Over the weekend, more than a dozen local TV news stations ran a video report called “Far-left network behind ‘No Kings’ protests targeting AI data centers, Flock cams.”
asserted
stations → run → centers
The report paints those opposing Flock not as a diverse, decentralized, bipartisan group of ordinary citizens who oppose mass surveillance, but as well-funded radical leftists who are spreading propaganda at the behest of China and rich billionaires.
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who → paint → China
The opposite is true, of course: The entities defending Flock and painting their opponents as cynical, paid influencers have a specific agenda, have deep pockets, and are connected to some of the most powerful people in the world.
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entities → defend → world
Many of the most vocal defenders of Flock are attempting a strategy that Flock itself tried soon after evidence of the abuse of its automated license plate reader camera systems was reported by 404 Media and other local news outlets: They are suggesting that anyone who opposes this technology or points out its shortcomings must be part of a coordinated group of people who hate the police and want the United States to fail by picking out a few generally inconsequential social media posts by people on the fringes.
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States → attempt → fringes
Some of Flock’s defenders—a mix of people who work for billionaire-funded think tanks or have direct financial investments in Flock—have suggested that the people who oppose Flock are being quietly funded by billionaires or shadowy organizations to do so.
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who → work → billionaires
Last year, Flock CEO Garrett Langley told Forbes that DeFlock, an open-source, crowdsourced map of ALPR cameras, was a “terroristic organization whose primary motivation is chaos, they are closer to ANTIFA than anything else.”
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they → tell → anything
In December, emails obtained via a public records request and shared with 404 Media showed Langley told the police chief of Staunton, Virginia, which was considering canceling its Flock contract, that “Flock and the law enforcement agencies we partner with are under coordinated attack […] from the same activist groups who want to defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness.
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who → obtain → lawlessness
The strategy to paint ordinary citizens opposing Flock and the journalists who report factual information about how Flock has been used as radicals did not work out well for Langley, who recently apologized for his remarks.
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who → paint → remarks
But parts of the conservative media, several well-funded think tanks, the former head of the National Security Agency, and Flock’s investors are trying to run the playbook back.
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parts → fund → playbook
Last week, a lobbying group called Consumer Action for a Strong Economy published a report called “The Compute War At Home.”
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group → call → Home
The report itself features a cover with obvious AI-generated imagery, and the AI writing detector Pangram detected nearly everything except the end citations of the report as being likely written by AI.
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detector → feature → AI
The foreword of the report was written by Rob Joyce, the former head of the NSA.
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foreword → write → NSA
This report suggests that opposition to Flock (and to data centers) is being driven by “China-linked activists networks and aligned organizations connecting opposition to data centers with surveillance, policing, and immigration.”
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opposition → suggest → surveillance
The report suggests that opposition to data centers and to Flock is partly being driven by groups it says have received funding from Neville Roy Singham, an American tech billionaire who now lives in China and who has become a George Soros-like figure in conservative media (a recent Fox News headline, for example, has the headline “DOJ launches grand jury probe into Marxist mogul Neville Roy Singham’s funding of leftist groups.”
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DOJ → suggest → groups
Opposition to Flock, the report says, is the result of “socialist organizers” being partially driven by the People’s Republic of China who found an issue that people on the right could agree with them on as a “wedge issue” they could use to “discredit the broader technologies, companies, and infrastructure underpinning America’s AI expansion.”
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they → say → expansion
As evidence of this, it points to the fact that Breakthrough News, an organization that has gotten money from Singham, who happens to live in China, wrote an article about Flock last year.
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who → point → Flock
This article was not particularly popular judging by its performance on social media, was one in a sea of thousands of articles about Flock, and is one I have not seen cited in any meaningful way.
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I → judge → way
It also notes that members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a leftist political party funded by Singham, have posted about Flock on social media and have held information sessions on it.
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members → note → it
It is literally true that these groups have received funding from Singham and that they have posted about Flock or AI data centers, but there is nothing to suggest that their posts are particularly influential in a sea of millions of social media posts and thousands of deeply reported articles about Flock and the ways it has been abused.
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it → receive → Flock
The report is difficult to follow but basically attempts to suggest that far left socialist organizers have manipulated conservatives into opposing Flock and data centers.
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organizers → follow → Flock
The report says that conservatives now make up the bulk of the online opposition to Flock: “81 percent of politically classifiable fused Flock-data center posts came from right-wing/conservative or libertarian accounts,” even though, it says, opposing Flock is a viewpoint that originated with far-left interests that align with China.
