Culture Bill Gates: Lies spread faster than facts on social media, which is hard to police - Bill Gates told CNBC that "titillating" misinformation has a tendency to spread faster than the truth on social media services. He also said Elon Musk likes to "maintain a high level of outrageous comments."

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/bill-gates-lies-spread-faster-than-facts-on-social-media.html

- Bill Gates told CNBC that “titillating” misinformation has a tendency to spread faster than the truth on social media services.
- Gates also weighed in on Wednesday’s highly anticipated antitrust hearing featuring CEOs from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.
- Gates also touched on Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s controversial comments about Covid-19, telling the automaker entrepreneur to stay in his lane.

Billionaire Bill Gates told CNBC that misinformation has a tendency to spread faster than the truth on social media services.

“When you let people communicate, you have to deal with the fact that certain incorrect things that are very titillating can spread very rapidly compared to the truth. And we’ve always seen that with vaccines,” Gates said in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that aired Tuesday on “Squawk Box.”

Facts travel slowly on social media compared with “negative” misinformation, which makes it difficult for companies like Facebook and Twitter to strike a balance, Gates said.

“To the degree to which these media companies can see what’s being said on their platform and take things that are absolutely wrong and get rid of those things or slow those things down, that’s very tough,” the Microsoft co-founder said in Monday’s interview.

Further complicating the policing of misinformation for Facebook is its 2019 decision to encrypt users’ direct messaging on WhatsApp, Gates said.

“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.”

Gates also weighed in on Wednesday’s highly anticipated antitrust hearing featuring CEOs from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

“You know, it certainly reminds me of when I went in front of the Congress,” he said. “I wished them well.”

Despite the hearings, Gates said, he believes the tech industry is naturally very competitive.

“Now, I’m not saying that the authorities have to be totally laissez-faire. But I do think people underestimate that natural competitive forces do come into the space,” he said. “I think of tech as even without massive regulation, that there will be a lot of innovation.”

Gates also touched on Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s controversial comments about Covid-19, telling the automaker entrepreneur to stay in his lane.

“Elon’s positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments,” Gates said. “He’s not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So he’s allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesn’t confuse areas he’s not involved in too much.”

---

Wew, Bill. The mainstream media spreads a lot of misinformation and fake news, what about that?

 

[idosometimes]

No it doesn't, you [nitwit]. Despite what your boomer uncle says, they don't. Experts think the total is actually higher than reported. Your lord and savior Trump [pooped] up the response and it's cost us a lot of lives.

Not wearing a mask shows how stupid and selfish you are, though. Is it so hard to put on a piece of cloth to help slow the spread of a deadly pandemic? You're a selfish piece of [filth].

Then why is the US's death toll so much higher than anywhere else? Put on a [darned] mask and do your part, you selfish piece of shit

Imagine being this bad at trolling. How can you suck so much? I do not get it. Trolling is the easiest thing in the business.

For those who are not idiots and understand what numbers are and where to find them, the US death rate is actually fairly decent for a large country with a lot of infections. Other countries are seeing more people die as a percentage of known infecteds and on a per capita basis.

 

[Hollywood Hitler]

No it doesn't, you dumbass. Despite what your boomer uncle says, they don't. Experts think the total is actually higher than reported. Your lord and savior Trump fucked up the response and it's cost us a lot of lives.

Not wearing a mask shows how stupid and selfish you are, though. Is it so hard to put on a piece of cloth to help slow the spread of a deadly pandemic? You're a selfish piece of shit.



Then why is the US's death toll so much higher than anywhere else? Put on a damn mask and do your part, you selfish piece of shit

Experts have been pretty much wrong tackling this whole COVID bullshit, especially with the expected number of deaths (deaths have been a lot lower than they expected). If they want to call themselves experts they need to actually prove it outside of having a piece of paper that says so.

I don't wear a mask because I don't have to and i think it's stupid. I see people driving their car wearing the stupid fucking things. I'd rather be a selfish asshole than walk around in a mask like a retarded faggot who's afraid of the outside world.

