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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 h

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 communication should be illegal and the government should read everyone's private messages. What motivates a statement like this?

another_day 6y ago
If we extend this line of thinking, where does it lead? The goal seems to be removing easy access to communications where governments can't listen for signs of dangerous behavior. But individuals can write custom software. Is there a stage in this arms race where one would need company/nation-state level resources to communicate in private? Is there a potential future in which every piece of end-user software can't run without being signed by the government and is enforced at the CPU level? I'd hate to think this is even possible, but my (limited) understanding of secure enclaves makes me think there's a chance.
- teddyh 6y ago
  > But individuals can write custom software. Not for walled garden platforms. See also The Digital Imprimatur: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
cm2187 6y ago
Even on Covid. He warned in Feb that covid could result in 10 millions deaths in Africa, when we knew already from the Chinese numbers that the demographics of covid deaths was massively skewed toward 70yo+, and Africa has a very young population. I classify him in the FUD spreading category.
- threatripper 6y ago
  For Africa it's just "one more disease" that probably won't even show up much in mortality numbers because there's just so many other slow disasters at the same time.
- prox 6y ago
  In The begin of February there were still a lot of unknowns, plus I have never seen these claims. So... citation needed.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  Here's an article here for someone who cares about the context (which you carefully avoided): https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-coronavirus-could-hit-africa-with-dire-consequences-2020-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-coronavirus... It wasn't about the demographic, but about the fact that their healthcare system would get overloaded, which impacts a lot of treatments for everybody else. Also the problem with predictions of epidemic is that if you actually do a better job than expected at confinement / protection measures, then predictions are meaningless. You "could have" a lot of bad things happen, but once you do things right, they disappear. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have done those things, it just means that people have been warned properly. He said, if they get hit severely, impact would be much bigger than in the west. He didn't say the 10 million was a done deal.
- carpo 6y ago
  Is this the quote you based your classification on? Seems like he is talking generally about the threat of a pandemic causing 10 million or more deaths. He also mentions Asia. "This is a huge challenge, we’ve always known the potential for a naturally caused, or intentionally caused, pandemic is one if the few things that could disrupt health systems and economies and cause more than 10 million excess deaths. This could be particularly if it spreads in areas like sub-Saharan Africa and some Asia, it could be very very dramatic. We’re doing the constant science to provide the tools to do the diagnosis to provide vaccines, to provide therapeutics and hopefully contain this epidemic, but it’s potentially a very bad situation." (found this here -> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/15/coronovirus-bill-gates-warns-10-million-deaths-virus-spreads/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/15/coronovirus-bill...)
H8crilA 6y ago
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.
- breck 6y ago
  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.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    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).
    - therealdrag0 6y ago
      Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? I hadn’t until I listened to this podcast with NYT investigative journalist. Worth considering how serious the trade offs are https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/
      - throwawaythekey 6y ago
        I normally enjoy Sam but found that episode was voiced more by his inner parent than his usual hyper-rational self. Child porn is a scourge that should be destroyed but there was minimal discussion of the following that I would normally expect from Sam: - Relative merits of the alternatives to the banning/reduction of e2e encryption, e.g stronger police resources, education and community programs - Is there a strong link between the sharing of material and the creation of material? To demonstrate the seriousness of the issue they cite a study that around 5% of the population have consumed child pornography. My own experience has been that unsavoury images can be posted in public places and none of the viewers intend to see the material. I suspect (and hope!) this is where the 5% comes from. This is not caused or solved by the masses having access to encryption. I wouldn't be surprised if I was having this reaction just because of my idealogical support of encryption.
lern_too_spel 6y ago
Where did he say government should read everyone's private messages? Governments can access my security box at the bank. That is different from governments rifling through it all the time.
- thekyle 6y ago
  In practice there is no scalable way for the government to check everyone's security box every second. However, it is possible for them to scan every message sent in real time and past leaks have shown that they will if given the opportunity.
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    > However, it is possible for them to scan every message sent in real time Gates didn't suggest that the messages be sent unencrypted through government-controlled message routers either. Presumably, he is promoting systems that work like MS Teams or Slack.
    - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      > Gates didn't suggest that the messages be sent unencrypted through government-controlled message routers either. Gates attacked encryption. Nothing beneficial (to the public) follows that.
