A video interview of Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and the fourth richest person in the world, is doing rounds on social media. In the viral video, the journalist grills the billionaire philanthropist with tough questions and accuses him of stealing Microsoft for a couple of dollars and promoting COVID-19 vaccines to make billions.
In the video, the journalist asks Gates, “Is this a behavioural pattern? Taking technology from other people that you don’t understand, selling a product full of bugs, causing massive damage and profiting from it in a spectacular way.” Towards the end of the 1:41-second-long video, the billionaire appears frustrated and ends the interview abruptly, saying, “Okay, that’s enough, this interview is over, Thank you!”
Prashant Bhushan, the public interest lawyer and activist, shared the video on Twitter on March 9 with the caption, “Watch: Bill Gates talking about how he was uniquely qualified to promote the untested & dangerous Covid Vaccines! Would be funny if the man had not done so much damage to the world. But he is still feted in India. Indian Express recently invited him to deliver the Goenka lecture”.
Another Twitter user shared the video with the caption, “Bill Gates at a loss of words! What’s the truth”.
Claim:
In an interview, Bill Gates was cornered by tough questions on Microsoft and COVID-19 vaccines.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian Fact-Check team verified the claim and found that the video was created using DeepFake technology to make the misleading claim.
In the viral video, we noticed a logo at the top right corner that read ‘730’. Taking a clue from here, we conducted a keyword search on the internet which led us to the original interview of Bill Gates, published on January 31, 2023, on a verified YouTube channel named ABC News (Australia).
The video is titled “Bill Gates complained to tech companies about ‘laughable’ COVID-19 conspiracy theories”. Further, 730 is a premier daily current affairs program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, presented by journalist Sarah Ferguson. Also, Gates and Ferguson can be seen wearing the same outfit with a strikingly similar background set-up as in the viral video.
We watched the complete YouTube video of the interview, which is 12:54 seconds long and discovered that the viral clip is not a part of it. Sarah Ferguson did not ask Bill Gates those questions in the interview, as seen in the viral video. Instead, they discussed a range of other topics, including the looming threat of climate change, the origin of COVID-19 and related conspiracy theories, Elon Musk purchasing Twitter, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its revolution, his association with Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier and Gates’ philanthropic endeavours.
In the interview, Ferguson asked Gates about conspiracy theories spread against him during the pandemic that he was using vaccines and their rollout to control people. She asked him that many of these narratives were peddled by tech companies and platforms owned by them, so did he ever complain to them about those debates going unchecked?
Gates addressed the question and mentioned that he had complained to the tech companies like Google, Meta, and Twitter, whose platforms were being utilised to spread misinformation about him. He said, “I think every time the question is asked, it helps spread the rumour, so maybe I should complain even more. But I certainly point out false stories when they are published or even people who highlight sort of almost silly information.”
Further, journalist Ferguson compiled her interview with Gates in the form of an article co-authored with Myles Wearing and published on ABC News (Australia)’s website, which also did not mention any questions in the interview as shown in the viral video.
We continued our investigation to look for the origin of the viral video and found a reply from a Twitter user on one of the tweets sharing the viral video. The user noted that it was created using DeepFake technology and stated, “The viral video was created by a TikTok creator called bdti989, who posted it with the caption: How dangerous AI can be bdti989 also stated several times that he edited the ABC News interview using artificial intelligence. It is basically a deep fake video.”
The viral video was initially posted by a TikTok account named ‘bdti989’ on March 8, 2023, which was later deleted. Further, this account had previously posted several deep fake videos of Popular figures like Russian president Vladimir Putin, US president Joe Biden, etc.
Deepfake technology is a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses machine learning algorithms to create highly realistic manipulated media, such as videos or images. It works by training a deep neural network on large amounts of data, such as photos or videos of a person, to create a digital model of their face or voice. Once the model is trained, it can be used to manipulate images or videos by swapping faces, altering expressions, or creating entirely new footage that appears to be authentic. The result is a highly convincing fake that can be difficult to detect with the naked eye.
Thus, we can conclude that the interview video of Bill Gates was created using technology to make a misleading claim. Gates was not cornered by tough questions on Microsoft and COVID-19 vaccines, and he did not end the interview abruptly due to frustration.
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Fact Check
2023-03-12 07:58:15.0
Interview Video Of Bill Gates Being Accused Of Promoting COVID Vaccines For Profiting Is Fake, Know More
