Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

>>> FREE SPEECH FRIDAY <<<SUPPORT ME ON PATREON. Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 On Tuesday, members of the House of Representatives gathered for a big hearing called Legislative Solutions to Protect Children and Teens Online. The hearing was the latest attempt by lawmakers to force through a slate of horrifying surveillance laws that would censor the internet, strip the ability to freely access information, and cause great harm to children, especially marginalized youth. The mainstream media has been covering none of this. Kate Ruane is a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and she testified this Tuesday in front of congress about these evil laws. Today, she joins me to break down what's going on in congress, what these proposed laws would do, and why we're at such a crucial moment when it comes to preserving privacy and free expression on the internet. Read up via the links below and call your representatives today and tell them to stop The SCREEN Act, kill The App Store Accountability Act, and kill the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).KOSA Won’t Just Silence LGBTQ Voices; It Will Also Be Used To Hide Abortion Info From The InternetHeritage Foundation Says That Of Course GOP Will Use KOSA To Censor LGBTQ ContentWhy The Fuck Are Democrats Helping Build MAGA’s Censorship Machine With KOSA?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/taylorlorenz     Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co Lately, growing swaths of the online left have embraced a messaging strategy known broadly as Dark Woke. While traditional Democrats still try to reach across the aisle and find common ground with conservatives, more on the left are becoming comfortable embracing outright bigotry, slurs, hateful rhetoric, dunking on conservatives, and going full "dark woke."   Twitch streamer SeanDaBlack has been covering the rise of this culture, and he joined me to talk about the rise of "woke" culture in America, how social justice movements have been warped by the internet, what Dark Woke really means and whether it's a winning strategy to counter Trump's online dominance. 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/taylorlorenz    Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co    For decades, the Eelam Tamil ethnic group in Sri Lanka has been persecuted. They are dealing with ongoing occupation by the Sri Lankan government, which has also incited violence against Muslims in the country.As tensions have escalated, the government has cracked down on speech, leaning hard into online censorship to censor anyone who questions the authority of the Sri Lankan government. The government has banned social media, passed a restrictive "online safety act" and sought to enact strict controls over what can be said online, all under the guise of "online safety" and curbing "misinformation."ArunAnnow has been covering the persecution of the Eelam Tamil people and the atrocities of the Sri Lankan government. He's an independent journalist and content creator. Today he's joining me to talk about the situation in Sri Lanka and how their "online safety" crusade is serving as a blueprint for authoritarian U.S. laws.Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz          https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0          https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz Grief-Stricken Winds Documentary Website:https://grief-stricken-winds.com/News Sources/Orgs:https://x.com/TamilGuardianhttps://x.com/JDSLankahttps://x.com/lankafileshttps://x.com/PEARL_ActionPeople to Follow:https://x.com/kumanan93https://x.com/ambikasathttps://x.com/JeraThampiOther Resources:https://ptsrilanka.org

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   Over the weekend, Twitter descended into complete and utter chaos. Elon Musk rolled out a feature called “About This Account” that allowed people to click on the profile of an X user and see exactly what country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed. Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” were identified as originating in places like India, Pakistan, Russia, or Nigeria, engagement farming to earn money through X's creator revenue program, available to those who purchase a blue check. Charlie Warzel is a longtime technology writer at The Atlantic who has been covering this rollout. Today he's joining me to discuss whether the "about this account" feature is truly 9/11 for pro MAGA accounts, how our internet is being warped by inauthentic activity, whether this truly signifies the end of the social web, and what comes next. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz         https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0         https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON to listen to the full episode and more bonus content and to ensure that this podcast remains alive. Since Kamala Harris lost the election, there's been an endless debate among the Democrats on how to best reach young people online. Many centrists have claimed liberals need a "Joe Rogan of the left" and by left they usually mean center right. Others have leaned into memes and shitposting like Gavin Newsom. Zohran Mamdani didn't do any of that and he won young voters, and especially young men, in a landslide. His digital strategy leaned into creator-style content and leveraged a ton of influencers, but in a way that felt natural, organic and centered his policies, which were the real engine behind his success. Part of his success was due to Creators For Zohran, an influencer-led coalition aimed at boosting Zohran's messaging online, and Emilia Rowland, Zohran's new media and creator partnerships advisor, who led creator partnerships for Mamdani's campaign. Emilia, along with Aiden Kohn Murphy and Alexis Williams, co-founders of Creators for Zohran, joined me to pull back the curtain on the work they did with Zohran, talk about what made his creator strategy so effective, and discuss how to build relevance and mobilize people in an increasingly fractured online world.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 

