Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co  ICE is preparing to deploy a sweeping new surveillance system that would allow it to monitor the real-time movements and online activity of millions of people. Internal documents. The two key tools, Tangles and WebLoc, were originally designed by the Israeli intelligence firm Cobwebs.  Together, they enable ICE analysts to fuse billions of mobile location points with data scraped from platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Reddit to build detailed digital dossiers on anyone. This expansion of ICE’s data surveillance efforts comes amid broader federal initiatives to monitor social media and suppress dissent. Reports indicate ICE will contract private analysts to continuously scan major platforms for “anti-American” or “anti-Christian” speech under the Trump administration’s new NSPM-7 directive. This is yet another dangerous escalation of mass surveillance and political targeting, undermining First and Fourth Amendment protections. If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!! https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz   https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0  https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON!!Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 Nearly a decade ago, Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road dark web marketplace was sentenced to a double life sentence in prison. Now, he's out and has become a powerful influencer and political figure in the MAGA movement.Ryan Mac at the New York Times has been covering Ulbricht for over a decade. He joined me to dive deep into Ulbrict's' past, how the Silk Road transformed the web, and how this crazy alliance between bitcoin billionaires, libertarians, and MAGA die-hards has skyrocketed Ulbricht to fame and set him up for a major role in politics.  If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!! READ RYAN'S FANTASTIC NYT STORY: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/technology/ross-ulbricht-silk-road-comeback.htmlFollow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON!!!!Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 A VPN hides your IP address, making it harder for hackers, corporations and the government to track your activity. Most people know VPNs as a way to get around geogating (like if content is banned in one country you can use a VPN to get around the ban).But as authoritarian governments in places like America and the UK seek to crack down on online speech, VPNs are under attack. It's getting harder and harder to use them effectively, and recently there's even been talk of an outright ban. Lia Holland is an activist at Fight for the Future, a civil liberties group fighting to protect VPN access. She joined me to dig into the political campaign against VPNs and talk about how to fight back. PS: A lot of VPNs are owned by Israel!! Or they trap you into subscription plans. Be careful before downloading one, here's a guide from the EFF on VPNs: https://ssd.eff.org/module/choosing-vpn-thats-right-youFight For the Future's Defend VPNs campaign: https://www.defendvpns.com If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!! https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzFollow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON!!Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 AI slop is slowly taking over every platform. "But the flood of financially incentivized sloe has also given way to a strange new internet, where social media feeds overflow with unsettlingly lifelike imagery and even real videos can appear suspect," WaPo reports. "Some viral clips now barely rely on humans at all, with AI tools generating not just the imagery but also the ideas."There's YouTube Slop, Instagram Reel Slop, Slop all over TikTokk LinkedIn, and X. But who's behind this deluge of deranged and often extremely surreal content? Drew Harwell is a journalist at the Washington Post and he's been digging into the slop economy. He joins me to talk about the mad rush of creators using AI video tools to flood the internet, how they're making money, and what the future of content looks like as slop eats the world.If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!! Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

Visit https://joindeleteme.com/Taylor20 and use code Taylor20 for 20% off and protect yourself today! SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzAds are following us everywhere, data brokers and hackers are stealing our info, social media companies and AI are hoovering up our data. It can all feel SO overwhelming. In this final installment of my data broker series, I sat down with two of the top security experts on YouTube, John Hammond and Josh from All Things Secured, to break down how vulnerable you might be and what practical things you can do to protect your information online. If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!! https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzFollow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

