Authors
Preeksha is a journalism graduate interested in exploring and working on the phenomenon of fake news globally. She desires to work on compelling stories that employ digital journalism to bring forth narratives that matter. She is also a budding researcher, studying the COVID-19 infodemic as a research fellow with the Institute of Economic Growth.
A WhatsApp forward attributed to American Billionaire Bill Gates which claims that the philanthropist called for the withdrawal of the COVID 19 vaccine rollout over its complications, calling it ‘more dangerous than anyone imagined’, is being widely shared on the messenger platform WhatsApp. Newschecker has found that the claim is an old one and has been revived recently.
Bill Gates has been the subject of several fake news & misinformation surrounding the COVID 19 pandemic and the global vaccination drive. Some of these claims have been fact checked by Newschecker and can be found here and here.
Newschecker received a request on our Whatsapp helpline 9999499044 to ascertain the veracity of the claim that Bill Gates has called for the roll back of the vaccine drive.
The same claim was found to be doing rounds on social media platforms Facebook and Twitter since September 2021. These posts were accompanied by screenshots or the link to an article by the website ‘The Exposé’ and website ‘maravipost.com’. Based on the headline and content of the article by the latter website, it can be seen that the article is based on the piece published by ‘The Exposé’.
About ‘The Exposé’
“The Exposé was set up due to a lack of alternatives to the lying mainstream media, and a lack of alternatives which report only the facts.” reads the about section of the website ‘The ‘Exposé’.
The website further says that “The Exposé is run by extremely ordinary, hardworking people who are sick and tired of the fear-mongering, lies and propaganda perpetuated by the mainstream media. We felt it was our duty to bring you the facts that the mainstream refuse to, and now here we are.”
Same Claim, New Web-address
The claim about Bill Gates calling for the roll back of the vaccines has recently made its way onto WhatsApp via another website ‘www.news-af.feednews.com‘.
The article titled ‘Bill Gates has demanded that all Covid 19 vaccines be withdrawn in all alternate universe?’ was published on 1 September 2021 on the said website.
Factcheck/Verification
The article was published on 29 August 2021 as per the date shown on the website with the article.
A disclaimer on the web page reads ‘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 apologise…’.
The article by ‘www.news-af.feednews.com’—the website now being circulated on whatsapp— is a spin-off of the previously published article by the website ‘The Exposé’. The article on Feednews has merely reworded the previously published article by ‘The Exposé’ while retaining the core assertion- that Bill Gates called for the vaccines to be recalled.
For instance, the article by ‘The Exposé’ reads ““These vaccines—Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca—they’re killing people left and right—and they’re injuring some people very badly,”” .
The same line in the article by ‘www.news-af.feednews.com’ reads “These immunizations—Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, AstraZeneca—they’re killing individuals left and right—and they’re hurting a few groups gravely,”
Further, in the sentence “”I sponsored a German examination group that convinced the World Wellbeing Association to acknowledge the PCR symptomatic test as the ‘highest quality level,’ notwithstanding the way that any understudy realizes the PCR test can’t analyze any illness.” The article makes a reference to ‘World Wellbeing Association’.
This reference can presumably be to the World Health Organization—the first name that comes up on google searching the phrase—ascertaining no association of the name ‘World Wellbeing Association exists.
Further, in the sentence “”I sponsored a German examination group that convinced the World Wellbeing Association to acknowledge the PCR symptomatic test as the ‘highest quality level,’ notwithstanding the way that any understudy realizes the PCR test can’t analyze any illness.” The article makes a reference to ‘World Wellbeing Association’.
This reference can presumably be to the World Health Organization—the first name that comes up on google searching the phrase—ascertaining no association of the name ‘World Wellbeing Association exists.
The article by ‘www.news-af.feednews.com’ has a foot note that reads “Note that the accompanying parody depends on an imaginary talk given by Bill Gates, and the Entryways Establishment has not set up any assets to reward immunization casualties or make compelling, minimal expense Coronavirus fixes accessible. The remainder of the piece depends on realities — Gelles, William.”
The same footnote can be found in the article by ‘The Exposé’ with the exception of the change of a few words with their synonyms.
Therefore, this claim originated from the website ‘The Exposé” which says it wrote the piece as ‘Satire’. The same article has been used as the basis for the one published by the website ‘www.news-af.feednews.com’.
The article by ‘www.news-af.feednews.com’ has two hyperlinks as sources appended at the end of the article.
While the first link returns an grey screen with the words “404，您请求的文件不存在!!!”, the second link leads to a website ‘techarp.com’.
This second link while referring to the claim in question, calls out the website ‘The Exposé’ and writes “The truth is – this is yet another fake story by Daily Expose, which is notorious for creating and posting fake news. Here are the FACTS…”
Therefore, the claims that Bill Gates asked for withdrawal of vaccines are false. There are no facts to support these claims made by the websites.
Conclusion
The claims that Bill Gates has asked for immediate withdrawal of COVID-19 vaccines made by website ‘The Exposé’ are not based on any facts. The article was written by the website as satire—which has been found to be the origin of this misinformation—has been copied by other websites and has been used to make false claims on social media since mid-2021.
Result: Satire
Our Sources
Disclaimer on website The ‘Exposé
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Authors
Preeksha is a journalism graduate interested in exploring and working on the phenomenon of fake news globally. She desires to work on compelling stories that employ digital journalism to bring forth narratives that matter. She is also a budding researcher, studying the COVID-19 infodemic as a research fellow with the Institute of Economic Growth.