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  Right now, there's a clip going viral from former Obama White House aide and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz  that is so appalling and depraved it's hard to believe it's real. But many people are missing the most dangerous part of her commentary. Her comments reveal exactly what the ruling class in America wants to do to online speech, and why we need to fight back so hard to protect our online freedoms. 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/taylorlorenz Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co      Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news after a massive new cache of emails and text messages was released last week. Now, Congress is set to send to Trump legislation to compel the Justice Department to release even more records. The whole saga has become a messy political fight that’s causing chaos in the MAGA movement and warping the right wing internet. No one knows the Epstein saga more than my friend Brace Belden, co-host of the Trueanon podcast and one of the internet's foremost experts on Epstein and MAGA influencers. He joins me to break down what this latest Epstein cache reveals, the real tea on Donald Trump and Bill Clinton's relationship, and how off this Epstein stuff might impact Trump and the influencers in his movement going forward.Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz        https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0       https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

FREE SPEECH FRIDAYSUPPORT ME ON PATREON!!!! Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co      The Department of Homeland Security has deployed a powerful surveillance tool at college football games, and that's not the only place where they're using it. If you were one of the thousands of people who attended the Old Miss vs Georgia game a few weeks ago, a DHS system could have been monitoring you. At that game and others schools have been using a little-known Department of Homeland Security platform called the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). FOIAball, a newsletter reporting on college football and public records, got a hold of documents related to this surveillance effort.  All of this information and monitoring is now being fed into facial recognition systems, as those systems of surveillance expand. And, HSIN isn't just being used at concerts and game days, it's not being deployed against protesters, activists, and peaceful crowds. Story on FOIAball: https://www.foiaball.com/p/dhs-college-football-hsin-surveillance-ole-miss-ohio-stateFollow 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/taylorlorenz   Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co     Sydney Sweeney just had one of the worst box office weekends of all time. Her new movie Christy, about a female boxer, made barely over $1 million, making it one of the worst-performing films of all time, This disastrous flop comes on the heels of yet another culture war controversy that she was at the center of, stemming from a viral GQ interview, and now she's locked in a bitter feud with Zendaya, her co-star on Euphoria, the HBO show that arguably skyrocketed her to stardom.So all of this begs the question: can Sydney Sweeny survive becoming an avatar for the culture war? Why does every viral moment now become a referendum on politics? Kat Tenbarge joins me to discuss! Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz      https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0     https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

FREE SPEECH FRIDAY 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    Tommy Marcus, better known online as Quentin Quarantino online, first became famous during the early days of the pandemic. He posted timely memes and news roundups, but what started as a funny Instagram account quickly turned into a massive fundraising machine. Tommy got more involved in activism and political causes and began using his platform to raise money for humanitarian issues and injustice around the world. A few months ago, he joined an aid boat headed to Gaza, hoping to deliver supplies to people caught in the ongoing crisis. His ship was intercepted just miles off the coast and the IDF abducted him and fellow activists before holding them in a notorious Israeli super prison. Tommy, one of the few Jewish activists on the boat, was tortured and abused by the IDF. He finally made it out and is speaking about the experience for the first time. He opens up about how the experience affected him and changed his beliefs about power, justice, and the United States sanction of the slaughter in Palestine.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/taylorlorenz Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 Did you know that hit songs in the late 1950s were regularly about gruesome death? Or that a US vice president wrote a number one hit? Chris Dalla Riva is one of my favorite music journalists out there. He writes the substack Can't Get Much Higher where he publishes pieces on the intersection of music and data.  A couple years ago he embarked on a quest to listen to every single number 2 hit from the last six decades, and wrote about what he learned in his new book Uncharted Territory. The book is part celebration, part takedown of popular music, and also provides new ways to think about your favorite songs, genres, and artists. This book is genuinely so good and changed the way I think about so many songs and just how different periods in history were reflected in the music from their time. Chris joined me this week to discuss the past half a century of number 1 hits and what they say about our culture, political system and world at large. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz    https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0   https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

