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Fact Check
Claim
Bill Gates cuts short interview after being cornered by interviewer over Covid vaccines & his work with computers
Fact
ABC News Australia interview was altered using AI
Several social media users, including verified Twitter handles, are circulating an interview of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates being “caught in a corner” with tough questions asked by the interviewer regarding Covid vaccines and his contributions to the computer industry. The viral 1:40 clip ends with Gates refusing to take any more questions and declaring the interview as over. We have received this claim on our Whatsapp tipline (+91 9999499044), requesting it to be fact-checked.
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here and here.
Newschecker analysed the viral video and noticed that the lip movements of the anchor and Gates are not completely in sync with the speech. We also noted that the lip movements were largely obscured by the subtitles, raising our doubts.
We then ran a reverse image search of keyframes of the video, which led us to a longer version of the interview with a Youtube video uploaded by ABC News Australia, dated January 31, 2023. The video’s description stated that Sarah Ferguson interviewed Bill Gates for her daily current affairs programme, titled 7.30. A news report of the interview can be seen here.
We saw that the 12:54 video ends with Ferguson thanking Gates for the interview and the tech billionaire nodding in response. Gates does not end the interview in anger, as seen in the viral video, indicating that it was altered.
While the viral interview seemed confrontational, the longer version of the video saw Gates replying to questions about artificial intelligence’s rise, climate change and green technology, his philanthropy, Covid conspiracy theories and Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter. International news outlets reported about the interview, focusing on Gates’s reply to Ferguson’s question on his association with Jeffrey Eipstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019. “You’re going way back in time. But I will say for the, you know, over the 100th time, yeah, I shouldn’t have had dinners with him,” Mr Gates said. None of the exchanges from the viral interview excerpt happened in the original video.
We further learnt that this video was first uploaded on TikTok by a user, bdti989, who posted it with a caption stating, “How dangerous AI can be”. He stated that the video is AI generated, confirming that the viral clip is a deep-fake video.
Bill Gates’s interview with an Australian news channel was edited to make it seem like he was deflecting uncomfortable questions regarding Covid vaccines and his work with computers.
Sources
Video analysis
ABC News Youtube video, January 31, 2023
ABC News report, January 31, 2023
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