Tuesday, May 26, 2020

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The internet is awash with conspiracy theories and fake news targeting Bill Gates even as he pushes for a COVID-19 vaccine.


As the world battles coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of social media users, conspiracy theorists yes, the sort of people who believe the earth is flat and that moon landings never happened are proposing that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who also happens to be the world’s second-richest person, is behind the creation of coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic.


What are the conspiracy theories involving Bill Gates?


1. The conspiracy theorists have claimed that Bill Gates has developed a vaccine that would control and even depopulate the world through a microchip. In 2018, a report by Mysterious Times misquoted Gates and said that he had outlined a plan to depopulate the planet. “Make no mistake, when Gates talks about ‘making people healthier,’ what he is really talking about are enforcing the mandatory rollout of his range of experimental vaccinations. The same vaccines that have already caused mass sterilization and death on multiple continents," the website claimed. You can see the truth of it through below link:

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-gates-fauci/false-claim-bill-gates-wants-to-microchip-people-anthony-fauci-wants-people-to-carry-vaccination-certificates-idUSKBN22H2JD

https://www.mythdetector.ge/en/myth/does-bill-gates-promise-us-depopulation-and-  chipping


Even a social media post sharing a doctored photo of Gates Foundation & Real Photo as below:

 



2. In 2015, Gates had also warned the world of a pandemic in a TED talk. He had said that a pandemic would take place in the next decade and the pandemic could kill over 30 million people in the six months similar to the 1918 pandemic that killed over 50 million people. "The world needs to prepare for pandemics in the same serious way it prepares for war,” he had said.

See below video of TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzxC9iWP3Ek


While Gates talking about a pandemic in his TED talk is real for someone who is involved in public health projects it is fairly natural and basic to talk of devastating pandemics, all that talk about the vaccine with micro-chips is bunkum.


Unfortunately, people are linking the talk Gates gave, which is not even a brilliant insight because it is a fairly common knowledge that pandemics from unknown pathogens are the biggest challenges mankind faces, to coronavirus.


Of late this linking has led to multiple posts on Facebook claiming that Gates-funded a research institute and helped in creating the novel coronavirus. A Humans Are Free article claimed that Gates partnered with research institutes to create a "weaponized viral strain designed to sell more useless, deadly vaccines, while at the same time killing off a few thousand, or perhaps a few million, people."


Apart from the crowd that believes that the world is run by shape-shifting lizards, the theories claiming Bill Gates created coronavirus so he can be some sort of mind-controlling mad billionaire are getting an endorsement from some public commentators.


Emerald Robinson, a White House correspondent, posted a series of tweets accusing Gates. She wrote, "The more you study this virus, the more you find the same name: Bill Gates.


He's the 2nd largest funder of WHO. He's building 7 vaccine labs. He basically controls global health policy. What's the plan? Using vaccines to track people."


The theories that Bill Gates is connected to coronavirus, and that he wants to benefit from the pandemic by pushing some vaccines that will track users, have spread through videos on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and through sites like InfoWars.


Gates, meanwhile, has called the claims crazy. In an interview on an interview with a China-based news channel CCTV, he said: "I'd say it's ironic if you take somebody who's doing their best to get the world ready. We are in a crazy situation so there's going to be crazy rumors.”


3. Misleading Facebook post claims Bill Gates wants to introduce 'digital tattoos' to check who has been tested. See the link below to know truth.

https://factcheck.afp.com/holocaust-comparison-misleading-facebook-post-claims-bill-gates-seeks-digital-tattoos


4. Facebook post claims French doctor urged Africans to avoid a "Bill Gates vaccine" but it’s a false claimed and see the reality by below link.

https://factcheck.afp.com/french-doctor-did-not-urge-africans-avoid-bill-gates-vaccine


5. “Event 201” was an exercise organised in October 2019 to simulate what might happen if there was a severe pandemic and Bill Gates was attended that meet so troller claimed that meeting was about Covid19. See the fact by below link:

https://fullfact.org/health/event-201-coronavirus-pandemic/


6. The Italian Government Did Not Seek Bill Gates' Arrest. See the fact by below link.

https://www.republicworld.com/fact-check/viral/fact-check-no-the-italian-government-did-not-seek-bill-gates-arrest.html


7. The 14-part letter states the novel coronavirus pandemic has reminded humans about our equality, inter-connectedness and limited longevity, as well as the importance of health and family; and that the storm will pass but what remains is the fact that the Earth is ill. 

The author ended the letter by concluding that the pandemic is not a disaster, but a "great corrector". Gates Foundation urges netizens to stop sharing fake 'Bill Gates coronavirus letter'

See the below link for reality.

 

https://factcheck.afp.com/gates-foundation-urges-netizens-stop-sharing-fake-bill-gates-coronavirus-letter

 

8. A video showing protesters chanting “arrest Bill Gates” has been shared thousands of times on Instagram and Facebook, with claims that Americans want the billionaire arrested for producing a new vaccine for the novel coronavirus. This is misleading; no vaccine exists yet for COVID-19, while the demonstration in question was organised for other reasons. See the link below for fact:

https://factcheck.afp.com/video-shows-protest-against-lockdowns-us-search-vaccine-continues

9. The other conspiracy theory that is doing the rounds on the internet is the 5G conspiracy theory. As per claims, which too have been repeated by many people who are expected to know better, the newly-installed 5G networks are helping the virus spread. It has been speculated that the 5G towers are emitting radiation that is letting the virus propagate easily and affect more and more people. Some people have taken the claims so seriously that they have vandalized 5G towers in the UK, breaking them and setting them on fire.


This claim too is fake and bogus. There is no link between 5G technology and novel coronavirus. The virus is contagious and spreads from one human to another. 5G technology has absolutely no role to play here.


