Is this real news? I see no mentions of primary sources, and when I do a google search I find some much older articles with much more context and nuance.
I’m not sure I believe this in any way. It is taking quotes out of context, and creating an exaggeration.
I think wired is generally not out there trying to libel people. I am honesty curious why Gates has been out of the public sphere for over ten years but is suddenly out there shilling against crypto for 'the children'.
> When you have encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography.
> Being big in the social media business is no simple game, like the encryption issue.
Personally, I wouldn't call these quotes "shilling", but Gates does seem to have funny thoughts on encryption. Maybe half-baked, but he is smart enough to not voice half-baked thoughts on an interview.
However, I'm also sceptical about the type of "free speech" reclaimthenet.org is advocating. The tone of the article is very sensationalistic, focusing more on calling-out Gates, rather than debunking his thoughts.
I thought he seemed pretty exasperated in that interview on corona response. Maybe he let his guard down, I was surprised to read the encryption stuff too.
He has always been involved in a number of social issues through his foundation and have been very vocal/public about them.
Maybe we're just hearing a bit more about him and his thoughts because he's involved in looking for a way out of Covid through his foundation, and has famously 'predicted' something like this.
I agree that this piece makes me file reclaimthenet.org under "fake-news spreading". I'm no Gates fan but I've rarely seen so much vitriol in so little space.
He didn't outright advocate for it from the interview that I believe motivated this article, but he did pretty strongly imply that end-to-end encryption facilitates crime and shouldn't be allowed:
>“Some of the messages on their platform, they don’t even see because of the encryption on WhatsApp,” Gates said. “In order to not have any responsibility, they’ve made that opaque. You know, so whatever the issues — anti-vaccine, child pornography — they have made sure they can’t intervene on those things.”
This is very disappointing. My response for people on this side is this: Great, hand me your unlocked phone. I promise not to share anything with anyone else.
That's not how I read it. The quote is Gates talking about Facebook. My interpretation isn't that he's saying E2EE is bad, but rather he's saying that E2EE is a convenient way for Facebook to avoid/deny responsibility for things being spread through parts of the platform that they own.
His position doesn't seem to be a blanket "e2e should be banned", but rather that social networks have a responsibility to police discourse on their platforms and they've used e2e as a mean to avoid that responsibility.
I personally think it's a red herring - even where there is no e2e, like on regular FB, it's extremely difficult to police user-generated content and fake news (a category that arguably includes TFA). This is just trying to whip up a storm against Gates.
Bill Gates’ narcissism is really on display lately.
There is something in his interviews that suggest the guy cannot see where anyone can reasonably disagree with him on anything. He lumps everyone who disagrees with him into camps of crazies in an extraordinarily uncharitable way. Combine this fact with the public, 20 year lie that he is giving away his fortune, it’s time for him to step down from public life.
He is damaging arguments that are good by attaching his reputation to them.
It may be uncharitable to diagnose a stranger. I have family with narcissism issues. It is nakedly obvious to me gates has the same issue. You kinda can’t blame him, given his financial status- but there are honest scientific people who disagree with his approach and he’s framing them all as conspiracy theorists.
I don't believe there is a way to stop end-to-end encryption. You can easily make data look non-encrypted but actually contain something encrypted underneath.
Bill, I thought you were a pretty smart guy... Can't you think of anything that will increase public health knowledge and awareness (especially vaccines) that doesn't involve monitoring private conversations for goodthink? I think this is a very lazy way to go about you foundation's mission statement.
If we can't (and I really don't think this is the case), then anti-vaxxers are the price we pay for a free and open society. To quote David Foster Wallace, there is a "baseline vulnerability" that a free society has (whether it be terrorism or the proliferation misinformation), and those that succumb to those vulnerabilities are "sacrifices on the altar of freedom." [0]
The actual quote, without breathless editorializing, is:
"The irony is that it’s digital social media that allows this kind of titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, 'OK, there’s just an evil person, and that explains all of this.' And when you have [ ] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography."
I've removed Wired's additions within brackets, and suddenly it doesn't seem at all clear Gates is talking about end-to-end encryption directly. It might be said that is the only way to accomplish his wish, but when I first read the article I thought he could as easily be talking about legal remedies as anything else.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 58.4 ms ] threadI’m not sure I believe this in any way. It is taking quotes out of context, and creating an exaggeration.
I think wired is generally not out there trying to libel people. I am honesty curious why Gates has been out of the public sphere for over ten years but is suddenly out there shilling against crypto for 'the children'.
> When you have encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography.
> Being big in the social media business is no simple game, like the encryption issue.
Personally, I wouldn't call these quotes "shilling", but Gates does seem to have funny thoughts on encryption. Maybe half-baked, but he is smart enough to not voice half-baked thoughts on an interview.
However, I'm also sceptical about the type of "free speech" reclaimthenet.org is advocating. The tone of the article is very sensationalistic, focusing more on calling-out Gates, rather than debunking his thoughts.
He has always been involved in a number of social issues through his foundation and have been very vocal/public about them.
Maybe we're just hearing a bit more about him and his thoughts because he's involved in looking for a way out of Covid through his foundation, and has famously 'predicted' something like this.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/bill-gates-lies-spread-faste...
>“Some of the messages on their platform, they don’t even see because of the encryption on WhatsApp,” Gates said. “In order to not have any responsibility, they’ve made that opaque. You know, so whatever the issues — anti-vaccine, child pornography — they have made sure they can’t intervene on those things.”
I personally think it's a red herring - even where there is no e2e, like on regular FB, it's extremely difficult to police user-generated content and fake news (a category that arguably includes TFA). This is just trying to whip up a storm against Gates.
It's pretty clear what his philosophical outlook is, and what he would say about ANY widely adopted use-cases of E2EE.
There is something in his interviews that suggest the guy cannot see where anyone can reasonably disagree with him on anything. He lumps everyone who disagrees with him into camps of crazies in an extraordinarily uncharitable way. Combine this fact with the public, 20 year lie that he is giving away his fortune, it’s time for him to step down from public life.
He is damaging arguments that are good by attaching his reputation to them.
If we can't (and I really don't think this is the case), then anti-vaxxers are the price we pay for a free and open society. To quote David Foster Wallace, there is a "baseline vulnerability" that a free society has (whether it be terrorism or the proliferation misinformation), and those that succumb to those vulnerabilities are "sacrifices on the altar of freedom." [0]
[0] - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-as...
"The irony is that it’s digital social media that allows this kind of titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, 'OK, there’s just an evil person, and that explains all of this.' And when you have [ ] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography."
I've removed Wired's additions within brackets, and suddenly it doesn't seem at all clear Gates is talking about end-to-end encryption directly. It might be said that is the only way to accomplish his wish, but when I first read the article I thought he could as easily be talking about legal remedies as anything else.