RSF investigation: OpIndia, the media machine targeting journalists in India with hundreds of disparaging articles

RSF analysed the content published by OpIndia, a site launched in 2014 that is closely aligned with the supremacist Hindu nationalist ideology Hindutva. The NGO found that the site published at least 314 articles specifically targeting journalists over the last two years.

For 2025 alone, between January and September, RSF recorded 91 articles targeting journalists and media outlets, including 43 aimed exclusively at five journalists. The RSF analysis found that of these 43 articles, 32 were followed by immediate waves of online harassment.

After RSF put OpIndiaon its Press Freedom Predatorslist for 2025, the website responded by publishing a series of articles and videos attacking the NGO, deliberately spreading the false accusation that RSF participates in international "regime change" conspiracies.

Several advertisers withdrew their adsfrom OpIndia following a 2020 campaign led by the Stop Funding Hate network, and after the platform's role in spreading hostile content was exposed. In 2025, the site remains partly funded by advertisements shared via the advertising search engine Google AdSense - even though Google AdSense's terms of serviceprohibit content that "incites hatred against" or "promotes discrimination of, or disparages an individual or group."

According to the RSF analysis of the period covering October 2023 to September 2025:

• At least 314 articles targeting the press were published on OpIndia's site. 208 of them explicitly named 134 journalists, 50 others targeted them indirectly, and 56 attacked independent media outlets.
• The most frequently targeted journalists were: Rajdeep Sardesai, consultant editor and anchor of India Today (36 articles); Arfa Khanum Sherwani, journalist of The Wire (18); Mohammed Zubair,co-founder of the fact-checking website Alt News (15); Mahesh Langa, journalist at The Hindu (13), Ravish Kumar, independent journalist (11); Rana Ayyub, columnist at the Washington Postand Prabir Purkayastha,chief editor of Newsclick(10 each).
• Foreign journalists were also targeted, including The Guardiancorrespondent Hannah Ellis-Petersenand ABC News journalist Avani Dias.
• Independent media outletsThe Wire, NewsClickand Newslaundrywere also among the main targets, with 32, 17 and 16 disparaging articles documented, respectively, over this period.
• More than 200 of the articles identified contained overtly insulting or pejorative terms to describe journalists. They were notably described as spreading "fake news," or labelled as "propagandists," "habitual offenders," "liars," "biased," "anti-national" "so-called journalists," "anti-India," "anti-Hindu," or "presstitute" (a contraction of "press" and "prostitute" in English).
  
  

Between January and September 2025 alone:

• OpIndia published at least 91 itemsdirectly targeting journalists and media outlets.
• By examining the content published over this period targeting five journalists in particular - Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Mohammed Zubair, Rajdeep Sardesai, Ravish Kumar and Rana Ayyub - RSF found that 32 of the 43 articles analysed were followed by a wave of cyberharassment against these media professionals. These attacks involved about a dozen accounts that regularly share OpIndia content, five of which are followed by the site's administrators.
• In some cases, OpIndia's hostile content coincided with coordinated harassment operations via Telegram groups linked to the Hindu supremacist movement. RSF identified a public group of around 30,000 members explicitly calling for the harassment of journalists, as well as three other public groups that regularly share hostile posts during these campaigns.
• In a document published in September as a "research report," OpIndia accused a fictitious network of journalists, media and NGO of waging a "narrative warfare" against Modi's government and of working towards a "regime change" in India. Accusations of "foreign funding," furthering the "Western agenda,", "anti-Indian" propaganda or "collusion" with India's enemies are recurring themes in OpIndia's narrative.

A closer look at coordinated smear campaigns

After she was nominated for the 2025 RSF Impact Prize on 17 October, journalist Dhanya Rajendran - editor-in-chief and co-founder of the independent outlet The News Minute- was targeted by an OpIndia post on 23 October. A wave of trolling on X followed, with simultaneous spikes in activity suggesting automated amplification. More than 2,300 posts directly shared the publication, and nearly 3,000 others reused its main talking points - insinuating the journalist had "foreign funding," accusing her of belonging to so-called "anti-national" networks and of "false reportage" - accompanied by calls for her imprisonment and even wishes for her death.

A few months earlier, in June 2025, the co-founder of the fact-checking site Alt News, Mohammed Zubair, was targeted by an online publication accusing him of "Hinduphobia" after highlighting an old tweet in which he shared a cartoon of Amit Shah, India's current Minister of Home Affairs and a leading figure of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party. Between 20 and 21 June, OpIndia's X account reshared the publicationtargeting Mohammed Zubair three times. Each repost triggered a new wave of coordinated attacks. While around 762 posts were published in the 24 hours preceding the publication of OpIndia's content, this figure rose to 3,300 in 24 hours that followed.

A year earlier, The Wirejournalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani had also been in OpIndia's sights. In early August 2024, a post on X by OpIndia executive Nupur Sharma triggered a flood of insults and calls for her arrest. The site subsequently published an article labelling her "Hinduphobic" and accusing her of being aligned with a "terrorist organisation."

Independent journalist Meer Faisal was described as both a propagator of "fake information" and an "Islamist" in a June 2024 publication that triggered a waveof online harassment. When he launched defamation proceedings against OpIndia, the administrators of the Telegram channel "Angry Saffron" - close to the Hindu supremacist movement and identified as reposting or amplifying OpIndia content - called on their followers to massively disseminate posts on X accusing him of "disinformation." "Their articles triggered a wave of online harassment," the journalist recalled when contacted by RSF. "I was called a terrorist, and subjected to countless hate messages and threats. Many of those attacks were not just trolling; they were systematic attempts to defame me and endanger my safety. The abuse didn't stop online. There were online threats and efforts to dig up personal details."

Foreign correspondents also targeted

Foreign journalists have not escaped OpIndia's attacks either. Between March and April 2024, a series of five articles targeted The Guardian's correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen, accusing her of leading an "anti-Hindu campaign", followed by a wave of online harassment targeting the journalist, which RSF identified and documented.

A similar pattern reoccurred in April 2024 when ABC News correspondent Avani Dias was targeted after the broadcasting of her documentaryon the murder of an exiled Sikh separatist activist in Canada - a case in which the Canadian governmentaccusedthe Indian authorities of involvement. Within 48 hours, four articles published on OpIndia labelled her a "liar" and "anti-India," triggering a new wave of online harassment amplified by around a dozen posts published by the site on X, according to the RSF analysis.

OpIndia's content is circulating far beyond India. An investigationby the American magazine Wiredpublished in May 2024 showed that the site's articles are also regularly shared in Russian propaganda groups on Telegram. A studypublished in 2024 in the academic journal Communication Monographsalso documented the circulation of this content within far-right groups in the United Kingdom - something RSF notes is still the case in 2025. What's more, according to investigations by the independent online outlet Newslaundrypublished in 2020, 2022 and 2024, the OpIndia site has also been repeatedly involvedin the spreadof disinformation.