Did Bill Gates Vow To Eradicate Memes From The Internet?!

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Did Bill Gates just vow to eradicate memes from the Internet?! Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!

 

Claim : Bill Gates Vows To Eradicate Memes From The Internet!

People are sharing an article (archive) by The People’s Voice (formerly NewsPunch), which claimed or suggested that Bill Gates just vowed to eradicate memes from the Internet!

Bill Gates Vows To Eradicate Memes From the Internet Forever

Bill Gates has hatched a new plan that will result in the complete elimination of memes from the Internet forever.

The Gates-funded GAVI Vaccine Alliance has announced that it wants to reframe memes as “health disinformation super-spreaders.”

In previous eras and authoritarian states, that would get the books with imagery and words characteristic of memes banned or burned.

So what could be the solution in the current era? And what does the big picture amount to?

Well, it’s just Bill Gates going after a free and open internet again, only by other means – cynics might say.

But here’s what a blog post on GAVI’s site says: “Our research shows that memes form part of a highly sophisticated strategy to spread and monetize health disinformation.”

When the “research” is done – (including assertions such as that memes falsely “depicted unvaccinated people as unfairly stigmatized” – well tell that to tennis superstar Novak Djokovic who almost got his career ruined by actual unfair stigmatization) – come the conclusions:

“Influencers promoting vaccine hesitancy use memes to build their online following, sow distrust of health authorities and profit from the promotion of unapproved medicines. This enables them to evade responsibility for any negative consequences of their messaging.”

There’s a “call to action” too, basically – to formally criminalize memes.

Says GAVI: “Memes may not look threatening – but that’s why they are such effective super spreaders of health disinformation.”

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Truth : Bill Gates Did Not Vow To Eradicate Memes From The Internet!

This is yet another example of fake news created / promoted by The People’s Voice, and here are the reasons why…

Fact #1 : Bill Gates Is Not Eradicating Memes From The Internet

Let me start by pointing out that Bill Gates never vowed to eradicate memes from the Internet. Neither did he plan to eradicate memes from the Internet.

In fact, the entire premise is so silly, I cannot believe I have to actually point out that it is impossible to eradicate memes from the Internet. It sounds like it was written by people who are not tech-savvy. It would be far more believable if they claim that Bill Gates wants to eradicate fairies!

The People’s Voice article, unsurprisingly, offered no evidence to back up its “fact checked” claim that Bill Gates vowed, or has actually hatched a plan, to eradicate memes from the Internet.

Fact #2 : GAVI Did Not Write That Article

The source of this nonsensical claim is a new article called “How memes became health disinformation super-spreaders“, which was attributed to GAVI. However, that’s not true.

The article was written by Stephanie Alice Baker, and Michael James Walsh, who published it on The Conversation. It was simply republished by GAVI, under a Creative Commons licence.

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Fact #3 : Article Details How Antivaxxers Use Memes

The article details how anti-vaccine memes started centuries ago, and how some anti-vaccine influencers use men drops to profit financially! You should definitely read it. It’s a very interesting, and educational article, and I salute the authors!

But more importantly for this fact check, the article never once called for memes to be eliminated, or made criminal. This completely contradicts what was written in The People’s Voice article.

Fact #4 : Bill Gates Does Not Own / Run GAVI

Bill Gates does not own or run GAVI. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was just one of its founding partners. GAVI has many stakeholders, including the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, donor countries, and civil society organisations.

Its policies are therefore dictated not by a single person, but a GAVI board that is currently chaired by José Manuel Barros with 28 members, comprising of :

  • 9 independent individuals
  • 5 representatives from donor countries
  • 5 representatives from implementing countries
  • 2 representatives from GAVI – CEO, research and technical health institutes
  • 2 representatives from the vaccine industry
  • 1 representative from civil society organisations
  • 1 representative from WHO
  • 1 representative from UNICEF
  • 1 representative from World Bank
  • 1 representative from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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Fact #5 : The People’s Voice Is Known For Fake News

The People’s Voice is the current name for NewsPunch, which possibly changed its name because its brand has been so thoroughly discredited after posting numerous shocking but fake stories.

Founded as Your News Wire in 2014, it was rebranded as NewsPunch in November 2018, before becoming The People’s Voice. A 2017 BuzzFeed report identified NewsPunch as the second-largest source of popular fake news on Facebook that year.

Its articles have been regularly debunked as fake news, so you should never share anything from NewsPunch / The People’s Voice.  Here are some of its fake stories that I fact checked earlier:

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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