On March 9, controversial aandolanjivi and professional PIL advocate Prashant Bhushan published a video [Archive link] on his Twitter account claiming Bill Gates admitted to promoting untested and dangerous Covid vaccines. He wrote, “Bill Gates talking about how he was uniquely qualified to promote the untested & dangerous Covid Vaccines! It would be funny if the man did not do so much damage to the world. But he is still feted in India. Indian Express recently invited him to deliver the Goenka lecture.”
Watch: Bill Gates talking about how he was uniquely qualified to promote the untested & dangerous Covid Vaccines!
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) March 9, 2023
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 pic.twitter.com/PV6YlBkwc9
By the time we published this report, his Tweet was seen over 104,000 times, and the video was played over 32,000 times. Bhushan was not the only person to share the video. We found that many other Twitter users also shared the same video.
The clip showed the interviewer asking Bill Gates about his contribution to the world. When Gates said he made the most popular computer operating system, the interviewer said he did not create it but stole it from Gary Kildall for a couple of dollars. She then asked by what authority he spoke extensively about Covid vaccines.
When Bill Gates said he read about it and talked to professionals, she said it was becoming more evident that the medication he was promoting and made billions from, caused countless injuries, deaths, and side effects. She accused him of taking tech from other people, selling products full of bugs, causing damage, and profiting from it in a “spectacular way”. When she asked Gates if he could sleep at night, he left the interview abruptly.
The clip made it look like Gates was uncomfortable with the questions and left the interview. However, upon research, we found that the video was originally posted on TikTok by a user, bdti989. Though the video has been deleted [Archive Link], its title read, “How dangerous AI can be”. The video is an AI-generated video, and all the content was superimposed on the original interview.
Prashant Bhushan and his love for fake news
This is not the first time that the senior lawyer has shared fake or misleading news via his Twitter handle. Back in 2021, Bhushan claimed that the Covid-19 virus is dying a natural death. He advocated that financial resources allocated towards Covid-19 vaccines in Union Budget 2021 ought to be relocated to migrant workers and farmers because Covid-19 was “naturally dying down” in the country.
In October 2022, Bhushan was at it again, he shared a video from his Twitter handle claiming that BJP used Hindus dressed as Muslims to win elections. He shared a video as proof of this claim, saying that a BJP MLA confessed to doing the same. The “BJP MLA” turned out to be Aam Aadmi Party leader Yatin Oza.
Bill Gates interview with ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Sarah Ferguson conducted the interview with Gates. It was aired on January 31, 2023 (local time) during her current affairs show on 7/30. During the interview, Sarah asked about Covid-19 conspiracy theories, Elon Musk buying Twitter, AI, climate change, renewable energy, Gates association with Jeffery Epstein and his pledge to donate almost all his wealth.
In the interview, no question that has been represented in the viral video clip was asked.
Verdict: The video shared by Prashant Bhushan is fake.
