Bill Gates Says He’s Surprised By ‘Crazy’ And ‘Evil’ Conspiracy Theories About Him Amidst The Pandemic
Topline
Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was “very surprised” by the sheer number of conspiracy theories about him that have popped up and spread on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting the overwhelming reach of misinformation about the pandemic which may create major challenges for mass vaccination drives.
Bill Gates delivers a speech at the fundraising day at the Sixth World Fund Conference in Lyon, … [+]
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Key Facts
Gates told Reuters that the “crazy conspiracy theories” about him and the U.S.’ top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci were most likely caused by the frightening nature of the pandemic and the rise of social media.
Some of the most prominent conspiracy theories about the pandemic have revolved around baseless claims that Gates wants to use vaccines to inject trackable microchips into the world’s population.
Gates says he wants to know if people really believe these conspiracy theories, asking, “how does it change peoples’ behavior and how should we have minimized this?”
Tangent
During the interview, Gates also praised Dr. Fauci and Francis Collins, the head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, calling them “smart” and “wonderful people.” In a shot at the Trump administration, Gates said that he looked forward to seeing both of them work effectively and speak the truth under President Joe Biden. Gates then added that under Trump, it sometimes felt that Fauci and Collins “were the only sane people in the U.S. government.”
Big Number
8 million. That’s the total number of views that an anti-vaxxer conspiracy video, titled ‘Plandemic,’ generated on various social media platforms in May this year before it was eventually taken down. The video promoted multiple conspiracy theories against Dr. Anthony Fauci and baselessly claimed that he had buried research about how vaccines can damage people’s immune systems. A sequel to the conspiracy video titled ‘Plandemic: Indoctrination’ made several false claims about Gates and vaccines. The sequel had far more limited reach with social platforms moving to swiftly clamp down on it.
Key Background
Gates’ philanthropic entity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been one of the largest forces behind-the-scenes in the fight against Covid-19. The foundation helped fund vaccine development for Moderna and AstraZeneca, as well as other research into Covid-19 treatments. In his foundation’s annual letter, published on Wednesday, the billionaire has called for a massive global effort to prepare for future pandemics the threat of which he says needs to be treated with the same degree of seriousness as the threat of war. Gates said he hopes the world will be able to develop “mega-diagnostic platforms” before the next pandemic, which will be able to test 20% of the global population per week. The former Microsoft boss has also called for a global pandemic alert system where pathogen samples can quickly be sequenced in a lab and highly infectious or new pathogens would trigger a response from a global team of “infectious disease first responders” who will be dispatched to the area.
Further Reading
Bill Gates: Future Pandemics Must Be Taken As Seriously As ‘The Threat Of War’ (Forbes)
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