A speaker at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos began swearing at the organisation’s founder, Klaus Schwab, on stage.
The video is edited and no such situation occurred. It was shared by an account that often posts satirical content.
A viral video supposedly shows a speaker at a World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting swearing at attendees and the organisation’s founding chairman, Klaus Schwab. But the video is satirical and has been edited.
The WEF is a foundation headquartered in Switzerland that engages with governments and business leaders on global issues. The organisation’s 54th annual meeting was held in Davos, in the Swiss Alps, between 15 and 19 January 2024.
In the clip, a man is speaking at a podium that has the WEF logo on the front and reads “Annual Meeting 2024”. He says: “I appreciate the World Economic Forum providing me the opportunity to be on this stage and say fuck you Klaus Schwab and fuck your New World Order. We the people were born free, we will stay free and you and all of your globalist friends, including everyone in this room, can go fuck yourself.”
The New World Order refers to a conspiracy theory that Full Fact has written about many times before. Its proponents claim a shadowy group of elites is working to establish a global system of government.
As he speaks, the video supposedly shows the audience reacting and Mr Schwab and the Swiss President, Viola Amherd, who were on the opposite side of the stage, stand up and exit.
Multiple posts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) shared the footage with the caption: “HELL YES BREAKING: New WEF participant does the unthinkable at 2024 Davos Meeting”.
However, the video has been edited and does not depict genuine scenes from the annual meeting.
The man in the video is a Denmark-based influencer called Damon Imani. His bio on X says: “I discuss and create video content about things I'm not supposed to.”
Sharing the video on Instagram and Rumble, Mr Imani said in the caption: “Satire but true”. Many of Mr Imani’s posts are satirical sketches that insert self-made clips into genuine footage of panel discussions, interviews and chat shows.
The original footage of Mr Schwab and Ms Amherd comes from the meeting’s Welcoming Remarks and Special Address, where they can be seen shaking hands and exiting the stage together—without any such remarks from Mr Imani.
Mr Imani has since posted a further three videos that supposedly show him at the Davos meeting, including an ‘apology’ for his initial speech and a further two clips of him interrupting Mr Schwab and the WEF president, Borge Brende.
This is not the first time Full Fact has seen content intended as satire being shared as if it’s genuine, including fake WhatsApp messages supposedly sent by Nicola Sturgeon and clips suggesting ‘human meat’ is being sold in the UK.
Image courtesy of World Economic Forum
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as satire because the video was intended as satire and has been edited.
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