In its submission to the select committee inquiry into “fake news”, The Guardian has warned that digital advertising market dominance by the likes of Facebook and Google “threatens to undermine investment in high quality journalism”.

The newspaper also said it believed “fake news” to be a “symptom of a bigger phenomenon associated with the rapid maturation of a system of networked global digital platforms which offer a scale of instant viral interconnectivity unparalleled in the history of communication”.

The inquiry, run by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, closed to submissions in March and is expected to publish evidence later this month. It is understood to have received around 100 pieces of evidence with a report set to be published in September.