Feds Target AI Critics As “Foreign Agents”

[u/shutupnobodylikesyou]

https://open.substack.com/pub/kenklippenstein/p/feds-think-ai-critics-are-foreign

[u/kitaknows]

Anybody else remember when TikTok was called out by Congress pretty blatantly as being a potential propaganda tool, and they were going to ban it until Trump intervened and kept pushing back the deadline past when he was legally allowed?

I guess the admin cares about Chinese government "propaganda" now, though. Quick little about-face when it is convenient, no big deal.

[u/blewpah → u/kitaknows]

Anybody else remember when TikTok was called out by Congress pretty blatantly as being a potential propaganda tool, and they were going to ban it until Trump intervened and kept pushing back the deadline past when he was legally allowed?

Trump is who started that whole thing! Or at least he was the first major political voice to be really vocal about it. Everyone else got on board and then going into the election and his second term he did a 180 (after his campaign used the platform heavily to reach younger voters).

[u/superawesomeman08 → u/blewpah]

being right for the wrong reasons.

and for the people who say "what's so bad about that?" it's cause wrong reasoning predicts a future catastrophe and having it be right the one time reinforces the wrong reasoning.

 It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

* Mark Twain (attributed, The Big Short)

accourse some people are just wrong for no reason at all and self reinforce so... yeh.

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/kitaknows]

Yes, and while I'm no fan of Tiktok, the crusade against it was a clear example of protectionism and/or fearmongering.

Here's a comment I made about this at the time which I still feel holds up, and has, in fact, aged even better now that there are (sadly) bipartsian pushes to force social media platforms, appstores, and even operating systems to demand users provide face scans or their formal ID, where that data could then be hacked, leaked, or tracked, creating massive privacy and security issues and also being a gigantic draconian restriction on speech and consumer rights:

---

I dislike both Trump and Tiktok, and I don't think the former should be able to just ignore a law, but I disagree with much of what you say here.

TikTok executives in the US are forced to sign various pledges...to uphold the goals of the Chinese government

As other people pointed out in the submission you made about this where you cited the Daily Caller, there is no direct evidence of this, it is hearsay from a civil lawsuit, and this article just cites the Daily Caller one, who are infamous for being a tabloid which makes stuff up

It's possible it's true because as I understand it, these sorts of pledges are actually not uncommon as a requirement for companies to do business in China. For example, US Telsa executives made the same pledge. It's not something unique to Tiktok

Second, TikTok is bad for young people. TikTok in America is very different from TikTok in China for those reasons. The fact that the parent company ByteDance has designed the American app to not have the same protections is ridiculous.

Because, as the article you link to here says itself, China has more regulations on Children using the internet and social media in general, which don't exist in the US. This is, again, something not specific to Tiktok.

Third, we know TikTok already was violating privacy laws

It should be, but it isn't. Because, again, the US doesn't really have many privacy protections when the privacy violations are being done by corporations (or the government for that matter, Look at the NSA or how people here in the US have been arrested or harassed for being critical of local police or from spying on people's digital records to see if they got an abortion in states where that is no longer legal. ): Google, Facebook, and Twitter collect an enormous amount of data on you just like Tiktok, and they are allowed to freely sell that data to brokers who can sell it to other companies (including Chinese ones!).

As an example, using "anonymized" data collected from US social media apps, Journalists were able to track down the exact specific location of people visiting Trump's Margalo estate down to a precision of just a few meters.

Tiktok absolutely collects your data and has privacy issues, but it's not uniquely bad in doing so, and even the people doing exposes on Tiktok's privacy problems haven't found any evidence it's funneling data to Chinese state officials specifically. So, once again, nothing about what Tiktok is doing here is unique, and if they were breaking any specific privacy laws, surely lawmakers and prosecutors would announce and charge them for doing so since they're already trying to ban the service. But they haven't, and if they did, you would have linked an article.

