Bill Gates becomes the target of several fake news ever since corona virus outbreak.
Corona virus outbreak has unleashed a whole set of fake news. An eminent personality who is being attacked and attracting fake news is Bill Gates. Co founder of Microsoft, tech billionaire and philanthropist, Bill Gates has been the center of various corona conspiracies and fake news. Bill Gates has openly discussed his opinions regarding the corona virus pandemic and as a result has become target of many fake news emerging about corona virus.’
Claims:
Claim 1:
A long message was going viral on social media that was attributed to Bill Gates. The long viral text was about spirituality and what Covid-19 is teaching us about. The claim was doing rounds on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and a few websites even published the same. Many famous personalities like Naomi Campbell (model and actress) shared the viral post and well credited newspaper “The Sun” wrote article about the same. The Sun later removed the story and apologized for the incident.
The long open letter that claimed to be by Bill Gates read as follow:
“Beautiful Message from Bill Gates
What is the Corona/Covid-19 Virus Really Teach us?
As I meditate upon this, I want to share with you what I feel the Corona/ Covid-19 virus is really doing to us:
1) It is reminding us that we are all equal, regardless of our culture, religion, occupation, financial situation or how famous we are. This disease treats us all equally, perhaps we should to. If you don’t believe me, just ask Tom Hanks.
2) It is reminding us that we are all connected and something that affects one person has an effect on another. It is reminding us that the false borders that we have put up have little value as this virus does not need a passport. It is reminding us, by oppressing us for a short time, of those in this world whose whole life is spent in oppression.
3) It is reminding us of how precious our health is and how we have moved to neglect it through eating nutrient poor manufactured food and drinking water that is contaminated with chemicals upon chemicals. If we don’t look after our health, we will, of course, get sick.
4) It is reminding us of the shortness of life and of what is most important for us to do, which is to help each other, especially those who are old or sick. Our purpose is not to buy toilet roll.
5) It is reminding us of how materialistic our society has become and how, when in times of difficulty, we remember that it’s the essentials that we need (food, water, medicine) as opposed to the luxuries that we sometimes unnecessarily give value to.
6) It is reminding us of how important our family and home life is and how much we have neglected this. It is forcing us back into our houses so we can rebuild them into our home and to strengthen our family unit.
7) It is reminding us that our true work is not our job. That is what we do, not what we were created to do. Our true work is to look after each other, to protect each other and to be of benefit to one another.
8) It is reminding us to keep our egos in check. It is reminding us that no matter how great we think we are or how great others think we are, a virus can bring our world to a standstill.
9) It is reminding us that the power of freewill is in our hands. We can choose to cooperate and help each other, to share, to give, to help and to support each other or we can choose to be selfish, to hoard, to look after only our self. Indeed, it is difficulties that bring out our true colors.
10) It is reminding us that we can be patient, or we can panic. We can either understand that this type of situation has happened many times before in history and will pass, or we can panic and see it as the end of the world and, consequently, cause ourselves more harm than good.
11) It is reminding us that this can either be an end or a new beginning. This can be a time of reflection and understanding, where we learn from our mistakes, or it can be the start of a cycle which will continue until we finally learn the lesson we are meant to.
12) It is reminding us that this Earth is sick. It is reminding us that we need to look at the rate of deforestation just as urgently as we look at the speed at which toilet rolls are disappearing off of shelves. We are sick because our home is sick.
13) It is reminding us that after every difficulty, there is always ease. Life is cyclical, and this is just a phase in this great cycle. We do not need to panic; this too shall pass.
14) Whereas many see the Corona/ Covid-19 virus as a great disaster, I prefer to see it as a great corrector.
It is sent to remind us of the important lessons that we seem to have forgotten, and it is up to us if we will learn them or not.”
Claim 2:
A picture went viral on social media that a crop circle that has a logo that looks like the Microsoft logo ringed with the shape of corona virus. The picture was circulated stating how it hints at the link between Bill Gates to the corona virus.
The message attached with the picture reads:
“This crop circle appeared recently, featuring the Coronavirus image and the Microsoft logo. Hinting at a link between Bill Gates and the virus?”
crop circle image – virus and microsoft symbol
JZ:This crop circle appeared recently, featuring the Coronavirus image and the Microsoft logo.
Hinting at a link between Bill Gates and the virus? pic.twitter.com/RD1jn0anLH
— TheRealTruth (@RealJustice12) May 2, 2020
Claim 3:
A post went viral that stated that India is suing Bill Gates because he vaccinated 77,000 third world girls between the ages of 9 & 15 with the HPV vaccine and many of them died is going viral. The photo attached in the viral post is of Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The claim also states that the picture in the photo are Gates and Dr. Fauci leaving shorty after their India trip.
