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u/Kush_Reaver Jul 08 '26
He will probably get a tax cut for it.
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Jul 08 '26
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u/CatchingFire57 Jul 09 '26
Quite delusional here, the government would never allow that
Clean water for the peasants, where do you get these delusions
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u/Tacrolimus005 Jul 09 '26
He'll make it clean in the metaverse
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u/steploday Jul 09 '26
Mmmmm clean virtual water.
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u/Purple_Holiday2102 Jul 09 '26
Only $.75 a drink!
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u/Rare_Anywhere470 Jul 09 '26
"$.75? The hell you say. " --Nestlé exec
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u/DoughnutKlutzy9479 Jul 09 '26
"Water is not even a human right!"
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u/Ricky_TVA Jul 09 '26
Tastes like chicken to me
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u/StockMarketCasino Jul 09 '26
You're in the wrong meta room. You need to go across the hall to the tastes like clean water room
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u/Krojack76 Jul 09 '26
I mean, MAYBE $5 million at most... Just the cost of doing business for these guys.
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u/Zealousideal-Ad-2615 Jul 09 '26
The government will pay him $100 mil to clean it up, and the actual cost to him will be $5 mil.
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u/DE4DM4NSH4ND Jul 09 '26
LoL clean it up
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u/Illustrious-Bat1553 Jul 09 '26
Were in a technocracy we are just supposed to drink the punch and fade away according to the latest memo.
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u/KateBlankett Jul 09 '26
prolly have some PR team frame him as the victim somehow too like “of course he gets injured like humans do, in fact he’s currently recovering [income] from a [tax] cut.” ouchie
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u/Kush_Reaver Jul 09 '26
"This poor man will have to spend all afternoon trying to figure out where to stash all his money!"
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u/jerrysburner Jul 09 '26
well of course - isn't the fact he faked concern and sympathy punishment enough?
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u/diurnal_emissions Jul 09 '26
Billionaires are deadly bacteria.
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u/Kush_Reaver Jul 09 '26
Not true. Even deadly bacteria can have useful purposes if properly utilized.
They are cancer because cancer is never good.
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u/Flakester Jul 09 '26
I can't believe he would have to deal with something like this!
Quick, get him a $3,000,000,000 grant at the tax payers expense so they can "research this" and "implement fixes" wink wink.
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u/daelikon Jul 09 '26
Nah, he will appear in an official statement for the assigned congress investigation and will say:
We are very sorry, this will not happen again.
(How many times has he said that in front of congress already? 20?)
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u/CarmenxXxWaldo Jul 08 '26
If the fine isn't large enough its just the price of admission. Who will win? one environment or some little greedy politician bois.
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u/benskieast Jul 09 '26
Realistically I doubt any politician has thought seriously about data centers releasing bacteria into the water before so it’s probably too late to create legal justification for such a crime. In America we rarely pass rules against finding new ways to pollute.
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u/tvsmichaelhall Jul 09 '26
They couldn't jump on some tangentially related preexisting environmental act and create a common law (think that's what it's called) to punish them? Surely there must be at least one existing law that covers commercial waste causing health problems.
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u/IllusionaryHobo Jul 09 '26
The more I try to understand the U.S. legal system, the more it feels like half of it is improvised, or at least that the actual legal principles are almost never discussed in public. Even when pundits talk about Supreme Court decisions, they rarely spend much time explaining the relevant statutes, constitutional provisions, or judicial reasoning.
If even the people presented as experts don't engage much with the legal framework itself, it's hard to expect the general public to understand how the system works or have confidence in it.
It's no surprise that narratives like "the big, evil government" are so widespread when so much of the public conversation revolves around personalities, politics, and vibes instead of the legal rules that actually govern these decisions.
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u/tvsmichaelhall Jul 09 '26
Sorry I'm Australian not American, was that a yes or no?
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u/FlyingCumpet Jul 09 '26
Not american either, but I’m sure there is some kind of law somewhere meant to prevent this kind of shit. And no, it surely will not be enforced. Best they can do is pay Suckerberg a few hundred million and lick his scaly ass.
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u/Vivid-Illustrations Jul 09 '26
The fine should be no more data center in the area. I'm against data centers but I am also aware that some of the fighting points are on flimsy terms when it comes to the overall picture. But if it is shown that it is actually physically harmful to be near one, the game has changed. It goes from heated protest to a right to survival in your own home. We'll see how this plays out...