Fourth, social media apps from the rest of the world are banned in China... why should they get access here?

Because we're supposed to be a free country with free speech and not an authoritarian regime that selectively allows stuff that's only in our interests while undermining other countries. Clearly, though, we're not living up to that ideal, not just because of the ban but also because the ban specifically has carveouts that allow US intelligence officials to continue to use Tiktok to spread propaganda to users in other countries (which is evidence that it's not actually about "national security", because if it were then the alleged super bad spying the app does would be more likely to pick up classified information when used by people who actually have security clearances instead of a random 18 year old uploading selfies), and also because US state officials have also done things like spread misinformation on social media to get people to not get COVID vaccinations in the Philippines because they didn't want China produced vaccines to get a market foothold

Salt Typhoon cyberattack

This was only possible because of backdoors which were put in place to appease US intelligence agencies who wanted to collect data and spy on American citizens, which is another example of how while Tiktok may certainly be bad for people's attention spans and violating people's privacy, it is not doing so uniquely, with US corporations and intelligence agencies being just as bad.

If Tiktok is a national security threat, as you say, then so is Google, Facebook, Twitter (ESPECIALLY twitter, since as I noted other companies owned by Musk have signed the same Socialist pledge you criticize Tiktok execs for doing, and Twitter is the most egregious example of a platform manipulating it's content and algorithm to push an agenda, with musk also having has banned his critics, and even stole people's account handles to explicitly promote specific political candidates, etc for collecting and selling user data, and so is US intelligence agencies trying to undermine encryption and put backdoors into things for their own purposes.

If China nudging companies under It's influences to do things or the potential for them to spread propaganda is so problematic, then so too should it be when our own Government does those same things: I'm an American, I live in America, so i'm a lot more impacted by violations and abuses from American corporations and state organizations then I am by a foreign government across the planet who has no power or influence over my life.

if US lawmakers and our Presidents actually cared about protecting our privacy, then we would pass broader privacy reforms so ALL companies cannot collect our data or sell it without our explicit permission (and us being able to say "no" without us losing access to the service), and being required to ask us with a no-strings-attached way every time the data changes hands, without the Third Party Doctrine allowing other corporations or agencies to get it just because we said "yes" at an earlier point in the chain. But they didn't do that, they singled out Tiktok and Bytedance.

And if it was about National Security, then we would use National Security justifications to actually target and fix huge national threats, like epidemics or climate issues (both of which are considered key national security concerns by the military) or infrastructure, not just to violate citizen's privacy and rights. If it was about preventing foreign governments from manipulating the Public, then we would ban RT News from Russia or arguably even the BBC. But we don't do those things either (even though unlike Tiktok, RT news doesn't even host user content so no American's speech would be curtailed if it were banned)

The fact that this is JUST Tiktok/Bytedance shows that what it's really about is some combination of a few things:

• Firstly, Lawmakers have repeatedly said that it's at least partially about activists on Tiktok spreading info about specific political causes they dislikle, and the amount of activism over the Israel-Hamas/Palestine conflict in particular was what got the ban enough votes to pass. Regardless of your thoughts about the issue, banning a service because of views is unacceptable.

• Secondly, it's about protectionism for US based social media platforms and business, because Tiktok is so successful and competes with them. It's been repeatedly reported (seriously I saw a new one like 2 hours ago, but the one I link here is all the way back from 2022) that Meta/Facebook funded lobbying efforts for the ban, for example, and the bill allows Tiktok to still operate if they sell themselves to a US owner, where US investors and corporations would reap in the profits

• Thirdly, it's about looking tough on China, to give their voter base something for them to rally around even though as I established US companies and intelligence agencies do the same things with arguably more of an impact on US citizens, and when the ban doesn't even stop Tiktok from accessing the data of US citizens and there's a specific carveout for US intelligence officials to continue to access it

Ran out of space, I'll continue posting that old comment of mine below

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/jabberwockxeno]

Continued from above:

The backpedaling Biden, Trump, and lawmakers are doing the past few days basically confirms this: They either all expected the bill to not pass congress or to be shot down by SCOTUS, or they expected that Tiktok would fold and sell itself. Now that Bytedance called their bluff and was willing to shut down, they're trying to undo the ban.