 

[CheezzyMach]

Their health problems isn't necessarily mine or anyone else's responsibility though. Just because someone wants to eat themselves to an early grave doesn't mean I or anyone else should have to be put out of work and into financial turmoil. That's very selfish of them, not me.

Do you really not see how catastrophic letting a pandemic that best case scenario possibly leaves half the population infirm for several months run unchecked would be? On top of the economic damage Covid's already inflicted * You can't work if you're strapped to a hospital bed * our healthcare infrastructure would be stressed to the breaking point. * which is also part of why the anti virus methods are being enforced *

As Hogan and others have said we're already up to 150 million dead in just 5 months and that's with an enforced quarantine and counter measures being used.

Are some state governors/politicians being little authoritarian dickwaffles and taking things too far or abusing the crisis for clout and political gain? Yeah, but that doesn't mean we should ignore a highly contagious and deadly illness that puts a sizable amount of the population at risk.

Wearing a mask when in public places for the next 5-6 months until things calm down or a workable vaccine's available seems a reasonable compromise.

 

[Hollywood Hitler]

Do you really not see how catastrophic letting a pandemic that best case scenario possibly leaves half the population infirm for several months run unchecked would be? On top of the economic damage Covid's already inflicted * You can't work if you're strapped to a hospital bed * our healthcare infrastructure would be stressed to the breaking point. * which is also part of why the anti virus methods are being enforced *

As Hogan and others have said we're already up to 150 million dead in just 5 months and that's with an enforced quarantine and counter measures being used.

Are some state governors/politicians being little authoritarian dickwaffles and taking things too far or abusing the crisis for clout and political gain? Yeah, but that doesn't mean we should ignore a highly contagious and deadly illness that puts a sizable amount of the population at risk.

Wearing a mask when in public places for the next 5-6 months until things calm down or a workable vaccine's available seems a reasonable compromise.

Half the population? Ok, Doomer. This virus turned out to be incredibly weak. If you're afraid of it then you can live in a bubble suit, i have no problem with that. You demanding to shutdown the world because you're a scared is incredibly selfish of you.

 

[CheezzyMach]

Half the population? Ok, Doomer. This virus turned out to be incredibly weak. If you're afraid of it then you can live in a bubble suit, i have no problem with that. You demanding to shutdown the world because you're a scared is incredibly selfish of you.

Asking people to wear masks when they're in public gatherings for the next few months is not shutting down the world and FYI the calls for a second lockdown started coming after doctors,governors and health officials spent months begging the population to wear masks and were largely ignored.

I'm not afraid either pal but having a family friend catch this and be in agony for months on top of cases still spiking in my state is quite the wake up call I would say.

I don't see how you can call a virus that nearly crippled several countries and even forced shitholes like China that don't give a shit about their workers' health to panic and shut down "weak" unless you are being willfully ignorant or just stupid.

But "muh elderly" right? Just ignore how half the US' population fits that criteria and how it crippled countries with a similarly large elderly population like Italy and Japan.

All so you don't get slightly inconvenienced while shopping for the next few months.

 

[TowinKarz]

Wearing a mask when in public places for the next 5-6 months until things calm down or a workable vaccine's available seems a reasonable compromise.

Problem is, I was told "Temporarily, maybe 5 months" SIX months ago, and they keep extending the time period. And not only will they not give an end date, but they worryingly keep using phrases like "new normal" to describe the measures they put in place that increasingly do not align with the actual mortality rate. It's clear they want this to go on for YEARS or until the Democrats control the Presidency and Congress again, whichever is first.

All the while, lives are being metaphorically ended as small businesses die, careers and educations are derailed, and the basics of community (Gathering for worship, fairs, national holidays) are being denied by overzealous Mayors and Governors, some of whom I"m pretty sure are deliberately trying to tank things so Trump loses in November.... I was told "Flatten the Curve" and now I'm being told "New Normal means masks or you get arrested" , fuck that. This isn't what I signed up for.

