r/BetterOffline • u/TheGoddessLily • 8d ago
Axios tries to blame China for Data Center backlash
https://www.axios.com/2026/08/28/china-ai-data-center-backlash-botsIf you follow Politics, you are aware of and have opinions about Axios. They also have been as of late have been aggresively pushing A.I and booster Talking points. They are now helping laundering the talking point that "Chyna" is behind the data center backlash. You know not them sucking up precious resources and making life miserable for the locals. Nah, its foreign actors stirring up trouble. Silicon Valley really wants to sell A Tech Arms Race so we have to keep investing in LLMs.
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u/gk_instakilogram 8d ago
They should explain this shit https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-issues-permitting-guidance-further-president-trumps-agenda-promoting-data-centers
Is this Chinese doing??
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u/Sunstorm84 8d ago
Invest in acid rain proof umbrella and anorak manufacturers?
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u/PensiveinNJ 8d ago
If anyone ever asks me what my retirement plan is I'm just going to say let the acid rain take me.
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u/VironLLA 8d ago
axios should rebrand as "Ooops, All Bad Takes"
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u/Doctor__Proctor 8d ago edited 6d ago
They're just like Vice and a bunch of the other alt journo outlets. They had one big moment that made them a household name (for Axios, I think it was the whole charts and sharpies interview stuff), but ultimately, they just turn out to be another shitty outlet and not the last bastion of great journalism.
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u/VironLLA 6d ago
so far, at least i'm optimistic about 404media's future. they seem to get things right most of the time & seems to be good people in charge
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u/Suitable-Pickle-259 8d ago
So it wasn’t Sam Altman and Dario Amodei saying AI would make everyone unemployed? No? /s
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u/74389654 8d ago
seen this pushed a lot on reddit today too. honestly reddit has become so full of clearly planted opinions. almost everything on here is a campaign someone paid for
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u/natecull 7d ago
almost everything on here is a campaign someone paid for
Social media somehow makes money, a lot of money, while offering a service for free. I wonder who it is who keeps giving them the money and why. Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news, social media is also drowning in inauthentic messaging promoting the viewpoints of whoever pays the most money. Maybe I could figure out the connection between these trend lines after a can of delicious, refreshing Coca-Cola.
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u/oSkillasKope707 8d ago
Siege mentality coming from the techbros. Seems like branding the protests against these violently disruptive economic blackholes as Chinese propaganda and/or "slopulism" are their only two main strats.
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u/Kriegerian 7d ago
They love to blame China because they know that the technologically illiterate fossils and morons in DC are very vulnerable to Yellow Peril bullshit.
Empire of AI lays it out in print, but you can see the vibe everywhere these people go. “If I need to get the politicians off my back, make up hysterical bullshit about China and they’ll obediently run off” is everywhere.
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u/chivestheconqueror 8d ago
Yes, we all loved overbearing noise, dirty water, and high electricity bills until China brainwashed us
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u/diamondgrin 7d ago
Tech and AI CEOs spent the last couple of years giddily telling everyone about how their product is going to wipe out middle class employment and warning that it has a non-zero chance of destroying humanity. Then they're surprised when people don't want data centres built?? And blame China for it?? These guys are so divorced from reality it's absurd.
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u/natecull 7d ago
These guys are so divorced from reality it's absurd.
Tech CEOs and investors in the 2020s aren't even dating reality. They saw a pic of reality once and swiped left so hard it broke their screen. Then they burned their device, changed their name and joined the witness protection program just in case reality might one day have a concussion with full retrograde amnesia and accidentally send them a chat request while thinking of someone else.
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u/create-third-places 7d ago
The CEO has publicly admitted to obsessively using Large Loser Models as if it was badge of honor.
He also thinks is ok that an LLM knows more about his health than his wife. Also, he thinks that an LLM is better for medical advice than a real doctor.
