Bonum Certa Men Certa

On “Conspiranoia Strawman Attacks Defending Bill Gates.”

Video download link



Summary: The video above discusses a troubling pattern of responses (or generic rebuttal) to critics of Bill Gates, based on a stigma or stereotypes associated with those critics because corporate media gives air time to the wrong people

LAST year we expressed concern about a seemingly new tactic for discrediting critics of Bill Gates, a man who had been arrested several times in his life before committing crimes at Microsoft. The person has hardly changed, but the Public Relations stunts keep changing. A lot can be accomplished with vast media budget.



"A reader of ours from Argentina noticed that same thing in his country."One particular pattern of critics being dismissed was described here before and it was explained more than half a dozen times. It's similar to the "Microsoft basher" stigma, but it's actually a lot more effective than accusing Gates critics of being "hateful" or "jealous"; nowadays they're being framed as a bunch of cranks. "I have commented on that observation before, too," an Associate of ours noted. "Though I had noticed the volume more than the sudden onset of the conspiranoia strawman attacks defending Gates."

A reader of ours from Argentina noticed that same thing in his country. He commented on how this relates to the RMS attacks. "Little detail about the RMS issue," he said, was worth pointing out. "I've been following the news on Techrights about the cancelling of RMS since day zero, and there's a detail in the whole story I don't recall reading it there (or anywhere else for the matter)."

Journalism’s Gates keepers"The chronology is fuzzy, but the thing is there. You see, almost at exactly the same time Gates began the onslaught against RMS, suddenly and out of nowhere, if you happen to speak against Bill Gates you're a lunatic."

"I mean this: at the same time the campaign against RMS started, Bill Gates also started to be the focus of conspiranoia. Comments everywhere about Bill Gates and 5G antenae that breaks your DNA, vaccines with nanochips, Qanon level stuff about deep state and NWO, and stuff like that. And paid media talking about that: lots of news about "Bill Gates thinks this and that about vaccines and global warming", and "look at all the idiotic things crazy people say online about Bill Gates". It's even the case here in Argentina media."

"So, I believe this attack had THREE fronts. Bashing RMS is one of them: you've been reporting a lot about that. Posing Gates as a goody philanthropist with deep ideas is a second one. You've also said a fair share about that, and is basically every rich person's PR campaign. But there's a third one: trying to let critics as some kind of mentally ill people with serious problems to gasp reality. And that last aspect is barely mentioned in your reports."

Journalism’s Gates keepersThis is actually untrue. We wrote about it many times, both in IRC and here in the site. The "5G" aspect was mentioned mostly as an analogy, saying strew man had been set to distract from legitimate criticism of 5G technology (hype and downsides).

Moreover, such PR techniques aren't exactly novel or new. We can find analogous things in history (and no, we won't say "aliens" or "moon landing" or "JFK or "9/11" or whatever). It's part of a broader tactic of setting up and then amplifying unreasonable views, where the real goal is to create and reinforce a stigma in the public psyche. The civil rights movements has some examples of that kind; for example, you infiltrate groups and put 'agents provocateuer' in them. They do something really mad and malicious to tarnish the name of the whole group. We don't need to have theories and hypothesis on that because there are well documented examples (and actual documents) to show such programs in police departments and agencies like the FBI.

In the case of Gates, it's difficult to understand where that came from and whether it was merely interjected into existing groups that would stain a particular line of discussion/dialogue.

Our reader explained it as follows: "I tell you this because I'm convinced the timeline of that third aspect matches the one of the Epstein-Gates reveals. The Gates conspiranoia was very sudden and unexpected: Bill Gates was no longer a thing in media since many years ago, and then all of that noise was everywhere in matter of days. Perhaps there's something searchable about that trend, some links to be made? Who knows... maybe that leads to something useful."

Journalism’s Gates keepers"Of course, I can't thank you enough for your amazing and tireless work, but you already know that. I wrote my own article about the cancelling of RMS back in 2020, for a magazine some friends of mine are setting up online. As the project is being constantly delayed, my article never saw the light. It was directed to non-informed people, mixing some awareness about both Free Software, cancel culture, and the cancer that is Gates. I'm in the process of rewritting it now, as new events are happening. I'll let you know if that article someday goes online, as it quotes Techright's work on Gates."

Since the beginning of 2020 we've had people attempting to interject complete and utter nonsense about Gates into our IRC channels and even comments (thankfully they cannot sabotage our stories by leaving random comments). It mostly started in January of last year. People would attempt to insinuate, with little or no evidence, that Gates somehow started COVID-19 and people who did that weren't regular of ours. They would just enter the IRC channel, drop in a bunch of nonsense, then leave in anger because we rejected/turned down their theories, never to return to IRC again.