So no, it increasingly isn't reasonable to me to continue perpetual low-grade suffering to placate people who don't feel safe. I can't be responsible for the feelings of others.

 

[CheezzyMach]

Problem is, I was told "Temporarily, maybe 5 months" SIX months ago, and they keep extending the time period. And not only will they not give an end date, but they worryingly keep using phrases like "new normal" to describe the measures they put in place that increasingly do not align with the actual mortality rate. It's clear they want this to go on for YEARS or until the Democrats control the Presidency and Congress again, whichever is first.

All the while, lives are being metaphorically ended as small businesses die, careers and educations are derailed, and the basics of community (Gathering for worship, fairs, national holidays) are being denied by overzealous Mayors and Governors, some of whom I"m pretty sure are deliberately trying to tank things so Trump loses in November.... I was told "Flatten the Curve" and now I'm being told "New Normal means masks or you get arrested" , fuck that. This isn't what I signed up for.

So no, it increasingly isn't reasonable to me to continue perpetual low-grade suffering to placate people who don't feel safe. I can't be responsible for the feelings of others.

Yeah you were told that when doctors were still optimistic this shit would die in Summer like other corona viruses do or slowly taper off instead the numbers are still spiking and hospitalizations are increasing.

We were also told the Obama economy was the "new normal" in the late 00s/early 2010s that a police state post 9-11 was the "new normal" that a religious theocracy in the 80s/90s was the "new normal"

I still don't understand how people can still be treating this as a Left Wing plot to control the world or hurt the GOP when the entire world has been hit by this shit and is racing to create a cure not just America.

Hell this isn't even unprecedented in America, we had mask mandates and social distancing when the Spanish Flu hit.


If this is a plot by "them" it's a shitty one since "they" are just as desperate to get the world economy back on it's feet as everyone else as shown by every developed nation on Earth either funding or directly working on a vaccine.

I'm not even a Covid doomer and have sperged about the Left acting like retards during this pandemic but even I can't ignore reality.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

Half the population? Ok, Doomer. This virus turned out to be incredibly weak. If you're afraid of it then you can live in a bubble suit, i have no problem with that. You demanding to shutdown the world because you're a scared is incredibly selfish of you.

Problem is, I was told "Temporarily, maybe 5 months" SIX months ago, and they keep extending the time period. And not only will they not give an end date, but they worryingly keep using phrases like "new normal" to describe the measures they put in place that increasingly do not align with the actual mortality rate. It's clear they want this to go on for YEARS or until the Democrats control the Presidency and Congress again, whichever is first.

All the while, lives are being metaphorically ended as small businesses die, careers and educations are derailed, and the basics of community (Gathering for worship, fairs, national holidays) are being denied by overzealous Mayors and Governors, some of whom I"m pretty sure are deliberately trying to tank things so Trump loses in November.... I was told "Flatten the Curve" and now I'm being told "New Normal means masks or you get arrested" , fuck that. This isn't what I signed up for.

So no, it increasingly isn't reasonable to me to continue perpetual low-grade suffering to placate people who don't feel safe. I can't be responsible for the feelings of others.

Is wearing a mask that fucking hard for you two? Are you both so fat and out of shape that you can't breathe with a mask on? If so, then you are high-risk for covid anyway and should shut yourself inside your mom's basement (going by your own advice for high-risk people). I do intense cardio at the gym with a mask on. I am drenched in sweat. If I can do that with a mask on, you can wear a damn mask when you go to Walmart or whatever. It's not difficult. Unless you are just admitting that you are genetically and physically inferior to me, in which case, it seems that may be true.

Imagine being this bad at trolling. How can you suck so much? I do not get it. Trolling is the easiest thing in the business.

For those who are not idiots and understand what numbers are and where to find them, the US death rate is actually fairly decent for a large country with a lot of infections. Other countries are seeing more people die as a percentage of known infecteds and on a per capita basis.

