Gregory's ServerThe State and Big Tech, working hand-in-hand, to suppress citizen rights. Big Tech knows everything about us. We know nothing about them. Google’s bullyboy, arrogant, untouchable, imperious tactics were not over. In 2024, David Wren writing for The Post and Courier, warned that in Dorchester County, USA, the amount of public water Google was demanding “to cool computer server farms and other equipment it plans to build is a closely guarded "trade secret."
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14 comments
  @marnanel @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern I am going to guess that their competitors already have a pretty good idea of the amount of water and electricity that Google is using. They have similar set ups, so the only variable is the actual volume of data traffic (which I understand is what they are trying to hide). But surely Meta and Amazon have pretty good estimates of how much data Google is moving.  @MylesRyden @gerrymcgovern @marnanel @anne_twain Agreed 100%. BigTech is also depending on the misperception on the part of the general public that Data Centers are totally benign -- just taking the computers that would be found in the average office building and putting them in a warehouse, right? BigTech does not want the public to know the actual amount of resources that are actually being consumed by their "clean" industry. @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern Water rights in the US are regionally determined and can be really strange. It's not always a public resource. Some laws are even "hands tied" by agreements made a hundred, or more, years ago. Check out the documentary "Blue Gold: World Water Wars (2008)" to see how corporations are trying to lay claim to "public" resources. It's really amazing the noose people will willingly put their own necks into.  @DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern Mos Def "New World Water (1999)" Some people have known about this for quarter of a century, and even published popular music about it. That's not to say there is nothing to be done, but it's probably more pitchforks and molotovs at this point than polite discussion. @DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern I was shocked to learn that the Colorado River doesn't reach the sea any more @marnanel  @DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern Took a class on (US) water rights in grad school. Fascinating. "Riparian" generally east of ~100° W and "prior appropriation" (that's the "agreements made > 100 years ago thing") to the west. First Nations areas have different rules as does Hawai'i.  |
@gerrymcgovern They can hide it from others outside the trade, but they can't hide it from the citizens who own the water.