I've decided to record the video about to respond to this issue because it is quite important. Other sites can easily fall for those same people or tricks.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights and Tux Machines Subjected to Cyberattacks for Several Weeks
In the past I spoke to the cybercrime unit of British Police. Maybe it's time to do so again.
Microsoft Under Investigation for Breaches of Law in the UK
Just like the Microsofters
 
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXX - Where Was "The Ethics and Compliance Team" When the Family of EPO President Campinos Was Caught Doing Cocaine?
It remains to be seen if national delegates will tolerate this in future meetings
Gemini Links 22/05/2026: Esperanto Music History, Suspicious Adoption of Signal, and Unauthorised LLM Slop in Code
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 21, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, May 21, 2026
Links 21/05/2026: "Declining America" and Why Slop 'Code' is Made to Fail
Links for the day
The Register MS Has Become a 'Content' Farm Promoting Slop for Hostile Corporations
Now they call it "PARTNER CONTENT" - not "SPONSORED" - as if semantics make the difference
Latest Example of Widespread Fake Assertions (False News) About "Hey Hi"
The false narrative of "Hey Hi layoffs"
Links 21/05/2026: Facebook Rewarded With Tax Breaks to Destroy the Environment and Cause Global Warming, Shortages, Pollution; SpaceX (SPCX) Continues Losing Billions of Dollars
Links for the day
Codecs and Software Patents - Part VIII - GNU Audio/Video Team Has Chosen the AV1 Video Codec and It Explains Why (They've Researched Their Options)
AV1 video codec will be used to encode and share GNU videos online
Dr. Stallman Helps Establish Free Software Advocacy Outside the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Well
The ideals or principles of Free Software needn't be centralised or monopolised; they can be federated
22 Years of Tux Machines and a Community Stronger Than Ever Before
We've already received some feedback from the community and improved it accordingly
More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way (June and July 2026)
with or without PIPs
LWN Sponsored by the Linux Foundation (Monopolies)
We must be able to casually point this out
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXIX - European Patent Office (EPO) Tells Staff "Speaking up" is Good, But Not When the "Brother-in-law" of EPO's President Does Cocaine
Do we still have a functioning democracy and potent press?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Gemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories
Links for the dayGemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories
GAFAM is Connected to Misogyny, Almost All Founders Divorced
They're not good people, even if they pay the media to pretend otherwise
SLAPP Censorship - Part 83 Out of 200: Religion is Still Alive, But for Many This Religion is Monetary (Greed, Monopolies, Corporate Power)
If all you keep boasting about is being able to afford a hotel room and some domestic flight, then maybe you have no real accomplishments and are more like a "Facebook serf" with a credit card
Oracle Seems to Have Popularised Overnight Layoffs, Now GAFAM Does the Same
layoff emails at 4 a.m. local time
A Lot of Fake News About Microsoft's LinkedIn Today, Some Comes From Slopfarms, Some Relies on Those Slopfarms
As usual, slopfarms make the Web a huge pile of garbage
IBM's Kyndryl is Circling Down the Drain, Say Kyndryl Insiders
"IBM Dinosaurs who were recycled and catapulted into the orange trash heap by IBM"
A Lot of Coverage Adding Hype Factor to Slop Bug Reports... is Made by LLM Slop
Local Privilege Escalation [...] the slop motivates some actual people to keep writing about it
Links 20/05/2026: Mass Layoffs at NPR (Bought by the Ballmers and Bill Epsteingate), Starbucks Korea CEO Fired Over ‘Tank Day’ Ad
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/05/2026: Advantage of CD Collections, Geminaut's View of Nostr, and SSL / TLS Certificates
Links for the day
IBM is Becoming a Pile of Expired Patents and Abandoned Buildings, Assets of Little Actual Value
Having laid off a ton of people, borrowed lots of money to fake growth (by acquisition), and sent some jobs to low-paid regions where innovation isn't done
Links 20/05/2026: Looting of Americans for "White Grievance Reparations Fund"; "Mark Zuckerberg Used Shell Companies to Bully Native Hawaiians"
Links for the day
Web Browsers Are for Rendering Web Page, They Shouldn't Become PDF Editors
Linus Torvalds is quickly learning and speaking about this
SLAPP Censorship - Part 82 Out of 200: British Government Intervenes in the SLAPPs by Brett Wilson LLP
At this stage our matters are dealt with by a layer below that of the Prime Minister (adjacent to it)
LinkedIn Communications Reveal That LinkedIn - Like GitHub - Will Vanish Inside the Belly of Microsoft
This is definitely going to happen.
In Wall Street, Financial Difficulties Drive Shares Up
Wall Street doesn't work that way
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXVIII - European Patent Office (EPO) Guidebook Says Report Crimes Committed on EPO Premises. Some Did, But President Campinos Covers up for the Culprits.
The staff has long been on strike and the union (SUEPO) organised an enhanced day of action just two days ago
Gemini Links 20/05/2026: Fall of an Empire, "High Tech is a Social Exercise", and Big Cameras
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 19, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 19, 2026