The BBC was issued with a D-notice, a gagging order, last week to silence its reporting of the gilets jaunes protests in France. Or so you might believe if you followed reports on social media. This story was entirely false. But it’s a sign of how powerfully momentum gathers behind misinformation — or deliberate attempts to mislead — that we have received freedom of information requests demanding “the truth”.

Who is behind such reports? What do they hope to gain? To answer we need to look at the technology that has profoundly transformed our media environment. And to recognise that, while many fake news stories might seem laughable, the effects are deadly serious.

Last year, in India, an estimated 10 people were killed by lynch mobs after inflammatory reports about child abduction gangs spread rapidly on WhatsApp. A video blamed as the catalyst purported to show CCTV footage of a child being snatched by two men on a motorbike. It turned out to be a cleverly edited clip from a Pakistani child safety campaign.