Says George Soros said, “I’m going to bring down the United States by funding Black Hate groups. We’ll put them into a mental trap and make them blame white people. The Black community is the easiest to manipulate.”
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George Soros didn’t say he would bring down the United States by funding ‘black hate groups’
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- There’s no evidence that George Soros said this.
- We found no record of such a statement in the publication cited in the Facebook post.
- Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic organization Soros founded, says he did not say this.
As the United States reckons with the death of George Floyd, it seems George Soros’ name is increasingly invoked as social media posts sow doubt about the authenticity of protests across the country.
"I’m going to bring down the United States by funding Black Hate groups," reads the quote that’s attributed to Soros in one post. "We’ll put them into a mental trap and make them blame white people. The Black community is the easiest to manipulate."
The post says Soros, a billionaire investor and philanthropist who donates to Democratic political causes, made that statement in September 2014 in an "interview with Germany’s BILD."
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Bild is a German publication. Using Google, we searched for references to "George Soros" on Bild’s website in 2014. We found one result: an April 3, 2014, story with the headline, "So irre lästern Bulgariens Politiker," which Google translates to "Bulgaria’s politicians are so insane."
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The article describes how Bulgarian politicians called government protesters "‘Sorosoids’ — a newly created derogatory word for employees of the billionaire George Soros Foundation or other western non-governmental organizations."
There are no other mentions of Soros in the story.
Next, we searched online and in Nexis news archives but found nothing resembling the quote. Soros is a heavily scrutinized figure who is the regular subject of conspiracy theories and misinformation. If in 2014 he made the statement that appears in the Facebook post — even in a non-English language — it would make American news. But we found nothing to corroborate the post.
Finally, we reached out to Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic organization founded by Soros. The group told us that there’s no truth to the post.
We rate if False.
Our Sources
Instagram post, May 30, 2020
Bild website, visited June 3, 2020
George Soros search on Bild’s website in 2014, completed June 3, 2020
Email interview with Open Society Foundations, June 3, 2020
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George Soros didn’t say he would bring down the United States by funding ‘black hate groups’
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