Exploiting the crisis


A number of accusations, including posts claiming that the FBI arrested Gates for biological terrorism or that he supports a Western plot to poison Africans, share a common thread.


They accuse the tycoon of exploiting the crisis, whether it is to "control people" or make money from selling vaccines.


It is not the first time Gates has found himself at the mercy of conspiracy theorists. When Zika virus broke out in 2015 in Brazil, he was one of several powerful Western figures blamed for the disease. Other rumours claim that he is secretly a lizard, an old favourite among online trolls.


 "He hasn't become conspiracists' favourite target, he has been (their favourite target) for a long time," Sylvain Delouvée, a social psychology researcher at France's University of Rennes, told AFP.


Predicted the pandemic

The recent explosion in false claims could be explained as a coping mechanism during the global crisis, Smith said. "People are constantly looking for information to make sense out of this reality, and having these conspiracies offers a convenient way of having power over your situation," he said.


The pandemic has also provided fertile breeding ground for attacks on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, particularly by anti-vaccine campaigners whose influential online presence was already brewing years before the virus emerged.


 The charity's humanitarian work in Africa, where misinformation about Gates is particularly present, and financial support of the World Health Organization -- it is the agency's second-largest donor -- have fed rumours of dark secrets and ploys for power.


Several widely shared posts point to photographs of Gates attending a "coronavirus conference" in 2015. Conclusion? He predicted the pandemic.


In reality, he was meeting with a research institute that had filed for a patent to potentially be used for a vaccine against a different type of coronavirus that affects animals.


Like many scientists, Gates had already warned of an imminent pandemic years before the novel coronavirus outbreak.


Conspiracies creeping into mainstream


Gates has also come under attack from celebrities. Conservative US television host Laura Ingraham claimed in a tweet that Gates was developing "tracking" mechanisms.


She was referring to a widely misinterpreted Reddit post by the billionaire about "digital certificates" to show who has recovered, been tested or -- eventually -- vaccinated.


Robert Kennedy Jr, the anti-Trump, anti-vaccine nephew of the former American president John F Kennedy, has accused the philanthropist of dictating global health policies. "We are his guinea pigs," he wrote in an Instagram post attacking the entrepreneur.


Meanwhile, French "Chocolate" actress Juliette Binoche sparked controversy when she blasted Gates on Instagram and called for the rejection of "a microchip implant for all".


Debunking misinformation is "not about saying that everyone is a good guy", said Delouvee at France's University of Rennes, pointing to privacy concerns around the race to build coronavirus tracking apps and governments' use of medical data.


The Gates Foundation has come under fire in publications such as The Lancet medical journal, which accused it of a lack of transparency over its financial investments.


Yahoo and YouGov's May survey didn't find that everyone believed these conspiracy theories though. Forty-five percent of independents, 52% of Democrats and 63% of people who say they voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 said they don't believe the conspiracy theory about Gates and vaccines.


A survey from Yahoo News and YouGov finds that the conspiracy theory is popular among Fox News viewers, Republicans and Trump voters.


Another claim circulating on social media is that Gates owns the “patent” for the SARS-CoV2, a virus that wasn’t even discovered until January 2020. The theory goes that this entire pandemic thing is just to create a need for a vaccine from which Gates will subsequently profit. This includes a variety of posts on Facebook that are now labeled by Facebook as “false information, checked by independent fact-checkers.” These posts claim that The Pirbright Institute, which is based in Surrey, England, and has received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, owns the patent for this new coronavirus that’s causing the current pandemic.


Please share your views about Bill Gates?????


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Saturday, May 23, 2020

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A 23-second video of a crowded market has gone viral on social media with the claim that Muslims flouted the lockdown for shopping. It is noteworthy that Eid is set to be observed in the coming weekend. Most users claimed that the video is from Madina market in Hyderabad.



Various tweets related to this content published by Indians with false co-relation with Hyderabad and Delhi.




BJP leader Varun Gandhi’s secretary Ishita Yadav also tweeted the viral video. However, she claimed it was shot in Chandni Chowk, Delhi. The tweet was originally posted by Twitter user Janamjit Shankar Sinha. The viral video on Sinha’s tweet bagged over 8,000 views. The tweet was subsequently deleted but it can be viewed on this archive link.



A video showing a crowded market in Pakistan's Faisalabad is being shared with false claims that it shows people shopping for Eid in Hyderabad, India violating social distancing norms during the ongoing lockdown due to COVID-19. Alt News & BOOM found that the video is from Anarkali bazaar in Faisalabad city which was opened earlier this week following guidelines for relaxation in the lockdown announced in Pakistan. The video is being shared with a false claim that it shows huge crowds at Madina Market in Hyderabad.


Video from Pakistan you can see in below Tweets:

Alt News performed a reverse image of one of the keyframes of the video and found that it was tweeted by @MishaalShaheen on May 18. As per the Twitter user, the viral video is from Anarkali Bazaar in Faisalabad, Pakistan. The user pointed out that people are shopping for Eid without worrying about coronavirus.


Another Tweet from Pakistan was also captured regarding this event:


At the 10-second mark, a store sign appears that reads ‘Aini shoes’ in Urdu. Alt News & Boom performed a keyword search on Google and found a store with the same name at the new Anarkali market, Faisalabad in Pakistan on Google Maps.



Thus the claim associated with the viral video is false. Since the lockdown started on March 25, false propaganda towards the Muslim community has been rampant on social media. Earlier another video from Pakistan was viral with the false claim that Muslim women were shopping during the lockdown in India.


Claim Review :  Video shows people shopping at Madina Market in Old city,Hyderabad

Claimed By :  Social media posts

Fact Check :  False


Credits: AltNews & BoomLive


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