44% OF REPUBLICANS, 19% OF DEMOCRATS AND 24% OF INDEPENDENTS ARE IDIOTS

More than 40% of Republicans in a new poll say they think Bill Gates wants to use COVID-19 vaccines to implant location-tracking microchips in recipients

By Brittany Chang

Business Insider
May 23, 2020

Forty-four percent of Republican respondents in a new survey by Yahoo News and YouGov said they thought Bill Gates wanted to use COVID-19 vaccinations to implant location-tracking microchips into people, a baseless conspiracy theory that has gained traction among fringe groups and conservative pundits.

The survey also found that 26% of Republican respondents said they did not believe the false narrative, while 31% remained undecided on the topic. Half of the people surveyed who said Fox News was their main source of TV news also believed the idea.

The poll also found that 19% of Democratic respondents, 24% of independents, and 15% of people who said MSNBC was their main source of TV news also believed the myth.

For the survey, YouGov conducted a May 20-21 online interview of 1,640 US adults who were part of its opt-in panel. The results were weighted to try to make the sample nationally representative according to factors like age and race.

Specifically, the survey asked: "Here are some stories that you may have seen on the internet. Please tell us which of the stories you think are true or false: 'Bill Gates wants to use a mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 to implant microchips in people that would be used to track people with a digital ID.'" Half of respondents, chosen at random, were encouraged to answer that they were unsure if they didn't have enough information to decide.

An earlier Yahoo News and YouGov poll found that only 55% of Americans surveyed said they would get vaccinated "if and when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available." The rest were either unsure (26%) or said no (19%).

President Donald Trump has said he is "very confident" a coronavirus vaccine will be ready this year, while experts have predicted that the vaccine development could easily take 12 to 18 months.

A vaccine is widely considered to be the only way for life to return to a kind of normality following the coronavirus pandemic. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refers to vaccines more generally as "one of the best ways to put an end to the serious effects of certain diseases."

Gates has recently become an online target for right-wing conspiracy theorists

According to data by the media-analysis group Zignal Labs, more than 16,000 posts on Facebook related to Gates and coronavirus vaccine misinformation have been liked and commented almost 900,000 times, The New York Times reported in April.

However, Facebook isn't the only platform used to spread these conspiracies. On YouTube, the 10 most popular videos about Gates' purported microchipping vaccine have received over 5 million views, according to the same New York Times report.

On Twitter, images and tweets describing Gates as a "deep state puppet" who wants a vaccine to control the population are also being posted and circulated.

These social-media platforms have tried to take steps to curtail the anti-vaccination or coronavirus misinformation movement on its website. On May 11, Twitter announced that it would start labeling "misleading" coronavirus information. Last year, YouTube announced that it would demonetize videos on its platform that are pushing the anti-vaccine agenda.

YouTube and Facebook also recently took down the 26-minute "Plandemic" movie from its platforms. The debunked film featured the discredited scientist Judy Mikovits' claims that the US and vaccine companies created the coronavirus pandemic for profit.

However, the Gates conspiracy theorists don't just live online in the form of bots and fringe theorists on social media. Public figures like Roger Stone and Laura Ingraham have also been pushing this message.

Gates has been a longtime supporter of vaccinations, and, so far, Gates has donated $300 million to coronavirus vaccine efforts, according to Vox.