Hasan Piker On The Terrifying Future Of Internet Surveillance

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co      

Support my work on Patreon: patreon.com/taylorlorenz 

 Hasan Piker joined me for this week's Free Speech Friday for a wide-ranging conversation about online censorship, government surveillance, digital ID laws, Section 230, TikTok, KOSA, free speech, the JAWBONE Act, internet privacy, and the growing pressure campaigns targeting creators and political commentators.

We discuss: 

• The rise of online censorship around the world

• The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)

• Government surveillance and digital ID requirements

• The future of online anonymity

• Section 230 and why it matters

• TikTok, Big Tech, and content moderation

• Government pressure on social media platforms

• Free speech on the left and the right

• The Jawbone Act

• How new internet laws could impact creators, journalists, activists, and everyday users

As governments push new regulations in the name of safety, misinformation, and national security, the debate over free speech, privacy, censorship, and online freedom is becoming more important than ever. 

#HasanPiker #FreeSpeech #Censorship #KOSA #Section230 #TikTok #Privacy #Surveillance #InternetFreedom #TechPolicy

Why is Kalshi suddenly everywhere? 

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co      

Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz 

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have become one of the most powerful forces in American media, politics, and culture. In this episode of Power User, I sit down with NPR's Bobby Allyn, the country's top prediction-markets reporter, to break down how Kalshi went from a tiny startup that 50 lawyers refused to represent to an inescapable cultural juggernaut backed by the Trump family, celebrities, and major news organizations.

We dig into how Kalshi exploited a legal loophole to bring sports betting and election betting to every state, why Donald Trump Jr. became an advisor to both Kalshi and Polymarket, and how the companies called the 2024 election for Trump before the mainstream media would, cementing their place in the MAGA universe. Bobby explains the rise of Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, Polymarket's offshore "crypto bad boy" founder Shane Coplan, and the regulatory war happening right now inside the CFTC.

We also cover the dark side nobody is talking about: undisclosed influencer marketing flooding your feed, the Timothée Chalamet Kalshi deal, secret ads during the NBA playoffs, the Mr. Beast video editor insider trading scandal, betting markets on wildfires and war, and the casinoification of the entire economy. We dig into the lawsuits, the looming Supreme Court showdown, and whether this whole gambling empire could vanish overnight! 

We cover:

• How Kalshi went from a rejected idea to a multi-billion dollar empire.

• The shocking court ruling that changed everything in 2024.

• Why MAGA influencers embraced prediction markets early.

• The Mr. Beast video editor insider trading scandal.

• How sports gambling bans were bypassed with a loophole.

• Timothée Chalamet's controversial Kalshi ad.

• The media's role in normalizing this "gambling for everything".

• Why Democrats and Republicans are fighting over regulation.

• The lawsuits that could end Kalshi.

• What happens when you can bet on wildfires, wars, and more.

Just in time for Pride month, Marsha Blackburn and the Heritage Foundation's anti-LGBTQ censorship is back (now supported by OpenAI).

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co     

Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz    

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is back, and this time, the White House is reportedly negotiating a deal to pass it in exchange for federal preemption of state AI laws. In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I break down why KOSA is one of the most dangerous internet censorship bills in Congress, why tech billionaires like Sam Altman and Elon Musk actually SUPPORT it, and what the media is getting completely wrong about this so-called "trade-off."

I'm joined by Ari Cohn, one of the top First Amendment lawyers in the country, to explain exactly how KOSA's "duty of care" provision will force platforms to mass-censor content, including LGBTQ voices, mental health support communities, reproductive health information, and more. 

We cover the junk science behind the social media moral panic, the age verification privacy nightmare, how the FTC could become the internet's censor-in-chief, and why we've seen this exact panic before with comic books, video games, and television.

Click the link below to take action now!!! https://www.badinternetbills.com 

In this video, we cover:

• What the Kids Online Safety Act actually does

• How KOSA could impact social media platforms

• Age verification and online privacy issues

• The potential effects on LGBTQ communities, mental health resources, and online speech

• Why Elon Musk and OpenAI support KOSA.

• The reality of age verification and the death of online privacy.

• How KOSA targets niche communities and support groups.

Exposing The Dark Money Machine Behind AI Propaganda

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co     

Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz 

I break down my investigation into a network of pro-AI and anti-AI meme accounts that I found were secretly being run and funded by OpenAI, Palantir, and Andreessen Horowitz's big $125M super PAC and dark money group. 

I reveal how these accounts operated, who is connected to them, why they promoted both sides of the AI debate, and how the organization at the center of the story confirmed key aspects of the reporting after publication.