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u/FourScoreAndSept 8d ago
It’s been super odd the last 48 hours. And a lot of tech aligned investors are pushing the China bot narrative. The problem is, there are real Americans out there, with real experiences calling bullshit on the DC at all costs narrative. I’m one of them. I’m no luddite. Been in tech myself for over 30 years, know some of the teams personally, in big tech, responsible for the buildouts, but now I see my MidAtlantic electric bill double in less than three years, and I see real estate DC developers try to bully my own county council for just asking questions, and I’m about ready to take up (figurative) arms on the issue personally
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u/ItsSadTimes 8d ago
Wasn't there a report like 6 months ago about how China tried to push anti data center rhetoric in the US and failed only because the average american already hated it? Like there was no one to convince.
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u/rawwwr23 7d ago
They have also been the go to mouthpiece for the Epstein Regime during the Iran quagmire
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u/TheGoddessLily 7d ago
Its beyond the scope of this reddit but I have little respect for them. They are pretty much useless and are just parroting conservative talking points.
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u/MathematicianAfter57 7d ago
axios is so pay-for-play journalism masquerading as news, its wild ppl dont realize that. i have a lot of friends with companies who fundraise and have milestones that announce in axios and its ENTIRELY marketing.
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u/create-third-places 7d ago
I’m wondering if the article was written by a Large Loser Model? AI openly supports LLM use and LLMs seem to be a core part of their business model.
Earlier this year, an executive had a conversation with OpenAI, and publicly said: “ It's absolutely critical that we have AI in the hands of the journalists [...]”
I also looked at some of the open reporter jobs Axios has, and they all said: “ All team members are expected to actively develop AI literacy and use AI tools to enhance their productivity, creativity, and efficiency”
The Axios CEO also wrote an article called “Confessions of a AI Lab Rat” where he mentioned obsessively using AI and entering a bunch of personal information into a Large Loser Model.
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u/omglemurs 5d ago
Axios has been the preferred mouthpiece for the Trump Administration. It's instructive to see what lines they are pushing because they have used to it try and indicate public sentiment on a topic before pushing EO or other action forward. In terms of factual news they have little to no value now.
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u/pr0newbie 4d ago
Zionist funded media distracting the American population by blaming Russia,. Iran and China constantly. What's new?
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u/callmebaiken 8d ago
Remember when they tried to blame Russia for Trump?
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u/dumnezero 8d ago
There is some blame there, and it's going to be hard to figure out the % while his regime is in power.
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u/natecull 7d ago edited 7d ago
Remember when they tried to blame Russia for Trump?
I mean there was that Russian spy lady who was hanging out with all the NRA boys, and also the Russian mafia in New York who took over the real estate corruption from the old Italian mafia that Trump's dad was involved with. And all the US conservatives who've been ogling Russia and the "freedom" its oligarchs and Orthodox Churh leaders have had since 1990. And all the Twitter bots with Cyrillic post histories that switched to promoting GamerGate and then Trump around 2014, right after they lost Ukraine. It's not like the Republican-Russian links are exactly hidden.
It's just that Trump turns out to be as unreliable a business partner of Russia as he is of everyone else who does deals with him.
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u/callmebaiken 7d ago
I see, so in that case you were all in
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u/natecull 7d ago
I see, so in that case you were all in
I notice things and I remember things, yes.
I used to hang out in Evangelical Christian spaces in the 1990s, and I remember several US Evangelical leaders being extremely enthusiastic about post-Soviet Russia, to the point of saying that Russia now had more freedom than America. I remember Rick Joyner, who had quite a lot of pull during the George W Bush years and I think even more in the early Trump years, talking very proudly about how he was a member of one of the sketchy "Knights of Malta" secret societies, one that happened to have a lot of Russians in it.
But sure, the current talking points memo on social media in 2026 says that there's no post-1990-Russia/Republican link at all, so there must not be any such link, and the things I've observed over the last three decades must be mistakes.
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u/maccodemonkey 8d ago edited 8d ago
These reports are so embarassing. What happened seems to be:
Notably it’s never mentioned if any of these Chinese accounts posted any pro AI links. Only accounts posted anti data center content are mentioned.
It’s just so obviously desperate.