REPORT: Microsoft Continues Supporting Left-Wing Censorship Regime

Late last year, software giant Microsoft assured Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) that it would be terminating its relationship with NewsGuard, an organization that free speech advocates have pegged as a left-wing censorship weapon masquerading as an “online literacy” tool. But according to a recent report from The Federalist, Microsoft was still promoting NewsGuard products as of earlier this month.

The controversy began in December when Cruz called out Microsoft for “bankrolling indoctrination tool NewsGuard in schools.” Cruz specifically expressed his dismay over Microsoft’s promotion of NewsGuard’s “Media Literacy” program, which various American educational institutions have implemented.

NewsGuard was founded in 2018 and claims that its news rating work is “conducted by a team of journalists trained as information reliability analysts using a transparent and apolitical approach and a multi-layered review process to ensure high information quality.” Its Media Literacy program purports to aid students in identifying which online sources are “trustworthy” by giving them a ranking of 1-100.

But NewsGuard routinely gives low scores to conservative sites while rating liberal sites favorably. According to a 2021 study by the Media Research Center, “Liberal outlets were rated 27 points higher on average than news organizations on the right.” (The Federalist, for instance, received a measly score of just 12.5.) The Daily Caller also reported in 2019 that Microsoft and NewsGuard were found to be “policing” in favor of left-wing media outlets and censoring conservative media.

Microsoft’s relationship with NewsGuard goes back to its founding in 2018, when the company praised NewsGuard’s “Nutrition Label” for online outlets as an act of transparency and restoring reliability in media. NewsGuard and Microsoft later partnered with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 2022 under the pretext of combating “misinformation” and assisting with the “education” of students.

“Given growing concerns about NewsGuard’s ideological bias and its efforts to manipulate young minds, I ask for transparency regarding Microsoft’s involvement in and financing of this Orwellian censorship project,” Cruz wrote in a letter to Microsoft. “Your company’s financial support for NewsGuard is especially troubling given Microsoft’s purported commitment to protecting free expression online.”

Following Cruz’s investigation into the partnership, Microsoft sent a response on February 6 of this year disavowing NewsGuard. According to The Federalist, Microsoft claimed that its “support” for NewsGuard was limited to a one-time donation in 2018 and “asked NewsGuard to remove the claim on its website that ‘NewsGuard’s Media Literacy Programs are made possible thanks to generous support from Microsoft.’”

“Big Tech is finally beginning to recognize the censorship of conservative viewpoints will no longer be tolerated by the American people,” Cruz said in a statement at the time. “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.”

But that’s not the end of the story. As The Federalist reported last week, “In an article on ‘COVID and mental health,’ Microsoft recommends using Search Coach — a filtered search engine for students — in conjunction with NewsGuard.”

“Before selecting any results, observe any NewsGuard ratings that come up from your search,” the Microsoft article reads. “Notice that some of the top links don’t have 100/100 scores. Select the NewsGuard rating. What did they lose points for? How might this impact whether the site is credible?”

Another page on Microsoft’s site, which was subsequently deleted following an inquiry from The Federalist, stated that “NewsGuard is a tool that shows trust ratings for over 7,500 news and information websites. It is embedded in Search Coach to provide ratings right on the students’ results page.” Moreover, NewsGuard still advertises that it is “free on the Edge browser,” Microsoft’s search engine.

In other words, “it seems Microsoft has continued promoting the NewsGuard censorship machine” despite its assurances to Cruz. Moreover, “its relationship with NewsGuard is deeper than it apparently indicated.”

Mike Benz, the executive director for the Foundation for Freedom Online, a group dedicated to opposing online censorship, also exposed Microsoft’s continued partnership with NewsGuard in a post on X. “NewsGuard is still listed as embedded in Microsoft’s Search Coach, which goes after hearts & minds of impressionable young school children, where NewsGuard’s Microsoft-integrated product blocks children off from conservative news sites,” Benz wrote. “This can’t be in our schools.”

Benz has been one of the leading crusaders against NewsGuard and other censorship platforms. As he has noted, NewsGuard has received a $750,000 federal grant from the Department of Defense as part of the “Pentagon-State Department contest for detecting COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation.” NewsGuard also worked with the State Department’s now-defunct Global Engagement Center which was heavily engaged in censorship operations.

As The Federalist report shows, the left-wing censorship regime still has a strong hold on the tech industry and the American education system. But now conservatives have grown wise to the game and are holding corporations and the censors themselves to account.

Hunter Oswald is a Research Fellow for The American Spectator. He is an alum of Grove City College, where he graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. in Political Science. You can follow him on X @HunterOswald8.