Bill Gates probably recognizes that productive expressions, whether physical, intellectual, or verbal, are the vehicles by which acquiring property is possible. And Bill would undoubtedly argue that he is entitled to that property. But he has a weird (dare I say, global) view of the benefits of free speech – which is essential to that relationship – and it’s the wrong one.
“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.”
Free people and free markets are impossible without free speech, and America’s unique success depends on the ability of any business or individual to challenge the government’s (or their competitor’s) line on what businesses are essential or what drugs need to go into people’s bodies (as two examples).
The bigger “tough one” is that Bill would (to borrow from Free Speech lawyer Ken White) destroy a value to save it (like any good tyrant) on his terms.
[Y] ou cannot destroy a value in order to save it. Nazis — like terrorists — hope that we will abandon principles and fundamentally change who we are out of fear. Assault is assault, threats are threats, murder is murder, and all of them should be vigorously investigated and prosecuted. The allowance for self-defense by those threatened by Nazis should reasonably be generous. But despicable speech is protected by the First Amendment, and should remain so. Our present circumstances show why it is sheer terrified madness to entrust a broad power to prevent or punish speech upon a fickle state.
And Since Bill would hate that, we should remind him, and ourselves, that,
[A]s Professor Eugene Volokh explains conclusively, there is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. Americans are free to impose social consequences on ugly speech, but the government is not free to impose official sanctions upon it. In other words, even if the phrase “hate speech” had a recognized legal definition, it would still not carry legal consequences.
Deep fakes and AI are just tools people use and do not require a re-evaluation of Free Speech. They are expressions that must withstand scrutiny under existing libel and slander laws and legitimate instances of fraud and defamation, no different from any that preceded it. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous, ignorant, or a deliberate lie.