      - lern_too_spel 6y ago
        > Gates attacked encryption. Where did he do that? Slack and Microsoft Teams also use encryption, and he wasn't opposed to the method they use it.
        WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
        >Where did he [attack encryption]? Right here. "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]." Unless you're alleging the stuff in the brackets isn't attributable to Gates and doesn't reflect his position on encryption.
deleted 6y ago
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partyboat1586 6y ago
He's thinking from a pragmatic, utilitarian mindset. He has no principles surrounding privacy. If it has to be sacrificed to get the job done that's fine in his mind as long as it's a net positive.
- fartcannon 6y ago
  Then he should lead by example.
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    He presumably isn't using WhatsApp, so he is leading by example.
  - cubano 6y ago
    That never happens...the powerful never expect to live in the conditions they advocate.
- devcpp 6y ago
  You can be pragmatic and utilitarian and support privacy and free use of encryption. I would instead qualify his mindset of shortsighted.
  - nickff 6y ago
    Anyone who rigorously follows an ethical framework will eventually be lead to some conclusion(s) they dislike; utilitarianism is no guarantee of satisfaction. An honest utilitarian would be willing to share their calculations, which would be interesting to see, though I am not sure how you'd balance the interests in the cases described above.
    - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      >Anyone who rigorously follows an ethical framework will eventually be lead to some conclusion(s) they dislike I've fallen into this trap. It led me to realize that, like ideologies, all frameworks are flawed. Assuming otherwise leads to positions that are starved for empathy and compassion - and that are ultimately counterproductive.
th0ma5 6y ago
Kinda rich he spearheaded his own control of what people do with his bytes to now say others can't. I wish it wasn't true that enabling something like this would compromise all of our collective security.
reillyse 6y ago
I don't think he is saying that encrypted communication should be illegal. He's saying that spreading lies through encrypted channels should be stopped. It would not be hard for WhatsApp to prevent people from spreading bogus videos, because they have access to the unencrypted information before and after sending. So either preventing people from sharing misinformation or preventing people from reading the misinformation. That's separate from the argument about whether or not it's a good thing (I wouldn't see a problem with it personally).
- nojs 6y ago
  > It would not be hard for WhatsApp to prevent people from spreading bogus videos The problem is there’s no agreed upon definition for what’s “bogus”. A while ago someone commented here with a list of statements ranging from obviously false obviously true to show how hard the problem is, I wish I could find it.
  - hetspookjee 6y ago
    I wish you could too, as it sounds very interesting!
    - eanzenberg 6y ago
      Here’s some examples. A few weeks ago on HN was the outrage that Apple kept the 30% app store revenue cut on a return. This was outright false but led to a 1000 comment thread circle-jerk hating on Apple. Early in the pandemic the WHO claimed coronavirus could not be transmitted to humans. Having a central arbiter of “truth” is dangerous, fascist and there’s a reason freedom of speech has barely any limits on a constitutional basis.
- Orou 6y ago
  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.
7leafer 6y ago
The desire to own all the information to own the whole world. And it's obvious that this is not "his" statement, but a statement from the mouth of a puppet who is absolutely dependent on spreading the agenda in order to maintain his status quo of an "independent billionaire"
scottlocklin 6y ago
I love how we have all these psychics below this comment telling us what Gates perfectly innocent motivations are in saying he doesn't think the peasants deserve strong cryptography. The sum total of Gates life and actions on earth indicates he's almost certainly a mean spirited sociopathic monster: not anyone's special nerdy friend who happens to be fond of cardigans and know a lot about lung butter.
tptacek 6y ago
What's frustrating about this question is that it (inevitably!) commands the top of the HN thread with a discussion of the least interesting thing in the article. It's an article about COVID and Facebook, and here we're recapitulating the end-to-end encryption debate for the 8-zillionth time.
- solarhoma 6y ago
  I would argue that this statement from Bill is the most interesting. This statement shows Bill Gates, someone who has influence on legislatures, making a statement against encryption.
  - flocial 6y ago
    COVID will eventually pass even with unnecessary fatalities in its wake. E2e encryption and loss of rights will stay around much longer.
    - api 6y ago
      What does encryption even have to do with COVID? All the disinformation I see is cleartext on social media.
      - eanzenberg 6y ago
        Gates is scared people are passing bad information through encrypted platforms such as whatsapp. Next, he will require 24/7 monitoring of every private citizen to make sure we don’t call him mean names.
        philliphaydon 6y ago
        I'm not convinced e2e encryption exists in WhatsApp. Every time I have conversations about products in whats app I get those products as adverts in Facebook.
brandonmenc 6y ago
> What motivates a statement like this? Because billionaires don't need encryption to keep themselves safe. The billions take care of that just fine.
wittyreference 6y ago
Quick point: the entire controversial/nuanced part of that statement happened in the summary/paraphrase brackets, not his own words. If you're sitting here going, "gosh, I wonder why someone that well-informed would say that?!", I'd point out that you don't actually know the full detail of what he said.
bg24 6y ago
