We’ve come across this video circulating on social media and chat groups this week.
In it, Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla is speaking at a World Economic Forum (WEF) dialogue session, outlining a dream and goal of Pfizer to “reduce the number of people in the world 50%.” In the video, his words are met with applause from the audience.
Responses to this video (which itself appears to be a repost from a TikTok clip) are filled with outrage and further speculations about broader conspiracies – for instance “the Global Masonic plan” or that Covid-19 is a disease manufactured to selectively wipe out specific groups.
At first glance, the video seems un-doctored – with Bourla’s voice and physical movements on film not appearing to have been generated by AI technology. However, a quick search on YouTube and the WEF website for the original dialogue transcript and full video reveals a much simpler form of doctoring.
The person who created the doctored video simply cut out five words – “that cannot afford our medicine” – consequently completely changing the meaning of the sentence without adding new words or digitally manipulating the video with deepfake technology. As seen in the transcript excerpt below, Bourla actually says that Pfizer’s goal is to reduce the number of people in the world who cannot afford their medicines by 50%. This form of doctored video is, in the context of current concerns over sophisticated deepfake videos, harder to spot amidst an ever-increasing range of different video manipulation techniques.
The video claiming to show the Pfizer CEO announcing his goal to “reduce the human population by 50%” is doctored and intentionally misleading to push or support a narrative about Pfizer and the WEF. We therefore give this claim a rating of false.
When looking into this video, we also noted that it has been reposted repeatedly by the same accounts. Equally often, other social media users and fact-checking platforms have debunked it and linked to the original, un-doctored videos. However, this has not prevented the video from resurfacing every few months, reaching new eyes each time – some of whom will not come across (or be receptive to) responses debunking it. Similarly, the original TikTok video posted in 2022 is still up despite incontrovertible proof that it is disinformation.
This claim is an example of two worrying trends in fake news – the repeated reposting of previously debunked disinformation, and the increasing difficulty when it comes to identifying doctored videos. As readers, it is important when encountering and processing online content to be keenly aware of these trends.
