Sunday, July 31, 2022

Fact Check: No, Bill Gates has not been arrested in Germany

 

This is going to be a bit of a short, different post, but I found the situation amusing. On Twitter this evening I saw a few people sharing this article claiming that Bill Gates has been arrested in Germany and is facing the death penalty. Given the fact that this news was not trending on Twitter despite that it would be the biggest story of the year by far, I was immediately skeptical. 

A simple google search brought me to the about us page of the outlet that broke the "story". Though it's not obvious at all from the regular website, the about us page clearly states that the Vancouver Times is a satire site. In short, the story did not happen and is not real in anyway, even though many of us wish it was true. 

Hilariously, a troll account tried to argue with me about it on Twitter. 


Given by some of the other tweets by this account, I am not sure if they are a troll, a false flag account, or an actual nutjob, but either way, I am not taking them seriously.

 

So why write this up? I generally dislike websites like this that don't admit that they are satire, and the folks that promote them. Not only do they mislead the extremely gullible, they allow the mainstream media to portray all non-mainstream news sources as obvious disinformation. The more people know about obvious fake outlets like the Vancouver Times, the better.  

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