If one Gates wasn’t enough, proselytizing his ideas on anything from technology to education to viruses – there’s another.
The wife of Bill Gates, Melinda, revealed for Axios on HBO that she is extremely unhappy with the state of social media today, which she accuses of spreading disinformation, and warns they might be in for “a reckoning.”
Her dissatisfaction with what’s allowed on the internet these days in terms of speech is driven by personal reasons, as Bill Gates, although a darling of corporate media, often comes under fire on social media for his policies and ideas around the coronavirus pandemic.
Melinda Gates suggests that this criticism qualifies for disinformation and conspiracy theories, while those platforms who are not agile enough in censoring such unwanted content should be held accountable “by society.”
But Gates, who also brings up the talking point of allowing political ads on social networks, doesn’t think the job of making these companies undergo “some reckoning” should “get done” now, amid the epidemic.
It is not clear why Gates thinks the timing is not right – but it does sound like she’s cautioning tech companies behind the offending (in her view) platforms to behave – i.e., introduce even more censorship around the topic – or face consequences later.
This is in keeping with her habit of assuming the role of a teacher and dishing out “grades” to US administrations.
She revealed that the “D-” grade she gave the Trump administration in May for its handling of coronavirus remains the same, but also said that she and Bill would not endorse any candidate in the November election, preferring to appear nonpartisan.
Gates is the co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that focuses on things like healthcare, education, and agricultural research and is the largest private entity of its kind in the world.
The foundation in the past came under plenty of criticism for the way it operates, and for what an AP report in 2018 described as an “often invisible (…) carefully curated web of influence.”
These days, however, anyone daring to formulate their criticism of Bill Gates’ “vision” regarding the current pandemic in similar terms would quickly get dismissed as ill-intentioned at best, and a conspiracy theorist at worst.