“Crazy, evil, causing more death” – this is the dramatic and fiery language that Bill Gates is using to talk about free speech on social media, when it is used to express opinions critical and suspicious of him and his activities.
Before he started dabbling in healthcare, agriculture, and other essential industries across the globe, Bill Gates was known only as the co-founder and long-time CEO of Microsoft.
This was the original “evil tech corporation” that spent nearly two decades working earnestly to undermine competition and innovation. But once that “good work” made him a billionaire, Gates decided to turn to philanthropy and to funding a number of projects via his foundation, including a billion that he recently spent on fast-tracking coronavirus vaccine development.
And the “evil” he talks about these days is the hard time his opponents are giving him on social networks. They are not few in numbers, either, while in corporate media reports, any and all criticism of Gates – from the most reasoned to the most outlandish, gets treated as conspiracy theories.
“It’s time to have more government regulation over the social platforms, so we don’t get these conspiracy theories that cause more death,” Gates’ wife Melinda said, without further expanding on the last claim, which some might interpret as as “conspiracy theory” of her own.
Speaking for Reuters, Gates said these and other social media posts were “crazy and evil” and that his hope is they would now “go away.” But clearly, not on their own, as Gates wants social media users to get (re)educated and have their behavior changed over the coming year, and for the government to step in forcefully and intervene with free speech protections.
Gates also had words of praise for Dr Anthony Fauci, and put himself side by side with this medical professional as the target of “really evil theories.”
Gates is also happy about the team Biden has picked and that under this president, the US “has rejoined the World Health Organization” while Fauci will have more free rein.
