Microsoft Drops USAID-Funded NewsGuard After Ted Cruz Starts Digging

Microsoft has dropped NewsGuard, a left-wing fact checking organization they partnered with that has helped the advertising industry justify blacklists for independent conservative media sites such as ZeroHedge. 

The move came after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) began investigating Microsoft for funding the online “media literacy” censorship tool created by NewsGuard to help guide “learners of all ages through the overwhelming landscape of online news and information.”

Now we come to find out that NewsGuard was funded by USAID…

In July of 2024, @SarahEKomar wrote a hit piece on me for @NewsGuardRating

In January of 2025 we learned that NewsGuard received nearly 3 quarter million dollars from the DOD courtesy of USAID.

Receipts below. pic.twitter.com/CRjPgWuFvi

— Tim Sharp (@realtimsharp) February 5, 2025

In response to Cruz, Microsoft claims their support of NewsGuard was limited to a one-time donation in 2018, and said it had asked NewsGuard to remove a claim on its website that read “NewsGuard’s Media Literacy Programs are made possible thanks to generous support from Microsoft,” Newsmax reports, citing a Senate Commerce Committee spokesperson.

The co-founder of this “anti-disinformation” organization participated in the greatest act of disinformation in the 2020 election — the false claim that the Hunter Biden story was a Russian hoax.

So did NewsGuard’s deep state advisor, Michael Hayden..https://t.co/m1Ln9frUKs

— Allum Bokhari (@AllumBokhari) February 3, 2025

NewsGuard has since removed any mention of Microsoft from their website.

“Big Tech is finally beginning to recognize the censorship of conservative viewpoints will no longer be tolerated by the American people,” Cruz, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement to Newsmax on Thursday.

“I am happy to see that the leadership at Microsoft has renounced their support of NewsGuard’s so-called media literacy tool in response to my letter.

“NewsGuard’s biased rating system stifles intellectual diversity, hinders critical thinking among young students, and undermines our nation’s core values of free expression.”

In his letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Cruz pointed out that NewsGuard has targeted outlets such as The Federalist, The Daily Wire, and NewsMax, branding them as “unreliable,” while left-wing outlets such as Jacobin, The Atlantic, and The New Republic are deemed reliable.

NewsGuard has also “found a willing partner in the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)” to use their “media literacy” tool browser extension used by over 800 public libraries worldwide.

In November, Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr, now chairman, wrote to the CEOs of Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet demanding that they fess up about their censorship activities targeting conservatives.

Carr specifically identified NewsGuard, which exists to “censor free speech and conservative news outlets.” -Newsmax

Major advertising agencies have used NewsGuard to censor conservative media – including Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis, Magnite, PubMatic, TripleLift, Comscore, Zefr, and Giphy.

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