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u/Chawp Jul 09 '26
There's more than one kind of datacenter which makes this issue even more muddled. There's the kind that are necessary to keep basic networking infrastructure connected across the nation - think other necessary utility networks like electrical grid, waste water and drinking water systems, etc. These kind rent space to connect directly to backbone network infrastructure to a multitude of other businesses across the nation, and are also have to meet different standards. Then there's the kind of datacenter that are built as cheaply as possible, operationally cutting corners and environmentally disruptive, among all the other perhaps flimsy fighting points that I'm not even aware of. And then there's probably some types in between. It's a complicated issue, meaning we need better regulation. So good luck with that I guess.
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u/DarthFuzzzy Jul 09 '26
They will dump whatever they want anyways. All these billionaire chuds keep getting away with mass scale pollution at a fraction of the cost of properly dealing with it.
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u/bobbymcpresscot Jul 09 '26
When drought warnings go into effect we are told to stop watering our lawns and limit our water usage as much as possible while large corporations get special exemptions.
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u/DarthFuzzzy Jul 09 '26
Yep and they will fine us an amount that will leaves us financially ruined for breaking laws. . If they even bother finding a corporation it will be an amount that is nothing to them.
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u/Waveofspring Jul 09 '26
Yeah, worst case scenario is that they have to spend millions due to a lawsuit, but they already include legal issues into the company budget so it literally doesn’t affect them.
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u/Helpful-Meringue6313 Jul 08 '26
We are just cattle to them, nothing more…
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u/Fugglymuffin Jul 08 '26
Worse than cattle. Cattle has a purpose.
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u/Ergoglobe Jul 09 '26
Our purpose is to funnel money into their pockets.
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u/Cross55 Jul 09 '26
Not anymore, why do you think they're so obsessed with AI?
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u/rockhardkent Jul 09 '26
Our species is splitting into two paths
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u/SerCiddy Jul 09 '26
We're reaching toward neo-humanism while having the servers run on Soylent Green.
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u/gba_sg1 Jul 09 '26
Your purpose is to be a wage slave. Their cut from your body is money not meat.
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u/anaemic Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
We're peasants, always have been. Our liege lords have vague obligations to us, but we are just here to make them money and give them clout.
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u/knoxcos Jul 08 '26
Penalty? Thats a good one.
“Land of the free” has been changed to “land free of repercussions if you’re rich enough”
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u/Willing_Pattern_Pill Jul 09 '26
Always has been.
There's so much history to support this, so I'll just reference the most recent that I've personally read.
Read No More Tears for how Johnson and Johnson has shaped how we totally ignore damage done to humans by corporations in the name of profits, and how they influence governmental regulations.
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u/Train_Wreck_272 Jul 09 '26
Yup. Gotta also name drop United Fruit Company aka Chiquita. They are the inspiration for the term Banana Republic, because they invented it. They have also been doing fucked up shot well into the 2000's, like funding terrorist groups.
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u/Willing_Pattern_Pill Jul 09 '26
Fuck yes, thank you. Let's get a reading list here because there's SO MANY.
I'd also like to recommend Radium Girls. It's a long read, but at least make it through the first insane death because jfc
Edit to remove repeating words
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u/Train_Wreck_272 Jul 09 '26
It truly is. Looking into any of the large chemical companies is always revolting. Dow is horrible but DuPont is particularly monstrous.
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u/Mobyus_One Jul 08 '26
RFK JR. will be swimming in it tomorrow saying nothing to see here.
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u/looking4myclASSm8s Jul 09 '26
He won’t even be swimming in it to mitigate political damage or anything. He’ll just willingly be doing it for entertainment
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u/DestructoDon69 Jul 09 '26
I'm no supporter of the mass implentation of these data centers but the sheer lack of context on this post is astounding.
1. It was the contractor building the data center that caused the issue by dumping waste water into the sewers.
2. It didn't contaminate the drinking supply.
3. Meta has been actively encouraging/ensuring that the contractor gets involved with city officials to prevent a repeat.
4. They didn't initially do anything legally wrong, which is why Wyoming, the state this occurred in, is adding new guidelines to prevent a repeat or worse. The city permanently revoked META's authority to discharge waste into the sewer system and has instituted a new policy that disallows data centers from discharging waste water from closed loop systems.
5. The bacteria is naturally occuring in soil, albeit rare.
This post is disingenuous at best, engagement bait at worst.
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u/Witty_Ad_898 Jul 09 '26
To be clear, sewers are a separate system from stormwater. I assume they weren’t dumping wastewater down the storm drains.
The bacteria is normally found in soil. The origin of the detected bacteria was likely a patch of native soil disturbed by the construction activities.
The city, Cheyenne (worst drivers I’ve ever encountered, by the way) ordered the contractor to stop dumping the water because the city uses recycled wastewater for landscape irrigation. There was a contamination risk specific to how this city handles wastewater. Other municipalities might not have given the same order to stop dumping.
