Have you ever been harassed because of your work?

Jason Felipe Villamor Gutierrez, foreign correspondent: Yes.

Have you been threatened online?

Inday Espina-Varona, journalist: Oh, yes.

Have you been called biased?

J.C. Gotinga, foreign correspondent: Yes.

Have you been called stupid?

Ed Lingao, broadcast journalist: Yes, plenty of times. By idiots.

Have you been accused of corruption?

Ezra Acayan, freelance photojournalist: Yes.

Have you been called fake news?

Lingao: Oh, yes. They always say I am fake news. Anything that is critical is fake. Right?

Have you been accused of being an imperialist spy?

Gotinga: Yes.

Have you ever been accused of being a communist operative?

Espina-Varona: Yes.

Have you ever been threatened with rape?

Pia Ranada, multimedia journalist: Yes.

What will stop you from reporting?

Gutierrez: Nothing.

Espina-Varona: Nothing.

Ranada: Nothing.

Lingao: Death?

Acayan: Dude, you have to kill me.

Estoril, Lisbon: If there was a lump in many a throat, there was a knot in the gut too. One country was among those spotted more than once inside a vicious online propaganda machine that was described as a "shark tank": India.

At the 70th World News Media Conference, organised here by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) from Wednesday, a diminutive journalist was being conferred the Golden Pen of Freedom Award for 2018.

Maria Ressa, the executive editor and CEO of Rappler, the news website that has earned the wrath of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for reporting on his regime's alleged executions in the name of a war on drugs, was midway through her speech when India cropped up.

"According to Freedom House (a watchdog), in at least 30 of 65 countries it studied, cheap armies on social media are rolling back democracy globally. In India, South Africa, Mexico, it happens on Twitter; other countries, on WhatsApp. Social media platforms are now choice tools for authoritarian rule."

Ressa, who headed the CNN bureau in Manila and was its lead investigative reporter in Asia before co-founding the game-changing Rappler (a portmanteau of "rap" for discussion and "ripples" for making waves), should know the subject well.

She has been the target of a psychological barrage laced with death and rape threats by countless real or fake social media users - she calls it the "shark tank" - because of the journalism her site is pursuing. Several cases have been filed against her, some carrying jail terms of five to 15 years if found guilty.

Ressa ended her spirited acceptance speech, marked by multiple rounds of standing ovation, by playing a video clip that showed a cross-section of journalists replying to questions on the threats and intimidation they face in the Philippines while discharging their professional responsibilities.

The questions and answers listed at the beginning of this report are excerpted from the video clip that dealt specifically with the Philippines. But they are by no means confined to that country. If the questions are asked in contemporary India and some of its states, the answers are unlikely to be vastly different.

Ressa sounded the alarm on the exponential power of trolls backed by those wielding power.

"When a lie is repeated 10 times, truth has a chance to catch up... but when it's repeated a million times, it becomes the truth, especially when it is backed by online state-sponsored hate exploiting the fracture lines of society," she said.

Ressa was not alone in mentioning India.

Announcing the award, David Callaway, the president of the World Editors Forum and the CEO of TheStreet, the US financial news site, said the troll onslaught is "highly effective in assaulting journalists and destabilising professional media".

Callaway drew a pen picture of the troll army that Ressa faces. "Organised, fiercely patriotic and, on the face of it, anonymous legions of pro-Duterte supporters... many real, many more automated to appear so... took to the Philippines' No. 1 platform to drown out the criticism and attempted to fully control the discourse by occupying public space."

He was referring to the situation in the Philippines but the description is a snug fit for troll armies in India, too, again checking almost all the boxes.

"At its height, she (Ressa) counted 90 personal attacks an hour coming to her via email, social media and messenger. Rape and death threats, vile messages targeting her and her family as well as Rappler reporters; all coming with a frequency and gratuity that suggested something was going on that was beyond the usual for hate mail or the average vocal critic," Callaway told the audience, which represented media organisations from across the world.

Callaway added: "Maria calls it the phenomenon of weaponisation of social media."

Then came the reference to India. "At the World Editors Forum, this form of pressure on journalists, particularly women, is ominously familiar. It is a form of pressure seen from governments and places such as Turkey and Mexico, Pakistan and India and more recently, in the US where hate speech is on the rise," Callaway said.

Last month, Indian journalist Rana Ayyub had written in The New York Times how she and many of her colleagues were slut-shamed and threatened with rape on social media for being critical of Hindu nationalist politics and government.

Unsurprisingly, the rise of the strongman leader who rode to power on a wave of populism was flagged at the event.

"The movement to the strongman leader in many countries is a major threat, exacerbated by the even bigger threat of technology being used against us," Callaway said.

One Indian name did ring out loud at the Lisbon conference. Michael Golden, the president of WAN-IFRA and the vice-chairman of the board of The New York Times Company, spoke of the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.

It was perhaps a fitting tribute to Lankesh that the day belonged to a courageous journalist like Ressa, who requested all the Filipino journalists in the audience to stand up and be recognised for "trying to do our jobs".

Her voice choking, the Rappler executive editor thanked WAN-IFRA "for having our backs" and told the spellbound audience that her team back home was staying up at 1am to witness the moment.

"My heart breaks when I look at what our young reporters and staff have to live with - and the courage they show in the face of brute force and impunity... the respect they continue to show authorities, the nightmares they fight at night, the mission that lives inside them," she said.

"My name is Maria Ressa. We are Rappler, and we will hold the line."

Ressa underscored the need to remain financially independent. "When power, money and fear come together, it means good journalism is bad business. After Rappler hit positive EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) two years ago, the government attacks brought Rappler to an existential moment, but we are determined to survive. So please, help slingshot us through the valley of death, and join our crowdfunding effort at rappler.com/support," she said.