Is a video that shows social media personality Damon Imani interrupting World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab at its 2024 Davos meeting with the f-word real? No, that's not true: Imani wrote on his social media account that the video was satire. The video is edited to show Imani cutting in on Schwab's speech and heckling him with comments where he told him to "go f**k yourself."
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on Instagram on January 18, 2024, with the caption, "Sorry for interrupting your speech, Klaus! - Satire but true." The video opens with Schwab speaking but cuts to Imani appearing to be on the same stage and interrupting the proceedings with eventual boos from the audience:
Schwab: You mentioned that the biggest threat to a cohesive and sustainable world was security.
Imani: Mr. Schwab, I'm sorry, but the biggest threat to the world is the fake extreme news media. And the second biggest threat to the world is this very organization, the World Economic Forum, which is the communist party that was not elected by the people, and that's why I keep telling ya, y'all should go f**k yourselves.
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Jan 22 16:22:34 2024 UTC)
Imani is a self-described producer and artist based in Denmark who notes that his videos are satire. He has posted a series of videos of himself crashing the World Economic Forum 2024 meeting and yelling at Schwab as well as other speakers, as demonstrated in another Lead Stories fact check.
Imani has stated on his website (archived here) that he is known for his satirical approach to commentary on societal and political issues. However, some social media users believe this video is real and do not mention that it is satire, as seen in this January 19, 2024, post on Instagram (archived here):
Imani called the video satire on his verified X (formerly Twitter) account. According to the time stamp on X, he posted the video on January 18, 2024 (archived here), and two minutes later posted that it was satire (archived here).
Schwab actually made his comments while introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A video posted on the World Economic Forum's YouTube page (archived here) on January 16, 2024, titled "Special Address by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine | Davos 2024 | World Economic Forum," shows that Schwab made the comments at the 3:12 mark and that Imani was not on the stage for the event:
A search (archived here) of the World Economic Forum website for "Damon Imani" and "2024 Davos Meeting" showed no results, such as press releases, to corroborate the claim that Imani spoke at Davos.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks that mention Klaus Schwab can be found here.
