How Bill Gates became the voodoo doll of Covid conspiracies

How Bill Gates became the voodoo doll of Covid conspiracies

If anything kills over 10 million people over the next few decades, it is likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than war," Bill Gates told the TED conference in Vancouver in 2015.

The video of this talk has now been viewed more than 64 million times - with many people more interested in the reasons behind that speech than the talk itself.

"He is this kind of voodoo doll that all these communities are pricking with their own conspiracies. And it is unsurprising he has become the voodoo doll - because he has always been the face of public health," said Rory Smith, from fact-checkers First Draft News.

Theories falsely linking the Microsoft co-founder to the coronavirus were mentioned 1.2m times on television or social media between February and April, according to a study by The New York Times and Zignal Labs.

Much of the content is posted to public Facebook groups, from where it is shared millions of times. First Draft News has also found that Chinese viral video site TikTok is becoming a new home for such conspiracies.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Gates expressed surprise that he had become the figurehead of such theories.

"It is troubling that there is so much craziness," he said. "When we develop the vaccine we will want 80 percent of the population to take it and if they have heard it is a plot and we don't have people willing to take the vaccine that will let the disease continue to kill people."