Problem (lie, fraud, child pornography) is real. IMHO, Bill is not proposing a solution to disable encryption. He is simply saying that government should not allow these activities encrypted. Industry, governments, academics should figure out the best solution.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  Sure, but then just argue: Lie, fraud, child porn is real. Government should install 24-7 cameras in every private room of every citizen to curb all illegal activity.
- deleted 6y ago
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gexla 6y ago
There's a lot to unpack in that quote and much of it is up to our interpretation. I feel that the following statements could both be true. 1. Social media platforms should be able to monitor what content users are sharing on these platforms. Therefore these platforms maybe shouldn't have end-to-end encryption. 2. People need to have access to encryption for their own usage outside of social media platforms. Where this might get tricky is in decentralized platforms which nobody owns. But we don't need to deal with this right now because it's not yet a problem. This will be a cat and mouse game always. EDIT: Points 1 and 2 aren't necessarily my beliefs. I haven't put enough thought and research into it to have a more fully formed belief. These points are just my interpretation of what Gates could be saying. The context of encryption is in these platforms. He's not attacking encryption in general. Though other sources may reveal more information which could change my interpretation.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  >>> Social media platforms should be able to monitor what content users are sharing on these platforms. Then you’re not a platform, you are a publisher and should be held accountable for what you choose to publish. A platform is literally that: a platform for use by users as they see intended. I’m not talking about trolls, spammers, hackers and those who post illegal content. When platforms move down to editorialize content, they cease to be defined as a platform.
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    Section 230 allows internet companies to control which content is shown on their platforms and also gives them liability protection against being held accountable for content created by users. Decent article about section 230: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/section-230-internet-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/section-230-inte...
  - gexla 6y ago
    Interesting. Facebook did argue for being a publisher in one case so that they could limit their liability for defamation. But that move would then limit their protections as a platform (as mentioned by another user as a reply to your comment.)
Gatsky 6y ago
Not sure how one could make such an ill-considered comment. It is always useful to ask 'cui bono?'. Who benefits the most from e2e? Is it the individual? Or is it Facebook and friends, who can use it to drastically lower content moderation costs, legal liability and the general smell from transmitting harmful content, while making a fortune. To me, they are doing what all 'great' capitalist enterprises manage to do, which is make someone else pay for the negative externalities of their business. For other examples see the fossil fuel industry, processed food, and the grandaddy of them all, big tobacco. Gates is not swallowing the koolaid.
therealdrag0 6y ago
Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? I hadn’t until I listened to this podcast with NYT investigative journalist. Worth considering how serious on of the trade offs are... https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/
- sxxahsuxh 6y ago
  So, let's walk through this. You have to either have a bunch of people look at child pornography and vet out all that content, or train a neural network on gigabytes worth of child pornography. Either way you want to fight child pornography by collecting and viewing tons and tons of it, as opposed to, I don't know, preventing children from being sex trafficked? Not letting children marry adults? The biggest porn website on the planet still has trouble solving this problem. Everyone in this thread including bill gates has assumed that this is an easy one to solve. This is so asinine, especially because bill lumped this problem in with fact checking, which is in a completely different realm of problems.
thingymajig 6y ago
If you want to completely eradicate crime one way to do it would be to completely eradicate privacy. Would you sacrifice your privacy if it could eliminate child pornography? The theory is hard to say no to, but in practice that kind of power has never worked out. If we want to retain privacy we have to accept some amount of crime going unnoticed.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? That is the issue.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  This is a general debate either for or against more government. It’s why the libertarian movement is closely related to open source, free speech, encryption and bitcoin.
- kabacha 6y ago
  You somehow imply that it's impossible to get rid of crime without getting rid of privacy which is an absurd claim. Finally if you take a look at pure math - most of worlds suffering, evil and death is inflicted by world's governments. You'd put your trust in that over individuals?
  - thingymajig 6y ago
    I won't just imply it, I'll say it too: It's impossible to stop ALL crime while also retaining privacy. I also said in my (very short) comment that such an extreme level of power never works out in practice. So we need to accept that as long as privacy exists, some amount of crime will. We can't eliminate privacy without giving someone too much power.
- taberiand 6y ago
  Such a premise begs the question that those given the power would sincerely use it to shutdown child exploitation and other crime. It seems to me that there are many instances where child exploitation is ignored when it is politically convenient such that giving up our privacy wouldn't be of benefit to society, and would be largely to our detriment.
WhompingWindows 6y ago
Do you think the child sexual abuse epidemic is empowered by encrypted communication?
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  Much illicit trade is empowered by encryption and bitcoin. I would bet at least 25% of bitcoin transactions are nefarious.
tehjoker 6y ago
He's a billionaire. The government defends his billions from being redistributed by angry dying people. He doesn't want potential revolutionaries to be able to communicate easily.
- goldenchrome 6y ago
  This is the right answer. HN likes to think of Bill Gates as a techophile because that’s where he started, but today he’s foremost a billionaire with more to lose than to gain.
- kabacha 6y ago
  Isn't he very vocal about the fact that rich should be taxed heavily?
  - jkestner 6y ago
    Vocal, as in he did the usual billionaire dissembling about how Warren's wealth tax would take 90% of his fortune and kill innovation. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elizabeth-warren-would-love-to-explain-wealth-tax-plan-to-bill-gates/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elizabeth-warren-would-love-to-...
    - evan_ 6y ago
      and of course 10% of his fortune is still more than all the money made in the lifetime of every person Who will read this combined
      - jkestner 6y ago
        And Warren's actual proposed rate, 3% for everything over $1 billion, is outpaced by the 11% annual rate of return for the S&P 500 over the last 30 years. A wealth tax would just slow down how fast the rich get richer.
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Spooky23 6y ago
Perhaps you should take pause and reflect on the broader issue Gates is talking about. Social media is destroying our society in front of our eyes. Identifying how and why that is happening is something that matters too. The hardline techie position that all communications must be completely encrypted with obfuscated origins is a position whose consequences are not fully understood.
- 3131s 6y ago
  Encryption has nothing to do with the destructiveness of social media.
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1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
"As someone who has built your life on science and logic, I'm curious what you think when you see so many people signing onto this anti-science view of the world. Well, strangely, I'm involved in almost everything that anti-science is fighting. I'm involved with climate change, GMOs, and vaccines. The IRONY [emphasis added] is that it's DIGITAL [emphasis added] social media that allows this kind of titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, "OK, there's just an evil person, and that explains all of this." Well, you're friends with Mark Zuckerberg. Have you talked to him about this? After I said this publicly, he sent me mail. I like Mark, I think he's got very good values, but he and I do disagree on the trade-offs involved there. The lies are so titillating you have to be able to see them and at least slow them down." Gates has a reason to be against the spreading of information on social media because recently he became a target of conspiracy theories spread on social media. If encryption is an imediment to stoping people from spreading theories about him, then he obviously has a reason to be against encryption when used to spread these theories. Maybe what is more interesting is when he uses the word irony right before he states he is against encryption. What does he mean? What is ironic about the fact that it is "digital social media" that allows "oversimplistic explanation[s]"? HN readers can probably make better guesses than me. Disgreement with the guesses I make is expected. For example, perhaps it is ironic because: He has been such a strong proponent of using computers for anything and everything. Gates was initially a skeptic of the internet, but later believed Microsoft's "internet strategy" was of primary importance. This led to projects like Internet Explorer and MSN. The company is now preparing to spend billions to acquire a social media company. In amassing the fortune that allows him to pursue these philanthropic causes he and his company presented countless titillating, oversimplistic explanations of the value of using computers for seemingly anything. He wanted us to believe that the computer (running Windows of course) was the great enabler. I have no idea what he meant and I am grasping at straws.
bobsil1 6y ago
Those dependent on federal gov biz cannot afford to openly oppose fed talking points (MS, SpaceX, telecoms).
- paganel 6y ago
  Because they know what awaits them if they try to leave the "chosen path" (a path that also helps them remain billionaires, so not that difficult a moral compromise to make). See Joseph Nacchio [1]: > Joseph P. Nacchio is an American executive who was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International from 1997 to 2002. Nacchio was convicted of insider trading during his time heading Qwest. He claimed in court, with documentation, that his was the only company to demand legal authority for surreptitious mass surveillance demanded by the NSA which began prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio
kerng 6y ago
You are interpreting what he said to fit your understanding, he "literally" did not say what you describe as conclusion. Also, sad to see the actual meaningful content of the article gotten less attention.
zurfer 6y ago
What motivates wired.com to put so much of such a controversial statements in brackets? What did he actually say?
akshaybhalotia 6y ago
Just to make it clear, this seems very much like Gates to me as an Indian. He has bank rolled several very problematic studies in India in collusion with the fascist (at least super right wing) government, including the very controversial biometric national ID (AADHAAR) project. They were quite literally holding newborns hostages[1]. [1]: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/mps-largest-govt-maternity-hospital-denies-discharge-for-newborns-without-aadhaar/articleshow/62769600.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/mps-largest-...
dionidium 6y ago
> What motivates a statement like this? The simple explanation is that there exist people who in good faith disagree with you about encryption.

another_day 6y ago

If we extend this line of thinking, where does it lead? The goal seems to be removing easy access to communications where governments can't listen for signs of dangerous behavior. But individuals can write custom software. Is there a stage in this arms race where one would need company/nation-state level resources to communicate in private? Is there a potential future in which every piece of end-user software can't run without being signed by the government and is enforced at the CPU level? I'd hate to think this is even possible, but my (limited) understanding of secure enclaves makes me think there's a chance.

teddyh 6y ago
> But individuals can write custom software. Not for walled garden platforms. See also The Digital Imprimatur: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/

cm2187 6y ago

Even on Covid. He warned in Feb that covid could result in 10 millions deaths in Africa, when we knew already from the Chinese numbers that the demographics of covid deaths was massively skewed toward 70yo+, and Africa has a very young population. I classify him in the FUD spreading category.

threatripper 6y ago
For Africa it's just "one more disease" that probably won't even show up much in mortality numbers because there's just so many other slow disasters at the same time.
prox 6y ago
In The begin of February there were still a lot of unknowns, plus I have never seen these claims. So... citation needed.
jeromegv 6y ago
Here's an article here for someone who cares about the context (which you carefully avoided): https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-coronavirus-could-hit-africa-with-dire-consequences-2020-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-coronavirus... It wasn't about the demographic, but about the fact that their healthcare system would get overloaded, which impacts a lot of treatments for everybody else. Also the problem with predictions of epidemic is that if you actually do a better job than expected at confinement / protection measures, then predictions are meaningless. You "could have" a lot of bad things happen, but once you do things right, they disappear. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have done those things, it just means that people have been warned properly. He said, if they get hit severely, impact would be much bigger than in the west. He didn't say the 10 million was a done deal.
carpo 6y ago
Is this the quote you based your classification on? Seems like he is talking generally about the threat of a pandemic causing 10 million or more deaths. He also mentions Asia. "This is a huge challenge, we’ve always known the potential for a naturally caused, or intentionally caused, pandemic is one if the few things that could disrupt health systems and economies and cause more than 10 million excess deaths. This could be particularly if it spreads in areas like sub-Saharan Africa and some Asia, it could be very very dramatic. We’re doing the constant science to provide the tools to do the diagnosis to provide vaccines, to provide therapeutics and hopefully contain this epidemic, but it’s potentially a very bad situation." (found this here -> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/15/coronovirus-bill-gates-warns-10-million-deaths-virus-spreads/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/15/coronovirus-bill...)

H8crilA 6y ago

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.

breck 6y ago
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.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  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).
  - therealdrag0 6y ago
    Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? I hadn’t until I listened to this podcast with NYT investigative journalist. Worth considering how serious the trade offs are https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/
    - throwawaythekey 6y ago
      I normally enjoy Sam but found that episode was voiced more by his inner parent than his usual hyper-rational self. Child porn is a scourge that should be destroyed but there was minimal discussion of the following that I would normally expect from Sam: - Relative merits of the alternatives to the banning/reduction of e2e encryption, e.g stronger police resources, education and community programs - Is there a strong link between the sharing of material and the creation of material? To demonstrate the seriousness of the issue they cite a study that around 5% of the population have consumed child pornography. My own experience has been that unsavoury images can be posted in public places and none of the viewers intend to see the material. I suspect (and hope!) this is where the 5% comes from. This is not caused or solved by the masses having access to encryption. I wouldn't be surprised if I was having this reaction just because of my idealogical support of encryption.

lern_too_spel 6y ago

Where did he say government should read everyone's private messages? Governments can access my security box at the bank. That is different from governments rifling through it all the time.

thekyle 6y ago
In practice there is no scalable way for the government to check everyone's security box every second. However, it is possible for them to scan every message sent in real time and past leaks have shown that they will if given the opportunity.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  > However, it is possible for them to scan every message sent in real time Gates didn't suggest that the messages be sent unencrypted through government-controlled message routers either. Presumably, he is promoting systems that work like MS Teams or Slack.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    > Gates didn't suggest that the messages be sent unencrypted through government-controlled message routers either. Gates attacked encryption. Nothing beneficial (to the public) follows that.
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      > Gates attacked encryption. Where did he do that? Slack and Microsoft Teams also use encryption, and he wasn't opposed to the method they use it.
      - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
        >Where did he [attack encryption]? Right here. "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]." Unless you're alleging the stuff in the brackets isn't attributable to Gates and doesn't reflect his position on encryption.

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partyboat1586 6y ago

He's thinking from a pragmatic, utilitarian mindset. He has no principles surrounding privacy. If it has to be sacrificed to get the job done that's fine in his mind as long as it's a net positive.

fartcannon 6y ago
Then he should lead by example.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  He presumably isn't using WhatsApp, so he is leading by example.
- cubano 6y ago
  That never happens...the powerful never expect to live in the conditions they advocate.
devcpp 6y ago
You can be pragmatic and utilitarian and support privacy and free use of encryption. I would instead qualify his mindset of shortsighted.
- nickff 6y ago
  Anyone who rigorously follows an ethical framework will eventually be lead to some conclusion(s) they dislike; utilitarianism is no guarantee of satisfaction. An honest utilitarian would be willing to share their calculations, which would be interesting to see, though I am not sure how you'd balance the interests in the cases described above.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    >Anyone who rigorously follows an ethical framework will eventually be lead to some conclusion(s) they dislike I've fallen into this trap. It led me to realize that, like ideologies, all frameworks are flawed. Assuming otherwise leads to positions that are starved for empathy and compassion - and that are ultimately counterproductive.

th0ma5 6y ago

Kinda rich he spearheaded his own control of what people do with his bytes to now say others can't. I wish it wasn't true that enabling something like this would compromise all of our collective security.

reillyse 6y ago

I don't think he is saying that encrypted communication should be illegal. He's saying that spreading lies through encrypted channels should be stopped. It would not be hard for WhatsApp to prevent people from spreading bogus videos, because they have access to the unencrypted information before and after sending. So either preventing people from sharing misinformation or preventing people from reading the misinformation. That's separate from the argument about whether or not it's a good thing (I wouldn't see a problem with it personally).

nojs 6y ago
> It would not be hard for WhatsApp to prevent people from spreading bogus videos The problem is there’s no agreed upon definition for what’s “bogus”. A while ago someone commented here with a list of statements ranging from obviously false obviously true to show how hard the problem is, I wish I could find it.
- hetspookjee 6y ago
  I wish you could too, as it sounds very interesting!
  - eanzenberg 6y ago
    Here’s some examples. A few weeks ago on HN was the outrage that Apple kept the 30% app store revenue cut on a return. This was outright false but led to a 1000 comment thread circle-jerk hating on Apple. Early in the pandemic the WHO claimed coronavirus could not be transmitted to humans. Having a central arbiter of “truth” is dangerous, fascist and there’s a reason freedom of speech has barely any limits on a constitutional basis.
Orou 6y ago
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.

7leafer 6y ago

The desire to own all the information to own the whole world. And it's obvious that this is not "his" statement, but a statement from the mouth of a puppet who is absolutely dependent on spreading the agenda in order to maintain his status quo of an "independent billionaire"

scottlocklin 6y ago

I love how we have all these psychics below this comment telling us what Gates perfectly innocent motivations are in saying he doesn't think the peasants deserve strong cryptography. The sum total of Gates life and actions on earth indicates he's almost certainly a mean spirited sociopathic monster: not anyone's special nerdy friend who happens to be fond of cardigans and know a lot about lung butter.

tptacek 6y ago

What's frustrating about this question is that it (inevitably!) commands the top of the HN thread with a discussion of the least interesting thing in the article. It's an article about COVID and Facebook, and here we're recapitulating the end-to-end encryption debate for the 8-zillionth time.

solarhoma 6y ago
I would argue that this statement from Bill is the most interesting. This statement shows Bill Gates, someone who has influence on legislatures, making a statement against encryption.
- flocial 6y ago
  COVID will eventually pass even with unnecessary fatalities in its wake. E2e encryption and loss of rights will stay around much longer.
  - api 6y ago
    What does encryption even have to do with COVID? All the disinformation I see is cleartext on social media.
    - eanzenberg 6y ago
      Gates is scared people are passing bad information through encrypted platforms such as whatsapp. Next, he will require 24/7 monitoring of every private citizen to make sure we don’t call him mean names.
      - philliphaydon 6y ago
        I'm not convinced e2e encryption exists in WhatsApp. Every time I have conversations about products in whats app I get those products as adverts in Facebook.

brandonmenc 6y ago

> What motivates a statement like this? Because billionaires don't need encryption to keep themselves safe. The billions take care of that just fine.

wittyreference 6y ago

Quick point: the entire controversial/nuanced part of that statement happened in the summary/paraphrase brackets, not his own words. If you're sitting here going, "gosh, I wonder why someone that well-informed would say that?!", I'd point out that you don't actually know the full detail of what he said.

bg24 6y ago

Problem (lie, fraud, child pornography) is real. IMHO, Bill is not proposing a solution to disable encryption. He is simply saying that government should not allow these activities encrypted. Industry, governments, academics should figure out the best solution.

eanzenberg 6y ago
Sure, but then just argue: Lie, fraud, child porn is real. Government should install 24-7 cameras in every private room of every citizen to curb all illegal activity.
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gexla 6y ago

There's a lot to unpack in that quote and much of it is up to our interpretation. I feel that the following statements could both be true. 1. Social media platforms should be able to monitor what content users are sharing on these platforms. Therefore these platforms maybe shouldn't have end-to-end encryption. 2. People need to have access to encryption for their own usage outside of social media platforms. Where this might get tricky is in decentralized platforms which nobody owns. But we don't need to deal with this right now because it's not yet a problem. This will be a cat and mouse game always. EDIT: Points 1 and 2 aren't necessarily my beliefs. I haven't put enough thought and research into it to have a more fully formed belief. These points are just my interpretation of what Gates could be saying. The context of encryption is in these platforms. He's not attacking encryption in general. Though other sources may reveal more information which could change my interpretation.

eanzenberg 6y ago
>>> Social media platforms should be able to monitor what content users are sharing on these platforms. Then you’re not a platform, you are a publisher and should be held accountable for what you choose to publish. A platform is literally that: a platform for use by users as they see intended. I’m not talking about trolls, spammers, hackers and those who post illegal content. When platforms move down to editorialize content, they cease to be defined as a platform.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  Section 230 allows internet companies to control which content is shown on their platforms and also gives them liability protection against being held accountable for content created by users. Decent article about section 230: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/section-230-internet-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/section-230-inte...
- gexla 6y ago
  Interesting. Facebook did argue for being a publisher in one case so that they could limit their liability for defamation. But that move would then limit their protections as a platform (as mentioned by another user as a reply to your comment.)

Gatsky 6y ago

Not sure how one could make such an ill-considered comment. It is always useful to ask 'cui bono?'. Who benefits the most from e2e? Is it the individual? Or is it Facebook and friends, who can use it to drastically lower content moderation costs, legal liability and the general smell from transmitting harmful content, while making a fortune. To me, they are doing what all 'great' capitalist enterprises manage to do, which is make someone else pay for the negative externalities of their business. For other examples see the fossil fuel industry, processed food, and the grandaddy of them all, big tobacco. Gates is not swallowing the koolaid.

therealdrag0 6y ago

Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? I hadn’t until I listened to this podcast with NYT investigative journalist. Worth considering how serious on of the trade offs are... https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/

sxxahsuxh 6y ago
So, let's walk through this. You have to either have a bunch of people look at child pornography and vet out all that content, or train a neural network on gigabytes worth of child pornography. Either way you want to fight child pornography by collecting and viewing tons and tons of it, as opposed to, I don't know, preventing children from being sex trafficked? Not letting children marry adults? The biggest porn website on the planet still has trouble solving this problem. Everyone in this thread including bill gates has assumed that this is an easy one to solve. This is so asinine, especially because bill lumped this problem in with fact checking, which is in a completely different realm of problems.

thingymajig 6y ago

If you want to completely eradicate crime one way to do it would be to completely eradicate privacy. Would you sacrifice your privacy if it could eliminate child pornography? The theory is hard to say no to, but in practice that kind of power has never worked out. If we want to retain privacy we have to accept some amount of crime going unnoticed.

sudosysgen 6y ago
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? That is the issue.
eanzenberg 6y ago
This is a general debate either for or against more government. It’s why the libertarian movement is closely related to open source, free speech, encryption and bitcoin.
kabacha 6y ago
You somehow imply that it's impossible to get rid of crime without getting rid of privacy which is an absurd claim. Finally if you take a look at pure math - most of worlds suffering, evil and death is inflicted by world's governments. You'd put your trust in that over individuals?
- thingymajig 6y ago
  I won't just imply it, I'll say it too: It's impossible to stop ALL crime while also retaining privacy. I also said in my (very short) comment that such an extreme level of power never works out in practice. So we need to accept that as long as privacy exists, some amount of crime will. We can't eliminate privacy without giving someone too much power.
taberiand 6y ago
Such a premise begs the question that those given the power would sincerely use it to shutdown child exploitation and other crime. It seems to me that there are many instances where child exploitation is ignored when it is politically convenient such that giving up our privacy wouldn't be of benefit to society, and would be largely to our detriment.

