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BBC research found that national identity was less of a factor in the spread of fake news in Africa than it was in India.

In Kenya, scams related to money and technology were a stronger driving force, contributing to around a third of fake news stories shared on Whatsapp, while fake stories relating to terrorism and the army were widely shared in Nigeria.

In both countries, health scares were prominent among widely-shared fake news stories, and many news consumers visited both credible and fake news sources without distinguishing between them.

The researchers spent hundreds of hours with 80 participants across the three countries, interviewing them at home about their media consumption as well as examining how they shared information via Whatsapp and Facebook during a seven-day period.

They also conducted an extensive analysis of how fake news spreads on Twitter and Facebook in India.