Bill Gates Bombarded With Guff Vaccine Conspiracy Theories

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Photo credit: World Economic Forum / Valeriano Di Domenico, under Creative Commons license


In the middle of a coronavirus pandemic, where famed entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Gates has committed to fund seven factories for the development of potential coronavirus vaccines and has also committed additional funding to support potential therapeutics and treatments as well as healthcare facilities, Bill Gates as a person has been subject to guff 'conspiracy' theories asserting hidden and perverse intent as regards to his commitments to help battle the coronavirus pandemic as well as his previous works on vaccine-related causes. It isn't new to hear of bizarre conspiracy theories surrounding Gates' work with vaccines and disease eradication. He wants to de-populate the earth, some say. He's helping create a surveillance state, some espouse. He wants to implant microchips in people?!!. Such bizarre assertions could, however, be disproved with simple fact-checks. Many of such theories have originated from misconceptions, mis-attributions, and in some cases, outright lies. That hasn't stopped them from spreading, nevertheless, substantially via social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook where anyone is somewhat free to post anything. Take a few examples below;










Such kind of tweets have been going around internet circles, in some cases, even spread by prominent persons with large audiences (notice the third tweet with the blue checkmark, that's Greg Gutfeld, an American television producer affiliated with the Fox News Channel). In the middle of a pandemic that has affected global economies, many persons have taken to such assertions about Gates. But as already stated, simple fact-checks and bits of critical thinking would disprove many of such theories.

Now to be clear, Gates is no "saint" sent to save the world from a ravaging pandemic. He's empirically more of an individual doing what he can to help curtail a pandemic. Yes, Gates has dragged much controversy in the past, mainly when he still led Microsoft, the software company he famously founded, which was hit with mounting legal troubles surrounding allegations of unfair business practices on the cusp of the 1990s. Microsoft fought a long-running antitrust case from the United States Justice Department that at the end saw the company ruled as a monopoly. The U.S. government sought to break up Microsoft at that point but later resorted to a settlement with the company.

Nevertheless, equating someone who was dogged with allegations of unfair and anti-competitive business practices to someone looking to cause widespread damage to humans doesn't even add up. If you happen to come across such theories on any online platform, please do your best to fact-check. Snopes is a reliable source for that. Seek out information from reputable sources. Seek out unclear information from multiple sources. Do this and help curtail a coronavirus pandemic, thanks!





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