He subsequently became an atheist,[14] and was strongly against organized religion, which was reflected in his social media activity in the form of what Ngo later described as "inflammatory language", with Reddit comments such as "Islam needs to be neutered like Christianity".

Alongside the video, Ngo wrote: "At @Portland_State interfaith panel today, the Muslim student speaker said that apostates will be killed or banished in an Islamic state.

[17] Four days later, the Vanguard's editor, Colleen Leary, fired Ngo and stated that he was dismissed because his summary of the Muslim student's remarks reflected a reckless oversimplification and violation of journalistic ethics, and was meant to incite a reaction.

[1] With his student group the Freethinkers of PSU, Ngo helped organize a January 2017 campus event with Dave Rubin, Peter Boghossian, and Christina Hoff Sommers.

[17] As a PSU graduate student,[17][23] Ngo filmed a talk on March 5, 2018, at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland by Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute known for her criticism of the women's movement.

[24][25] Ngo, who had covered protests at several talks given by Sommers,[25] expressed interest in what he called "illiberal reactions" which he said restrict freedom of thought or behavior.

[30] Alex Lockie from Business Insider criticized Ngo's article for "fear monger[ing] around England's Muslim population" and cherry-picking evidence, and for mischaracterizing the neighborhood near the East London Mosque.

[33][34][35] The Patriot Prayer gatherings (whose early rallies were used by white nationalists as recruitment events) were met by Portland's anti-fascists and anarchists known to support direct action, including violence.

[14] November 2018, Ngo live-streamed video coverage of the Him Too rally organized by a Patriot Prayer member in downtown Portland, and was sprayed with silly string and harassed[36] by antifa protesters.

[39][40] He reported being punched and blasted with bear spray while filming two separate May Day events, including a brawl between left-wing activists and members of Patriot Prayer, outside the Cider Riot pub.

[52] Broader analysis of media coverage following Ngo's attack was polarized, with each side expressing criticism of the other,[clarification needed] including essays in The Atlantic[54] and Commentary.

[55] On August 26, 2019, the Portland Mercury reported[56] on a video where Ngo was seen smiling[36] and laughing at certain points[8][57] while standing in the presence of members of Patriot Prayer on May 1, as they planned an attack on antifascists following the May Day protests.

[42] The editor of Quillette, Claire Lehmann, told The Daily Beast that the two developments were not linked and that Ngo had left the website several weeks earlier.

[42] After publication of its story, the Portland Mercury published a letter from Ngo's lawyer seeking retraction of the newspaper's "false and inherently defamatory statements".

[56] On August 30, The Spectator published an article by Ngo in which he stated he did not know about the far-right group planning the attack, that he "[only] caught snippets of various conversations" and "was preoccupied on [his] phone", describing the accusations as "lies".

[7] In July 2020, Ngo's reporting was among the concerns listed in a letter, penned by nearly 300 of The Journal's newsroom staff members to the paper's publisher, that condemned the opinion desk's "lack of fact-checking and transparency".

[27] In April 2019, Cathy Young, writing for The Bulwark, criticized Ngo for "outrage mining" after he re-posted various tweets from random Twitter accounts, some of whom were teenagers, that mocked France following the Notre-Dame de Paris fire.

[69] According to Nazaryan, Ngo wrote that his parents' immigration from Vietnam led him to describe his book as "a letter of gratitude to the nation" that made them welcome, as against the leftists who, he claims, wish to destroy it.

"[71] Writing for The Oregonian, Shane Dixon Kavanaugh stated that Unmasked contained "serious omissions, errors and false equivalencies that have alarmed an array of academics and intelligence officials who track extremist movements.

"[5] In March 2021, Winston Marshall, banjoist and founding member of the British folk rock band Mumford & Sons, posted on Twitter to Ngo, "Finally had the time to read your important book.

His post led to online criticism, and several days later Marshall deleted the tweet, apologized for it, and stated that he was temporarily leaving the band "to examine my blindspots."

In June, Marshall left Mumford & Sons permanently and recanted his apology, saying that it "participates in the lie that [the extremism documented in the book] does not exist, or worse, is a force for good.

[88] In December 2019, The Oregonian named Ngo one of 2019's Top 15 Newsmakers citing events that included his attack, his surge in prominence within conservative circles, and his circulation of "heavily edited videos of several altercations to his then-270,000 Twitter followers, racking up millions of views online while spreading inaccurate claims and limited context about what transpired.

[87] In August 2020, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in an interview with philosopher and How Fascism Works author Jason Stanley that Ngo had been caught misrepresenting facts and that "what he says goes substantially viral after that.

[90] By October 2020, Politico reported Ngo had established approximately 800,000 social media followers and had become a mega influencer that was a "key source for rightwing audiences in search of news about the Black Lives Matter movement".

[5][106] On August 4, 2020, he provided testimony at a United States Senate Judiciary subcommittee titled "The Right of the People Peaceably to Assemble: Protecting Speech by Stopping Anarchist Violence.

[106] During the congressional hearing, which focused on the rise of domestic terrorism in the United States, lawmakers denounced the insurrection that left five dead but diverged on how to address the problem.

[106] Democratic lawmakers condemned false equivalencies and raised concerns about white supremacist violence and homegrown extremism, whereas Ngo, the sole witness called by Republicans, suggested the media was at fault for failing to criticize the looting and rioting that occurred after the murder of George Floyd.

[112] After five defendants settled, were removed from the case by a judge, or evaded trial entirely, Ngo modified his 2020 civil suit to include an accusation that Hacker and Elizabeth Richter participated in an assault on him at a 2021 rally on the one year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.

Prior to the trial, which took place in early August 2023, attorneys for Hacker and Richter claimed that video evidence would prove that neither touched Ngo that night or participated in beating him.