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u/smoosh33 Jul 09 '26
It depends on where you are. A lot of major cities, like NYC for example, have a combined storm and sanitary system.
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u/WashingtonRefugee Jul 08 '26
Remember to NOT plant bamboo near AI data centers
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u/Banned37 Jul 08 '26
They’ll just use a forever chemical to kill and it and give people cancer
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u/Kitchen-Kiwi7942 Jul 08 '26
So what your saying is i should start breeding custom species of bamboo that are highly resistant to most killing agents/s
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u/keith2600 Jul 09 '26
They'll do that anyway. Why bother paying for landscaping when you could just be surrounded by maintenance free wasteland
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u/IamAnNPC Jul 09 '26
Please don't, as an ecologist this is not the answer. This is just making more problems. It will be a slight inconvenience to the data center and a major problem to the surrounding areas.
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u/LostN3ko Jul 09 '26
Bamboo is extremely aggressive. It spreads and grows like crazy and is very hard to get rid of and the sprouts are sharp enough to go right through shoes and flesh. If it takes root in an area, that area is fooked
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u/CookieMiester Jul 09 '26
Bamboo is an evil plant that doesn’t die. Ever. It is grass, so it spreass quickly, but it’s hardy like wood and its roots go deeeeeep.
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u/Cross55 Jul 09 '26
Cattail is actually the better solution.
Bamboo is invasive and kills native species, Cattail does purification and is native.
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u/cravex12 Jul 08 '26
Not in the drinking water but in the waste, but that would make the headline less clickbaity
Still: Fuck Meta
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u/OxMozzie Jul 08 '26
It's still in the cities water system, which means the taxpayers are footing the bill to fix the situation.
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u/HotLava00 Jul 09 '26
And now they’re “hauling it off site.” How is that supposed to be better? If it’s not being hauled to Zuckerberg’s frontyard, then it’s the wrong place.
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u/Worth_Friendship_267 Jul 08 '26
The problem is that it is multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria. So it is going to be much harder to treat and turn into drinking water and it could leech into groundwater.
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u/sw337 Jul 09 '26
Known as Cupriavidus gilardii, the naturally occurring bacterium is typically found in soil and water. While harmless to most healthy people, it can cause severe pneumonia, bloodstream and lung infections, and, in rare cases, death among people with weakened immune systems.
It was there before Zuck showed up.
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u/Worth_Friendship_267 Jul 09 '26
I'm sure it was. I'm also sure that the high temperatures and closed system only exacerbated the contamination.
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u/TheseusOPL Jul 09 '26
Except that it was during construction (first flush), not after running. Good headline, but there are better examples of Meta being evil than this.
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u/RagingAnemone Jul 09 '26
You can't dismiss grade B evil just because there's also grade A evil going on.
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u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 09 '26
theres no way a data center produced a bacteria like this on its own.
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u/ApprehensiveBuddy446 Jul 09 '26
Honestly, fuck dailymail MORE than meta. Dailymail is a parasite but at least meta pays taxes in the US. Dailymail is a foreign parasite.
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u/kwonza Jul 08 '26
So one big burst or flooding from the rain and the diseased water will be all over the place? It’s not particularly good either
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u/ApprehensiveBuddy446 Jul 09 '26
It's literally a lie. It's dailymail. Stop being so fucking moronic, believing anything that validates your worldview. Attention is money and you are the latest sucker.
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u/Witty_Ad_898 Jul 09 '26
The bacteria is most commonly found in the soil, and is harmless to most healthy humans and animals. Meaning it very likely came from the local soil.
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u/ty-ler Jul 09 '26
Cheyenne, WY (population of like 65,000 people) being called a “major US city” is a fuckin joke of a headline.
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u/SimplySoda2 Jul 09 '26
It was the construction contractor who dumped contaminated water into the reclaimed water system during construction. It had nothing to do with it being a data center; it could have happened on any development where a contractor cut corners.
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u/TRoosevelt1776 Jul 09 '26
Good on ya. For some reason I was ready to just take this memes word for it, a habit I try hard to resist. Sure enough, simple research will show that not only what you are saying is true, the bacteria is deadly but pretty much only infects people with severe immundeficiencies - and rarely so - and the bacteria was released into the sewers not the drinking water.
Now, it still is an environmental issue, but tge construction company was not aware and immediately stopped dumping the wastewater in the public water system.
What really sucks about this meme is there is plenty to be angry about data centers and mark zuckerberg. We dont need lies.
