If we are to believe social media, Bill Gates does not have a friend in the world

The world’s most generous philanthropist does his bit: The Wall Street Journal, April 17:

Bill Gates last week posted a three-second video on Instagram of himself hanging a sign in a window reading “Thank you health care workers”.

How did that go down? Wall Street Journal:

Over the following days, the post was pelted with hundreds of thousands of comments … accusing him of crimes against humanity and linking him to various conspiracy theories involving vaccines … and implanted microchips.

Facebook is on the case. The Mercury, April 18:

Facebook, which owns Instagram, already prohibits harassment and co-ordinated inauthentic activity.

So what’s the plan for social media safety? Facebook Help Centre:

Facebook offers these tools to help you deal with bullying and harassment. Depending on the seriousness of the situation: Unfriend the person …

He did that. Phys. Org website, July 26, 2009:

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was forced to give up on the social networking phenomenon Facebook after too many people wanted to be his friend. Gates … told an audience in New Delhi he had tried out Facebook but ended up with “10,000 people wanting to be my friends. It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up”.

But now it’s his Instagram account. Fox News, April 18:

“We’re looking at this behaviour carefully to determine whether it violates our policies. People on our services are allowed to speak freely …” a Facebook spokesperson told Fox News.

What were people saying? Now deleted Instagram responses to the Bill Gates photo (most are unpublishably vile):

Dear Bill, I hope you’ve packed your bags, because you’re about to enter the gates of Hell. The Hell that you have created for yourself. We are AWAKE!

Thank you to our LORD our Creator for PERFECT IMMUNE SYSTEMS BY DESIGN!! We don’t need YOUR POISON for your engineered “viruses”!!!

Take your vaccines, your satanic mates and your NWO (New World Order) and go to hell. We are many!!!

Instagram is far from careless. It has rules. Instagram Privacy and Safety Centre, April 19, 2020:

We want to foster a positive, diverse community. We remove content that contains credible threats or hate speech, content that targets private individuals …

But Instagram has two sets of rules:

We do generally allow stronger conversation around people who are featured in the news or have a large public audience due to their profession or chosen activities.

Some people have always been cruel. The Atlantic, October 10, 2018:

But Instagram provides a uniquely powerful set of tools to do so. The velocity and size of the distribution mechanism allow rude comments or harassing images to go viral within hours.

But surely it looks after its own account holders? Cyber security website CPO, September 23, 2019:

Another day, another security issue for the Facebook family of companies. This time out, an Instagram data leak was discovered, exposing hidden contact information including the real names of millions of Instagram users and their phone numbers.