For awareness programmes, not laws

Interview with Pratik Sinha, co-founder of Alt News, a fact-checking website that busts fake news.

UNTIL a few years ago “fake news” was practically unheard of. But today it has become by far one of the most dangerous aspects of the digital platform. From political propaganda to lynching, the spread of misinformation is posing a threat to even the country’s stability.

In September 2017, concerned by an increase in misinformation, Pratik Sinha founded Alt News, a fact-checking website. It has been responsible for busting several fake stories and misinformation, some of them even put out by Central government agencies. For instance, in a Home Ministry report, an image of “floodlighting” along the Spain-morocco border was passed off as one from the Indian border. Thanks to the Alt News expose, the Home Ministry had to take down the image from its report and apologise for its gaffe.

Alt News has, often at the risk of right-wingers’ wrath, relentlessly combed their websites to expose the lies spewed by them. One instance was when the team exposed those behind Dainikbharat.org, which had been propagating fake news, as right-wing trolls.

Sinha and his team meticulously monitor news and information on social media platforms such as Whatsapp for anything that could have terrible consequences, such as the recent spate of lynching in the country because of fake news. In another Alt News expose, it turned out that a story about Rohingya gangs knocking on people’s doors in the middle of the night in Indore was false.

The need to expose lies, fight for justice and not give in is part of Sinha’s DNA. His father, Mukul Sinha, the well-known labour lawyer and human rights activist, had fought for the victims of the 2002 Gujarat communal pogrom. The Jan Sangharsh Manch, which he founded, is kept alive by Pratik’s mother, Nirjari Sinha, who continues to take up the cause of the marginalised. His own Alt News has been doing path-breaking work at keeping insidious forces in check. In a climate where fake news is causing violence, Sinha believes the state has to take on the issue much more seriously. He spoke to Frontline about the portal’s work. Excerpts: From publishing the “Truth of Gujarat” page on Facebook to creating the altnews.in portal, you have had an extensive journey in activism that focusses on exposing false news. What led you to starting Alt News?

In “Truth of Gujarat” we spoke on multiple subjects like communal bias, and economic issues like the Gujarat model [of development]. In the run-up to the 2014 [parliamentary] election a lot was spoken about the Gujarat model, and we worked on exposing those myths.

However, independent of my parents’ work, I was looking at misinformation even earlier. For instance, busting [the falsehood of] a picture from Singapore which was being claimed as of Gujarat. This trend is not recent. Many people attribute it to [Donald] Trump, but it has been in India for a long time. The difference now is the information reach, with firms like Jio coming into the picture and every telecom operator dropping data charges and an unprecedented number of people getting access to the Internet. Therefore, the misinformation issue is becoming bigger.

I was working full time as a software engineer, but the more I got involved in the activities of the Jan Sangharsh Manch, the more disillusioned I got with my professional life as it did not have an immediate impact on people. Noticing an upsurge in the amount of misinformation, in