Pratik Sinha is the Co-founder and Editor of Alt News. Alt News is one of the best non-profit fact-checking websites in India. He is also a former software engineer and he earlier worked with multiple technology companies. He got inspiration from his activist parents to expose fake news. He is a member of the Jan Sangharsh Manch, which was founded by his father Mukul Sinha.
During the initial part of 2013, he had followed the rise of fake or false news. In 2016, he started the website after realizing the impact of social media, when in Gujarat four Dalit boys were beaten for skinning a dead cow.
Sinha emphasising how the issue of misleading and fake news has increased in the last three months. He also stated that the issue of misinformation is not new but the pandemic has taken the misinformation scenario to another level.
He further stated that there is a circle of misinformation and it harps on issues that attract people’s emotions such as fear, anger, hatred etc.
Pratik said, “Those who create misinformation target a specific psychological profile.” He went to the extent of deliberating the disastrous impact of fake news. One of the examples that he took was the congregation of migrant workers at Bandra Railway Station during the lockdown period on the basis of a piece of information that said that trains were going to run from that given day. As can be understood, it took some doing to convince the crowd that the information was faulty. Similarly, Pratik took many other examples to show the impact of fake information.
Pratik said, “One of the characteristics of fake news is the fact they seem clickbait and grab eyeballs.” He added that fake news is more dangerous as we are in the middle of a huge humanitarian crisis. Pratik said that fake news at times impact the entire nation and at other times impact only a certain geographical area.
Pratik took an example of a fake piece of information that emanated from the government coffers itself. It was mentioned in a central government advisory that Arsenic Album 30, a homoeopathic drug, can prevent COVID-19. There was no scientific study that verified this information and yet it spread like wildfire because it was backed by a government advisory.
In yet another scathing example, Pratik took the example of how Indian Muslims were targeted throughout the country after the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi through the circulation of a number of false information about Muslims intentionally spreading COVID-19. In fact, Alt News busted a series of news items that were shifting the blame on the Muslim community for spreading the disease in the country.
He added people wilfully produce fake news because they know that when people are vulnerable in terms of emotions, they are more likely to consume fake news.
In a Muslim dominated area in Indore, two medical workers were attacked because of a rumour that went viral in that area. The rumour was that medical workers were only quarantining the Muslims.
He added, “The fear about kidnapping children and selling their organs has caused people to come on roads and started killing people”.
“As the pandemic started in China and spread throughout the world, many rumours were also spreading”, he said. One of the rumours was that the Chinese police were killing COVID-19 patients and some people Tweeted it by claiming it to be from ‘reliable source’.
He quoted, “In India, the misinformation has been used in a much-organised manner to set the political narrative”.
Pratik concluded by revealing that the Alt News team is coming up with a book on the techniques to check facts and the online version of the book will be free to read.
The author, Ranit Sarkar is associated with Adamas University Media School.