I talk about how a self-described “Meme Lord” named Jason Levin,  founder of Memelord Technologies was hired by the super PAC, Leading the Future, to create and run sock puppet accounts like “DoomersAreDumb” and “Jonathan Doomer” to attack AI critics, mock disabled people, post violent threats, and even pretend to be an anti-AI activist.

OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman donated millions to this campaign. OpenAI’s head of strategy follows these meme accounts. And when confronted, Build American AI confirmed it all.

Topics covered:

• AI propaganda and influence campaigns

• OpenAI and AI policy politics

• Dark money groups and Super PACs

• Fake activist accounts

• AI-generated content networks

• Meme pages and online manipulation

• Political lobbying and artificial intelligence

• Social media influence operations

• Tech industry power and public opinion

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #TechNews #OpenAI #SiliconValley #MemeCulture #InvestigativeJournalism #InfluenceCampaign #AIDebate #TechPolicy #PowerUser

Are you on a government watchlist just for criticizing AI? 

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co    

Support my work on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly Q&A livestreams, and more: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz  

A shocking new investigation from The Intercept reveals that police are tracking seemingly anyone who expresses skepticism or anger about the tech industry online. 

In this episode of Free Speech Friday, journalist Sam Biddle joins me to dive deep into a terrifying new report from The Intercept exposing how Philadelphia police officers admitted to monitoring legitimate First Amendment activity. Law enforcement documents show that specialized "Fusion Centers" are scanning social media, message boards, and Facebook to flag users posting anti-AI and anti-data center sentiments. 

Sam and I discuss the post-9/11 surveillance apparatus, how local police use tools like Data Miner to monitor online discussions, and why the Trump administration is aligning with tech billionaires and crypto lobbyists to turn AI into a national security priority. 

Is your private Signal group chat safe from police infiltration? Why are corporate platforms like Meta incentivized to censor anti-tech activism? We break down the chilling effect of mass surveillance and the elite effort to frame community civics and political advocacy as domestic extremism.

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM:

This channel has ZERO sponsors and relies 100% on viewer support! Keep my reporting alive by subscribing:

👉 Support on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz    

👉 Read my Substack Newsletter: https://usermag.co 

#Surveillance #BigTech #ArtificialIntelligence #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #Privacy #DataCenter #TheIntercept #TechNews #CivilLiberties

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co    

Support my work on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly Q&A livestreams, and more: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz    

Are AI data centers destroying the environment, driving up power bills, and consuming massive amounts of water, or is the backlash overblown?

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co     

Support my work on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly Q&A livestreams, and more: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz       

In this episode of Power User, I sit down with Wired senior climate and energy reporter Molly Taft to unpack the AI data center boom. We discuss how AI infrastructure actually works, why companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and xAI are racing to build more data centers, and what the environmental consequences could be.

We dive into the controversy around electricity demand, fossil fuel expansion, water use, local community opposition, AI infrastructure, data center moratoriums, and whether these facilities are genuinely necessary for the future of artificial intelligence.

Topics covered:

• What AI data centers actually do

• Why ChatGPT and AI require so much compute

• The environmental impact of AI

• Energy consumption and power grids

• Natural gas, nuclear, and renewable energy

• Elon Musk's xAI Colossus project

• Water usage and cooling systems

• Community backlash against data centers

• Climate concerns and AI development

• The future of AI infrastructure

If you've been seeing headlines about AI data centers, energy crises, environmental impacts, or the race between OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and China, this conversation breaks down what's really happening.

#AI #DataCenters #ChatGPT #OpenAI #ArtificialIntelligence #ClimateChange #Technology #TechNews #Energy #Environment

What if you woke up tomorrow and completely lost access to your bank account, credit cards, PayPal, and Venmo, all because of something you posted online? 

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co    

Support my work on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly Q&A livestreams, and more: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz     

In this episode of Free Speech Friday, Rainey Reitman, advisor at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and author of the new book "Transaction Denied" joins me to dive deep into the terrifying reality of financial censorship and how major banks and payment processors are quietly becoming the ultimate gatekeepers of internet speech. 

Reitman reveals how a handful of massive financial institutions are bypassing the First Amendment to act as privatized censors, deciding what journalism you can support, what political nonprofits you can donate to, and what ideas are considered "misinformation." From the early financial blockade of WikiLeaks to recent debanking scandals involving independent journalists and nonpartisan advocacy groups, this hidden digital infrastructure controls your life more than you realize. 

