According to CNBC, Gates, who “spends a lot of his time and money trying to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems,” said that unlike tackling diseases or promoting clean energy, there is no clear path forward for solving what he views as the problem of “misinformation.”
Gates told CNBC any “solution” would involve “rules” for online speech, but he said he isn’t sure what form those rules would take or who would enforce them. Similarly, he told CNET “systems and behaviors” should be in place to target “misinformation.”
“Is there some AI [artificial intelligence] that encodes those rules because you have billions of activity [sic] and if you catch it a day later, the harm is done,” Gates told CNBC. However, he acknowledged that he is sensitive to the argument that restricting online information would be detrimental to free speech.
Gates’ remarks a ‘blatant affront to the First Amendment’
Experts who spoke with The Defender said Gates’ remarks belie a disregard for the principles of free speech and the First Amendment.
Author Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of DailyClout, told The Defender Gates “should re-read the Constitution,” adding:
“No individual, and certainly not the state, has the authority in our system to be the arbiter of what can be read or said. Our First Amendment has very few and limited exceptions, such as threats of violence. ‘Misinformation’ is not one of them. History shows that censorship never works ultimately to repress the truth.”
Other experts cited Gates’ questionable track record on free speech and issues such as vaccines. Epidemiologist M. Nathaniel Mead told The Defender Gates’ “post-2020 track record on this issue is well-documented.”
“He tried to sell us on the ‘vaccine-only’ solution to CV by falsely claiming that the modified mRNA injections would avert infection and transmission, thereby ending the pandemic. He also openly urged media to disparage as ‘conspiracy theorists’ or anyone who questioned mandates for masking, social distancing, lockdowns, PCR testing and, of course, the so-called vaccines.”
Mead called this “a rather blatant affront” to the First Amendment. “Given his track record with public health communications, Gates is being grotesquely disingenuous when he speaks about wanting to protect free speech.”
“Bill Gates has a vested interest in ensuring that counternarrative information, or what he calls ‘misinformation,’ is eliminated. That’s because it interferes with his agenda and what appear to be authoritarian aspirations as well, given his efforts to impose vaccine passport requirements internationally and to restrict free speech through his control of many news media channels, having given over $300 million of his own funds in recent years to support ‘independent’ media platforms such as NPR, PBS and The Guardian.
1 comment:
Headline should read Bill Hates pushes misinformation.
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