Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

Fighting For LGBTQ Rights is Terrorism Now: NSPM-7 Explained w/ Ken Klippenstein Oct 17, 2025

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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 gender
hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.

Ken's story: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefs

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Hasan Piker and the Future No One Is Ready For Oct 15, 2025

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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.

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[PATREON PREVIEW] How Raunchy AI Country Songs Took Over The Internet Oct 13, 2025

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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.

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You Are Probably Being Tracked By ICE Right Now Oct 10, 2025

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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.

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A Crypto Convict's Spectacular Comeback Tour: How Ross Ulbricht Became A Powerful MAGA Influencer Oct 08, 2025

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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.

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READ RYAN'S FANTASTIC NYT STORY: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/technology/ross-ulbricht-silk-road-comeback.html

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The Shocking Plan to Kill Online Privacy: A VPN Ban Will Break the Web Oct 03, 2025

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A VPN hides your IP address, making it harder for hackers, corporations and the government to track your activity. Most people know VPNs as a way to get around geogating (like if content is banned in one country you can use a VPN to get around the ban).

But as authoritarian governments in places like America and the UK seek to crack down on online speech, VPNs are under attack. It's getting harder and harder to use them effectively, and recently there's even been talk of an outright ban.

Lia Holland is an activist at Fight for the Future, a civil liberties group fighting to protect VPN access. She joined me to dig into the political campaign against VPNs and talk about how to fight back.

PS: A lot of VPNs are owned by Israel!! Or they trap you into subscription plans. Be careful before downloading one, here's a guide from the EFF on VPNs: https://ssd.eff.org/module/choosing-vpn-thats-right-you

Fight For the Future's Defend VPNs campaign: https://www.defendvpns.com

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The AI Slop-pocalypse: How The Slop Economy Took Over Oct 01, 2025

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AI slop is slowly taking over every platform. "But the flood of financially incentivized sloe has also given way to a strange new internet, where social media feeds overflow with unsettlingly lifelike imagery and even real videos can appear suspect," WaPo reports. "Some viral clips now barely rely on humans at all, with AI tools generating not just the imagery but also the ideas."

There's YouTube Slop, Instagram Reel Slop, Slop all over TikTokk LinkedIn, and X. But who's behind this deluge of deranged and often extremely surreal content?

Drew Harwell is a journalist at the Washington Post and he's been digging into the slop economy. He joins me to talk about the mad rush of creators using AI video tools to flood the internet, how they're making money, and what the future of content looks like as slop eats the world.

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How To Become Invisible Online (Delete Your Digital Footprint and Protect Your Privacy Forever) Sep 29, 2025

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Visit https://joindeleteme.com/Taylor20 and use code Taylor20 for 20% off and protect yourself today! SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenzAds are following us everywhere, data brokers and hackers are stealing our info, social media companies and AI are hoovering up our data. It can all feel SO overwhelming. In this final installment of my data broker series, I sat down with two of the top security experts on YouTube, John Hammond and Josh from All Things Secured, to break down how vulnerable you might be and what practical things you can do to protect your information online.

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The Truth About Nepal’s Gen Z Uprising Sep 26, 2025

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Welcome back to Free Speech Friday:

Nearly a month ago peaceful student demonstrators protesting corruption in Nepal were shot and killed, sparking nationwide outrage. Government buildings were set in fire, leaders were forced out, and the prime minister resigned, leaving the country’s future uncertain.

But that's not how the mainstream media reported it. They misrepresented Nepal's Gen Z youth movement, portraying young protesters as spoiled children upset about losing social media access, rather than as citizens fighting corruption and authoritarian suppression of free speech. It was a lot of the same framing that the media has used over other authoritarian crackdowns on speech like the TikTok ban here in the U.S.

I brought on Bala Krishna Sha, one of the top journalists in Nepal, who writes for The Himalayan Times, the country's number 1 English language newspaper. He joins me to break down exactly what happened in Nepal, what the real story is that you won't see in traditional western media, and why the free speech fight happening in Nepal has global implications.

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