The second part of “Plandemic” — a documentary-style video that presents a sweeping conspiracy theory about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, patents and vaccines — landed on Aug. 18, spinning together many of the falsehoods about the disease that we’ve been debunking for months, plus some new misleading claims.
A Facebook post makes the baseless claim that Bill Gates’ mother was related to Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The post also shows an image of a young man who is misidentified as Gates.
A popular post on social media pages for conspiracy theorists claims that a mobile COVID-19 testing station bears a logo that depicts an ancient deity of death. It actually shows an aardvark, which is the name of the company that designs and manufactures the trucks.
A conspiracy theory on Facebook is falsely claiming that the killing of George Floyd was “filmed before covid19” because “[n]ot a single person is wearing a mask” in the videos. Some of the officers and officials in the videos can clearly be seen wearing masks.
A tweet that suggests a conspiratorial “pattern” — from the protests over George Floyd’s death, to the pandemic, to the presidential impeachment, to the 2016 election – is being falsely attributed to former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The tweet is actually from an unverified Twitter account that misspelled her name.
False claims that nearly everyone involved in George Floyd’s death — including Floyd — are “crisis actors” have spread widely online. But the pictures that supposedly prove this theory actually show unrelated people.
Some social media posts have responded to Floyd’s death by pushing misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Viral text posts are advancing the groundless claim that George Floyd’s arrest and death in Minneapolis were “staged” to incite “racial tensions.” But they offer no evidence to support that conspiracy theory.
Social media posts incorrectly claim that Minneapolis police license plates “dont say POLICE,” and that proves the death of George Floyd was a planned event. Actually, many police vehicles in Minneapolis have that license plate.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought without evidence to link MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to the death of one of his staffers in 2001, when he was a Republican congressman.