How Tech Lost America

Summary

The episode argues that opposition to AI data centers reflects a broader collapse in trust in the technology industry—not simply hostility to AI. Data centers became a prominent political issue as communities raised concerns about their effects on electricity bills, water, air quality, and local decision-making.

The episode cites polling showing that opposition to nearby data centers rose from roughly even support and opposition in 2025 to 75% opposition by August 2026. The shift has become bipartisan, challenging tech companies’ claims that data-center investment will automatically benefit local communities.

How trust eroded

The loss of trust developed over many years:

• The early promise of the internet: Web 2.0 and social media were celebrated as ways for ordinary people to create, connect, organize, and challenge concentrations of power. Examples included online political organizing in the United States and social-media activism during the Arab Spring.
• Warnings and changing incentives: Critics raised concerns that recommendation algorithms could trap users in “filter bubbles.” As platforms matured and user growth slowed, advertising-based businesses had incentives to extract more time, attention, and data from existing users. The episode argues that engagement-focused design helped turn social networks into products that competed for users’ attention without regard to what else that attention displaced.
• The smartphone and endless feeds: Smartphones made social media a constant presence, while TikTok’s algorithmically selected, effectively endless feed helped popularize a model that other platforms adopted. The episode links this shift to concerns about loneliness and excessive use, especially among young people.
• Political conflict: In the wake of the 2016 election, people on the right focused on alleged bias and censorship by platforms, while people on the left focused on misinformation, Russian influence operations, and platforms’ role in political events. Later disputes over election-related content, Donald Trump’s suspension, Parler, and COVID-19 information deepened the divide. The episode emphasizes that the two parties developed different explanations for how tech companies had harmed them.
• Concerns about youth: Internal Meta research reported that Instagram worsened body-image issues for some teen girls, and former employee Frances Haugen accused the company of putting profits ahead of users’ safety. Rising rates of sadness and suicidal thoughts among teens intensified public concern, though the episode notes that researchers continue to debate how much social media explains those trends.
• Tech wealth and inequality: The episode traces public resentment from the dot-com boom and bust through the rapid fortunes created by social media and pandemic-era technology growth. It argues that visible billionaire wealth, rising living costs, and the perception that ordinary people have fewer routes to financial security have made tech leaders symbols of broader economic unfairness. The arrival of AI has therefore been met by some with suspicion that it will enrich the same people while putting workers’ livelihoods at risk.

AI and data-center resistance

The episode’s central conclusion is that AI entered a country already skeptical of technology companies. It cites low public confidence in large tech firms and widespread distrust of AI-company leaders, arguing that data-center resistance is one expression of this accumulated skepticism.

Possible paths toward rebuilding trust

The host sees possible paths toward rebuilding trust, but says repair is not guaranteed. Parents are taking voluntary steps to delay children’s access to smartphones, and some are choosing simpler devices. The episode also notes that social-media use appears to have peaked and begun to decline, particularly among younger people.

For data centers, companies are starting to change how they work with communities. These steps include ending some nondisclosure agreements, pledging to fund energy infrastructure, and offering local investment or payments.

The episode closes by connecting this possible way forward to the internet’s original promise: technology was once celebrated for giving power to ordinary people. Rebuilding trust, it argues, requires giving communities and users more say over how technology is developed and used.

Presenters and contributors

• Nathaniel Whitmore: Host and writer
• Scott Hill: Additional research and production
• Tonal Media: Editing and production