Bonum Certa Men Certa

Increased Opposition to Bill Gates/Microsoft Exploitation of Schools, Shameless PR Explained

Classroom



Summary: More overlap is shown between Gates' plot to change schools and Microsoft's use of schools to indoctrinate young people; the role played by money that Gates passes to the education press (and other PR efforts) gets dissected and shown for scepticism to be justified

THE tax-exempt Gates Foundation is a lot more sinister than PR would have people believe. It operates just like a business and it has a business-like agenda. Watch this new video which helps explain the effect of rich people paying too little tax (or no tax in Gates' case) on the US economy. That is what happens in a system which is influenced heavily by lobbyists, who get hired by those most able to afford them (Microsoft and Gates still lobby a lot to change tax laws).



“It gives Bill enormous lobbying power, which in turn he uses to benefit companies he invests in.”To put it in simplified terms, the foundation (just a name for Bill's bank account, which gives it tax exemptions) is building a brand, the "Bill Gates" brand. It gives Bill enormous lobbying power, which in turn he uses to benefit companies he invests in. In a future post we will give more new examples of this.

One area that Microsoft relies on to keep its monopoly going is the school system. As noted this morning, Microsoft indoctrinates children at taxpayers' expense, using children to sway an office's choice of software and using teachers as a training workforce for Windows™ and Office™, among other proprietary software products from Microsoft€®.

In order to keep schools under strict control by the likes of Gates (schools become increasingly digital over time), there is an intense lobbying campaign which children's parents and to a certain extent teachers too are protesting against. Arne Duncan is now named as part of the problem.

The first article in this week's New Yorker questions the 'gold standards' and personality cults that have been built up around education reform. The Gates Foundation is not specifically mentioned ...

And then Arne Duncan was profiled in the weekend magazine. It doesn't say what school Arne sends his "little guys" to. Private or public?


The cited articles are both from New York and we are going to come across Arne Duncan later on in this post.

As we pointed out last week, Bill Gates uses singing star Legend to further his personal agenda in schools. He also uses PR around films for lobbying. Is it not funny that Gates wishes to change public schools while he sends his kids to private schools? Here is the sort of brainwash that comes from the film (this article is from a critic):

Education movie points the wrong way for change



[...]

The film suggests public education is failing and points in the wrong directions for change. The filmmakers have not done their homework. They universalize a very specific U.S. experience and engage in simplistic and divisive finger-pointing at teachers, at a time when education needs collaboration and respect for teaching as a profession. An opportunity lost.


It is clear that Gates' attempt to toy with education systems is not welcomed, which is why the brainwash is needed. Gates has spent hundreds of millions of dollars advertising the change he wants. There is nothing to be admired when it comes to PR, which simply collides with reality, it rarely complements it.

The blog Seattle Education 2010 is pleased to have a forum with Diane Ravitch, who is a well known critic of Gates' dangerous experimentation with school systems [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Here is another new post about this forum and a reminder from Dora Taylor that privatisation by Bill Gates spells trouble for pupils and their teachers (it gives Gates a lot of control over them):

Dora Taylor is a parent of a high school student at a public school in Seattle, Washington, and is an architect and teacher. In response to school closures in the Seattle Public School system, Dora and her co-editor, Sue Peters, started the blog Seattle Education 2010 to report on and analyze education issues, and to protect the Seattle public school system from the corporate model and privatization efforts of the Gates Foundation, headquartered in Seattle.


Gates' lobbying carried on in Memphis, whose schools he is trying to change not by contributing much in terms of assets; it's all PR, it's usually about communication, i.e. signaling to other states that they too should want the same type of school 'reform'. From this new editorial:

That's why spending some of that money on marketing makes sense. The effort to upgrade teaching in the district could be enhanced by the school board's decision to spend $310,000 this year and perhaps more in the future to develop ways to help Memphians understand where the $90 million Gates grant is going.