Visit JoinDeleteMe.com/Taylor20 and use code Taylor20 for 20% off and protect yourself today! SUPPORT ME ON PATREON.Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 Welcome back to Free Speech Friday:Nearly a month ago peaceful student demonstrators protesting corruption in Nepal were shot and killed, sparking nationwide outrage. Government buildings were set in fire, leaders were forced out, and the prime minister resigned, leaving the country’s future uncertain.But that's not how the mainstream media reported it. They misrepresented Nepal's Gen Z youth movement, portraying young protesters as spoiled children upset about losing social media access, rather than as citizens fighting corruption and authoritarian suppression of free speech. It was a lot of the same framing that the media has used over other authoritarian crackdowns on speech like the TikTok ban here in the U.S. I brought on Bala Krishna Sha, one of the top journalists in Nepal, who writes for The Himalayan Times, the country's number 1 English language newspaper. He joins me to break down exactly what happened in Nepal, what the real story is that you won't see in traditional western media, and why the free speech fight happening in Nepal has global implications. If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!! https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzFollow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON.Buy a subscription to my tech and online culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 From Israel to Saudi Arabia to Russia to the UAE and more, influencers are increasingly being used for political propaganda and foreign influence campaigns. Makenna Kelly is a senior reporter at WIRED and she joined me to talk about how foreign governments are leveraging content creators to quietly push political propaganda and shape foreign policy, how MAGA influencers are embracing these campaigns, and the big money behind it all. If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!! Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON!!!Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 WELCOME BACK TO FREE SPEECH FRIDAY! Earlier this week, ABC and Nexstar yanked Jimmy Kimmel's show off the air after he made a joke about Charlie Kirk's death that the Trump admin didn't like. FCC commissioner Brendan Carr called the comments “offensive and insensitive,” and warned ABC and Disney that there could be regulatory consequences if the network didn’t respond.All of this is a gross assault on free speech, and to discuss it (and more!) I brought on Ari Cohn, Lead Counsel for Tech Policy at the Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He's one of the leading first amendment lawyers in the country.  If you like this video, please support me on Patreon!!Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREONBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 People on TikTok, YouTube and X are recreating 1950s style racism towards robots. Using slurs like “clanker,” “wireback,” and “cogsucker,” content creators are framing robots as a marginalized group, parodying old racist stereotypes in a retro aesthetic. The videos have gone viral and amassed millions of views. But while you might think this is just an excuse for creators to be racist, the trend reflects something a lot deeper. I dive deep into the phenomenon of "robot racism" or "robophobia" and unpack where these terms like clanker are coming from, what they say about our culture and society, automation, exploitation, and how technology is entangled with race and power.I worked so hard on this video, if you like it please support me on Patreon where I publish bonus episodes, monthly livestreams, and more! Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

[Patreon Preview] To listen to/watch this full episode, ⁠sign up for my Patreon⁠!Signing up for the Patreon will get you access to one bonus episode per month, the ability to listen/watch without ads, and you're helping to support the show. Join today!! We're all familiar with the concept of deepfakes, but now, AI is being harnessed in a new way to deceive. AI generated TikTokers are reciting the actual words of real people, right down to the stumbles, "ums" and "uhs."This new form of AI-driven identity theft is slipping past moderation filters, misleading millions, and leaving creators feeling powerless. Bobby Allyn is a reporter who's been covering this phenomenon and the rise of TikTok deepfakes, he joined me for this bonus episode of Power User to break it all down and explain why this is happening.Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz Subscribe to my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co When a powerful right-wing figure like Charlie Kirk is attacked or killed, political leaders and media rush to mourn them as a martyr and condemn "political violence." But what does political violence actually mean? While violence against elites is treated as a national tragedy, violence against poor, Black, immigrant, queer, and disabled people is sanctioned. The truth is that political violence has always been part of life in America, but somehow it only becomes a “national emergency” when that violence threatens power. In this video, I talk about the history of "political violence" in the U.S., what the term actually means in practice, how it's weaponized, and what we need to do if we actually want to put a stop to it.  Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co In the early days of the internet, social media offered a space where anyone could casually share their daily thoughts, fleeting moments, and observations about the world. Casual posting was the norm, and this extension of everyday life still felt spontaneous and personal. But lately, that culture has disappeared. It has been replaced by highly curated influencer content, manufactured viral slop, and it feels like everyone is just posting… less. Kyle Chayka is a writer at The New Yorker and he recently explored this phenomenon in a piece. He joins me to talk about the death of casual posting and what this shift says about the future of the internet. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co ICE agents will soon have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools thanks to a government contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli spyware company that lets people hack into any mobile phone without the person even clicking a link or opening a document. The new agreement between Paragon and ICE gives ICE access to the Israeli spyware platform, Graphite. Once Graphite infects your phone it can see everything you do on your phone, even stuff on encrypted apps, and you wouldn't even know it's there. I break down what that means for activists, journalists, dissidents, and how Paragon is already rolling out in other countries across the world. I also discuss how to keep yourself as safe as possible from this new tech. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co Dark money orgs spend millions to shape our political system without having to reveal where their money comes from. Now, they're paying influencers too. Last week, I published an article on WIRED titled "A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers." The story describes an initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online that offers influencers up to $8,000 a month in dark money funding. Since the story came out, a bunch of influencers in the program have tried to mislead people about what dark money is and isn't. Anna Massoglia is one of the top journalists in the country covering dark money. She is the director of investigations at the Sunlight Research Center and writes the newsletter Influence Brief. We break down what dark money is, what it isn't, who the biggest dark money power players are, and why even left-leaning undisclosed dark money can harm our political system. We also chat about how dark money is increasingly shaping content on the internet and being used for foreign propaganda campaigns. OPEN SECRETS GUIDE TO DARK MONEY: https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money READ MY WIRED STORY: https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influencers Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

