![]() 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. "I plan to keep seeking out and reading others' ideas, especially from young people. The truth is, I don't have the answers," he wrote. "This is usually where I'd lay out my ideas for how we fix the problem. It's a tricky problem to solve - and even Gates said he's unsure how to proceed. The snowball effect could then cause the public to "become even more disillusioned." Gates expressed concern that without quick intervention, Americans may grow more likely to elect politicians who publicly express and encourage distrust. In October, former Facebook engineer Frances Haugen testified before a Senate committee about the company's misinformation "crisis," a potential early step toward social media platform regulations. It's already a focus for some lawmakers in Washington D.C. In Gates' blog post, he noted that 24-hour news cycles, politically incentivized headlines and social media have each played a role in the "growing divide" - and that governments may need regulate online platforms to effectively dispel misinformation. And about four in ten respondents thought the mistrust made it harder to handle issues like health care, immigration and gun violence. Why the ‘Roaring 2020s’ are off to a whimper. and the rest of the world, hampering the country's vaccination rates and ultimately delaying the end of the pandemic.īut Pew Research Center research from pre-Covid times showed similar trends: In a 2019 poll of American adults, 75% of respondents said their fellow citizens' trust in the federal government was shrinking.Īnother 64% of polltakers said Americans' trust with each other was shrinking, too. Why are Americans feeling so down on the economy, and what are some reasons for optimism Here’s what people are saying. Such distrust has become particularly evident since the pandemic hit: Covid misinformation has spread across both the U.S. "And when a major crisis emerges, they're less likely to follow guidance necessary to weather the storm." "If your people don't trust you, they're not going to support major new initiatives," Gates wrote. But they can only do so much if people reject their guidance on principle. Public institutions, Gates noted, need to be major players in fights like addressing climate change or preventing the next pandemic. "It's one of the issues I'm most worried about heading into 2022," he wrote. ![]() But one particular problem could slow or derail much of that progress, he predicted: people's distrust of governments.
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