MARY ALEXANDER • 14 JULY 2024

“Bill Gates has decided that the slave class needs to drink maggot milk,” reads one version of a claim going viral in South Africa, Kenya and across the world since late June 2024.*

“He’s launched ‘EntoMilk’ a food-like product. It’s described as a ‘dairy alternative’ that’s supposedly similar to real milk, but is made from ‘black soldier fly larvae’ or maggots. His goal is to introduce this product into the food supply…”

The claim links to a blog post with a stock photo of a mass of maggots crawling through a human skull. It’s headlined: “Bill Gates Has Launched ‘Maggot Milk’.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been a common target of conspiracy theories for years.

Another version of the claim reads:

You will drink the bugs and be happy! Wait, what? That’s right! Bill Gates’ latest evil venture is called EntoMilk. He wants to replace milk from animals (cow milk, goat milk) with maggot milk.

The claim has been posted with comments such as:

• This is an actual thing and he’s evil. look up Entomilk…
• What has the evil world of darkness been up to lately? Here is just one other hair raising demonic ploy of the elites.
• Zillionaire Bill Gates is at it again. He has already got the ball rolling on eliminating and replacing all meat products and now he is going after milk and dairy.
• Part of the new “Transhumanist” diet. I feel so bad for our Grandchildren and leaving this sick world behind to them.

Several instances include an AI-generated cartoon of a crazed-looking Gates holding a jar containing a malformed fly in one hand and a cup of what is presumably EntoMilk in the other.

It’s been posted on the known disinformation site Natural News, on the equally dodgy sites YourNews and SlayNews, and on YouTube.

But has Gates recently launched a “maggot milk” known as EntoMilk?

‘That’s your headline’

The claim began in a 20 June broadcast of the Alex Jones Show on InfoWars, titled “DISGUSTING: Bill Gates Wants You To Eat Maggot Milk.”

Alex Jones is a notorious conspiracist who founded InfoWars in 1999. US courts have ordered him to pay $1.5 billion to the parents of 20 six- and seven-year-old children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting for repeatedly saying the massacre was a hoax. The cases were the subject of a recent documentary, The Truth vs Alex Jones.

Jones’s broadcast uses a promotional video for EntoMilk, titled “Bug Milk”, which shows how it is made from black soldier fly larvae. Two people are seen drinking the milk while the voiceover describes its “creamy mouth-feel”.

The video ends with people being offered EntoMilk ice-cream to taste. Some look dubious.

The video stresses that insects may be “vital to the future of food” because they need little land for cultivation and aren’t as damaging to the environment as livestock such as cattle.

But Jones says: “Oh, it’s rich and creamy? And they are feeding the black people the maggots.” It’s clear he’s watching the video for the first time.

“Bill Gates is involved in these companies,” he suddenly adds, without evidence. “Bill Gates wants you to drink maggot milk.” Jones then gestures to someone off-screen, and says: “That’s your headline.”

Six-year-old advert for defunct product

The original video is almost six years old, first posted on YouTube in September 2018.

EntoMilk was a dairy-free milk alternative developed by South African food scientists and launched by their Cape Town-based startup Gourmet Grubb in 2017.

It was made from the larvae of farmed flies, so the “maggot milk” description, if dramatic, is almost true. The product was only sold as an ice cream and never in its liquid form, according to a July 2023 article.

But Entomilk has been off the market for years, and Gourmet Grubb is listed as out of business.

The Gourmet Grubb website no longer exists. The company’s Instagram page hasn’t been updated since 2020, and its description (note the past tense) reads: “Yes! we made insect ice cream from EntoMilk which is Dairy Free and insanely SUSTAINABLE! 2020 – we are going to level up – watch this space.”

Gates wasn’t “involved in” Gourmet Grubb. He’s not mentioned in any of the company’s online profiles. And if the billionaire had invested in a South African startup, it would have made many local headlines. But there’s no credible news of Gates’s involvement.

Bill Gates has not launched a “maggot milk” called EntoMilk. The claim is false, made up on the spot during the Alex Jones Show.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 22 July 2024

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MARY ALEXANDER • 12 MARCH 2024

The US Navy executed Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official and former head of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), at Guantanamo Bay on 3 February 2024.

