Bill Gates mentioned 1.3 million times in coronavirus conspiracy theories that blame him for COVID 19

Conspiracy theories claim that Microsoft co-founder created the coronavirus to control world population

Since the coronavirus outbreak, Bill Gates has been seen at the forefront of the affairs not just speaking about COVID 19 but also putting his money to find a solution to stop the pandemic that till now has claimed 1,54,350 lives.

But the billionaire philanthropist also has become a prime target of Conspiracy theory mongers who blame him for the spread of the deadly Coronavirus.

According to research carried out by Zignal Labs, a media analytics company, the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been mentioned over 1.3 million times on television and social media from February till April.

The conspiracy theory linking Bill Gates to coronavirus was the most popular, closely followed by the UK 5G spreads coronavirus claims that have seen angry British locals attacking engineers and burning mobile towers.

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Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates holds up a Rotavirus vaccine during a news conference Reuters

The report published in The New York Times on April 17 pointed fingers as the anti-vaccinators, members of the conspiracy group QAnon and right-wing pundits, who are using a 2015 Ted Talk speech by Bill Gates, in which he had warned that in the future millions of lives will be lost due to an infectious virus. The greatest risk to humanity was not nuclear war, he had observed in his speech, which now once again has gone viral and had over 30 million views since the coronavirus outbreak.

The conspiracy theorists view, the viral Bill Gates speech as proof that the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had prior knowledge of the coronavirus pandemic.

There are also theories that claim that the billionaire philanthropist was the creator of the COVID 19 causing coronavirus and will use the COVID 19 vaccine to control the global population.

Bill Gates who has openly been critical of the response of the US government to the global pandemic as pledged $250 million to help the world develop an effective coronavirus vaccine.

With conservatives such as Laura Ingraham and anti-vaccinators such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr backing the coronavirus conspiracy theories, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become a fertile ground for the spread of all conspiracy theories that view Bill Gates as the chief villain behind the COVID 19.

What is even more shocking is the fact that there has been a focus misinformation effort directed against Bill Gates. The NYT investigations found that there have been 16,000 fake Facebook posts that have linked Bill Gates to COVID 19 and these posts have had 900,000 comments.

Similar NYT also found that the 10 most popular YouTube videos spreading misinformation directed against Bill Gates posted in March and April had more than five million views.