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Bill Gates took a shot at free speech, the First Amendment, and everyone who questions vaccines and vaccine safety in a CNBC interview earlier this month.
“We should have free speech, but if you’re inciting violence, if you’re causing people not to take vaccines, where are those boundaries that even the U.S. should have rules? And then if you have rules, what is it?” Gates asked on CNBC’s “Make It.”
Gates made similar remarks this month in an interview with CNET, during which he directly targeted the First Amendment:
“The US is a tough one because we have the notion of the First Amendment and what are the exceptions like yelling ‘fire’ in a theater. … I do think over time, with things like deepfakes, most of the time you’re online you’re going to want to be in an environment where the people are truly identified, that is they’re connected to a real-world identity that you trust, instead of just people saying whatever they want.”
Gates, described by CNBC as “the subject of numerous conspiracy theories,” said he does not have a solution for how to stop the spread of “misinformation.” He lamented his “naivete, that when we made information available, that people would want correct information.”
According to CNBC, Gates, who “spends a lot of his time and money trying to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems,” said that unlike tackling diseases or promoting clean energy, there is no clear path forward for solving what he views as the problem of “misinformation.”
Gates told CNBC any “solution” would involve “rules” for online speech, but he said he isn’t sure what form those rules would take or who would enforce them. Similarly, he told CNET “systems and behaviors” should be in place to target “misinformation.”
“Is there some AI [artificial intelligence] that encodes those rules because you have billions of activity [sic] and if you catch it a day later, the harm is done,” Gates told CNBC. However, he acknowledged that he is sensitive to the argument that restricting online information would be detrimental to free speech.
Gates’ remarks a ‘blatant affront to the First Amendment’
Experts who spoke with The Defender said Gates’ remarks belie a disregard for the principles of free speech and the First Amendment.
Author Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of DailyClout, told The Defender Gates “should re-read the Constitution,” adding:
“No individual, and certainly not the state, has the authority in our system to be the arbiter of what can be read or said. Our First Amendment has very few and limited exceptions, such as threats of violence. ‘Misinformation’ is not one of them. History shows that censorship never works ultimately to repress the truth.”
Other experts cited Gates’ questionable track record on free speech and issues such as vaccines. Epidemiologist M. Nathaniel Mead told The Defender Gates’ “post-2020 track record on this issue is well-documented.”
Mead said:
“He tried to sell us on the ‘vaccine-only’ solution to COVID by falsely claiming that the modified mRNA injections would avert infection and transmission, thereby ending the pandemic. He also openly urged media to disparage as ‘conspiracy theorists’ or anyone who questioned mandates for masking, social distancing, lockdowns, PCR testing and, of course, the so-called vaccines.”
Mead called this “a rather blatant affront” to the First Amendment. “Given his track record with public health communications, Gates is being grotesquely disingenuous when he speaks about wanting to protect free speech.”
Mead suggested Gates relies on control over narratives in the media to further his promotion of — and investments in — vaccines. He said:
“Bill Gates has a vested interest in ensuring that counternarrative information, or what he calls ‘misinformation,’ is eliminated. That’s because it interferes with his Bio-Pharma agenda and what appear to be authoritarian aspirations as well, given his efforts to impose vaccine passport requirements internationally and to restrict free speech through his control of many news media channels, having given over $300 million of his own funds in recent years to support ‘independent’ media platforms such as NPR, PBS and The Guardian.
“Since the mass media relies heavily on Big Pharma advertising to maintain operations, it has largely abandoned the traditional skepticism of government directives, instead aiding in the suppression of dissenting viewpoints. Anyone posing counter-establishment narratives is a ‘problem’ from Gates’ perspective.”
‘Afraid that when their plans are exposed, people will resist’
Others argued that Gates’ reputation was hurt as a result of his outspoken support for and investments in COVID-19 vaccines and mRNA technology — and can only be restored through censorship of online speech.
“To restore his reputation from mad scientist back to computer guy, Gates has one hope: censorship. Indeed, the vast amount of censorship needed for that job is basically to wipe the internet,” attorney Greg Glaser told The Defender.
Catherine Austin Fitts, founder and publisher of the Solari Report and former U.S. assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, cited a recent survey showing that a significant percentage of the population believes COVID-19 vaccines are deadly.
“A recent Rassmussen survey published in June 2024 reported that 33% of American adults agree with the statement: ‘The [COVID-19] vaccine is killing people, and is killing large numbers of people,’” Fitts said.
