Philanthropist and billionaire founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has spoken out against the unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding him. These conspiracies, which are not based on any factual evidence, have increased greatly following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and due to his philanthropic involvement in both international health initiatives and Covid-19 research.
The conspiracies are almost exclusively spread online, particularly on social-media and YouTube, leading tech companies to crack down on the false information being posted. Many of the conspiracies find their grounding in the fact that Gates held a TedTalk in 2015 in which he warned the world of the ongoing potential danger of a pandemic, particularly one which was spread through the air and which would spread rapidly due to the nature of modern international travel. Why gates would be involved in a conspiracy but make a TedTalk about it some years earlier is one of the many gaping holes in the logic of the conspiracy theorists.
Speaking to international news agency Reuters, Gates stated that he hoped such conspiracies would 'just go away'. Gates said:
"The presence of social media plus a pandemic is a combination that has never been tried before. Nobody would have predicted I and Dr Fauci would be so prominent in really evil theories. Theories like did we create the pandemic and are we trying to profit from it and they go on and on. I am very surprised by that, I hope it goes away. There are millions of messages out there where my name and Dr Fauci's name is used, but do people really believe that stuff? We are going to have to get educated over the next year and understand how does it change people's behaviour. How should we have minimised this, either working with the social media companies or explaining what we were up to in a better way."
He added:
"From a foundations point of view, the fact that Joe Biden took that decision of global vaccine money was super important. The fact that he joined the WHO and has appointed smart people is important."
This isn't the first time that Gates has spoken out against the conspiracy theories naming him as an active participant in malicious acts. Last year he spoke to Anderson Cooper of CNN in which he said:
"Our foundation has given more money to buy vaccines to save lives than any group, so you just turn that around, you say we're making money and we're trying to kill people with vaccines, by inventing something. We need to get the truth out there. I hope it'll die down as people get the facts. The numbers kind of blow my mind, and it's not just the fringe people [spreading conspiracy theories] that you would normally think of. It's a bad combination, a pandemic and social media, and people are looking for a very simple explanation - who's the bad guy here?"
The spread of conspiracy theories regarding the virus endangers both individuals who believe the conspiracy theories, such as one that states that the virus isn't real, and the public at large, as a result of individuals not taking proper precautions against infection.
h/t: Lad Bible
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