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#atx — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #atx, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Hey all, I don't know if any of you are also in contact with the Austin DSA, but they sent this email yesterday and I think it's relevant to us:
    #Austin #survillance #ATX #datacenters #dsa

    Item 24 [1] on this Thursday's [City Council] agenda directs the City Manager to basically rewrite the City's economic incentive policy, calling out a number of specific industries that the Mayor wants to target - including the AI industry. Unfortunately, this means that Data Centers, AI surveillance companies, and other harmful businesses could beef up their profits by paying even less into collective systems that support us all than they already do. For a lot more information on this, particularly the defense contractor angle, see this resource doc [2] put together by Austin for Palestine Coalition.

    During the call today, we decided that we want to mobilize against this item, ideally to block it entirely given there is skepticism that these kinds of economic incentive policies actually raise enough tax revenue to offset the freebies given to lure businesses here. But even if they did pay off, we would want to oppose our tax dollars going to businesses that we know are profiting off of harm, and so we do not want a blanket goal of targeting AI companies.

    We support a blanket ban on Data Centers, companies linked to defense tech, AI surveillance companies, or companies that have paid zero in federal income tax in any of the last 7 years. If you support that stance, please reach out to your City Council member via email & call (see info here [3]), and in-person or remote testimony on Thursday (registration link here [4]). Feel free to use the below message draft if it's helpful:

    "Hi, I'm reaching out as a constituent in opposition to Item 24 on the May 7th City Council agenda. I do not want my tax dollars going to subsidize harm arising from defense contractors, AI companies, Data Centers, or mass surveillance, and I don't want to encourage these businesses to come to our City. If this economic incentive policy passes, it must include a specific ban on these industries ever receiving economic incentives under the new policy."

    [1]: austintexas.gov/council/2026/2
    [2]: docs.google.com/document/d/e/2
    [3]: austintexas.gov/council
    [4]: services.austintexas.gov/edims

  2. I made a @surf feed for Austin, TX. Check it out at https://austin.surf.social

    You can post to the feed (for now) using #surfaustin

    #austin #austintx #atx

  3. More grassroots movements to bringing awareness of creepy surveillance. New and improved with age verification tracking! #surveillance #atx #bigbrotheriswatchingyou

  4. More grassroots movements to bringing awareness of creepy surveillance. New and improved with age verification tracking! #surveillance #atx #bigbrotheriswatchingyou

  5. More grassroots movements to bringing awareness of creepy surveillance. New and improved with age verification tracking! #surveillance #atx #bigbrotheriswatchingyou

  6. More grassroots movements to bringing awareness of creepy surveillance. New and improved with age verification tracking! #surveillance #atx #bigbrotheriswatchingyou

  7. More grassroots movements to bringing awareness of creepy surveillance. New and improved with age verification tracking! #surveillance #atx #bigbrotheriswatchingyou