FREE SPEECH FRIDAY 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     For the first time in fifteen years, there’s a real shot at ending billionaire control of American politics. A groundbreaking legal effort spearheaded by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, backed by an unlikely coalition of billionaires like Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman, is taking direct aim at the legal foundation that created Super PACs. I'm going to be covering this legal fight closely. Larry Lessig joined me on this week's Free Speech Friday to break down his legal fight, where things stand, and what needs to happen next in order to win this fight. 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!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co    Over the past two decades, Taylor Swift has dominated the pop charts and risen to the pinnacle of mainstream fame. She has amassed a $2 billion fortune, won 14 Grammy Awards, sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, headlined the highest-grossing concert tour in history, and built a vast real-estate and music catalog empire.But lately, the backlash to Swift is growing louder. She has been criticized for her silence on major political issues, for palling around with Trump supporters, her carbon footprint, and many are calling her latest album a flop. All of this raises the question, has Taylor Swift peaked, not just in popularity, but in cultural authority? Or is this just another cynical reinvention that she'll use to amass even more money and power? Journalist and Swiftie Kat Tenbarge joined me to discuss it all. 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!!!!!! 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   FREE SPEECH FRIDAY Last weekend, popular cosplay Twitch streamer Emiru was assaulted at a meet-and-greet during Twitchcon. A man cut across several meet and greet lines and attempted to grab her for a kiss. The incident was obviously a catastrophic failure when it comes to keeping women creators safe But, after the Emiru incident, tons of big content creators began piling on on Twitter, pushing out of context clips attempting to show lax security at the event and calling for Dan Clancy's resignation. They began weaponizing the attack on a woman creator to push their own reactionary agendas.  Kat Tenbarge has been covering gender-based violence for nearly a decade and she joined me this week to break down what exactly went down at Twitchcon, why more security doesn't exactly lead to more safety for women, and what the true issue at the heart of all of this is. These attacks on women creators silence women and prevent them from speaking and expressing themselves freely. 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!!! Get bonus episodes and more. Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 As live-streaming becomes an increasingly dominant form of entertainment, Twitch is at a crossroads. Dan Clancy is the CEO of Twitch, and I sat down with him this weekend at Twitchcon to discuss how Twitch is evolving, its broader role in the creator economy over the next 10 years, competition from Hollywood, AI, and how he thinks about balancing streamers' creative freedom with safety concerns. Here's our interview.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!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co  Welcome back to Free Speech Friday!Recently, Trump signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying a slew of views like “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” beliefs as indicators of "radical left violence" and terrorism. The directive is called NSPM-7. NSPM-7carries serious implications for freedom of speech and opens the door to dangerous levels of censorship. In NSPM-7, Trump directs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies to fight his version of political violence, retooling a network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to focus on “leftist” political violence in America. Ken Klippenstein has been covering all this. He joined me today to break down NSPM-7 and what it means for speech in America. Under the new directive, anyone expressing views that could be construed as any of the following, could be classified by the government as a terrorist:anti-Americanism,anti-capitalism,anti-Christianity,support for the overthrow of the United States Government,extremism on migration,extremism on race,extremism on genderhostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, andhostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.Ken's story: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefsIf 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!!!! 🙏 Hasan Piker has never abused his dog, but you'd never know that from the video clips spreading all over the internet. The backlash that Piker is facing shows the consequences of a world where everyone is constantly being recorded and our internet is built to reward outrage and controversy. In this episode, I dive into the recent viral conspiracy and false claims about Piker and Kaya, unpacking how a single, out-of-context clip spiraled into a full-blown harassment campaign, fueled by bad actors and politically motivated smear tactics. I unpack how the Hasan Piker dog collar incident is a warning sign of a dystopian future where 24/7 video surveillance merges with online outrage farming. As AI and algorithmic amplification make it easier to manipulate and weaponize video, the problems influencers face today will soon affect us all. 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

To listen to this full episode support me on Patreon. SUPPORT ME ON PATREON.Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 We're facing a tsunami of AI-generated music that is rapidly transforming the digital soundscape and expanding far beyond Spotify. It's already beginning to dominate platforms like YouTube, SoundCloud, and other major streaming services. Generative tools are able to produce entire songs complete with realistic vocals, melodies, and high production quality. AI artists are flooding recommendation algorithms and trending charts.Kieran Press Reynolds is a writer at Pitchfork, and he's been covering all of this. He joined me to talk about the rise of AI music and what deepfake vocals, manufactured sounds and this flood of AI generated content means for the future of the music industry and the role music plays in our culture. 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/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