Bill Gates and his daughter Phoebe have had a candid discussion about the effect of conspiracy theories. The billionaire invited his 22-year-old daughter onto his new Netflix show, What's Next? The Future With Bill Gates to speak about the spread of misinformation and its effects. Bill, 68, asked his daughter if she had ever come across conspiracy theories about him.
READ MORE: The harrowing secret Bindi Irwin hid from the world for 10 years "All the time," she said, adding candidly, "I've even had friends cut me off because of these vaccine rumours." During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were unsubstantiated rumours the whole thing was a ploy so Bill could put microchips in vaccines to track people A Stanford graduate with a degree in human biology, Phoebe shared that social media played a part in blowing the misinformation about health out of proportion, telling her father facts and logic are not as important to those on social media, who are on there to find an escape from the realities of life. For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here .
She added that these conspiracy theories come from a place of fear, with the lack of resolute information about the new disease causing panic. "The pandemic was definitely social media at its worst, oversimplifying things," said Bill. "I need to learn more," he admitted, "because I naively still believe that digital communication can be a force to bring us together, to have a reasonable debate.
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