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Optimistic, But Is This What Bill Gates Fears Most In 2022?

For the most part, the founder of Microsoft is still optimistic about 2022. However, the billionaire still has something to worry about.

Source: The Washington Post

In a recently published article, Bill Gates outlined "reasons for optimism after a difficult year". He made many bright predictions, from the end of the Covid-19 pandemic to the explosion of the metaverse. However, there are also specific issues that have been cited as factors that derail much of that progress. What Bill Gates is most concerned about is people's distrust of governments.
"It’s one of the issues I’m most worried about heading into 2022," emphasized Gates.
According to the billionaire, public institutions need to play a key role in battles such as tackling global climate change or preventing the next pandemic. However, they will not be able to achieve that goal if people keep refusing to follow the instructions they set out.
" If your people don’t trust you, they’re not going to support major new initiatives. And when a major crisis emerges, they’re less likely to follow guidance necessary to weather the storm," Gates stressed.

Source: The Economic Times

This distrust has been evident since the outbreak of the pandemic. Misinformation about Covid-19 spread throughout the US and the rest of the world, hindering the country’s vaccination rates and ultimately caused the pandemic to last longer than expected.
In an independent poll conducted in 2019, 75% of Americans polled said their trust in the Federal Government was shrinking. 64% of respondents also confirmed that the citizens’ mutual trust is also declining. About 4 in 10 respondents say they lack confidence in the authorities' ability to handle issues like health care, immigration and gun violence.
In his article, Bill Gates believes that it is news explosions with short cycles (reflecting news that quickly becomes less attractive after 24 hours), political ads and the emergence of the social network all play the key role in the "growing divide" in society. As a result, governments will likely need to regulate online platforms to effectively remove misinformation.

Source: Aljazeera

In October, former Facebook engineer Frances Haugen testified before a US Senate committee on the disinformation crisis in the world's largest social network, which could be the start of regulations to force social networks to comply.
However, Bill Gates emphasized that without prompt intervention, Americans tend to vote for politicians who openly believe conspiracy theories. The resulting snowball effect could "further disillusion" the public.
It’s a problem that needs solving. However, Gates himself could not imagine how.
"This is usually where I’d lay out my ideas for how we fix the problem. The truth is, I don’t have the answers. I plan to keep seeking out and reading others’ ideas, especially from young people. I’m hopeful that the generations who grew up online will have fresh ideas about how to tackle a problem that is so deeply rooted in the Internet." Gates wrote.
H/T: CNBC
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