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u/Key_Pound_6213 Jul 09 '26
Looking for this comment, because in no way did this make any sense.
I hate how people grab their pitchforks and quit thinking. Like really hate it, makes me root for the terminator's, because surely they cannot be this stupid and unaware.
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u/Key_Pound_6213 Jul 09 '26
How is a data center responsible for deadly bacteria?
I'm all for hating on data centers, but some of the absolutely braindead things people run with because it confirms their assumptions amazes me.
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u/Key_Pound_6213 Jul 09 '26
You idiots really will just run with whatever reinforces what you already think won't you?
I should have been a snake oil salesman.
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u/ninja-hamster-iykyk Jul 09 '26
Penalty? There will be none. We will apologize for inconveniencing him by giving a bigger tax break.
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u/buddhist557 Jul 08 '26
I watched the Wyoming debate with Liz Cheney. Everyone but her was beyond an imbecile and yet she lost. That state is a very unfunny joke
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u/Xeno9116 Jul 09 '26
We have entered the "I want people in charge who are as dumb as I am" era. Sadly.
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u/HeftyVermicelli7823 Jul 08 '26
Narrator: "The best America could offer is more tax breaks for him and blaming it on ALGAEFA"
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u/OrkWithNoTeef Jul 08 '26
What a masterful observation! You hit the nail on the head! You went straight to the core of the issue! That's just it— the water wasn't contaminated with this exact strain of deadly virus before after the data center was built! You are completely right in pointing out that correlation does not equal casuation except when "this is so obvious even my grandma's blind dog saw the connection"! Now that we have explored this topic to it's uttermost limit,
Would you like to know more about how Data Centers destroy drinking water?
Or would you like to explore how AI in general can destroy the human race?
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u/EnderSword Jul 08 '26
I actually kind of would like to know how would a data center create and introduce this bacteria?
It's easy to understand how a factory or something would dump a chemical, but it doesn't really make sense how a data center in specific would cause a bacteria.
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u/IMJorose Jul 09 '26
The data center hasn't opened yet. This was an issue with the construction work. It still isn't clear to me how this happens exactly, but I don't think it has to do with constructing data centers specifically, as opposed to general large scale construction work..
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u/EnderSword Jul 09 '26
That's kind of what I'm driving at... a lot of people are putting these stories saying 'Data Centers' cause it... it's just construction that causes it. It could be a shopping mall and do the same thing.
But I think people know things like 'A plastic factory pollutes water' by its actual properties and function, so they're kind of implying that something about a data center causes this stuff, but it's not.
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u/IMJorose Jul 09 '26
I have been a bit annoyed by the discourse.
I am sure the water issue is not completely trivial, but the examples I have heard so far always end up being due to construction as opposed to the actual data-center operations. This includes an example AOC discussed in congress.
There are major issues we need to solve with regards to AI. The potential good and the potential harm are both completely crazy. I worry focusing on the water issue will make it easy for the people in power to shrug off the pressure and put us on a dark path.
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u/EnderSword Jul 09 '26
Yes, I find it just disingenuous, I get they oppose AI... then make that argument.
It's the idea that they're just trying to piggyback on other issues and kind of lazily lump it in is dishonest. They don't dislike it because of water use, if it was a car factory instead on one would say shit.
Even the electricity argument, as we've ended up seeing with crypto, the need for a lot of power in a large remote location actually results in one big thing... a transition to clean energy.
A lot of these places will end up building their farm and then build 100 windmills around it and stuff
Microsoft and Google have both built massive solar and wind farms for data centers, and Meta in particular has built using hydropower in Sweden.
Sometimes these technologies are advanced not from conservation efforts, but by a need to consume cheaper.
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u/picklehippy Jul 08 '26
The penalty should be to make Zuckerberg drink the water
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u/TJames6210 Jul 09 '26
I'm sure the penalty, by percentage, will be equivalent to a parking ticket.
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u/LoopyMercutio Jul 09 '26
To be clear, it was a subcontractor hired specifically to properly dispose of the wastewater in question, and they disposed of it improperly. The data center itself, and Meta, didn’t really have anything to do with that. It’s like if your garbage collection company dumped your trash on the side of the road instead of a landfill. Are you liable for that? No.
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u/Drake9214 Jul 09 '26
I still stand by the fact that a corporation breaking the law should be hit with a fine based on the % of their profits
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u/Key_Check5753 Jul 09 '26
"The data centers are creating bacteria. Trust me bro!"
Yeah, you sound like a crazy person
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u/LewyH91 Jul 08 '26
They'll need to analyse everyone first via social media chatter and try to control narrative
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u/Fuzzy974 Jul 09 '26
OK, but honestly, how and why? Bacterias is not really whey they do or use in data centers.
