Compiled By Markson Omagor
(SOURCE: The Quint)
The viral claim on Bill Gates originated from a satirical post from an anti-COVID-19 vaccination website.
Screenshots of a satirical article from a website skeptical of COVID-19 vaccination has gone viral on social media as real.
According to the claim, co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates had called for the withdrawal of all COVID-19 vaccines because they are “far more dangerous than anyone imagined”.
Gates, who has spearheaded the plan for a vaccine for COVID-19, has been at the centre of a barrage of misinformation from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CLAIM
The headline of the article said: BREAKING – Bill Gates calls for the withdrawal of all COVID-19 Vaccines; “The vaccines are far more dangerous than anyone imagined”.
The article talked about a “19-minute televised speech” where Gates had made the viral statement.
Several social media users shared the link believing it to be true. “In a shocking announcement, Bill Gates, billionaire Microsoft co-founder and the major force behind the COVID-19 vaccines, called for all the COVID-19 genetic-based vaccines to be taken off the market immediately (sic),” wrote one user, copying a bit of text from the article.
Some users, however, thought the statement to be a joke.
The claim was shared by several users on Facebook and Twitter, archives of which can be found here, here and here. We also got multiple claims about the post on our WhatsApp tipline.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
When we conducted a keyword search for the name of the website called “Daily Expose”, we came across articles on fact-checking websites like Full Fact that had previously debunked articles written by the website.
A quick glance of the website showed several articles questioning the safety of the vaccines.
We then checked the link of the article in the viral posts and found that the headline of the article had been updated to include that it was a piece of satire.
A note from the Editor – When we first published this article, we should have made it clear at the beginning that it was Satire rather than at the end. We did not do this and we apologize.
We also checked on Google for a similar statement by Gates on other news websites but didn’t find any results.
Further, we conducted a reverse image search of the image in the viral post and found that it was a screenshot taken from a Gates’ CNBC interview on the show Squak Newsmaker on 28 July 2020, much before the vaccinations were approved by any country.
The same image was also used in other articles posted by the publication.