Claim 4
A photo is going viral with the claim that there is a Center for Global Human Population Reduction which is affiliated with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
LETS SEE IF WE HAVE ANY EVIDENCE THE @gatesfoundation @BillGates WANTS TO "OFF" SOME OF US??? A $$WEALTHY NERD COMPUTER GUY MESSING WITH VACCINES TO INJECT INTO "US"??? MR MAGOO COULD SEE THIS… #CrimesAgainstHumanity pic.twitter.com/96UjDv56q0
— WINK (@mjwood16) May 1, 2020
"CENTER FOR GLOBAL HUMAN POPULATION REDUCTION"
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
THE MISSION STATEMENT FOR THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠@GATESFOUNDATION #BillGatesBioTerrorist #BillGates #BillGatesVirus #Event201 #MAGA2020 #COVID19 #ID2020 pic.twitter.com/XrGqMbjPsS— Vivian Kubrick (@ViKu1111) May 1, 2020
Claim 5
A claim has been going viral that states that Bill Gates admits his Covid-19 vaccine might kill around a 1,000,000 people and will be less effective in elderly. Most of viral posts are attached with an article by The Clover Chronicle that has a headline that read, “WATCH: Bill Gates Admits His COVID-19 Vaccine Might KILL Nearly 1,000,000 People”. The lead of the article reads, “Microsoft co-founder and “philanthropist” Bill Gates recently admitted his vaccine for coronavirus (COVID-19) is less effective in the elderly and will most likely result in the death or maiming of 700,000 people.” A clip of an interview with Bill Gates by CNBC is also attached in the article.
Claim 6
A photo of a currency note is going viral stating it is an Australian 10 dollar note that has Bill Gates and corona virus printed on it and the post claims that it indicates it is not a pandemic but a “plandemic”.
Truth
Truth 1:
The message was falsely attributed to Bill Gates and wasn’t delivered by him. The claim was debunked by various international publications like BBC, Independent and BuzzFeed News.
BuzzFeed News talked to a spokesperson for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who confirmed to that Bill Gates did not say any of the words that have been going viral. The person who started the message is still unclear but it is know for a fact that it is not by Bill Gates.
Article debunking the same claim done by BuzzFeed News and BBC, attached respectively.
Source: BuzzFeed News
Source: BBC
Truth 2
The viral photo is photo-shopped and fake. The real crop circle was created in 2004 in Honey Street, Wiltshire, England. The viral post was deliberately edited by someone to add fuel to the existing conspiracy theories of Bill Gates linked to the corona virus. Temporary Temples, a website that has archives of crop-circle images, has this real crop circle shot from various angles. The news has also been debunked by various publications like Snopes, India Today, Logical Indian and One India.
Image Source: Snopes
Real images that were edited are the ones in black boxes.
Source: Temporary Temples
Article on the same by Snopes.
Source: Snopes
Truth 3
The viral claim is false. The photo is not of Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci leaving India after their visit and India is not suing Gates for vaccinating girls in India.
The photo is from 11 December 2018 when a consultative workshop on global health was conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at Maryland, United States. Upon reverse image search, the photo was found in the NIH Image Gallery. Int the original pictured NIH director, Dr Francis Collins (right) is also present. He had been cropped out in the viral photo.
The part of the claim that says Gates is responsible for death of children in India due to testing vaccines has already been debunked by various major publications. The claim that Bill Gates uses 30,000 Indian girls to test vaccines was debunked by PolitiFact. According to the debunking report by PolitiFact, the claim was floating that there was human papillomavirus vaccination demonstration project in India in 2009. Thousands of girls between the ages of 10 and 14 received one of two vaccines to prevent genital warts that are linked to cancer later in life. According to the claim, the project went wrong.In 2007, the Indian government’s Council of Medical Research and two state governments laid base for a project to see whether these vaccines could be delivered cost-effectively in lower income communities. An international nonprofit PATH was directly responsible for the work. The vaccinations began in 2009 and by March 2010, they had vaccinated about 24,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 14. The effort was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in addition to India, it took place in Peru, Uganda and Vietnam.The trouble began when local newspapers reported several deaths linked to the vaccinations. In October 2009, a coalition of community organizations and health activists called for a halt to the project. Their cries grew more insistent. In an April 2007 letter to the Minister of Health, in addition to the deaths, they said over 120 girls had suffered everything from mood swings to epileptic seizures. The government agreed to stop.The government commissioned a group of physicians and researchers to investigate whether the vaccination program caused any deaths. In February 2011, the group reported there was no connection. One girl drowned. Insecticide poisoning killed two others. Two others had severe malaria. One was bitten by a poisonous snake and one died from a disease that physicians said “can not be linked possibly to HPV.” No reputable study has ever tied the vaccine to a death.The vaccines can have side effects, including fever, headache, fainting and nausea. But according to many studies cited by the CDC, these pass quickly. An anti-vaccination blog tied Bill Gates to the deaths of several girls who were part of an HPV vaccination roll out in India. A full medical investigation determined that the girls died from causes completely unrelated to the vaccine. Some were poisoned by insecticide, malaria took others, and one drowned.Many millions of young girls and boys have received the vaccine over the years and while there are some common side effects, they are mild.
