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Draft:Great Reset conspiracy theory

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A booth mounted on a car trailer, with various signs containing beliefs about a Great Reset, including one that says (translated from German): "The same puppets who think nuclear war is justifiable, on the other hand, tell you a flu virus with 0.05 percent mortality will kill us all."
Placards protesting about COVID-19 responses and the "Great Reset", in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2022. One of the placard says (translated from German): "The same puppets who think nuclear war is justifiable, on the other hand, tell you a flu virus with 0.05 percent mortality will kill us all."

The Great Reset conspiracy theory is a conspiracy theory based on and named after the Great Reset economic initiative. The conspiracy theory varies widely, but some core beliefs include that the World Economic Forum, its leader Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, George Soros, and other powerful organizations and people have either hijacked the COVID-19 pandemic or even deliberately engineered it for their own nefarious purposes, including seizing control of the world politically and economically. The conspiracy also suggests COVID-19 vaccines are being used in aid of these purposes.[1] The conspiracy states that lockdown restrictions were deliberately designed to induce economic meltdown,[2] or that the global elite was attempting to abolish private property while using COVID-19 to enslave humanity with vaccines.[3][4]

Background

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In 2019, WEF partnered with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct a simulated global pandemic called "Event 201" where world leaders discussed what actions would be taken if such a situation were to occur. This event is often referenced in the conspiracy, being used as "proof" that the global elite had engineered the pandemic or otherwise knew it was coming and did nothing to stop it.[5][6]

By mid 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic had begun to cause a global recession. In May 2020, the WEF posted an article on their website stating that the pandemic and recession gave individuals and organizations a chance to "reset and reshape the world in a more sustainable way."[7] In June 2020, the WEF officially launched the "Great Reset", with an article by WEF founder Klaus Schwab explaining that the pandemic presented a need for a "great reset" of capitalism, proposing revamping societal and economic structures globally, involving all countries and industries, to address inequalities, environmental issues, and promote sustainability, to aid recovery from the pandemic.[8]

Spread

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Many promoters of the theory commonly cite Ida Auken's article on a potential 2030, as well as a 2016 WEF video in which the article was presented alongside other predictions for 2030 and summarized as "You'll own nothing. And you'll be happy. Whatever you want you'll rent and it'll be delivered by drone", as evidence of the Great Reset having malicious intent.[9]

An October 2020 article by Snopes[10] traced the origins of a chain email posted on conspiracy forums from a member of a non-existent committee within the Liberal Party of Canada that leaked Canada's secret "COVID Global Reset Plan" to the QAnon-dedicated "Q Research" board on 8chan.[11]

A November 2020 article in The Daily Beast said that even before Biden became president, his "incoming White House already ha[d] its first conspiracy theory to deal with"—the Great Reset conspiracy theory.[12] Mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times,[13] the BBC,[14] and The Guardian traced the spread of the latest conspiracy theory on the Great Reset, which had integrated anti-lockdown conspiracies, to internet personalities and groups, including Candace Owens, Glenn Beck, Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson,[15][16][14][17] and Paul Joseph Watson,[18] the UK-based editor of Alex Jones' website Infowars, where he advanced the New World Order conspiracy theory.[19] Ben Sixsmith wrote that the conspiracy theory had been spread by "fringes of Right-Wing Twitter", as well as by Australia's One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson (a "socialist left Marxist view of the world") and UK conservative writer James Delingpole (a "global communist takeover plan"). However, Sixsmith observed the WEF's partners include such capitalist enterprises as Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, IKEA, Lockheed Martin, Ericsson and Deloitte.[20]

