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Revision as of 07:20, 20 March 2020 by Newslinger (talk | contribs) (Adding {{pp-protected}} (TW))(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Notes on OpIndiaAmong all of the sources I have examined on the reliable sources noticeboard, I have never encountered a source that blatantly undermined Misplaced Pages's reliability to the extent that OpIndia did in a recent incident this month. Nupur J Sharma, the editor of OpIndia, doxed a Misplaced Pages editor in good standing with a history of constructive contributions in order to make it unsafe for them to continue editing Misplaced Pages – solely because she was unhappy that the editor's strict adherence to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines formed articles that did not align with OpIndia's far-right pro-Hindutva perspective. (If you're unfamiliar with the term, Hindutva is a form of Hindu nationalism, which is like white nationalism but more popular.) This is a corruption of the third pillar of Misplaced Pages, which establishes the fundamental principle that anyone can edit Misplaced Pages.
If this weren't bad enough, Sharma then contacted Jimmy Wales on Twitter and demanded that he take action against the editor she doxed. Wales responded with a number of corrections, revealing that Sharma did not fact-check her hit piece at all. Instead of correcting her errors or retracting the hit piece, Sharma sent a 4,000-word email to Wales petitioning for the editor she doxed to be removed from Misplaced Pages. According to publicly available information, Wales ceased further communication with Sharma. It was clear at this point that Sharma's reputation is that of a blogger who specializes in punditry, not an actual journalist who produces content suitable for referencing in Misplaced Pages.
OpIndia has more general problems than their doxing, and an editor covers some of these issues in this noticeboard discussion. When OpIndia gets called out for publishing fake news, they sometimes respond by marking the article as "satirical", as documented in their rejection from the International Fact-Checking Network in 2019. OpIndia is an Indian version of The Gateway Pundit (RSP entry) that pretends to be The Onion (RSP entry) when others catch them publishing false and misleading information. In a 2018 RfC, Breitbart News (RSP entry) was criticized for having a "black crime" section on their website; it is now deprecated and blacklisted. If Breitbart had a "Muslim crime" section, it would look like much of the propaganda in the 300+ articles listed inopindia.com/tag/muslim.
Nupur J Sharma had a chance to make OpIndia a respectable publication. Misplaced Pages does not exclude publications for being biased or opinionated; the fact that OpIndia is far-right and pro-Hindutva does not, by itself, disqualify them from being a reliable source. However, what do make OpIndia a questionable source are their unbreakable habit of publishing false and misleading information, and their tendency to attack any entity who questions their reporting, instead of making error corrections like a respectable publication. The presence of bias does not excuse unreliability. Swarajya, which was owned by the same company as OpIndia, republishes entire articles from OpIndia (lightly reworded) under the "Swarajya Staff" byline and should be treated similarly.
In conclusion, OpIndia has no place in Misplaced Pages citations as long as they continue to act this way (especially if they dox and threaten to sue when they are called out on it).
— Newslinger