Reporters Without Borders (RSF – Reporters sans frontières) has released its 2025 report on “Press Freedom Predators”, naming several people and entities as enemies of media and journalists. They have named people like Elon Musk, Benyamin Netyanahu, Vladimir Putin and several others in the list. Among entities, they have named Chinese Communist Party, the Israel Defence Forces, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Meta (Facebook’s parent company), and many others.
RSF has included two entities from India as enemies of journalists, Adani Group and Gplus, accusing them of targeting journalists. RSF states about Gplus in its introduction of the list: “As for Gplus, the Hindu nationalist website has stepped up its disinformation and harassment campaigns against journalists critical of the Indian government in 2025.”
The group has cited Gplus’s recent dossier on Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) as the primary reason for inclusion of the portal in its list.
Reporters Without Borders claims that Gplus “disseminates narratives aimed at discrediting critical journalists and media outlets,” and that the portal accuses such journalists and media entities of being part of “Soros Ecosystem” or “anti-Indian lobby.” It also alleged that articles on Gplus are followed by “coordinated waves of online harassment targeting the journalists mentioned.”
The NGO funded by European nations also cited Gplus’s article on The News Minute editor Dhanya Rajendran, claiming that articles on her were published by the portal only after she was nominated for RSF’s Prize for Impact. RSF claims that Gplus published a total of 96 articles argeting journalists and media in the year 2025.
According to RSF, Gplus’s deadly weapon is “conspiracy theories.” However, apart from defamatory language on Gplus, RSF didn’t offer any counter on articles cited by them. They just passed judgement without showing any reason.
The group targeted Adani Group for filling cases against several journalists for publishing fake and defamatory articles targeting the company and Gautam Adani. Even though courts have found that articles targeting the business conglomerate were baseless, RSF determined that suing journalists for fake reports is attack on media freedom.
RSF targeted Elon Musk alleging that he has transformed X into a “major vehicle for the dissemination of disinformation.” They cited Musk’s criticism of Wikipedia for inherent pro-left bias, and his attacks on mass media as some of the reasons for including him in the list.
Targeting the Israel Defence Forces, RSF claimed that the IDF have carried out an unprecedented massacre of the Palestinian media. “More than 220 journalists have been killed by the IDF in Gaza since October 2023,” the report states, ignoring the facts that most of the journalists were found to be working for Hamas.
On Alphabet and Meta, RSF alleged that visibility of news media has declined on both the platforms, and accused them of weakening the media financially.
RSF’s 2025 report mentions a total of 34 “press freedom predators,” across categories such as political, security, legal and social. The group has also included a ‘guess who’ game, to identify such ‘predators’ based on clues.