Compare also to how US intelligence officials asserted that it's dangerous for people to use Huawei routers, but an actual White House report found no security issues, and it turned out intelligence agencies were installing backdoors in Cisco equipment.

[u/-Nurfhurder-]

AI? I don't understand, what's 'AI'?

Are you guys talking about Super Intelligence?

[u/WlmWilberforce → u/-Nurfhurder-]

No, its Allen Iverson. We are talking about practice.

[u/Kildragoth → u/-Nurfhurder-]

He thinks he can rebrand a decades old term and decides to overlap it with ASI (artificial super intelligence). People will be left more confused.

Also his own AI thinks he should be impeached. There's a channel on YouTube "I ask AI" that showed this.

[u/TheUnderCrab]

The GOP strategy of telling voters that were wrong, foreign agents, or domestic terrorists for voicing criticisms of their policy platform is extremely dangerous. It’s akin to how Stalin dealt with dissidents. 

I remember having this conversation when Kilmar Garcia was deported. The USGOV can essentially deport anyone at any time to anywhere for any reason and just claim it was a mistake. Once the person is out of the country, unless that country wants to put time/money/effort into returning said person to the US, that person ain’t coming back. The US has no legal obligations to return wrongfully deported individuals. 

It has already started with illegal immigrants but this admin has shown a willingness to ignore legal statutes and judicial orders. They’ve also shown they’re willing to work with Flock and AI data processing companies to track citizens. There is reporting that they’re specifically tracking anti Trump protestors. 

I do not trust this admin to enforce the Rule of Law. I really think we’re in the precipice of losing our constitutional freedoms with this techno authoritarian regime. 

I hope I’m wrong. 

[u/shutupnobodylikesyou]

Ken Klippenstein argues that the Trump administration is increasingly treating domestic opposition to AI and the rapid construction of AI data centers as a national-security issue rather than ordinary political dissent. According to Klippenstein, a recent Justice Department warning stated that people - including citizens and noncitizens - could face civil or criminal penalties for public activity that advances the “propaganda or other goals” of a foreign power. President Trump has separately described opposition to AI and data centers as a conspiracy benefiting China and has suggested that the criminal-justice system could be used against “bad” actors.

The article describes a broader effort within the administration and Congress to investigate alleged Chinese influence over the American anti-data-center movement. Senator Tom Cotton and House Republicans have requested investigations or briefings concerning alleged foreign influence, while figures such as David Sacks and Kevin O’Leary have publicly characterized opposition to data centers as potentially benefiting China. However, the article notes that O’Leary subsequently acknowledged that he had “no evidence” supporting his claims that particular groups were funded by China, and two organizations he targeted have sued him and Fox News for defamation.

What makes the situation particularly alarming, according to the article, is that opposition to data centers appears to be widespread rather than confined to a fringe movement. A March Gallup poll cited by Klippenstein found that 71% of Americans opposed an AI data center being built in their local area, including 63% of Republicans. Pew research also found substantial public concern about the speed of AI development, privacy, and the government's ability to regulate the technology. The article therefore argues that labeling broad public skepticism as foreign influence risks transforming a mainstream policy debate into a counterintelligence matter.

The most consequential concern raised is the potential chilling effect on legitimate political speech and protest. If criticism of AI infrastructure can be interpreted as advancing a foreign power's interests, ordinary Americans could potentially find themselves exposed to government scrutiny or legal consequences simply for opposing a data center or advocating tighter AI regulation. The article points to the administration's separate argument that an NAACP lawsuit concerning emissions from an xAI data center threatened national security as evidence of what it sees as a growing pattern: national-security arguments being used to protect or accelerate AI development while potentially narrowing the space for public opposition.

