Social media users have shared a photo that claims to show a “Center for Global Human Population Reduction” affiliated with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Posts sharing the altered photo on Facebook and Twitter, seek to disparage the tech billionaire., “Please could you explain what is this,” a tweet that includes the photo said, in response to a video posted on May 1, 2020 on Bill Gates’s Twitter account about the progress made to find a vaccine to tackle COVID-19 infections that have swept the globe since first emerging in Wuhan, China in late 2019., “In case you ever doubted what outcome Bill #Gates planned/plans with his artificial forms of #eugenics…,” a Facebook user wrote in a post shared more than 600 times., Eugenics -- the study of human population control and manipulation of genetic characteristics -- is commonly cited by the anti-vaccine movement as the goal of those who favor vaccination., A reverse image search shows that signage at the Discovery Center, located at 500 5th Avenue N, in Seattle, Washington, has no writing other than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation name., The center hosts exhibits about the foundation’s mission, and how science and technology can fight inequalities, poverty and diseases. The purported “Center For Global Human Population Reduction” has been falsely added., A look at the building through different angles on Google Street View confirmed that the location displayed above matches that of the photo shared on social media., Multiple conspiracy theories concerning Bill Gates and the novel coronavirus have emerged since the beginning of the pandemic. Posts about a letter said to have been written by the billionaire were debunked by AFP fact checkers in Hong Kong, and warnings about a “Bill Gates vaccine,” were proven by AFP Ethiopia to be false, given there is no such treatment., , , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
Doctored photo is latest attack on Bill Gates amid COVID-19 vaccine push | AFP Fact Check