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM:

This channel has ZERO sponsors, and speaking out on financial censorship isn't advertiser-friendly. If you get value from this show, support my work so I can keep making these videos!

👉 Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/taylorlorenz 

👉 Support on Substack: https://www.usermag.co/subscribe 

👉 Pick up a copy of Rainey Reitman's "Transaction Denied" here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/804543/transaction-denied-by-rainey-reitman/ 

*(Note: Half of all book proceeds go directly to the Freedom of the Press Foundation)*

We discuss: 

The Nightmare of Financial Censorship

How Payment Processors Got So Much Power

The Rise of E-Commerce & Speech Dependency

PayPal, WikiLeaks, and Chelsea Manning

Censorship by Proxy: How the Government Pressures Banks

The Visa Lawsuit That Could Ruin the Internet

Have you noticed your social media feeds suddenly flooding with terrifying content about AI existential risk?

From TikTok clips warning about "AI psychosis" to viral YouTube shorts claiming chatbots are pushing people to the brink, the anti-AI movement has taken over the internet... But what if these "anti-AI" influencers aren't actually what they seem?

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co   

Support my work on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly Q&A livestreams, and more: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz    

In this week's episode of Power User, Washington Post journalist Natasha Tiku join me to pull back the curtain on the massive, billionaire-funded "anti-AI" astroturf campaign.

We track the money and expose how the exact same millionaires and billionaires building the world's largest AI companies (like OpenAI and Anthropic) are quietly paying influencers thousands of dollars to promote AI doomsday scenarios.

We dive deep into the 25-year history of the AI safety movement, from Eliezer Yudkowski’s rationalist blogs and Harry Potter fan fiction to Effective Altruism and the "paperclip maximizer" theory. We talk about how Silicon Valley elites are co-opting VERY genuine public anxieties about jobs and real-world harms related to AI technology in order to push their own pro-AI, anti-regulatory agendas.

We also talk about how to spot the hidden corporate pipelines, dark money nonprofits, and staged research papers designed to control the narrative around AI. If you're seeing AI doomer videos all over your feed, please watch this one!

✨ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: 

👉 Substack Newsletter: http://usermag.co 

👉 Patreon: patreon.com/taylorlorenz 

Nitasha's WaPo story on all this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/04/18/ai-doom-influencers-safety/

Elon Musk has evolved far beyond a billionaire CEO. 

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co  

Support my work on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly Q&A livestreams, and more: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz   

According to political theorists Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, Musk has created an entirely new ideology called “Muskism” — a system where technology companies merge with state power, AI shapes politics, and billionaires become more powerful than governments.

In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I sit down with Quinn Slobodian, co-author of the new book Muskism, to break down how Elon Musk’s worldview went from Silicon Valley optimism to tech authoritarianism. We discuss Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, AI censorship, OpenAI, Grok, surveillance, DOGE, data centers, Silicon Valley’s shift toward defense tech, and why Musk’s influence now reaches into every part of society.

We also unpack:

• Elon Musk’s political transformation

• The rise of Muskism

• AI paranoia and “woke AI”

• Why Silicon Valley is embracing militarization

• Musk’s obsession with reproduction and population decline

• How SpaceX and Starlink could reshape global power

• The future of AI and surveillance capitalism

• Why tech billionaires are becoming impossible to escape

What happens if AI becomes smarter than humans at most jobs?

SUPPORT MY WORK: 

Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co 

Support my work on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly Q&A livestreams, and more: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz 

Researchers, economists, and top AI executives are increasingly warning about the rise of a “permanent underclass”,  a future where millions of workers lose not just their jobs, but their economic value altogether. In this episode of Power User, I sit down with writer Jasmine Sun to unpack the terrifying idea that artificial intelligence could permanently reshape class, wealth, labor, and power in America.

We discuss OpenAI, Anthropic, AGI, automation, white collar layoffs, Silicon Valley ideology, AI job displacement, universal basic income, data center protests, populism, and whether society is prepared for what’s coming next.

Could AI destroy upward mobility? Will automation create mass unemployment? Are tech companies being honest about the future they’re building?

We cover:

The permanent underclass theory explained

Who is actually pushing this idea

OpenAI's shifting stance on job displacement

Leading the Future and AI lobbying

Why AI is different from past tech hype

Policy failures and democratic backlash

What China is doing differently

What workers should actually do now

#AI #Tech #Technology #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #AGI #OpenAI #Anthropic #SiliconValley #TechNews #JobAutomation #AIJobs #TechIndustry