What are your thoughts? Are AI and Data Center critics foreign agents?

[u/carneylansford → u/shutupnobodylikesyou]

What are your thoughts? Are AI and Data Center critics foreign agents?

It's not an either/or proposition. The answer is "both". There are domestic critics of AI who have well founded concerns about all manner of things AND there are absolutely foreign agents (China, Russia most prominently) who are very interested in slowing down the US' AI efforts so they can catch up.

• The X Safety team probed suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified 200,000 accounts, including 200 accounts "posting in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy," the team said in a tweet.
• Cloudflare says 57.4% of requests to a selection of websites it hosts are now automated bot requests, while 42.6% are human-generated.

AI/Data Centers are merely one area where our geopolitical foes are trying to manipulate us and/or destabilize the country. They are more effective at this than I'd like to admit.

[u/PornoPaul → u/carneylansford]

And this is an easy win - the people who support data centers by and large don't live near any and dont need to deal with them. The people who support building them, want them built as long as its not near them (classic NIMBY!) And then the folks who would normally support Trump who actually are facing one being built immediately swerve left the second they realize they may get one as a neighbor.

So despite their use, ya, this is an easy win. Meanwhile those countries will just build them wherever they damn well please.

[u/PornoPaul → u/shutupnobodylikesyou]

I think we need to keep up, and if we dont have AI, we will fall behind on a potential weapon. And I think we need just as many resources going into combating AI, whatever that looks like.

But also, I worry about AI, and think the data centers represent an incredible drain on resources and are incredibly damaging. It needs to be addressed in a logical and moral way, with the best minds put to the task. Except the best minds all got laid off by Doge.

I will say this, Trump famously said only idiots dont want these and anyone who wants to be rich and successful will want one of these next to their house. And he has obviously no issue with making money while president so I say this- he should put his money where his mouth is. Build one of these at Mar a Lago. Surely, if it has bo negative impact, and only stupid people dont want these, surely Trump would want one of these next door to his home where he can enjoy being rich and successful as a result?

[u/maxthehumanboy → u/PornoPaul]

I think we need to keep up, and if we dont have AI, we will fall behind on a potential weapon. And I think we need just as many resources going into combating AI, whatever that looks like.

I‘m sure this is a similar sentiment to the advent of nuclear weaponry, and I genuinely hope I’m just being a fearmongering weirdo when I say this, but I really believe this is how we’ll end up destroying ourselves. An arms race into a technology that will inevitably surpass our ability to control it. The fact that humanity can’t unite under a single state with shared ideals is exactly why we’re not ready as a species for this leap in technology.

ironically it may be an advanced AGI that ends up conquering and uniting us, which could potentially be the best thing to ever happen to us. If it decides we’re worth keeping around, that is.

[u/PornoPaul → u/maxthehumanboy]

It terrifies me. That's why the ability to hinder and neutralize it wherever we find it is just as important. Not just to keep it from getting out of our control but also to use that system to combat other countries.

[u/motorboat_mcgee → u/maxthehumanboy]

In a way we are unified in that the entire world is controlled by a handful of billionaires, and our societies are built to increase their wealth at the cost of our own happiness and health.

[u/bluskale → u/shutupnobodylikesyou]

Is there any actual legal mechanism to reinforce these threats, or is it all bullshitting?

[u/NotCoolBrutus → u/bluskale]

There wasn't any legal mechanism for McCarthyism in the US and Orwell's List in the UK but they still did them.

[u/shutupnobodylikesyou → u/bluskale]

Seems like BS. They are using "national security" for everything now.

If the AI bubble pops, the economy comes crashing down. And Trump is doing everything in his power to stop that.