“If Mr. Gates wants to stop misinformation, his first step should be to stop financing, speaking or republishing misinformation that results in the poisoning of our children,” Fitts added.
For Seamus Bruner, author of “Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life,” Gates’ support for stopping “misinformation” is tied to his support for vaccines and digital ID.
Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, argued that the “systems and behaviors” Gates advocated include “a de facto digital ID system” that would “track and trace our precise digital footprint — what we say and do online.”
Bruner said:
“Gates and the other controligarchs are pouring billions of dollars into digital ID efforts, and they plan to use misinformation — particularly related to vaccines — to do it.
“He wants to control what we put in our bodies. Now, he wants to control what we’re allowed to put into our minds — what we think — by controlling what we are allowed to say. The reason ‘misinformation’ is a ‘problem’ for controligarchs like Gates is simple: They are afraid that when their plans are exposed, people will resist.”
Gates making an ‘emotional appeal to manipulate public opinion’
CNBC’s interview with Gates came just days before the release of a five-part Netflix docuseries, “What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates.”
The series will premiere on Sept. 18 — the same day as the documentary “Vaxxed 3: Authorized to Kill” will be released. “Vaxxed 3” features excerpts from thousands of interviews with people about vaccine injuries and deaths people allege were caused by hospital COVID-19 treatment protocols.
According to CNBC, in one episode of “What’s Next?” Gates tells his daughter Phoebe he feels bad for failing to stem the spread of “misinformation.”
“Hearing my daughter talk about how she’d been harassed online … brought that into focus in a way that I hadn’t thought about before,” Gates told CNBC.
According to CNBC, “Phoebe Gates spoke out about what she called ‘the misconceptions and conspiracy theories’” — “including racist online commentary about one of her ex-boyfriends, who is Black” — and about her family in an interview with The Information.
Gates told CNBC, “We’ve handed this problem to the younger generation,” referring to “misinformation.”
Mead accused Gates of trying to conceal his support for censorship by eliciting an emotional response.
“Calling attention to the cyber harassment of his daughter has less to do with misinformation than with predatory and abusive online behaviors,” Mead said. “But Gates seems to be getting desperate, and his attempt to make this kind of illogical linkage is an emotional appeal to manipulate public opinion.”
Mead said Gates used similar emotional tactics to equate questioning vaccines with “inciting violence.” He said:
“In the video clip teaser, we hear Gates say we should have free speech and then attempt to obliquely link ‘inciting violence’ with ‘causing people not to take vaccines.’
“When he juxtaposes the incitement of violence with causing people not to take vaccines, he’s resorting to the most basic propaganda tactic, that of emotional manipulation.”
Such plays on emotion also represent a concerted effort to target young people in particular, according to Glaser:
“One of the most surprising things I’ve learned from interviewing young people is they generally don’t like to fact check. Scrolling is way more fun. They want verification processes done for them, and they are content to rely on their peer group’s perception of the information. That’s the phenomenon that people like Gates are trying to exploit.”
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Instead of censorship, a focus on allowing free speech to thrive?
“Misinformation is becoming more common,” CNBC reported, citing developments such as AI chatbots that “make it easier to generate and spread falsehoods quickly,” and a January World Economic Forum report that said “misinformation” is the top global risk for the next two years.
While citing AI as a prime driver of “misinformation,” CNBC cited a 2023 interview with Beth Goldberg, head of research and development at Jigsaw, a Google unit, who said researchers are attempting to develop AI tools to identify what CNBC described as “misinformation and toxic speech online.”
But in a blog post last year, Gates argued that AI’s ability to fight “misinformation” would be imperfect.
“Someone finds a way to detect fakery, someone else figures out how to counter it, someone else develops counter-countermeasures, and so on. It won’t be a perfect success, but we won’t be helpless either,” Gates wrote.
But Glaser said society should focus on creating the conditions for free speech to flourish.
“Free speech does not exist in a vacuum, but rather its quality is a measure of the character of people speaking and listening. This is the root of the issue that censorship cannot address. Only as we improve the character and morality of our societies will free speech truly thrive,” Glaser said.
“The largest danger to an organic human system — like a free market — is inorganic authoritarianism,” Glaser added. “Bill Gates teaming up with the United Nations to impose a global order is the picture of inorganic authoritarianism.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV's "Good Morning CHD."
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