And why do you think we have a lot of infections? Our high rate of infections is not a good thing, despite what Trump might be telling you guys

 

[Hollywood Hitler]

The post-9/11 police state is the new normal though.

Nobody ever called the Obama economy the new normal because the economy always fluctuates, anybody who did call it "the new normal" doesn't understand basic economics.

The fact is, the majority of people dying of this virus are within the average age of death, and most things that we can walk off and get over within a day can kill them. But now we can't even visit them on their death bed or go to their funerals because we need to "flatten the curve".

 

[CheezzyMach]

Is wearing a mask that fucking hard for you two? Are you both so fat and out of shape that you can't breathe with a mask on? If so, then you are high-risk for covid anyway and should shut yourself inside your mom's basement (going by your own advice for high-risk people). I do intense cardio at the gym with a mask on. I am drenched in sweat. If I can do that with a mask on, you can wear a damn mask when you go to Walmart or whatever. It's not difficult. Unless you are just admitting that you are genetically and physically inferior to me, in which case, it seems that may be true.



And why do you think we have a lot of infections? Our high rate of infections is not a good thing, despite what Trump might be telling you guys

Especially since we're still not sure what other damage Covid causes.

I've heard heart damage and infertility are possible .

 

[I-chi]

You want people to start listening? Then shut the fucking protests down; every single one. At live, smoking gunpoint if you have to. Black people shut the fuck up and stay home, white urbanites shut the fuck up and stay home. No more protests, no more performative crap, no more CHAZ. No more nothing. Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up, Shut. The. Fuck. UP.

You CANNOT scream for normal people to isolate themselves and sit down while they watch society's MALCONTENTS march around outside their homes and burn the shit out of everything with the blessing of the SAME people meant to be ENFORCING these fucking procedures; no matter how much you think you can appeal to their sensibilities with guilt-baiting and smuggery. They are invariably tied together now as the pandemic has become totally politicized, and I GUARAN-FUCKING-TEE you if it wasn't an election year, nobody would be arguing about this bullshit. That tiny detail will completely override a person's inclination to listen to you, the moment when they see the double standard for what it is.

Either it isn't nearly as dangerous as we thought, or there is a boldfaced agenda at work. There's no in-between the longer this has gone on, and people will gladly spite you to your face unless the system comes up with a very good explanation for the constant 180's, pearl clutching, and nepotism.

 

[Jaimas]

Asking people to wear masks when they're in public gatherings for the next few months is not shutting down the world and FYI the calls for a second lockdown started coming after doctors,governors and health officials spent months begging the population to wear masks and were largely ignored.

I'm not afraid either pal but having a family friend catch this and be in agony for months on top of cases still spiking in my state is quite the wake up call I would say.

I don't see how you can call a virus that nearly crippled several countries and even forced shitholes like China that don't give a shit about their workers' health to panic and shut down "weak" unless you are being willfully ignorant or just stupid.

But "muh elderly" right? Just ignore how half the US' population fits that criteria and how it crippled countries with a similarly large elderly population like Italy and Japan.

All so you don't get slightly inconvenienced while shopping for the next few months.

It's not that simple. The issues people are having are manifold, but they go down like this:

1. The predictive models used to justify the lockdowns, and currently being used to justify extending them, were based on utter bullshit. Despite this, certain groups are insisting we absolutely listen to them, despite the progenitor of this defective model having a history of making similarly slipshod models. Relatedly, we know from all existing evidence that Coronavirus is nowhere near as fatal as it was initially purported to be, and while many have gotten infected, the actual death rate is much lower than previous pandemics so far.

2. Currently, all evidence suggests that social distancing did far, far more to slow the virus down than any degree of lockdowns did. Despite this, the lockdowns are being extended and established utterly fucking arbitrarily. You can go to a supermarket but not a book store in the same shopping center because fuck you. You can go out for ratburgers, but god forbid you want to eat at a fucking diner. You can go to a fucking 7-11 at 3AM and deal with the Hooker and Vampire crowd, but god forbid you want to go to a park and feed the ducks, because, again fuck you. You can go hang out at a Home Depot all fucking day, but god forbid you go to Church or have a family event that's none of the state's fucking business. There's no justification for it beyond needless meddling in people's lives if they're already acting responsibly in all other regards.

