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‘Cost Me the Election’: Data Centers Trigger Voter Backlash

posted by hubie on Sunday June 28, @12:19PM   Printer-friendly

owl writes:

https://www.newsweek.com/cost-me-the-election-data-centers-trigger-voter-backlash-12118327

A wave of voter anger over massive data center projects is beginning to reshape U.S. politics, with local officials and senior lawmakers losing elections after backing controversial developments tied to the artificial intelligence boom.

In Utah on Wednesday, State Senate President J. Stuart Adams—one of the most powerful Republicans in the state—lost his primary election after supporting a major data center development near the Great Salt Lake, in one of the clearest signs yet of the growing political risks tied to the industry.

At the local level, the fallout was just as direct. "Do I think that the data center vote cost me the election? Yes I do," former Box Elder County Commissioner Lee Perry said after conceding his primary race, after voting to advance the same project.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 30, @11:18AM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 30, @11:18AM (#1446714) Journal

    There's no inherent reason for spending money to be considered speech. [...] Speech is speech, printing things, putting things over the airwaves, on tv or on the internet.

    And "printing things, putting things over the airwaves, on tv or on the internet" is free, right? Free speech isn't free as in beer. That's how money gets into the equation. And if you heavily regulate such speech, then the people in control of paid speech that can't be regulated (say troll farms in foreign countries), have an advantage.

  • (Score: 2) by aafcac on Tuesday June 30, @04:42PM

    by aafcac (17646) on Tuesday June 30, @04:42PM (#1446764)

    Essentially yes, there was public access TV as an option for people that didn't own a media out let, I remember there were some pretty low budget people on there, and the cost to put stuff up on the internet is trivially cheap This is my second posting here this morning and I'm out like a couple cents worth of electricity. Even the poorest people these days have the ability to post things on the internet using a smartphone, so to suggest that there is any sort of significant barrier to getting messages out based on money right here is questionable at best.

    Sure, there was a period where the printing press, TV, movies and radio weren't super accessible, but that's like 30 years ago at this point and all of those types of media are dying as they can't compete with the internet.