Alt News

Alt News is an Indian non-profit fact checking website founded and run by former software engineer Pratik Sinha and Muhammed Zubair.[3][4] It was launched on 9 February 2017 to combat the phenomenon of fake news.[5][6][7] Alt News was a signatory partner of the International Fact-Checking Network from April 2019 to April 2020.[12]

"Pratik Sinha" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Prateek Sinha, a Chhattisgarh cricketer.
Alt News
Founded2017
Headquarters
Ahmedabad
,
India
OwnerPravda Media Foundation[1]
Founder(s)Pratik Sinha, Mohammed Zubair[2]
ProductsWeb portal
URLwww.altnews.in

History

Alt News was founded in Ahmedabad[13] by Pratik Sinha, a former Software Engineer and son of Mukul Sinha, who was a trained physicist, lawyer and human rights activist and the founder and president of Jan Sangharsh Manch.[14][15] Pratik Sinha became interested in exposing fake news when he began working with his activist parents in India. He had followed the rise of fake news as early as 2013 but was moved to start the website after realizing the impact of social media in 2016, when four Dalit boys were flogged for skinning a dead cow in Una, Gujarat. He quit freelancing as a software engineer in 2016 and founded Alt News the next year.[13]

In 2017, Pratik Sinha was invited to the Google NewsLab Asia-Pacific Summit to discuss potential solutions to fake news.[4] Since launching the website, he has received threats to his life, demanding that he stop producing content.[16][17]

Process

Alt News works by monitoring misinformation, primarily identifying that are sufficiently viral. They use CrowdTangle, a Facebook tool that publishers use to track how content spreads across the internet, for monitoring Facebook pages that have put out misinformation at some point in the past and are on either side of the ideological spectrum. They use TweetDeck, a Twitter management tool to similarly monitor content on Twitter posted by people who have been known to tweet misinformation frequently. They also monitor multiple WhatsApp groups that they have been able to infiltrate and also receive content from users who alert them on social media and WhatsApp.[18]

Alt News identified the individuals running the Hindu right-wing website DainikBharat.org.[19] Sinha demonstrated that a video purportedly of a Hindu man being lynched by Muslims in Bihar was in fact from Bangladesh. He also exposed Delhi based, Lawyer Prashant Patel who falsely compiled many fake news on his twitter account.[20] He also showed that a video allegedly depicting a Marwari girl married to a Muslim man being burnt to death for not wearing a burqah was Guatemalan in origin.[4][21][22][23] According to the BBC, a report by Alt News in June 2017 demonstrating that the Indian Home Ministry had used a picture of the Spanish-Moroccan border to claim it had installed floodlights on India's borders led to the ministry facing online mockery.[22][23] Sinha has compiled a list of more than 40 of what he describes as fake news sources, most of which he says support right wing views.[24]

The Alt News team has written a book titled "India Misinformed: The True Story" published by HarperCollins which was released in March 2019.[25] The book has been "pre-endorsed" by Arundhati Roy.[26]

Controversy

On August 7, 2020, co-founder Mohammed Zubair responded to a hostile message from a Twitter user with a tweet containing a version of the user's profile picture depicting a man and the blurred face of a girl. In the tweet, Zubair asked the user, "Does your cute grand daughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic." The Forum for Indigenous Rights—North-East India filed a complaint regarding the tweet to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, which escalated the complaint to the Delhi Police on August 8 and accused Zubair of "harassing and torturing" the girl. On September 7, the Delhi Police and the Raipur Police filed first information reports (FIRs) against Zubair and two other Twitter accounts who supported him.[27][28][29] Zubair described the complaint as "absolutely frivolous" and indicated that he would prepare a legal response.[27][28] Sinha considered the FIRs "a form of targeting" by the Indian government in response to Alt News's fact-checking of misinformation[30] and noted that the user whom Zubair replied to had a history of attacking Zubair on Twitter.[31] Some Twitter users responded with the hashtag #IStandWithZubair in support of Zubair[32] and questioned whether he was being targeted for his Muslim identity.[33] The Delhi High Court, on September 9, instructed the Delhi Police to refrain from taking "coercive action" against Zubair while the investigation is ongoing.[34][35]

