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| - Quick Take
A social media post claims that Bill Gates’ video discussing vaccines and population control is no longer accessible online. Our fact check says this claim is false.
The Claim
An Instagram post alleges that Bill Gates discusses using vaccines to control the global population. The post claims that this video was “utterly scrubbed from the internet,” including its original TED Talk source. The post urges viewers to save the video and implies that authorities removed it to suppress the truth.
Fact Check
Can people still access Bill Gates’ TED Talk video online?
Yes, the 2010 TED Talk by Bill Gates, in which he discusses population growth and vaccines, is still available. Both the TED website and YouTube host the video, which millions have viewed over the years. These claims about the video’s removal are incorrect. The talk remains public and easy to find, this counters any notion of suppression.
In the past, social media posts have also claimed that Bill Gates has invented a wireless birth control microchip. And, this is entirely false.
What did Bill Gates actually say in the 2010 TED Talk?
Social media posts and people have widely misunderstood and taken Gates’ statement out of context. In his talk, Gates discusses reducing carbon emissions and highlights the importance of slowing population growth to achieve net-zero emissions. His comment about reducing population growth by “10 to 15 percent” refers to improving global health and reducing child mortality rates. The talk does not specifically suggest reducing the existing population.
Improving healthcare through vaccines and medical services means more children survive, leading parents to have fewer children. Families tend to choose smaller families when confident that their children will reach adulthood, which helps slow population growth over time.
There have been claims like Bill Gates has inserted HIV into Mpox vaccines. This claim, too, is just another conspiracy theory.
How has Bill Gates’ message been misrepresented by anti-vaccine narratives?
The claim that Gates wants to harm people or forcibly reduce the population is misleading. The video shared on social media splices his words with footage from an anti-vaccine documentary called Died Suddenly. Anti-vaccine narratives distorted the original message to promote false claims.
In a 2022 interview, Gates addressed this misinterpretation, explaining that improved health systems and higher child survival rates naturally lead to lower birth rates. As mortality rates drop and families become more confident in their children’s survival, parents opt for smaller families, which slows population growth.
How did Gates’ perspective on health and population evolve?
Initially, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focused on family planning through contraception in poorer countries to manage high birth rates. They observed that as healthcare and vaccination programmes improved child survival rates, families naturally had fewer children. This shift led the foundation to prioritise health and vaccination initiatives as a means to improve living conditions, reduce child mortality, and stabilise population growth.
Gates has reiterated in a 2011 Forbes interview and a 2018 YouTube video that reducing child mortality through better healthcare results in smaller families and sustainable population growth. This approach focuses on enhancing well-being and economic development, which counters claims that it aims to harm populations.
Despite his significant contributions to global health initiatives, Bill Gates has been the target of various conspiracy theories. We’ve successfully debunked numerous false narratives about Bill Gates, including the baseless claim that he planned the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
THIP Media Take
The claim that Bill Gates’ video discussing vaccines and population control is no longer accessible online is false and misinterprets his message. The video remains accessible, and people have misrepresented his discussion to suggest a more sinister agenda. Gates’ focus was on improving healthcare to slow population growth naturally, not on harming people. This clarification should counter misinformation and present the real context behind his statements.
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