An internet watchdog that identified participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is preparing to cut staff. A media startup in Kosovo that hunts Russian disinformation has shuttered a weekly show amid a divisive political landscape. Privacy advocates are dialing back work in Iran that helps users in the Islamic Republic browse the web freely.
Around the world, nonprofits that target online extremism and authoritarian propaganda are slashing operations and laying off employees after a government cost-cutting push led by X owner
Fact-checking groups in the US and abroad are bracing now for shortfalls of up to 80% that will put their efforts in jeopardy and allow a new wave of online disinformation to flow from extremists, autocrats and conspiracy theorists, said the people, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity over fears of reprisal.
Public awareness of deceptive social media content risks being eroded by the loss of tens of millions of dollars in grant programs, especially at the Justice Department and
“They are going to try as hard as they can to continue to do this work, but it is really difficult if you don’t have the funding,” said Nina Jankowicz, co-founder of The American Sunlight Project, a US-based nonprofit that seeks to combat disinformation but does not receive federal funding. It’s “hard to keep doing the work if you don’t have a way to pay the bills.”
Paring back anti-disinformation programs is about more than just saving money. Trump and his allies have asserted that any effort to moderate online content amounts to censorship, highlighted by Vice President
A White House spokesperson had no immediate comment, and the Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment. What remains of USAID is now overseen by the State Department’s foreign assistance bureau, and a spokesperson said programs are currently undergoing a review. “Programs that serve our nation’s interests will continue,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “However, programs that aren’t aligned with our national interests will not.”
The cuts defy deepening concerns among advocacy groups and US allies that bogus claims circulated on social media by Russia and other adversaries — and amplified online by Trump and Musk — are sowing political instability globally and undermining democracy.
Showcasing those fears, Ukrainian President
The moves come just two months after congressional Republicans, ahead of Trump’s inauguration, refused a new round of funding for a State Department
Reduced US support for fact-checking groups follows a shift by social media companies away from countering misinformation.
Organizations that track domestic extremists in the US face a steepening challenge with the loss of government funding, several of the people said. The Trump-ordered cuts are hitting programs at federal law enforcement agencies that had already been moving away from aggressively monitoring online platforms for terror plots and other related criminal activity.
In one case, a US-based nonprofit that collected information about people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol is preparing to lose up to $1.5 million in US grant funding from the Justice Department over the next three years, according to one person who requested anonymity because of personal safety concerns. Trump’s pardon of more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the insurrection has left independent groups that helped investigators vulnerable to attacks or harassment.
That same organization, which reports white supremacist threats and the online activity of people who have conducted mass shootings to the FBI and major technology companies, is preparing to dismiss at least one employee, the person said.
Other full-time staffers are poised to be made contractors and lose their medical benefits, the person said. Such personnel changes will curb the group’s ability to collect threat-related intelligence, thus limiting authorities’ ability to detect possible security concerns.
Trump’s moves affecting anti-disinformation programs began on his first day in office, when he named Musk to lead a government-wide
Founded in 1961 by President
Trump signed an executive order last month calling for a 90-day window to scrutinize programs for whether they aligned with his political agenda. Almost all the groups that spoke with Bloomberg said they expect to lose their funding entirely after the 90-day review period.
“The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states,” Clayton Weimers, the executive director at Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement.
For Kosovo-based fact-checking organization Hibrid.Info, the cuts came weeks before the country’s Feb. 9 parliamentary election. The group had hired extra people to flag political falsehoods online and turned up signs of Russian efforts to sway the election.
Hibrid.Info was notified by two of its donors on Jan. 24 that they would cut roughly 80% of their funding immediately, said Xhemajl Avdyli, the group’s program manager. The messages came from the US Embassy in Pristina and the nonprofit National Democratic Institute, which had previously transferred funds to Hibrid.Info on behalf of the State Department and USAID.
Without US government support, Avdyli’s team ended a TV show and media literacy work that helped followers spot lies online. Hibrid.Info had recently debunked a false threat from the terrorist group ISIS, he said, and in 2023, the group had foiled Russian propaganda that tried to equate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s intervention in Kosovo with
“If we will stop all our activities, stakeholders and the general public will have no address where they can verify their doubts about the online content,” said Avdyli.
USAID’s demise, combined with tech companies’ reluctance to flag misleading posts, has resulted in a serious blow, according to Stanislau Ivashkevich, founder of the Belarusian Investigative Center, which documents false information campaigns dating back to 2021. USAID provided up to 30% of the funding for BIC, which operates in exile in Lithuania, he said.
The fallout is also affecting teams that work on internet security issues. One nonprofit working on privacy technologies said it was preparing to lose 22% of its funding, or more than $1.8 million annually. As a result, the group has suspended work on user-facing initiatives, including those that help Iranian internet users browse freely and evade surveillance in the country.
For Jankowicz, a disinformation-studies expert with experience in Ukraine and Russia, the Trump-led cuts mark an ominous but familiar turn. In 2022, she was named to head the Homeland Security Department’s governance board on disinformation but resigned after unsubstantiated accusations of censorship from Republicans pushed the Biden administration to dissolve the panel.
“It’s really bleak right now, and I know a lot of people are really, really worried,” said Jankowicz. “A lot of the really important foreign assistance work — not just disinformation related, but things that go arm in arm with disinformation research about US soft power — has also been shattered.”
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