3. The lockdowns are causing massive, incalculable damage to the communities being subjected to them. The businesses forced into shutdown courtesy of the lockdowns and inevitably go under when they're either prevented from re-opening or forced to re-open with massive, sweeping restrictions (vastly smaller occupancy, time limits on allowing customers, et al) that keep hitting them in the bottom line are causing economic chaos and closures throughout the affected areas. The small business butt-fucked by these lockdowns are not coming back, and the damage this does to the community, in turn, compounds.

4. Massive, sweeping overreach by the state is becoming the norm. People are being given tracking bracelets and forced into house arrest as if they were criminals for testing positive for Corona, which is fucking ridiculous when you remember that current Corona tests will give a positive for fucking any Coronavirus, including common Rhinovirus antibodies. Lockdowns are being pushed hard, even though the economic impacts will, ultimately, be far more ruinous for people than the disease they're ostensibly supposed to thwart. This while the virus has a fatality rate dramatically lower than was initially reported. This isn't even talking about cases where the lockdowns are being abused to ram-rod through legislation at the state level that could never pass muster in any other circumstance and are being done mostly because, yet again, fuck you.

5. The very same groups that are calling the protests against the lockdown a threat against public health and needlessly risky are the very same groups that will fucking extol the BLM protests as some kind of event to be lauded, to the point that the CDC labelled white supremacy a threat on par with Coronavirus - as if the fucking Virus will only infect you if it dislikes your fucking politics. The state will crack down on a fucking Gym or Hair Salon with the full force of the law for daring to try to not economically collapse during this shit, but will turn into a chorus of fucking non-responses the second you suggest they do something about the violent psychopaths rioting throughout big cities in blue states.

6. There are groups right now that are pushing to extend the lockdowns to be effectively permanent unless a Vaccine is brought out. A vaccine that is currently being rushed like Point B on Metro, is likely to be multiple-dose, and will require yearly updates, while being allowed to outright circumvent many of the usual safety restrictions we put on vaccinations under normal circumstances.

The reasons people hate the fucking masks goes beyond simple discomfort - it's that they're representative of all of the above fucking nonsense. Coronavirus is absolutely a real virus, with actual dangerous implications for the immunocompromised, but even a casual analysis would show its threat level is being grotesquely overblown and that certain groups have every intention of abusing the ever-loving shit out of it - and should not be fucking allowed to. Stop looking at the world in blacks and whites and realize that there's always more going on than there is readily apparent to any of us at a glance.

 

[CheezzyMach]

It's not that simple. The issues people are having are manifold, but they go down like this:

1. The predictive models used to justify the lockdowns, and currently being used to justify extending them, were based on utter bullshit. Despite this, certain groups are insisting we absolutely listen to them, despite the progenitor of this defective model having a history of making similarly slipshod models. Relatedly, we know from all existing evidence that Coronavirus is nowhere near as fatal as it was initially purported to be, and while many have gotten infected, the actual death rate is much lower than previous pandemics so far.

2. Currently, all evidence suggests that social distancing did far, far more to slow the virus down than any degree of lockdowns did. Despite this, the lockdowns are being extended and established utterly fucking arbitrarily. You can go to a supermarket but not a book store in the same shopping center because fuck you. You can go out for ratburgers, but god forbid you want to eat at a fucking diner. You can go to a fucking 7-11 at 3AM and deal with the Hooker and Vampire crowd, but god forbid you want to go to a park and feed the ducks, because, again fuck you. You can go hang out at a Home Depot all fucking day, but god forbid you go to Church or have a family event that's none of the state's fucking business. There's no justification for it beyond needless meddling in people's lives if they're already acting responsibly in all other regards.