To better understand what goes on in Memphis schools, see our previous posts which touched on the subject, e.g.:



There is a huge amount of education-flavoured PR going on (more PR from AP) and Gates pays for it because there will be returns, there are simply gains to be made. In order to promote his agenda in schools, Gates' staff has arranged for him to appear on Oprah's show and Microsoft is of course directly involved in these efforts too, in order to indoctrinate children. Julie Bort from IDG's Microsoft Subnet has this new article titled "Bill Gates, Microsoft call on you to contribute to education reform" and "Microsoft [is] selected by Demi and Ashton," says another headline. We have already given many other examples where Gates' involvement in a so-called 'reform' is directly benefiting Microsoft, which he co-founded and still have shares of. The Gates Foundation is to Microsoft what in some sense CodePlex Foundation/Outercurve is to Microsoft.

Dora from Seattle Education 2010 proceeds to writing on the subject of Arne Duncan, whom we mentioned earlier. What Dora may not know is that the article she cites comes from a Gates-sponsored (and thus biased) source. Yes, it's true. Education Week is sponsored by Gates to glorify him as it so often does [1, 2]. She opens as follows: "In the mindless march towards privatization of our public schools through the edicts of Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top agenda, the least among us who Duncan, Broad and Gates claim to be helping are the students most damaged by their plans for a charter school in every pot."

Education Week is sponsored by Gates to glorify him as it so often does.”A lot of people are still not realising that Gates now owns/contributes to a lot of the education press and thus he can better control what people think. It's not just Education Week as we have given many other examples. It's not just about education press, either. The popular progressive British newspaper (Guardian), for example, was recently 'bought' by the Gates Foundation to promote its agenda in the under-developed world. No wonder Gates is now advertised in all the relevant articles (see top banner), which also promote his agenda, e.g. in this new example. According to this disclosure (The Guardian at least does not hide the fact that Gates pays it), it is revealed that it's a 5-year 'bribe'. "Gates Foundation to contribute to site funding until 2015," says this update and "[i]t is envisaged that the Gates Foundation will contribute financially to the new site up to 2015 as part of its commitment to the millennium development goals." Watch/listen to what the Gates-funded NPR is saying about Gates right now [1, 2]. NPR lost all credibility because of the money on its table. More NPR propaganda is being used to promote the Gates agenda under the guise of "national" radio (national but privatised). This includes help to abusive companies like Monsanto. We have already given many other examples where NPR promoted Gates and companies he invested in after Gates had 'donated' millions to NPR.

It is too easy to get distracted by puff pieces like this one ("I will not leave $53B fortune to kids, says Bill Gates"). It's just one pointless article amongst others of its kind [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] which tell no news (been heard many times since almost a decade ago, thus it's just PR about his children, reiterated).

“Gates is getting richer while being portrayed as a giver and the middle class still vanishes (widening gap between rich and poor).”To put things in perspective, Gates has been saying this and spreading such a fairy tale for ages, all of it while not paying taxes. He is still getting richer based on Forbes' list (so much for retirement or giveaways), so how is that promise of not leaving a fortune to his kids being fulfilled since he first made it about a decade ago? Gates is getting richer while being portrayed as a giver and the middle class still vanishes (widening gap between rich and poor). Well, maybe this newly-updated list is the reason for repeating old news and getting people off his back. Microsoft Nick and many others have spread the news about Bill Gates being #1 in Forbes' rich list [1, 2, 3], so there couldn't be better timing to say that this fortune will be given away (even though it continues to expand). In a world where being most rich also means being most "generous" (at least when greased up by a PR machine), why not exploit people's ignorance or gullibility?

There is propaganda in printed newspapers to build an icon of someone who robbed society and now runs it. People are supposed to love those who hurt them the most. Using euphemisms like "reform", "education", and "health", there is an increase in suggestion that only the super-rich can save the world. Here is some health-flavoured PR about Bill Gates and Seattle growth and here is a new press release about Microsoft "health". More about this whole "health" agenda will be the main discussion of tomorrow's post. In health too there are monopolies and vast profits.

Recent Techrights' Posts

A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
"The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
 
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
We never used "the cloud"
Amazon Web Shenanigans
An ongoing, experimental endeavour
Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
Links for the day
They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
Everything here will persist as normal
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
The "Infinite Bread"
The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
Liberation From 'The Feed'
They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
"More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
This won't end well
Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours
He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
A crashing franchise
Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
Links for the day
As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
there's nothing unreasonable about it
A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
Links for the day
US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
some weeks ago
All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
Each year it gets worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025