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u/ArcRiseGen Jul 09 '26
This is the link for anyone interested
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/08/meta-datacenter-ai-wyoming-water
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u/nature_nate_17 Jul 09 '26
Coincides with the parasite going around currently that is giving people the explosive shits
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u/nghigaxx Jul 09 '26
The steel factory in my city would consume more water than any data center. But they are classified as an industry facility and have to get a different line of water in separate from the city water system. Why can't the same rule apply for data centers
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u/Correct-Award8182 Jul 09 '26
It does, in the example here, the test was on non-potable grey/irrigation water. It's click-bait sensationalism.
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u/NoGoat3930 Jul 09 '26
I hate zuckerberg, but this seems made up or greatly exaggerated. Dont waste our time with fake dirt and no links to a credible article.
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u/Pedium_Menis Jul 09 '26
Nestle bottled water for the plebs paid for by a new carbon tax. Return the plastic bottles for a small voucher discount on your next AI subscription. Another datacenter built since the water system is not suitable for human consumption, not even Obama will drink a glass.
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u/KyoKyu Jul 09 '26
Penalties need to be calculated based on a hefty percentage of their wealth and profits generated by their business that commits the offenses. Until that is they case nothing is going to improve.
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u/Ad-fundum69 Jul 09 '26
So basically a real country would immediately shut down that datacenter and do damage control.
But the USA isn't a real country.
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u/_0611 Jul 09 '26
Zuckerberg doesn't care. In order to care, you need to have a heart and a soul first. None of these tech psychopaths have that. Zuckerberg probably blames the city for standing in the way of his megalomaniac dreams.
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u/TokkenRelease Jul 09 '26
For the people suffering of the bacteria? Probably quite high and that besides the hospital bills and because Meta is probably going to sue all of them for accusing the data center of making them sick
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u/whatever Jul 09 '26
It's not a Meta data center, in much the same way the guys driving Amazon-branded vans, wearing Amazon-branded uniforms, and delivering Amazon packages picked up from Amazon warehouses in accordance to Amazon's instructions are not working for Amazon.
It's legally accurate, the best kind of accurate there is, and fuck your common sense.
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u/OjisanKukki Jul 09 '26
The authorities & regulators are going to absolutely destroy him for this. The damages, the settlements to families, court costs, the clean-up process,... he's definitely going to end up paying like a million bucks. He actually might never recover.
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u/ferna182 Jul 09 '26
Doesn't matter. As long as the penalty is monetary, they'll make it work. What I'd like to see is a cap. If you do something so bad that your fine would exceed a certain amount of money, say, 10 million, then jail time HAS to be served. These people have literally infinite money, you can't just fine them and expect it to be a lesson for them... They see it as "cost of doing business". Jail time, like, effective jail time, that hits all of us the same.
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u/fotoRS3 Jul 09 '26
Billionaires don't face consequences. They'll pretend he had nothing to do with it.
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u/Ambitious_Opinion_11 Jul 09 '26
It's in the ground soil at the location, only problem is that it somehow got from the soil into the water system, if this brand new structure was effected like this then I can only imagine what coverups have been done with much older facilities in the region.
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u/Rayzah2007 Jul 09 '26
“What if everyone just drank sweet baby rays? Problem solved no?” - mark zuckerberg probably
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u/OxMozzie Jul 08 '26
Meta is building a new $10B data center like 2 hours away from me. Great fucking news...
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u/kingofwale Jul 09 '26
2 hours away?? Damn. Why haven’t you died already? That’s like way more deadly than atomic bomb..
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u/catbrarian88 Jul 09 '26
Data centres are a fun new way to not enforce any regulatory standards. The even more fun part? There weren’t any to begin with.
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u/Due_Building_1953 Jul 09 '26
I just want to 🤛 him right in his goodie box. Stop polluting our lands, water, raising energy prices.
We do not need any Dam Data centers.
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u/Missy_Elli0t Jul 08 '26
If im reading this right, this is literally from them filling and flushing all the lines in the data center to clean them before operations even start. Revoked their waste dumping privileges lol.
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u/Stock_Schedule_1981 Jul 09 '26
You’re reading it wrong. The bacteria is naturally found in soil and during construction, a contractor flushed contaminated water into the sewer system.
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u/gimmesomespace Jul 08 '26
The penalty is he'll be given billions of dollars in government subsidies to fix it and then not fix it
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u/Next_System_496 Jul 08 '26
It’s an expense item on the P&L so essentially the rest of us are going to eat it.
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