CLAIM: A factory “Bill Gates making lab-grown synthetic meat” fired in the Netherlands.
AP’S TESTIMONY: It’s a lie. Although an advertising center was destroyed by a Dutch online grocery store in a fire in the eastern Netherlands, it was not a factory that produced food, nor was it maintained by Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust introduced the e-grocer in 2021, but the trust is not a legal entity.
FACTS: When video went viral on the internet Monday of a fire surrounding a home run by e-grocery group Picnic, false allegations began to misrepresent the use of the house and his relationship with billionaire philanthropist Gates.
“The Bill Gates factory that makes lab-grown synthetic meat is finished in the Netherlands,” reads the caption on a video of the fire posted on Facebook and viewed before 12,000 times.
A similar scam was posted on Twitter, where a user posted a video of another corner of the fire, writing, “The Bill Gates factory makes synthetic meat. lab grows on fire. ” The post received more than 7,000 shares and nearly 20,000 likes on Tuesday.
But the two pillars misunderstood Gates ’connection to the company and misrepresented why the building was used.
The office that burned down on Sunday night was an advertising center run by Picnic, a Dutch online shopping service founded in 2015 that allows users to order from customers using the app. phone and give them.
It’s not a factory that makes food and isn’t used for any kind of activity, Martijn Koolhoven, a government official who reports on Picnic, told the Associated Press in an email. The blazing station was used to put orders on electric trucks for transport, he added, calling the new words “wrong.” He said there was no activity of any kind on the site “just leaving the meat.”
Picnic has raised in 2021 $ 600 million euros to expand its operations in Europe, according to news from the company. Most of that money came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, Koolhoven said, with the addition of the trust being one investor among “other stakeholders” who contributed money.
The trust, which invests and maintains funds, is independent of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a charity. Says confidence in her world wide web Its investment decisions shall be made by an outside authority.
“The endowment that provides funding to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be independently managed by a separate organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust,” according to an email from Cascade Investment, which manages the Foundation Trust. “The Foundation’s employees have no control over the Trust’s investment decisions, and have no knowledge of the Trust’s economic plans.”
And while the trust has gained a small stake in Picnic through its acquisition, “it is not a legitimate stakeholder,” Koolhoven explained. Neither Gates, nor the trust, owned and operated the Picnic.
Firefighters in Almelo responded to a “very large” fire at the information center late Sunday, according to a To say in Dutch from the local fire brigade. Officials said the fire completely destroyed the home, but no injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is not known, according to the agency.
False rumors about the fire came out in the middle of the continuation against by thousands of farmers in the Netherlands, showing against by the government designs to reduce the solvents produced by animals in their waste. During the demonstrations, some protesters banned store advertising centers, including separators made by Picnic, Koolhoven added.
Old, erroneous photos and video with a view to presenting such examples as have also been shown a rejected in recent days.
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This is part of AP’s efforts to address misleading information, working with outside agencies and organizations to integrate real information into the misleading information that is spread online. Learn more about realism at AP.
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