References
  1. "Top 7 Platforms That Are Busting Fake News On Social Media". Analytics India. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  2. Joy, Shemin (6 September 2020). "FIR against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair on NCPCR complaint". Deccan Herald.
  3. Manish, Sai (8 April 2018). "Busting fake news: Who funds whom?". Business Standard. Retrieved 3 March 2020 – via Rediff.com.
  4. Sengupta, Saurya (1 July 2017). "On the origin of specious news". Retrieved 7 November 2017 – via The Hindu.
  5. "Fake news in the time of the internet". The Financial Express. 28 May 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  6. "10 Instances That Show A Fake News Explosion Is Taking Place In India". HuffPost. 26 May 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  7. Dhawan, Himanshi (15 May 2017). "Breaking fake news". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  8. Alawadhi, Neha (4 May 2020). "WhatsApp launches chatbot to bust fake news, allies with global group". Business Standard India. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  9. Tiwari, Ayush. "The embarrassment that is PIB Fact Check: Who fact-checks this 'fact checker'?". Newslaundry. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  10. "A fact-checker's life: Exposing fake news and communalism, surviving social boycott". Moneycontrol. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  11. Mantas, Harrison (20 May 2020). "Why would Indian police issue and then withdraw a manual on misinformation? Political divides could be the answer". Poynter Institute.
  12. [8][9][10][11]
  13. "To stop misinformation, ask questions: Interview with Alt News founder Pratik Sinha". The News Minute.
  14. Sen, Shreeja (12 May 2014). "Gujarat riots activist Mukul Sinha dies at 63". livemint.com. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  15. Janmohamed, Zahir. "Mukul Sinha, self-effacing Modi opponent and labour organiser who disliked being called a leader". scroll.in. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  16. "News website owner gets threat call from 'gangster'". The Indian Express. 10 March 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  17. "Mukul Sinha's son gets threat call from 'Pujari'". The Times of India. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
  18. "Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha on the fake-news ecosystem in India". The Caravan.
  19. "Inside the world of Hindu right wing fake news website DainikBharat.org". Hindustan Times. 13 June 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  20. "Prashant Patel Umrao and his countless trysts with misinformation". Alt News. 18 July 2018.
  21. Bhuyan, Anoo. "What the Indian Media Can Learn From the Global War on Fake News". thewire.in. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  22. "India ministry mocked for 'appropriating' Spain border". BBC News. 15 June 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  23. Imran Ahmed Siddiqui (15 June 2017). "Border lights illuminate a Moroccan mockery". The Telegraph. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  24. "How Alt News is trying to take on the fake news ecosystem in India". Firstpost. 4 June 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  25. "Upcoming book to lay bare propaganda of misinformation and hoaxes". The Times of India. IANS. 25 February 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2019.CS1 maint: others (link)
  26. "Upcoming book to lay bare propaganda of misinformation and hoaxes". Outlook India. 22 February 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  27. "Two FIRs filed against Mohamed Zubair for online harassment of little girl". Scroll.in. 6 September 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  28. "FIRs against co-founder of fact-checking website in Delhi, Raipur after NCPCR complaint". Express News Service. 6 September 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020 – via The Indian Express.
  29. Vincent, Pheroze L. (9 September 2020). "The levels to which the fake news factory is stooping". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  30. Sherwani, Arfa Khanum (8 September 2020). "Mohammed Zubair Is Being Targeted for the Work Alt News Does: Pratik Sinha". The Wire. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  31. Sikander, Sana (8 September 2020). "Singh who complained against Alt News has vulgar Twitter content". The Siasat Daily. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  32. "#IStandWithZubair: Twitter Shows Solidarity With AltNews's Mohammed Zubair For Third Day In A Row". HuffPost India. 8 September 2020. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  33. "'Based On Political Plans': Alt News Founder Pratik Sinha on FIRs". The Quint. 9 September 2020. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  34. "Delhi High Court directs police not to take coercive action against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair". Press Trust of India. 9 September 2020. Retrieved 17 September 2020 – via Firstpost.
  35. Banka, Richa (9 September 2020). Abhinav; Sahay (eds.). "Complaint against Alt News founder frivolous, says counsel; arrest barred till Dec 8". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
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