In 2017, Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair cofounded the fact-checking website AltNews in India. Almost immediately, the pair were targeted with persistent and vicious attacks from the far-right news website OpIndia. Many of the attacks claimed that Zubair was a Rohingya Muslim who illegally migrated to India and that his cousin was a rapist. In several headlines, the site described Zubair as an “Islamist” spreading fake news.
. “All of this is narrative building. Their job is to defame anyone who's critical of the government, and that's what they do.
has identified at least half a dozen OpIndia writers, columnists, and editors, including editor in chief Nupur Sharma, who has more than 680,000 followers, who appear to be subscribed to X Premium. Sharma did not respond to a question about OpIndia monetizing its content via X Premium, and the company itself also failed to respond.
were unable to tell exactly how much the site has made from Google Ads and Facebook monetization, they said it’s likely that OpIndia is not solely reliant on the ad exchange for its revenue. It appears that, as with many news outlets in India, part of that funding comes in the form of more traditional advertising from a major client: the government.