By 17 November 2020, a short video of Trudeau's speech in which he described key points of the concept of an economic "reset" had gone viral,[21] as it reignited fervor over the Great Reset conspiracy theory that had taken on a new life with the launching of the forum in May.[22] By November 2020, Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada lamented on his webpage on 17 November that he was the only Canadian politician along with Pierre Poilievre and Colin Carrie, an MP,[23] speaking up against the globalist threat with Trudeau as the "world's most prominent defender" of this Great Reset. Other critics included Canadian conservative political commentators such as Ezra Levant and Alberta's Premier at that time Jason Kenney.[24][25][15] They claimed that Trudeau's rhetoric resembled that of the Great Reset conspiracy. Conservative Spencer Fernando stated that, "We want our lives to get back to normal... Instead they offer only more fear, more control, more centralization, and a reshaping of our lives and our economy without even asking us."[26] When Poilievre circulated a petition to "Stop the Reset", Le Devoir headlined an article saying that the Conservative Party was embracing conspiracy theories.[26][22] The Toronto Star editorial board criticized Poilievre for "giving oxygen" to the conspiracy theory,[27] with some suggesting his post was related to a possible federal election.[25][26]

A May 2022 article in The Globe and Mail said that "WEF conspiracy theory" was being spread to "Canada's main streets" and was brought up during the leadership race of the Conservative Party of Canada.[28] When Schwab "brags" about Canadian politicians' connections to the WEF, this feeds into "theories of cabals". In 2021, when Schwab said that "half of Canada's cabinet were Young Global Leaders" —including Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner—conspiracy theorists interpreted that to mean that Canadian cabinet ministers are "minions" controlled by Schwab. The article called on politicians in Canada who had been "flirting" with the Great Reset conspiracy theories through Twitter—Conservative leadership candidates Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis quell the distrust by admitting that "there is no such cabal".[28] In September 2022, CBC News tracked the spread of related disinformation and conspiracy theories in Canada.[29]

On 13 December 2020, Australian advertising executive Rowan Dean promoted the conspiracy theory on Sky News Australia, claiming that "This Great Reset is as serious and dangerous a threat to our prosperity – to your prosperity and your freedom – as we have faced in decades".[30]

The conspiracy theory has also been disseminated by Russian propaganda outlets. According to Oliver Kamm, in a 2020 article for the CapX website: "The propaganda apparatus of the Putin regime has for many months published wild allegations from obscure bloggers that the Great Reset is code for oligarchs to amass wealth and control populations."[17] In 2021, the British anti-disinformation organization Logically reported that the website The Exposé has promoted Great Reset conspiracy theories framed as breaking news since its establishment in November 2020.[31]

Great Reset conspiracy theories were a theme in the 2022 anti-vaccine film Died Suddenly which appeared on the Stew Peters Network channel on the Rumble website.[32][33]