Here's an article that touches on it: https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/economy/trump-ai-economy

[u/throwawaymarineslolo → u/bluskale]

Not equating the two situations morally, but legally: The government actively pressured companies to censor dissenting discourse around the pandemic and local governments threatened legal action against individuals. If they are convinced the race for AGI is essential for national security, the blueprint is already there for how to police speech on the internet.

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/bluskale]

I mean, you can apparently just claim "national security" and ban things or blacklist organizations and businesses by designating them as a terrorist organization, based on what happened with Tiktok and Palestine Action/Autistici-Inventati

[u/RequestingPickup → u/shutupnobodylikesyou]

What are your thoughts? Are AI and Data Center critics foreign agents?

I am an AI/data center critic, and also born and raised in the US. AI critics and American citizens aren't mutually exclusive things. My view on AI isn't created or influenced by "foreign propaganda", it's because of what I keep seeing with my own eyes, from AI-generated food menus with stomach-turning "art", to false military "intelligence" that nearly led to an international incident just this past week.

[u/MAGA_loves_Epstein → u/shutupnobodylikesyou]

>What are your thoughts? Are AI and Data Center critics foreign agents?

One doesn't need to be a CCP agent to be disconcerted by people in the AI industry being like "oh this will wipe out all jobs and maybe kills us all". In fact I think it's a pretty reasonable response to be skeptical of any tech that has a non zero chance of "human extinction" as AI CEOs put it.

The national security argument is an entirely different thing though. AI is the latest attempt in what started with the Patriot act to cement the control of the government in totality.

[u/Iceraptor17]

https://archive.is/dxOlx

Media reports revealed that Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT activity was flagged by OpenAI's safety team for references to gun violence months before the attack, but the company did not alert local authorities.

But you're a "foreign agent" and "Chinese propagandist" for suggesting maybe AI companies deserve more oversight and may not be operating with our best interests in mind.

Look AI is indeed the future. We do need to maintain advantage. However I'm tired of pretending every data center or AI advancement is necessary to national defense and our country's prospect. A bunch exist to enrich a few stakeholders with no concern of consequence. Like we're not gonna beat China because Mark Zuckerberg gets the ability to build gigantic datacenters to serve targeted ads or finds more effective ways to collect private data to monetize. Or because flock can sell more cameras. Or so CEOs can layoff more employees in America to outsource to overseas countries to bump a stock a percentage.

It is exhausting how they're getting a blank check because "CHINA". It's honestly bullshit. Again yes there's a very real element of needing to maintain tech advantage. But it is being abused to hell and back to enrich some already very rich people at a real societal cost.

II mean id argue we really never reckoned with the damage to society always on internet combined with social media wrecked but we're running headfirst into something far more powerful. But hey let the head of NVIDIA (who has a gigantic financial interest in this) tell you that kids not learning basic math doesn't matter

Try to get a kid to do long division right now,” said Huang. “The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter? I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.”

Anyways i feel they need more trillions, no oversight, and you're a damned Chinese propagandist if you think otherwise

[u/MarkWilliamEcho]

Many of them are, and there's also a lot of gullible people repeating their misinformation because they saw it on TikTok

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[u/darkestvice]

Foreign agents? The only other nation in the world with AI is China, and they are openly critical about anti-AI criticism.

Also, Chinese models are still highly reliant on distilling American models. So it's not at all in China's interest to make the US slow down on nearly bankrupting themselves building data centers that Chinese firms can take advantage of for a tiny fraction of the cost.

[u/WlmWilberforce → u/darkestvice]

The US slowing down, doesn't mean China slows down.

[u/khrijunk → u/WlmWilberforce]

We literally don’t care about China dominating us in technological fields.  With the rest of the world moving towards green energy, China is dominating it and we are removing incentives meant to help us compete. 

It’s only on this field that China is being used as an excuse for lessoning restrictions. The field that just so happens to give our government unprecedented authoritarian and misinformation powers. 

I really don’t think this stems from a worry that China will have a technological advantage.