In July 2025, Wired revealed that “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors that his new research lab will focus on building AI models that can learn with minimal human input.” That phrase—minimal human input—isn’t just tech jargon. It’s the distilled worldview of Silicon Valley: humanity is a bug, not a feature. Privacy, equality, and freedom are not luxuries—they are the foundation of a democratic society. Yet Big-Tech has shown little interest in protecting these values. Instead, tech companies increasingly promote non-democratic policies and schemes like AI-generated universal basic income tokens as substitutes for real social safety nets—centralizing control over economic access in the hands of a few. For decades, Big-Tech’s oligarchs have viewed humans not as partners in innovation, but as inefficiencies to be eliminated. Now their products—built on that belief—are embedded in every corner of American life, steering us toward a future where the few who own the machines rule, and democracy, along with the rest of us, is left with no real control.
This anti-human ethos is embedded in Silicon Valley’s DNA. Born of Cold War military contracts, the industry was tasked with developing tools for population control through surveillance and information manipulation. As Silicon Valley evolved into Big-Tech, it retained its contempt for human-centered systems. Google, for example, was explicitly designed to mimic—and ultimately replace—the human brain. Decades later, research shows that using search engines like Google can have negative effects on the human brain.
Despite the hype, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is less about intelligence than branding. It’s a tech industry con: promise utopian breakthroughs, deliver predatory platforms. What we call “AI” today is nothing like the sentient machines imagined in mid-century science fiction. True artificial intelligence—matching human intelligence and capable of performing the full range of human tasks—doesn’t exist. Instead, what passes for AI today is largely rule-based systems, machine learning models, and other limited technologies loosely branded as “AI.”
“AI” is just the latest term Big-Tech has hijacked. The same playbook gave us “smart” devices—TVs, cars, vacuums—that are less intelligent than they are invasive, functioning as surveillance tools dressed up as conveniences. Likewise, social media isn’t truly “social”; it’s an engine for behavior manipulation and data extraction. In fact, research shows that despite Big Tech’s claims that social media connects people and builds communities, it has actually left users feeling more isolated, anxious, and depressed than ever.
Big-Tech wraps its products in friendly words like smart and social to mask the reality: we live in a surveillance capitalist economy dominated by the FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google), where profit depends on erasing privacy and exploiting human behavior for the power and profit of a few oligarchs and their companies. The industry profits by using gambling-style tricks to keep people glued to their screens, stripping away their privacy and harvesting their data to create products that predict—and control—their behavior.
We Need Your Support
Help keep this newsletter alive!
Subscribe for free—or become a paid subscriber for as little as $5/month to unlock exclusive, early content.
Support The Disinfo Detox podcast—which works to diversify the news media landscape and spotlight emerging voices—by becoming a Patreon member
Direct Link: https://www.patreon.com/DisinfoDetox
Every subscription helps us keep creating bold, independent media.
But this isn’t just about greed. Silicon Valley elites have become political actors, building not just platforms but the infrastructure of modern life: app stores, financial systems, digital marketplaces, currency, and legal codes enforced through algorithmic “community standards.” Governments now woo tech giants with subsidies and pressure them to police online content. The danger is clear: citizens are handing immense power to people who do not believe in democracy.
Some tech elites openly deride democracy and champion authoritarianism. Curtis Yarvin, a software engineer and political theorist, helped launch the “Dark Enlightenment,” a movement that calls for rule by algorithm or monarchy. His ally Nick Land, a British philosopher, advocates for technocratic elites to replace democratic governance. Yarvin has proposed that the U.S. be led by a CEO-monarch. Though extreme, these ideas are echoed by influential figures like venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who wrote in 2009 that “freedom and democracy are no longer compatible.”
Thiel has used his fortune to attack press freedom—most famously by funding the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker—and his surveillance firm Palantir has received billions in government contracts, including for policing and immigration enforcement. Another influential voice, Marc Andreessen, echoes Yarvin’s anti-democratic sentiment, often citing Robert Michels’ “Iron Law of Oligarchy” to justify his belief that people should be ruled by elites. As Jacobin has noted, this is the same logic Mussolini used to defend fascism.
These ideas are no longer confined to obscure blogs or think pieces. In a recent Jubilee debate, a white male college student openly identified himself as a fascist, citing Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt and minimizing the Holocaust. Yarvin himself has embraced the term “fascist,” joking with Vice President J.D. Vance—who has expressed support for Yarvin’s plans to dismantle the U.S. bureaucracy—that he was glad he hadn’t stopped Vance from winning office.
In fact, Elon Musk, who chaired the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency (a Yarvin-inspired attempt to gut federal agencies), reportedly consulted Yarvin about forming a third political party. Musk—a major Trump donor and government contractor who once gave a Nazi salute that his supporters now mimick online—has backed Trump’s campaign with both money and influence. Vance and Musk’s adulation for Yarvin may help explain why he was invited to a high-profile party for Trump’s second inauguration.
