Bill Gates is the favorite target of various conspiracy theories circulating about the coronavirus according with data collected by the New York Times and Zignal Labs, a company which analyzes news sources.
Conspiracy theories linking Bill Gates to the virus were mentioned 1,2 million times on TV and social networks from February to April, 33% more times than the 2nd most popular conspiracy theory linking 5G by COVID-19, according to Zignal Labs, with 18,000 reports a day in April.
Conspiracy theories directed at the Microsoft co-founder are all over the place Internet: YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
The New York Times found 16.000 different Facebook posts with almost 900.000 likes and comments. The 10 most popular videos on Youtube with the conspiracy theories linking Bill Gates and the virus were viewed almost five million times in March and April.
The "news" being spread varies, but it revolves around the founder of Microsoft and that he created COVID 19 to take advantage of some vaccine future, or that Bill Gates is part of a conspiracy that wants to exterminate humanity and/or that he wants to implement a global surveillance system.
A speech by Bill Gates from 2015, warns that the greatest threat to humanity is infectious diseases, not nuclear war. This speech has received 25 million comments in recent weeks.
According to the New York Times, there are many who claim that the video is evidence of Gates' formidable plan to use a pandemic for personal gain.
Although Gates himself declined to comment on the above, Mark Suzman, executive director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told the NYT that he was "upset that there are people spreading all this when we should all be looking for ways towork and we save lives.”
