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Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

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Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#181

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

Orou wrote: post #171
reillyse wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure there is evidence for or against. The argument I would make is not about censorship but preventing people from spreading lies. Even in the US where people hold free speech as some amazingly virtuous thing there are still curbs on speech, and what I'm saying is these limitations can be enforced in WhatsApp. Maybe you think that is censorship maybe you don't. Also on that point, the freedom of speech in th…

> The argument I would make is not about censorship but preventing people from spreading lies. Limiting speech is by definition censorship. There's no value judgement required as to the quality or veracity of that speech to determine whether or not restricting it counts as censorship. > the freedom of speech in the US is strongly correlated with conspiracy theories ...and water is highly correlated with drowning. We…

Orou makes sound points.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#182

Post by Fricken »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #177
devcpp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be pragmatic and utilitarian and support privacy and free use of encryption. I would instead qualify his mindset of shortsighted.

His view is both utilitarian and short sighted. They don't always go together but they often do since there isn't time enough to work everything out from first principles.

If everyone was short-sighted, privacy would be easier to enforce.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#183

Post by xenonite »

breck wrote: post #176
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering encrypted messages have to both be encrypted and decrypted, I don't think his statement is necessarily against encrypted. I assumed he meant preventing the sending of known materials like that and / or the opening of it (which wouldn't interfere with end-to-end encryption at all).

How would such a thing work though? Would it be a map of unacceptable things, or an on device model like GPT3? Would you allow someone to type the offending thing and just disable the send button, or would you block it at the keyup event? I don't see any way this could be implemented without kissing freedom goodbye. I like the other commenter's take that this idea was just a bit out of exasperation.

Well, Apple just stated that they are one of the best in privacy oriented AI because their AI could run on-device. And I suppose the detection of such things would be a good example.

But I see your point: you would need to inform the user without restricting his or her freedom.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#184

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

breck wrote: post #170
H8crilA wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just Gates venting out, dude is sooo frustrated. Imagine doing as much as he did and still getting horseshit accusations about putting chips into people's bodies or whatever new nonsense they will come up in 6 months.

That was my take too. Him being frustrated at the problem. Sort of like when Obama rolls his eyes when someone makes a birther joke. I personally think the solution isn't to make it harder to share lies, but easier to share the truth. Sharing the truth is actually extremely labor intensive.

Gates seems to hint that the way to reduce lie-sharing is by eliminating safe encryption (replacing safe encryption with unsafe encryption). This is an inherently dangerous stance (to everyone except repressive authoritarians).

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#185

Post by partyboat1586 »

Fricken wrote: post #182
partyboat1586 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His view is both utilitarian and short sighted. They don't always go together but they often do since there isn't time enough to work everything out from first principles.

If everyone was short-sighted, privacy would be easier to enforce.

Yes, that is certainly true and rather scary since people are quite short sighted and currently in a mood for doing things for the greater good while sacrificing individual freedoms.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#186

Post by scottlocklin »

ani-ani wrote: post #93

He is easily one of the least bullshit-y sources when it comes to handling of COVID. But then there's this right in the middle of the interview: " And when you have [posts] 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 [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger] ". Quite literally, encrypted comm…

[flagged]

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#188

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

I came here to feel sorry for Gates because he is so relentlessly (& unfairly) trashed by antivaxers & similarly grounded individuals.

But then he starts demonizing encryption, which requires logic that's nearly as unsound as antivaxism.

Harmful positions are even more dangerous, when they're espoused by people who doing otherwise good work (and being attacked for that good work).

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#190

Post by kebman »

reillyse wrote: post #150
Orou wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think given the amount of time he's spent working on Coronavirus that he might see the distinction between treating the symptoms and treating the cause, so to speak. I've yet to see anyone provide any kind of evidence that suggests censorship changes people's minds about conspiracies - if anything it seems to be doing exactly the opposite.

I'm not sure there is evidence for or against. The argument I would make is not about censorship but preventing people from spreading lies. Even in the US where people hold free speech as some amazingly virtuous thing there are still curbs on speech, and what I'm saying is these limitations can be enforced in WhatsApp. Maybe you think that is censorship maybe you don't. Also on that point, the freedom of speech in th…

The best way to fight the spread of lies is:

1. To spread truth

2. To hold people accountable for what they say

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