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that → say → China
This mechanism, where the left has supposedly incepted the right into agreeing with them, is “strategically important.”
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left → incepte → them
“An argument introduced through left-wing organizing channels was able to travel through a much larger conservative audience once packaged around privacy, surveillance, and distrust of government technology,” the report says.
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report → introduce → technology
“A conservative does not need to share PSL’s [Party for Socialism and Liberation’s] socialism, CODEPINK’s worldview or Beijing’s strategic interests to advance an outcome all three can welcome.
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three → need → outcome
He only needs to accept the surveillance-state frame and repeat it,” the report adds.
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report → need → it
CASE, the group that published this study, is a lobbying organization that does not make the vast majority of its funding sources public, however, previous IRS records show it has taken money from big pharmaceutical and the telecom industries.
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it → publish → industries
The think tank’s interests are primarily around deregulation by “promoting consumer interests through the advancement of free-market principles.”
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interests → promote → principles
The anti Donald Trump “No Kings” protests are not actually mentioned in the CASE report, but the study still served as the basis of two major pieces of conservative media, the first being a report in Fox News called “No Kings protest network behind fight against AI data centers and Flock cameras: Pro-China communist groups funded by tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham expand protests against data centers to Flock cameras.”
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groups → mention → cameras
“Organizations from the Singham network—including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, CodePink, the People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition and affiliated groups—appeared repeatedly across [the No Kings] movement, working with nonprofits more aligned with the Democratic Party, including Indivisible, a nonprofit network funded in part by billionaire Democratic megadonor George Soros,” the Fox News report reads.
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report → include → Soros
“The organizations deny any wrongdoing as agents of alleged foreign influence and say they are addressing legitimate community grievances.”
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they → deny → grievances
More insidiously, the CASE report was picked up by The National News Desk, which is a Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned news production team that runs on dozens of local news stations nationwide, is owned by a billionaire, and has a history of pushing Republican and conservative viewpoints.
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that → pick → viewpoints
The Sinclair-produced package is called “Report: Far-left network behind ‘No Kings’ protests targeting AI data centers, Flock cams.”
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package → produce → centers
Neither piece of coverage indicates how “No Kings” is involved, but both seem to imply that some of the groups that showed up at the No Kings protests have also posted about Flock.
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that → indicate → Flock
The package ran in at least 40 different local news markets that we were able to easily identify, which include:
- Birmingham, Alabama
- Mobile, Alabama
- Little Rock, Arkansas
- Bakersfield, California
- Chico, California
- Fresno, California
- Washington, D.C.
- West Palm Beach, Florida
- Boise, Idaho
- Cedar Rapids, Iowa
- South Bend, Indiana
- Flint, Michigan
- Montana
- Central Nebraska
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Rochester, New York
- Winston-Salem, North Carolina
- Asheville, North Carolina
- Columbus, Ohio
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Dayton, Ohio
- Steubenville, Ohio
- Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Portland, Oregon
- Roseburg, Oregon
- Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
- Johnstown, Pennsylvania
- Charleston, South Carolina
- Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
- Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Bristol, Tennessee
- Austin, Texas
- San Antonio, Texas
- Abilene, Texas
- El Paso, Texas
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Lynchburg, Virginia
- Green Bay, Wisconsin
It should be noted that the “No Kings” protests are definitively not a “far-left” movement, and that there have been numerous examples of Flock being used against No Kings protesters.
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protests → run → protesters
It is true that groups on the left have been posting about Flock, just as groups on the right have been posting about Flock, because huge swaths of the internet are posting about Flock, because it has become a huge, controversial topic.
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it → post → Flock
I have been covering Flock for years and the DeFlock movement for nearly two years.
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I → cover → years
I have watched dozens of city council meetings in small towns, big cities, liberal enclaves and rural communities.
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I → watch → towns
The people showing up to protest against Flock (and against data centers) come from all backgrounds, all economic classes, and all political perspectives.
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people → show → backgrounds
The politicians now opposing Flock are also a diverse set, ranging from conservatives Ron DeSantis, Josh Hawley, and Thomas Massie (among others) to Democrats Josh Shapiro, Ron Wyden, and Ed Markey.
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politicians → oppose → Shapiro
Many people who show up to city council meetings to oppose Flock are “organized” in that they are incredibly informed on the issue, share reporting about Flock, and are good at making social media content that resonates with people about the ways Flock has been abused.
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Flock → show → ways
…and 44 more, not listed.
The Aporia