Go to https://joindeleteme.com/TAYLOR20 and use my code TAYLOR20 at checkout for 20% off! SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co Data brokers vacuum up information about us, what we buy, where we drive, what we watch, when we sleep, where we worship, and, increasingly, information about our faces and bodies and how we move through the world. They stitch these fragments into profiles that are bought, sold, licensed, and shared by advertisers, insurers, political campaigns, hedge funds, and even government agencies. In part two of my series on data brokers I dive into all the crazy ways data brokers harvest your information and how they're doing it in extremely sneaky ways!! I promise this will shock you and you might think twice before doing some daily activities. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

If you’ve spent enough time online, you have undeniably encountered the work of John Kilo. John is a 28 year old OnlyFans creator in Portland, and he has become a fixture on meme accounts and viral subreddits. He's part porn star, part performance artist, part cultural critic and shitposter. He has created Skibidi Toilet porn, cosplayed a Trump supporter while having sex with a fleshlight mounted to an AR-15, made corn parodies of Ben Shapiro and Elon Musk, had s*x with every item on the Taco Bell menu, the Pizza Hut menu, and even ranked the most f'able pastas. He is also a brilliant artist, filmmaker, and kind of an internet and media prophet. He joined me to talk about YouTubifying porn, how virality is reshaping the OnlyFans landscape, leveraging meme culture, and creating art in the age of algorithms. SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co All across the country, sweeping surveillance laws are being enacted under the guise of "safety" especially "child safety". Courts are handing over sensitive federal data, housing authorities are deploying broadband surveillance, and tech companies across the board are pushing facial recognition with no oversight.Amidst of all this, S.T.O.P.—the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project—is fighting back. The organization has released A People’s Handbook of Surveillance to equip the public with information about rampant “smart city” surveillance. They've been calling out facial recognition tech being enacted in public housing. They're pursuing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the NYPD for civil liberties violations and more.Albert Fox Cahn is the founder of S.T.O.P. and an icon in the fight against surveillance capitalism. He's joining me today to talk about what's going on right now in America, all the sneaky new ways corporations and the government are trying to surveil us, and how we can build people-first tech that challenges power. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

Go to joindeleteme.com/Taylor20 and use my code TAYLOR20 at checkout for 20% off! SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co Few beverages have left as unforgettable a mark on American culture as Four Loko. With a dizzying mix of alcohol and caffeine, it skyrocketed to success in the 2000s and became an iconic American brand overnight. Four Loko was one of the first brands to ever go "viral" and the brand understood internet culture before the internet was even mainstream. But that virality came with a cost. The company suffered government crackdowns, a media moral panic, they changed the formula of their drink and somehow emerged from it all more relevant than ever. When I met Four Loko CEO and cofounder Jaisen Freeman, I knew I had to talk to him for my podcast. We talk about how his scrappy college drink startup went from being nearly banned to one of the top-selling beverages in the country and how the brand has managed to transform online controversy into a business. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenzhttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUPPORT MY PODCAST ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzBuy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co This week, YouTube rolled out automatic age verification in the US. It forces users who the company's AI system guesstimates might be under 18 to submit their government IDs or full biometric scans just to watch certain videos. YouTube is the first major tech platform to preemptively normalize invasive identity checks for everyday online activity, and it's a disaster. This new identity verification system creates a dangerous precedent. It is building a surveillance infrastructure that normalizes the tracking of legal and previously anonymous content consumption, all under the guise of child safety. For this week's Free Speech Friday I dig into why what YouTube and other tech companies like Instagram and Roblox are doing with preemptive AI age and identity verification is so harmful, and how it might change YouTube forever. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co We're halfway through August and summer is rapidly coming to a close. But this year, something about the season was different. It's the first year in over 100 years that there hasn't been a definitive song of the summer. Is the absence of a “2025 song of the summer” just a quirk of this year’s charts or a symptom of a music culture permanently fractured by personalization, speed, and saturation. I called up Anthony Fantano to help me answer this question. We dive deep into what makes a good song of the summer, how the concept emerged in culture, why we don't have one this year, and what a post song of the summer society might look like. Follow me:https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzhttps://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz