His answers are laconic and sometimes ironic. What else can you say when you are accused of drinking baby blood or of being a reptilian who rules the world with Lady Gaga and Tom Hanks? What can you say when someone writes on the Internet that you secretly supply potatoes to McDonald’s, which then injects vaccines into its menu fries? Happy Meal ? Maybe, simply answer: “I eat McDonald’s.” This is what Bill Gates does in a documentary broadcast since September 18 on Netflix.
During the six episodes of What’s next? The future according to Bill Gatesthe former boss of Microsoft and founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, looks at the challenges facing our society – climate change, the development of artificial intelligence, the fight against poverty and the scale of online disinformation – to provide insight and some answers.
“How do you get a microchip through the needle?”
Billionaire since 1987, richest person in the world almost without interruption from 1995 to 2017 according to the magazine ForbesBill Gates had the elements together to trigger crazy theories about him. But it was the launch of his foundation with his ex-wife Melinda, whose purpose is to finance health projects in disadvantaged regions, and then the Covid-19 pandemic, that would see the internet go crazy about him.
As the world battles the novel coronavirus, a theory is starting to spread: At the same time as people receive a COVID-19 vaccine, they are being implanted with a microchip. Ike Sriskandarajah attributes the origins of this conspiracy theory to an interview Bill Gates gave on the Reddit forum. “He predicts that in the future, we’re all going to have some kind of digital passport. Not a microchip, not something implanted in our bodies, but that’s where it comes from.” [la théorie du complot] part. »
From share to share, the name of Bill Gates and that of his foundation are increasingly linked to this story, which is not based on any fact. “How do you get a microchip through the needle?” asks Bill Gates, skeptical.
Through these examples concerning the billionaire and his foundation, the documentary demonstrates how fake news spreads. And this was not obvious from a documentary whose embodiment is a former tech boss, but its authors clearly point the finger at the role of platforms such as TikTok, Facebook or X (formerly Twitter) in the spread of this fake news. Even the arguments of Elon Musk – the billionaire who bought X – are challenged by Kara Swisher, a journalist specializing in technology issues. What does the boss of Tesla and Space X, so sensitive to any questioning of his actions, think of these remarks? He has not, for the moment, published a tweet about the documentary. But he will undoubtedly do so if the opportunity arises.