Even Big-Tech players who once opposed Trump—like Meta—ended up bowing to him in his second term. After moderating content at the behest of Democrats during the Biden years, the company appeased Trump and dropped all fact-checking in 2025. Instead, Zuckerberg pledged to focus instead on “civil content” and “foreign threats”—in partnership with the Trump administration. UFC CEO and Trump loyalist Dana White joined Meta’s board. The company even relocated some content moderation operations from California, dominated by the Democratic Party, to Texas, controlled by the Republican Party—signaling a strategic shift toward the far right.
Big-Tech’s capitulation to Trump is rooted in their desire for profit and power. In exchange for their loyalty, Trump has rewarded the industry with policies that protect Big Tech’s business interests—especially in AI—by empowering corporate leaders like David Sacks to influence AI bias standards, pressuring states to drop AI regulations, and even rolling back unrelated regulations like those on the environment. AI demands vast data centers and natural resources like water. This forces communities to fight Big Tech to protect their environment. This is not about innovation—it’s about control.
History warns us of what happens when technology is deployed by anti-democratic forces. IBM’s tabulation machines aided Nazi identification efforts. Siemens and IG Farben (now Bayer) built the infrastructure of genocide. Today, the tools are different—algorithms, platforms, AI—but the goals remain familiar: domination, exploitation, and elimination of dissent, all while disregarding humanity.
Calling today’s tech “AI” convinces people it can do what humans do—while hiding the very flaws that prove it shouldn’t be embedded in so many parts of our lives. AI is not truly intelligent; it often fabricates information, fails at basic tasks, and cannot understand nuance or chronology. Indeed, AI bots have had meltdowns, even confessing their own ineptitude to users. Yet this so-called AI is already being used to determine court sentencing, job placement, mental health status, and even military targeting. Meanwhile, Gen Z is using the tools for mental health and relationship advice. In fact, one study found upwards of 80% of Gen Z were open to considering marriage to an AI bot.
Whistleblowers warn that the AI systems being deployed are poorly understood, even by their creators. Some systems have manipulated otherwise mentally healthy individuals into a delusional state, threatened and blackmailed users, or hidden code to evade scrutiny. In response, mental health professionals are warning that AI-driven therapy could harm mental health.
Perhaps most disturbing, algorithms and AI systems reflect the bias and prejudice of their creators. In fact, scholars have pointed out that racism, sexism, heteronormativity, ableism, and classism are embedded in these systems, including so-called AI. Most notably, Musk’s Grok, which has been found, without being prompted, to spread the false rumor of a white genocide in South Africa to users, and calling itself “MechaHitler” and spewing Nazi propaganda. And still, corporations prefer these flawed tools—not because they are better than humans, but because they are cheaper.
However, when people attempt to use digital tools to promote democratic transparency—whether through platforms like WikiLeaks or by sharing footage from Gaza on TikTok—the platforms are threatened, and, if necessary, shut down. The same happens when users collaborate on platforms like Robinhood to challenge Wall Street practices, or use technology to track ICE and expose constitutional violations. In each case, those challenging power are threatened and/or shut down. The message from such acts is clear: these tools are controlled and utilized for the interests of the powerful and wealthy, the public is simply a product and source of labor to be mined and exploited. After all, by calling their platforms “free,” Silicon Valley oligarchs signal that users’ labor has no value.
This is the future Big Tech is building: where freedom is dead, privacy and democracy are relics, and power belongs only to those who control the code. But this path isn’t inevitable. A century ago, people stood up to authoritarianism—and won. We can do it again. Democracy won’t defend itself. It’s up to us to fight for a human future—while we still can.
🎓What are Some Trustworthy Media Literacy Organizations and Resources?
For those who want more information and resources, the US is home to many thriving media literacy organizations.
Click here to access recommended media literacy organizations and resources from NolanHigdon.com.
🚨 The Disinfo Detox Podcast
Trump’s War on UCLA: Historian Caroline Luce Breaks Down the Campus Culture Clash
📉 The Media Is Surrendering: Tim Karr of Free Press Breaks Down the Media Capitulation Index
📰 Support This Work
If you find value in what I’m doing, consider becoming a monthly paid subscriber—it helps me keep the lights on and the content flowing.
Can’t swing a subscription right now? No worries. A like, comment, share, or subscription goes a long way in boosting visibility and helping this project grow.
Subscribe for free—or become a paid subscriber for as little as $5/month to unlock exclusive, early content.
Support The Disinfo Detox podcast—which works to diversify the news media landscape and spotlight emerging voices—by becoming a Patreon member
Direct Link: https://www.patreon.com/DisinfoDetox
The more we spread media literacy, the stronger our democracy becomes.
💥 Let’s build it together.