Fact Check: Video of Bill Gates’s interview with ABC News going viral on social media is digitally altered
This viral video of Bill Gates and Sarah Ferguson is digitally altered using deep fake technology but Vishvas News cannot confirm which tool or software was used. In the original video uploaded on ABC News, Gates was questioned on climate change, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and the rise of Artificial Intelligence, etc. Hence, the claim made in the viral post is FAKE.
- By: Devika Mehta
- Published: Mar 13, 2023 at 02:40 PM
- Updated: Mar 27, 2023 at 12:16 PM
New Delhi (Vishvas News): Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates found himself embroiled in a drummed-up controversy after a viral post on social media claimed that he was grilled and cornered over COVID vaccines during an interview with ABC News ‘7.30’ host Sarah Ferguson. The renowned anchor presents a show on Australia’s daily current affairs. In the original video uploaded on ABC News, Gates was questioned on climate change, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and the rise of Artificial Intelligence, among other things.
After an investigation, Vishvas News found the claim to be fake. Microsoft authorities, in an email response, confirmed that the ‘audio used in the altered video is fake’.
Claim: Facebook user Subra Applanaidu shared an interview clip (archive link) of Microsoft’s co-founder with slugs claiming that Bill Gates was ‘caught in a corner’ with the interviewer’s questions regarding Covid vaccines and abruptly ended the interview at 1:41 seconds. The post reads: This lady cornered Bill gates. He refused to continue with the discussion.
Similar claims also went viral on Twitter and were also reshared by prominent Indian lawyer Prashant Bhushan. The same information was later deleted from his Twitter account (archive link).
The post also went viral on Instagram.
Investigation: Vishvas News first analysed the viral video.
After analysing the complete video, Vishvas News found differences in the lip-syncing of the interviewer (Sarah Ferguson) and interviewee (Bill Gates). Hence, we went ahead with WeVerify InVid Google reverse image search to identify the keyframes from the video and found the original video on Youtube.
The complete transcription of the video is given below.
“ABC News: So Mr Gates, in your own words, what have you contributed to the world?
Bill Gates: Um I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I created the world’s most popular computer operating system.
ABC News: No, of course, but as we all know, it wasn’t actually you who created it as a matter of fact, the predecessor of Windows, Emma’s [sic] DOS was created by Gary Kildahl, which you then basically stole from him for a couple of dollars.
Bill Gates: It’s not just development, there’s a whole lot of important factors to running an enormously successful company like Microsoft.
ABC News: So then let’s leave the computer world for a moment. You have been a major spokesperson for COVID vaccines during the pandemic yes [sic], what exactly makes you, a computer engineer who didn’t even programme his initial product himself, a valid representative of the pharmaceutical industry?
Bill Gates: I have read a lot of books about that topic, yes, how does that, wait, wait a second, and met with specialists from the field all over the world.
ABC News: Mister Gates, with all due respect, how do you feel about it now, now that it’s becoming more and more evident that the medication you were promoting whilst having heavily invested in it yourself, thus making billions of [sic] it, has caused countless injuries, side effects and death.
Bill Gates: That’s a very immature way of looking at it.
ABC News: Quite frankly, so here’s my final question to you, is this a behavioural pattern?
Bill Gates: What do you mean exactly?
ABC News: Taking technology from other people that you don’t understand, selling a product full of bugs, causing massive damage, and profiting from it in a spectacular way.
Bill Gates: No no no no no no, this is not how the world works.
ABC News: Can you sleep at night?
Bill Gates: Okay that’s enough. This interview is over. Thank you.”
We also found an ABC News (Australia) report but the questions in the viral video were not a part of it. The interview took place on January 31, 2023.
Many other foreign websites like this and this also covered the same news.
In most of the videos, Vishvas News could see a TikTok user account logo. The digitally altered video created from this interview was posted on TikTok by @bdti989 on March 7, 2023. When we tried approaching him, he responded, “It was downloaded from TikTok, but the description was in German. I think that version is still here, on TikTok.”:
The exact software used to make this deep fake is not known; however, it appears that a voice cloning application was used to create a lip-synced video.
Vishvas News also contacted Microsoft authorities through email to which their press room responded, “Reaching out on behalf of Bill Gates’s private office. Thank you for the note. We can confirm that the audio used in this altered video is fake.”
On performing a social scan of the user, who shared the viral claim, we found that he lives in Kuala Lumpur and has 211 Facebook followers.
Conclusion: This viral video of Bill Gates and Sarah Ferguson is digitally altered using deep fake technology but Vishvas News cannot confirm which tool or software was used. In the original video uploaded on ABC News, Gates was questioned on climate change, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and the rise of Artificial Intelligence, etc. Hence, the claim made in the viral post is FAKE.
- Claim Review : Bill Gates cornered by ABC News over COVID vaccine questions, gets irritated leave the interview
- Claimed By : Fb user: Subra Applanaidu
- Fact Check : False
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