No, a WEF official did not call for 'eliminating' conspiracy theorists | Fact check

Nate Trela, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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The claim: A WEF official said ‘dangerous conspiracy theorists must be eliminated’

A July 25 article in The People’s Voice included a headline declaring “Top WEF Official: ‘Dangerous Conspiracy Theorists Must Be Eliminated.’”

“A top World Economic Forum (WEF) official has called for so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ to be banned from accessing the internet due to their ‘dangerous’ belief that a global cabal of elites control the world,” the article began.

It's a reference to the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims among other things there is a satanic cabal of global elites taking part in an international child sex trafficking ring.

The article was shared more than 300 times on Facebook in five days according to CrowdTangle, a social media analytics tool.

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Our rating: False

There is no evidence, in the article or elsewhere, that Yuval Noah Harari made any such comments. The article also incorrectly identifies Harari as a World Economic Forum official, when he has no role with the organization. The People’s Voice routinely publishes baseless claims.

Article invents thoughts, position of professor

The article revolves around comments made on a podcast by Harari, a writer and lecturer in the history department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. However, it never quotes Harari saying that conspiracy theorists should be “eliminated.”

Instead, the body of the People's Voice article claims that Harari advocated for banning conspiracy theorists from the internet, combining quotes from a podcast interview by Harari with misleading phrases and fabricated context for the remarks.

Harari did discuss the threat posed by conspiracy theories on the July 17 episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast, but a review of the episode transcript shows he never suggested eliminating or banning people from using the internet. Instead, Harari stressed that AI should not be banned, but there should be guardrails on how it is deployed “into the public sphere.”

Harari said he believes certain uses of AI should be banned or changed to avoid rapidly distributing misinformation, particularly if done in a way that suggests a live person is actually pushing the information.

“There are so many things we can use AIs as teachers, as doctors and so forth, and it’s good as long as we know that we are interacting with an AI,” Harari says in part. “The same way we ban fake money, we should ban fake humans. It’s not just banning deep fakes of specific individuals. It’s also banning deep fakes of generic humans, which is already happening to some extent on social media. If you have lots of bots retweeting something, then you have the impression, 'Oh, lots of people are interested in that. That’s important,' and this is basically the bots pretending to be humans, because if you see a tweet, which says 500 people retweeted it, or you see a tweet and it says 500 bots retweeted it, I don’t care what the bots retweeted, but if it’s humans, okay, that’s interesting.”

Fact check: Article fabricates quotes from Alex Soros

The People's Voice also incorrectly calls Harari a "top official with the WEF," which is a non-governmental international organization that brings together policy leaders on politics, business and culture to shape global and industry agendas. Yann Zopf, a spokesperson for the WEF, confirmed to USA TODAY in June that Harari is neither an employee of nor an advisor to the organization.

Harari has a biography page on the WEF’s website, but Zopf said any attendee can have one. Harari’s personal website notes that he has spoken at WEF events but does not list any role with the organization.

The People's Voice, previously known as NewsPunch, has repeatedly published fabricated stories about the WEF, many of which USA TODAY has debunked.

USA TODAY reached out to The People’s Voice for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Lead Stories also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Professor's warning about deceptive AI misrepresented | Fact check