3. The lockdowns are causing massive, incalculable damage to the communities being subjected to them. The businesses forced into shutdown courtesy of the lockdowns and inevitably go under when they're either prevented from re-opening or forced to re-open with massive, sweeping restrictions (vastly smaller occupancy, time limits on allowing customers, et al) that keep hitting them in the bottom line are causing economic chaos and closures throughout the affected areas. The small business butt-fucked by these lockdowns are not coming back, and the damage this does to the community, in turn, compounds.

4. Massive, sweeping overreach by the state is becoming the norm. People are being given tracking bracelets and forced into house arrest as if they were criminals for testing positive for Corona, which is fucking ridiculous when you remember that current Corona tests will give a positive for fucking any Coronavirus, including common Rhinovirus antibodies. Lockdowns are being pushed hard, even though the economic impacts will, ultimately, be far more ruinous for people than the disease they're ostensibly supposed to thwart. This while the virus has a fatality rate dramatically lower than was initially reported. This isn't even talking about cases where the lockdowns are being abused to ram-rod through legislation at the state level that could never pass muster in any other circumstance and are being done mostly because, yet again, fuck you.

5. The very same groups that are calling the protests against the lockdown a threat against public health and needlessly risky are the very same groups that will fucking extol the BLM protests as some kind of event to be lauded, to the point that the CDC labelled white supremacy a threat on par with Coronavirus - as if the fucking Virus will only infect you if it dislikes your fucking politics. The state will crack down on a fucking Gym or Hair Salon with the full force of the law for daring to try to not economically collapse during this shit, but will turn into a chorus of fucking non-responses the second you suggest they do something about the violent psychopaths rioting throughout big cities in blue states.

6. There are groups right now that are pushing to extend the lockdowns to be effectively permanent unless a Vaccine is brought out. A vaccine that is currently being rushed like Point B on Metro, is likely to be multiple-dose, and will require yearly updates, while being allowed to outright circumvent many of the usual safety restrictions we put on vaccinations under normal circumstances.

The reasons people hate the fucking masks goes beyond simple discomfort - it's that they're representative of all of the above fucking nonsense. Coronavirus is absolutely a real virus, with actual dangerous implications for the immunocompromised, but even a casual analysis would show its threat level is being grotesquely overblown and that certain groups have every intention of abusing the ever-loving shit out of it - and should not be fucking allowed to. Stop looking at the world in blacks and whites and realize that there's always more going on than there is readily apparent to any of us at a glance.

I really don't understand why the position of "Politicians are being dumbasses about this but it's equally stupid to write off a virus that forced a global shut down as an American Left Wing plot to hurt the standing president" is so hard to grasp here.

If all my state is asking me to do is wear a mask when I'm out in public I'm fine with it especially since infections are still surging here * My state's currently in the top 13 and rising * and I personally know someone who had it. * He's out of quarantine and recovered now * I'd rather have to wear a mask at Walmart for a few months then see a second quarantine if cases keep spiking.

Ignoring the riot shit * which both me and Hogan have condemned * nothing about the Covid response is unprecedented in American history we had the same quarantine methods enforced during the Spanish Flu * Limited social gatherings, keeping infected under home quarantine, masks and social distancing * you can debate whether Covid is severe enough to warrant that kind of response * personally I think ignoring a virus that's crippled several countries is foolish * or not but the idea that this purely a ploy by the American Left to gain power and hurt Trump needs to die.

 

[Snekposter]

The issue is that the virus itself never forced a complete global shutdown. The panicked response to the virus based on terrible models that were fed early and incorrect data forced the shutdown, and instead of The Powers That Be admitting that they fucked up and got the data wrong, they're doubling down because fuck you, that's why. According to some lazy info, my county has had 125 confirmed cases... and 1 death. Less than 1% fatality rate in a part of the country that isn't exactly brimming with youth. But hey, since Antifa wants to go burn down Portland and spread shit around, whole state has to mask up because fuck you, that's why.