Claim: A viral Twitter screenshot making the rounds on social media claims that Bill Gates tweeted in solidarity with the slaughter of animals by Muslims during the Eid-el-Kabir celebrations.
Verdict: No, Bill Gates didn’t tweet on Eid-el Mubarak
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Just a few days before the Eid-El-Kabir festivity, a supposed tweet by the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, went viral where he allegedly stated that he was in support of killing animals for the Muslim festivities.
A screenshot of this tweet has been shared across various social media platforms, including WhatsApp status updates, as a validation of the belief.
The alleged tweet reads, “I don’t want to see any tweet hating on Muslims for slaughtering animals; about 1 million animals get killed each day by KFC, McDonald’s, Burger King, etc., to feed the rich & make hella money out of it. During Eid, Muslims sacrifice them to feed the poor for free & y’all lose ur mind (sic).”
Defence of animal rights in Nigeria
Recently in Nigeria, the fight for animal rights has been gaining momentum, especially on social media.
The fight also campaigns against the act of fighting with rams during the Muslim festivals, describing the whole idea and process as cruelty to animals. Those who oppose the idea describe it as ‘barbaric’ and tantamount to animal brutality.
Also, a petition filed on change.org has been signed by over 9,000 people. The petition, which started over a year ago, was initiated by a UK-based international animal rights activist, Natasha Choolun.
The petition, which was titled “Stop Nigeria’s Barbaric Dog Meat Industry,” seeks a ban and shutdown of the dog meat trade industry in Nigeria.
The petition alleges that the dog meat trade in Nigeria has become so prosperous so much so that dogs are “taken” from neighboring countries such as Niger and transported to Nigeria, to maintain the country’s growing demand for dog meat.
What is Eid-el Aldah/Mubarak?
It is the latter of the two official holidays celebrated within Islam (the other being Eid-al-Fitr or ‘Festival of the Breaking of the Fast’), says Wikipedia.
It honours the willingness of Prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to Allah’s command. Before Ibrahim would sacrifice his son, however, Állah provided a lamb for him to sacrifice instead.
In commemoration of this intervention, animals are sacrificed ritually. One third of their meat is consumed by the family offering the sacrifice, while the rest is distributed to the poor and needy.
Sweets and gifts are given, and people visit and welcome extended family members during the festival. The day is also sometimes called Big Eid or the Greater Eid.
In the Islamic lunar calendar, Eid al-Adha falls on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah and lasts for four days.
There are two Eid celebrations every year – Eid-al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan and Eid-al-Adha, which celebrates Ibrahim’s sacrifice.
Simply, Eid-al-Adha is considered the holier of the two religious holidays and so it is referred to as ‘Big Eid,’ while Eid-al-Fitr is known as ‘Lesser Eid’.
Eid-al-Kabir means ‘Greater Eid’ and is used in Yemen, Syria, and North Africa, while other translations of ‘Big Eid’ are used in Pashto, Kashmiri, Urdu and Hindi.
Verification
Dubawa’s first point of action was to trace the acclaimed tweet on Bill Gates’ Twitter timeline.
Our search was limited to the week of the Eid celebrations since the debate regarding the acclaimed screenshot started gaining traction on social media around that time.
However, after a thorough search on Bill Gates Twitter timeline was carried out, the alleged Tweet was neither found on his page nor was there a stamp of deleted tweet.
Another noticeable red flag is that Bill Gates rarely tweets on religious issues. The contents of his tweets are largely on climate change, environment, health, philanthropy and other major issues affecting humanity.
As a result of this reality, we carried out an analysis of the alleged tweets to trace its actual source and results show that it was fake, forged using an online tool called ‘TweetGen.’
The Tweet generator is a web-based application that allows online users to create fake tweets. The application can be used to create a tweet template of choice, with a date of choice and all other things that a real tweet embodies.
The tool gives an exact copy of an original Tweet, making it hard for one to trace the difference
We also conducted image forensics of the fake tweet to compare it with a real one taken from the ‘Twitter Public Policy’ page and an error level analysis on the two images, checking the authenticity of opacity (0.95), error scale (94), JPEG Quality (94) on the same scale.
Image 1: Results from forensics conducted on the original image. The outcome is a glittering ray of colors emerging from the text.
Image 2: forensic results from the fake tweet. Aside from the three glittering parts where the image of Bill Gates is placed, the main text is entirely black and white. The entire image is also shadowy as compared to image 1
An examination of Bill Gates’ tweets
Also, a careful grammatical and syntax comparison of the acclaimed tweet with numerous of other tweets made by Bill Gates on his Twitter timeline shows that he does not tweet in abbreviations or slang English and he is also efficient with various spelling and punctuation rules which are all found on the acclaimed tweet attributed to him.
A typical tweet from Bill Gates
Advanced searches
A content search of the acclaimed tweet also revealed that it was not the first time it went viral. In August 2019, the tweet had gone viral, arousing diverse reactions on the internet.
A post tweeted back in 2019 attaching the exact screenshot under scrutiny
Another check on Bill Gates’ Twitter handle showed that he never tweeted that.
Also, a keyword search on Twitter revealed that a lot of people had tweeted the post originally and for those who retweeted the post none of the searches included Bill Gates’ as part of the originators of the controversial tweet.
Conclusion
The tweet did not come from Bill Gates; rather it was photoshopped for the sole purpose of misinforming the public. It is false, Bill Gates never tweeted such.
EDITOR’s NOTE:
The tweet image captioned ‘An example of tweet created by DUBAWA on the tool’ is not real. It was only created for the purpose of illustration and clarity.
The researcher produced this fact-check per the Dubawa 2021 Kwame KariKari Fellowship partnership with The PUNCH to facilitate the ethos of “truth” in journalism and enhance media literacy in the country.