WhompingWindows 6y ago

Do you think the child sexual abuse epidemic is empowered by encrypted communication?

eanzenberg 6y ago
Much illicit trade is empowered by encryption and bitcoin. I would bet at least 25% of bitcoin transactions are nefarious.

tehjoker 6y ago

He's a billionaire. The government defends his billions from being redistributed by angry dying people. He doesn't want potential revolutionaries to be able to communicate easily.

goldenchrome 6y ago
This is the right answer. HN likes to think of Bill Gates as a techophile because that’s where he started, but today he’s foremost a billionaire with more to lose than to gain.
kabacha 6y ago
Isn't he very vocal about the fact that rich should be taxed heavily?
- jkestner 6y ago
  Vocal, as in he did the usual billionaire dissembling about how Warren's wealth tax would take 90% of his fortune and kill innovation. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elizabeth-warren-would-love-to-explain-wealth-tax-plan-to-bill-gates/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elizabeth-warren-would-love-to-...
  - evan_ 6y ago
    and of course 10% of his fortune is still more than all the money made in the lifetime of every person Who will read this combined
    - jkestner 6y ago
      And Warren's actual proposed rate, 3% for everything over $1 billion, is outpaced by the 11% annual rate of return for the S&P 500 over the last 30 years. A wealth tax would just slow down how fast the rich get richer.

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Spooky23 6y ago

Perhaps you should take pause and reflect on the broader issue Gates is talking about. Social media is destroying our society in front of our eyes. Identifying how and why that is happening is something that matters too. The hardline techie position that all communications must be completely encrypted with obfuscated origins is a position whose consequences are not fully understood.

3131s 6y ago
Encryption has nothing to do with the destructiveness of social media.

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1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

"As someone who has built your life on science and logic, I'm curious what you think when you see so many people signing onto this anti-science view of the world. Well, strangely, I'm involved in almost everything that anti-science is fighting. I'm involved with climate change, GMOs, and vaccines. The IRONY [emphasis added] is that it's DIGITAL [emphasis added] social media that allows this kind of titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, "OK, there's just an evil person, and that explains all of this." Well, you're friends with Mark Zuckerberg. Have you talked to him about this? After I said this publicly, he sent me mail. I like Mark, I think he's got very good values, but he and I do disagree on the trade-offs involved there. The lies are so titillating you have to be able to see them and at least slow them down." Gates has a reason to be against the spreading of information on social media because recently he became a target of conspiracy theories spread on social media. If encryption is an imediment to stoping people from spreading theories about him, then he obviously has a reason to be against encryption when used to spread these theories. Maybe what is more interesting is when he uses the word irony right before he states he is against encryption. What does he mean? What is ironic about the fact that it is "digital social media" that allows "oversimplistic explanation[s]"? HN readers can probably make better guesses than me. Disgreement with the guesses I make is expected. For example, perhaps it is ironic because: He has been such a strong proponent of using computers for anything and everything. Gates was initially a skeptic of the internet, but later believed Microsoft's "internet strategy" was of primary importance. This led to projects like Internet Explorer and MSN. The company is now preparing to spend billions to acquire a social media company. In amassing the fortune that allows him to pursue these philanthropic causes he and his company presented countless titillating, oversimplistic explanations of the value of using computers for seemingly anything. He wanted us to believe that the computer (running Windows of course) was the great enabler. I have no idea what he meant and I am grasping at straws.

bobsil1 6y ago

Those dependent on federal gov biz cannot afford to openly oppose fed talking points (MS, SpaceX, telecoms).

paganel 6y ago
Because they know what awaits them if they try to leave the "chosen path" (a path that also helps them remain billionaires, so not that difficult a moral compromise to make). See Joseph Nacchio [1]: > Joseph P. Nacchio is an American executive who was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International from 1997 to 2002. Nacchio was convicted of insider trading during his time heading Qwest. He claimed in court, with documentation, that his was the only company to demand legal authority for surreptitious mass surveillance demanded by the NSA which began prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

kerng 6y ago

You are interpreting what he said to fit your understanding, he "literally" did not say what you describe as conclusion. Also, sad to see the actual meaningful content of the article gotten less attention.

zurfer 6y ago

What motivates wired.com to put so much of such a controversial statements in brackets? What did he actually say?

akshaybhalotia 6y ago

Just to make it clear, this seems very much like Gates to me as an Indian. He has bank rolled several very problematic studies in India in collusion with the fascist (at least super right wing) government, including the very controversial biometric national ID (AADHAAR) project. They were quite literally holding newborns hostages[1]. [1]: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/mps-largest-govt-maternity-hospital-denies-discharge-for-newborns-without-aadhaar/articleshow/62769600.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/mps-largest-...

dionidium 6y ago

> What motivates a statement like this? The simple explanation is that there exist people who in good faith disagree with you about encryption.