Researchers accuse data-center industry of using propaganda to weaken local opposition

Data-center advocates promise jobs and tax revenue. But communities often lack the information needed to judge those promises, three researchers argue in a November 13 Guardian opinion article. Samuel Woolley, Dean Jackson and Maia Woluchem say their new research finds industry actors using propaganda, disinformation and information control to weaken local opposition.

Their argument concerns both persuasion and access to evidence: who pays to promote a project, what its economic claims actually count, and whether residents can inspect its resource demands. The authors connect advertising campaigns, withheld water records and attacks on opponents as examples supporting their finding—not simply as disagreements over whether a particular facility should be built.

All three authors are affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh’s Communication Technology Research Lab; Woluchem also directs Data & Society’s Trustworthy Infrastructures Program. Their article presents an explicitly critical interpretation of the industry’s conduct, alongside examples and accounts from local organizers.

What the jobs pitch leaves unanswered

The authors describe a promotional effort spanning mailers, text messages, television spots and targeted digital ads. They say some campaign spending passed through opaque nonprofits and groups that conceal their donors, obscuring the industry’s role. They identify Elevate New Mexico as an example of a group presenting itself as a local initiative while obscuring corporate connections in the data-center business.

One economic pitch comes from Build American AI. Its advertisement credits data centers with creating tens of thousands of Texas jobs. The researchers question what that total tells residents about lasting employment: how many jobs remain after construction, which workers are subcontracted, and whether those workers receive benefits or appear in advertised average salaries.

57,785Texas jobs claimed in a Build American AI ad

The authors cite this advertising figure while questioning its breakdown by permanent employment, subcontracted work and benefits. They do not present it as a verified count of permanent jobs.

Tax revenue requires similar scrutiny, they argue. Companies’ descriptions of local revenue rarely account for exemptions and abatements they receive. The authors also say some agreements allow communities to recover money when projects underperform, but local leaders can hesitate to enforce those terms because doing so would acknowledge failure.

Water claims meet a records barrier

The researchers also challenge technical language used to answer environmental concerns. Closed-loop cooling, which recirculates water, can reduce consumption at a facility while shifting water demand to power plants supplying its electricity, they write. Their point is not that the approach offers no benefit, but that its effect can be smaller than promotional language implies.

Checking those claims can itself become a dispute. In The Dalles, Oregon, Google paid the city’s legal fees after it withheld records about a data center’s water use. The city later agreed to release the information through a settlement with The Oregonian. The authors say most data centers do not disclose their water consumption, hampering policymaking.

From challenging projects to attacking critics

Organizers interviewed by the researchers criticized late public consultation and community-benefit agreements they considered inadequate. Some described economic decisions as already settled by companies and opaque governments. Those accounts put control over the process alongside concerns about electricity costs, pollution, noise and water depletion.

The article also cites developer and Shark Tank personality Kevin O’Leary’s attack on two opponents. In May, he called them “proxies for the Chinese government”; he later admitted he had “no evidence,” the authors write. They argue that casting local resistance as foreign manipulation undermines residents’ objections rather than addressing them.

Their proposed remedy is mandatory disclosure of resource consumption, job creation and other public-interest information, backed by enforcement of developers’ promises. They also want transparency requirements extended to advertising and campaign finance, making the interests behind the pitch visible alongside the project’s costs.