The real image that was cropped to attach with the viral claim.
Source: NIH Director’s Blog
Article by PolitiFact on debunking the claim that India girls were killed by vaccines tested on them by Bill Gates.
Source: PoliitiFact
Truth 4
The claim is completely false. A simple reverse image search revealed that the picture was edited to create a wrong image and trap Bill Gates in yet another controversy. The real images is actually of the signage of Discovery Center which is a visitor center that highlights foundation’s global charity work through exhibits and tours. The “Center for Global Human Population Reduction” doesn’t exist and was edited and added to fool the public.
Attached below is the real signage found on Google Maps.
False claim: Gates Foundation has a “Center for Global Human Population Reduction” sign https://t.co/p00nIVLozL pic.twitter.com/xmJKYV5Ub5
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 4, 2020
Source: Reuters
Truth 5
The claim is wrong and misinterpreted. The video attached is only 2 minutes and 35 seconds. The actual video of the in interview is about 4 minutes long. While watching and analysing the CNBC interview with Bill Gates that is attached in the article, it is clear that Bill Gates didn’t make any statement that equated to many deaths and inefficiency of vaccine in elderly.
“The efficacy in vaccines in older people is always a huge challenge. It turns out the flu vaccine isn’t that effective in elderly people; most of the benefit comes from younger people not spreading it because they’re vaccinated, and that benefits, on a community basis, the elderly. “Here, we clearly need a vaccine that works in the upper age range because they’re most at risk of that. And doing that so that you amp it up so it works in older people, and yet you don’t have side effects. If we have one in 10,000 side effects, that’s way more — 700,000 people who will suffer from that. “So, really understanding the safety at gigantic scale across all age ranges — pregnant, male, female, undernourished, existing comorbidity — it’s very, very hard.”, is that Bill Gates said in his interview.
Gates spoke theoretically in the interview about how many people might have side effects from a yet to be created corona virus vaccine and did not say anything about people dying from such a vaccine. He was simply stating how hard it is to create a vaccine that has to cater to safety of a huge scale of people.
This claim has been debunked by international publications like AFP and PolitiFact.
Attached below is the interview with Bill Gates uploaded by CNBC on YouTube and part of which is embedded in the viral article.
Source: CNBC Telivision
The article published by AFP on the same.
Source: AFP
Truth 6
The claim is just yet another made up conspiracy. The note is indeed an Australian 10 dollar note but the print in it is not of Bill Gates or corona virus. The patter claimed to be corona virus on it is a security feature on the notes and the person printed in the note is Mary Gilmore, a very famous Australian writer.
AFP contacted a spokesperson of the Reserve Bank of Australia and in an email to them they stated that, “One of the features referred to is the rolling colour effect. The feature appears on each denomination of the Next Generation Banknotes series, with a different type of wattle depicted in the design on each banknote. In this instance, the design framing the feature is a designer’s interpretation of Bramble Wattle (Acacia victoriae). You can see the Bramble Wattle in various places on the banknote, including the top-to-bottom window, the fluorescent feature and the rolling colour effect.” The print of Mary Gilmore on the currency is taken from a photo of her sitting at her desk, the original photo was found on Reserve Bank of Australia’s website.
This is the original photo which is printed on the note of Mary Gilmore.
Source: Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank Notes
Article debunking the claim by AFP.
Source: AFP
All the different claims were false and has been debunked by national and international fact checkers. The claims spread like wild fire and more fake news linking Bill Gates and the corona virus seem to pop up constantly. Various famous publications have come up with articles that highlight how Gates has become the crux of corona virus conspiracy theories. It is not possible to entirely put a stop to the emerging fake news, what one can do is read everything critically and analyse claims with great scrutiny before jumping to conclusions.
Learning and unlearning.
Aspiring to narrate stories to make a difference.
Smiling through the entire process.
