Context
A photograph shows a genuine headline from an Irish tabloid known for its conspiratorial and misleading content. While this tabloid no longer appears to be in print, archived versions of these pages are still online.
Origin
In June 2011, an Irish tabloid known for publishing conspiratorial content called “The Sovereign Independent” published an article about Bill Gates that carried the misleading headline “Depopulation Through Forced Vaccination: The Zero Carbon Solution!”
An image of this newspaper article resurfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 along with a variety of false claims. Social media users claimed, for example, that this newspaper was proof that the pandemic had been “planned.” Others claimed that this article had been “scrubbed” from the internet — a false claim to make this article appear extra nefarious — and that the pandemic was somehow connected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.