The One Big Issue That Connects the Data Center and Flock Backlash

At some point this week, a group text seemed to go out across Silicon Valley suggesting that the industry has a major messaging problem. Across the country, city council meetings that otherwise go unattended are suddenly full of rowdy, engaged citizens ready to voice their concerns and frustrations over the encroaching creep of Big Tech in the form of data centers and surveillance systems like Flock Safety’s license plate readers. The backlash to data centers seems to have reached its fever pitch this week when Liquid Death ran an advertisement with former NFL player and current podcaster Jason Kelce encouraging people to send their piss to data centers. You know you’ve lost the messaging war when a national brand and their celebrity endorser view pissing on you as a safe marketing bet. Behind the scenes, the panic is setting in. On Wednesday, Axios reported the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent an urgent memo to AI companies warning that they’re getting killed in Ohio on data centers, basically urging the firms to come up with a way to sell these things. Donald Trump, who has refused to back away from data centers, said this week that data centers “could use a little p