Melinda Gates, the wife of billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, has once again returned to the topic of social media regulation, of which she is also a big proponent.
Gates spoke in the context of the foundation named after her husband and her being resolute in “fighting” the coronavirus pandemic even in the face of social media misinformation, reported Yahoo Finance, for whom she spoke in an interview.
The website considers her nothing less than “one of the most influential names in tech and health care” and reveals that Melinda Gates believes in traditional, corporate broadcast networks and movie industry that are tightly regulated and controlled.
When asked to judge the responsibility of social media for censoring (“cleaning up”) whatever is seen as vaccine misinformation, she said she would like to see similar rules imposed on the internet, and thus model formal, regulatory control over social networks after that happening in traditional media.
Gates believes that this “disinformation” is the reason so many people are hesitant to receive coronavirus vaccines, which are starting to hit the market in historically record times when it comes to vaccine testing and trials.
A Pew Research Center survey done in September showed that 49% of Americans would definitely or probably refuse a coronavirus vaccine.
In the interview, Gates then ups the rhetoric to make a connection between “disinformation” that is discouraging people from taking the vaccine and deaths resulting from the disease.
“If you don’t do the right thing, you get COVID and you could die,” Gates said.
However, she seems mostly satisfied with the way (giant) social networks censor unwanted Covid content, even if she believes that “absolutely, more could be done.” And regulation is clearly the way Gates – who is often, along with her husband, on the receiving end of criticism on social media – would like to proceed.
The article then quotes a study produced by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania that said those who get information from social media are more likely to be “misinformed” about vaccines than those relying on traditional media.