This absurdly false claim has been circulating online in South Africa and elsewhere since 10 February.*

Ihekweazu, an epidemiologist, heads the health emergency intelligence and surveillance systems division at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.

During his time at the NCDC he led Nigeria’s response to the Covid pandemic. His book about the experience, An Imperfect Storm, is due to be published later in 2024.

The claim that he was executed at Guantanamo Bay comes from a story headlined “JAG hangs WHO despot”, published on the disinformation website Real Raw News on 10 February.

It can also be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Guantanamo Bay, known as Gitmo, is a US Navy base and detention centre on the coast of Cuba in the Caribbean. JAG or the Judge Advocate General’s Corps is the legal arm of the US Navy.

The story says “Gitmo sources” told Real Raw News that JAG hanged Ihekweazu on 3 February after he had “surreptitiously entered the United States to discuss enacting fresh shelter-in-place and vaccine mandates with the CDC’s nefarious Rapid Response Team”.

The US Centers for Disease Control’s Global Rapid Response Team tackles public health emergencies such as cholera, Covid, dengue, Ebola, famine and natural disasters across the world.

The Real Raw News story reads like bad fiction. Here’s one bit:

Atop the platform, the hangman slipped the noose around Ihekweazu’s neck and checked the tautness. Satisfied, he stepped backward, his hand hovering an inch from the button that, when pushed, would end Ihekweazu’s life.

But none of this happened.

Ihekweazu joins other public figures not hanged at Gitmo

Guantanamo Bay has a decades-long reputation for illegal detention, torture and other human rights abuses.

If the US Navy had executed a top WHO official there it would have made headlines across the world. It hasn’t.

And Ihekweazu has been publicly active long after his supposed death on 3 February. He has, for example, posted dozens of times on his official X/Twitter account @Chikwe_I, including photos of himself at public events – here, here and here.

On 13 February he delivered the opening remarks at the launch of the first global peer review of the WHO’s Universal Health and Preparedness Review.

And in early March he wrote an obituary for Nigeria’s former Access Bank CEO Herbert Wigwe, who died in a helicopter crash in the US on 9 February. It was published by This Day and Nigeria Health Watch.

The claim is false.

It’s not the first time Real Raw News has made up a story about a public figure being hanged at Guantanamo Bay.

Other headlines on the site include “Eric Holder Hanged at GITMO”, “Dick Cheney Hanged at GITMO”, “Dr. Francis Collins Hanged at GITMO”, “John Brennan Hanged at GITMO” and “Bill Gates Hanged at GITMO Ahead of Schedule”.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 14 March 2024

The post No, WHO epidemic expert and former Nigeria CDC head Ihekweazu not hanged at Guantanamo Bay appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 21 FEBRUARY 2024

“Microsoft to disable computers of users who share ‘non-mainstream content’ online,” reads the headline of an article circulating on social media in Nigeria, South Africa, Somalia and elsewhere since early February 2024.*

The article was published on 3 February by The People’s Voice. The website, previously known as News Punch, is widely known to spread false information. The piece was then republished on Planet Today, another disinformation site.

It includes a photo of Bill Gates, a co-founder of the tech company Microsoft. Gates, a frequent target of conspiracy theories, stepped down from the Microsoft board in 2020.

Satya Nadella has been Microsoft’s chief executive since 2014.

The People’s Voice bases its entire claim – also seen here, here and here – on a four-minute interview with Nadella by Lester Holt, a journalist for US broadcaster NBC News.

The interview was uploaded on YouTube on 31 January with the title “Exclusive: Microsoft CEO Nadella on the promise and problems of A.I.”

Does Nadella reveal in the interview that Microsoft plans to disable computers used to post “non-mainstream content” online? And what exactly is “non-mainstream content”?

No mention of disabling computers

At no point in the interview does Nadella say his company would disable computers.

Instead, he discusses artificial intelligence and the challenge of disinformation in the run-up to the 2024 US elections, set for November.

The claim is simply false.

The People’s Voice article doesn’t say what it means by “non-mainstream content”. But it dismisses the idea of false information with phrases like “so-called ‘misinformation’” and “what [Nadella] identified as disinformation”.

It’s clear that “non-mainstream content” is just a clunky euphemism for what’s more widely known as fake news.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 27 February 2024

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