A claim went viral on social media that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi predicted the outbreak of COVID-19 back in 2009. Muammar Gaddafi was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist, he died in 2011.
(Screenshots from Facebook post)
Debunked Source
Fact Check
In order to verify the claim, we searched for keyword “Muammar Gaddafi UN speech 2009” on Google search engine and found a transcript of Muammar Gaddafi speech at the 64th United Nation General Assembly held on 23rd September 2009.
(Screenshots from Africa News website)
We also found a full speech of Colonel Gaddafi searching for the claim that COVID-19 was found to be invalid Gaddafi at that time was talking about H1N1 influenza calling it a biological warfare.
(Screenshot from YouTube post)
Source
Rating
Misinformation
Conclusion
Our fact-check confirmed that Colonel Gaddafi did not predict the outbreak of COVID-19 13 years ago. In his speech, he talked about H1N1 influenza calling it a biological warfare.
ABCDE Framework-Based Analysis
| Actor | Independent social media accounts on Facebook are involved in spreading misinformation. |
| Behavior | The false news of Gaddafi predicting COVID-19 was circulated. |
| Content | Social Media posts. |
| Degree | The content is being spread to misinform people; the target audience of the news is the general public of Sri Lanka. Misinformation was spread on Facebook mainly. |
| Effect | The fake news misled the public. |