References

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  1. ^ Goodman, Jack; Carmichael, Flora (22 November 2020). "The coronavirus pandemic "great reset" theory and a false vaccine claim debunked". BBC News. Archived from the original on 22 November 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  2. ^ "What is the Great Reset - and how did it get hijacked by conspiracy theories?". BBC News. 24 June 2021. Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
  3. ^ Zimonjic, Peter (3 September 2022). "World Economic Forum official says Canada has bigger issues to discuss than conspiracy theories". CBC News. Archived from the original on 7 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  4. ^ Ivan, Wecke (16 August 2021). "Conspiracy theories aside, there is something fishy about the Great Reset". openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 4 April 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
  5. ^ "Event 201 Pandemic Exercise: Highlights Reel". YouTube. Archived from the original on 20 September 2022. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  6. ^ Christensen, Michael; Au, Ashli (2023-03-13). "The Great Reset and the Cultural Boundaries of Conspiracy Theory". International Journal of Communication. 17 (0): 19. ISSN 1932-8036. One scene, shortly after the WEF and the Great Reset are introduced in the video, details a pandemic-preparedness exercise called Event 201 that was held in October 2019 at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and co-sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the WEF. The exercise happened to use a hypothetical example of a novel coronavirus just months before SARS-CoV-2 was identified in China. The eerie timing of the Event 201 fact pattern was presented using a menacing tone to give the impression that the imagined pandemic developed for the exercise was, in fact, a dry run for the COVID-19 pandemic.
  7. ^ Bhattacharya, CB (May 15, 2020). "How the great COVID-19 reset can help firms build a sustainable future". World Economic Forum.
  8. ^ Schwab, Klaus (Jun 3, 2020). "Now is the time for a 'great reset'". World Economic Forum.
  9. ^ "Fact check: The World Economic Forum does not have a stated goal to have people own nothing by 2030". Reuters. 25 February 2021. Archived from the original on 20 September 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
  10. ^ "Snopes.com: Debunking Myths in Cyberspace". NPR. 27 August 2005. Archived from the original on 11 September 2005. Retrieved 27 August 2005.
  11. ^ Evon, Dan (29 October 2020). "Was Canada's Draconian COVID "Global Reset Plan" Leaked to the Public?". Snopes. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  12. ^ Sommer, Will (26 November 2020). "The Biden Presidency Already Has Its First Conspiracy Theory: The Great Reset". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  13. ^ Wu, Katherine J. (17 November 2020). "F.D.A. Authorizes the First At-Home Coronavirus Test". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 18 November 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  14. ^ a b Goodman, Jack; Carmichael, Flora (22 November 2020). "The coronavirus pandemic "great reset" theory and a false vaccine claim debunked". BBC News. Archived from the original on 22 November 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  15. ^ a b "Trudeau UN speech sparks "Great Reset" conspiracy". AFP Fact Check. 19 November 2020. Archived from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
  16. ^ Slobodian, Quinn (4 December 2020). "How the "great reset" of capitalism became an anti-lockdown conspiracy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 20 December 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  17. ^ a b Kamm, Oliver (20 November 2020). "The Great Reset is the latest conspiracy fantasy – it will not be the last". CapX. Archived from the original on 13 December 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  18. ^ Mahabarta, Yudhistra (18 November 2020). "Looking For A Logical Exposure Of "The Great Reset", The Covid-19 Conspiracy Theory Now Campaigned By The World Economic Forum". Voice of Indonesia. Archived from the original on 20 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  19. ^ Hines, Nico (22 April 2018). "Alex Jones' Protegé, Paul Joseph Watson, Is About to Steal His Crackpot Crown". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 21 May 2019. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  20. ^ Sixsmith, Ben (17 November 2020). "What is the Great Reset?". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  21. ^ De Rosa, Nicholas (18 November 2020). "Le "Great Reset" n'est pas un complot pour contrôler le monde". Radio-Canada (in French). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 20 November 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  22. ^ a b Goforth, Claire (16 November 2020). "Trudeau speech reignites conspiracy theory fervor over "Great Reset"". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 16 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  23. ^ "The Rebel to Rabble Review: Calls to 'stop the great reset'; O'Toole's Scheer dilemma". iPolitics. iPolitics. 20 November 2020. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  24. ^ Alba, Davey (17 November 2020). "The baseless "Great Reset" conspiracy theory rises again". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  25. ^ a b Alex, Boutillier (20 November 2020). "A Conservative MP warns that Justin Trudeau wants a 'Great Reset.' Conspiracy theorists are worried, too". Toronto Star. Torstar. Archived from the original on 20 November 2020. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  26. ^ a b c Proulx, Boris (21 November 2020). "Une 'théorie du complot' s'invite dans les rangs conservateurs". Le Devoir. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  27. ^ "Editorial | Pierre Poilievre is flirting with the far right by pushing "Great Reset" conspiracy". Toronto Star. Torstar. 23 November 2020. Archived from the original on 23 November 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  28. ^ a b Clark, Campbell (10 May 2022). "The WEF conspiracy theory is in the Conservative leadership race, and Canada's main streets". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 10 May 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  29. ^ Zimonjic, Peter (3 September 2022). "World Economic Forum official says Canada has bigger issues to discuss than conspiracy theories". CBC News. Archived from the original on 7 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  30. ^ Davies, Anne (23 February 2021). "Sky News Australia is tapping into the global conspiracy set – and it's paying off". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  31. ^ Piper, Ernie (22 July 2021). "EXCLUSIVE: Actors Behind UK Misinformation Site The Daily Expose Revealed". Logically. Archived from the original on 21 September 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  32. ^ "We fact checked claims made in new anti-vax film Died Suddenly. Here's what we found". ABC News. 1 December 2022. Archived from the original on 4 December 2022. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
  33. ^ "'Died Suddenly' film amplifies false Covid-19 vaccine claims". Fact Check. 29 November 2022. Archived from the original on 4 December 2022. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
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