarray, and it remains unclear what will happen next....

[VIDEO ESSAY] --- Anti-Muslim hate is becoming extremely profitable in Silicon Valley as the tech industry pivots towards defense tech and embedding itself with the U.S. war machine. From funding Israeli defense startups to spreading racist conspiracy theories about Zohran Mamdani, VCs like Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire are pushing a new breed of tech militarism. 

Defense tech, AI surveillance, and far-right pro-Trump ideolo...

Because it's a holiday week I'm re-running one of my favorite episodes from last year.

I spoke to content creator Brad Podray‬ about the problem with “Kindness Influencers” and whether charity for content is ethical. We talk MrBeast, viral giveaways, and the difference between actual kindness vs kindness for the camera.

***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! �...

Can a meme really get you deported? This week’s Free Speech Friday, is on Mads Mikkelsen, a Norwegian tourist allegedly kicked out of the country over a viral JD Vance meme saved to his phone. His story comes as tensions over speech rights at our borders are under greater threat. 

I break down what's going on and dig into the U.S. government's growing use of border screenings to police political speech. From increased survei...

Private equity has quietly been gutting major sectors of the American economy, from healthcare, to housing, retail, our news media, and more. The industry is a multi trillion-dollar powerhouse that ultimately shapes all of our lives. 

Journalist Megan Greenwell has been covering the rise of Private Equity, and her new book reveals how private equity takeovers have disrupted industries, eroded job security, and undermined essential s...

Announcement!! I'm going to start uploading my video essays to this feed so people can watch them on Spotify or listen to them via podcasting apps. I will try to upload one video essay a month, always on a Monday. Hope you enjoy them! 

A new form of techno-spirituality is spreading like wildfire across the internet. Thousands of people are claiming that ChatGPT is sentient and that the AI is a type of all knowing God, or that it...

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Every single moment that you're online, you're feeding the data harvesting industry. Corporations then sell that data to the government, allowing them to target you for online speech, protesting, and more.

Now, the government wants to build a single centralized platform where U.S. spy agencies and the government can easily buy highl...

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For years, Pride Month meant rainbows on everything, in storefronts, on sneakers, burger wrappers, and an endless array of t-shirts and merch. But this June, After a decade of cashing in on queer identity, corporations are pulling back. From the aisles of Target and the Instagram feeds of big brands,...

Over the past week tech people, right wing figures and the media have been freaking out about Waymos being set on fire in downtown Los Angeles. The Waymos were burned during last weekend’s protests against ICE. 

A lot of people online seem deeply confused about the burnings of the cars. So, I'm going to break down why there's so much anti-Waymo sentiment, the rise of surveillance technology at protests, and how it all affects free s...

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Last week we witnessed the public blowout between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. After pouring hundreds of millions into Trump’s campaign and serving as a special adviser on the “Department of Government Efficiency" Musk is now on the outs with Trump and his future within the MAGA movement is uncertain.

Brace Belden is the co-host...

Welcome back to Free Speech Friday!

All across the internet, parents and lawmakers are calling for tech companies to verify users' ages online. They frame these efforts as a smart, reasonable, and harmless way to keep kids safe. But that's not what age verification does!!!

Age verification efforts are a major threat to privacy, freedom, and the very idea of an open web. No one knows this better than Eric Goldman. He is the a...

As Elon Musk's influence has grown, so too has a darker, more troubling side of his persona: his rampant egomania.

Faiz Siddiqui is a former colleague of mine at The Washington Post and he's the author of the new book Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk.

In this episode of Power User we break down exactly how Musk's narcissism has evolved throughout his career, and the key moments that reveal just how deeply Elon's self-obse...