It may be called fake news, but to millions of Indians, manufactured, doctored and distorted information has become the basis of both opinion and action. One person who knows this only too well is Pratik Sinha, founder of AltNews, which investigates instances of fake news and tries to provide the facts.

In an interview (above), Sinha explains how the phenomenon is growing, what impact it has, and what the platforms through which fake news is spread – led by WhatsApp, Facebook and twitter – can or cannot do about it.

“There has been a huge explosion of mobile data, from 200 million GBPS per month in mid-2016 to 1.3 billion GBPS per month in March 2017,” explains Sinha, adding that older people, who are not regular internet users, are more susceptible to fake news.