Paul D. Thacker in Tablet has written an illuminating exposé of the shadowy workings of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate and its leader Imran Ahmed, and their outsize role in driving online censorship. Here’s how it begins.
In March of 2021 a nonprofit group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a report about online misinformation. Founded in the U.K. by a former Labour Party political figure named Imran Ahmed, the CCDH was virtually unknown at the time in the U.S., but that was about to change. The report quickly reached the hands of executives at Twitter. “COVID-19 misinfo enforcement team is planning on taking action on a handful of accounts surfaced by the CCDH report,” a Twitter official wrote on March 31st. One account they eventually took action against belonged to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was then running against Joe Biden for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.
A few months later, the same report was being cited by the Biden administration. At a press briefing in July 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki quoted from the CCDH report in a briefing where she accused Facebook of undermining federal vaccine policies. “There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” Psaki claimed, citing the CCDH’s work, while warning social media companies to shut down these “misinformation” accounts. “They’re killing people,” President Biden told a reporter a short time later, leveling the charge of murder against Facebook for its alleged role in providing a platform for “vaccine misinformation”.
Facebook’s Vice President Monika Bickert later criticised CCDH’s claims for being free of evidence — failing to define the term ‘anti-vaxx’, for example — and neglecting to explain how they came up with their numbers and conclusions. But it had little effect. By then the report had popularised the idea of a ‘disinformation dozen’, a narrative that hardened as it was promoted by countless news outlets, fact checkers and social media accounts devoted to round-the-clock attacks on ‘disinformation’.
More recently, the CCDH has popped up again, leading the battle against Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, who has been cast as a champion of racists and antisemites. “The CCDH has been at the forefront of reporting on the hate proliferating on X/Twitter since Musk completed his takeover in late October 2022,” Ahmed wrote last month in the Observer. In a number of publications over the past year, the group has repeatedly blamed Musk for allowing his platform to spread hate speech. Once again, these efforts have been uncritically amplified in the press and in a letter to Musk from House Democrats that reiterates Ahmed’s claims, and cites him and CCDH.
What, then, do we know about the CCDH? In effect, it seems, the organisation provides the White House with a powerful weapon to use against critics including RFK Jr. and Musk, while also pressuring platforms like Facebook and Twitter to enforce the administration’s policies. While few journalists have bothered to investigate the opaque group, the available evidence paints a picture that is likely different from what many in the public would expect of a ‘public interest’ nonprofit.
The scale of the CCDH’s success must be emphasised for those unfamiliar with the crowded mob of D.C.-based nonprofits churning out reports that seldom get a passing glance from the nation’s policymakers. For a tiny, unknown, nonprofit to gain so much attention in D.C.’s crowded, competitive policy space is akin to a pudgy, amateur athlete catching the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, while setting a new world record in the marathon, all in one week.
So who is the CCDH’s founder and leader Imran Ahmed? Where does he get his money? Why did he decide to leave behind politics and start a nonprofit focused on misinformation? And perhaps most importantly, how did a relative unknown from London gain such enormous influence from the White House bully pulpit and within Democratic Party politics?
Worth reading in full.
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A Muslim funded by anti reality, anti White billionaires. There is another group in Canada (Canadians against Hate) run by another Muzzie. So the Muzzies who issue from a cult of nothing but hate and bile (read Mein Koran for some real hate and Christophobia) are now running orgs as guardians of ‘information’ protecting the world from ‘hate’. Truth and reality are now ‘hate’ soon to be crimes. Clown world. Follow the cash and it likely ends up at Soros or Kill Gates etc. All part of the plan, oh sorry I mean cockup.
There you go upsetting people again. I don’t claim to know the truth, but perhaps some of the downvoters might like to offer their explanations for what’s going on in the world?
There are about 2 billion Muslims in the world, which is about 25% of the global population, and you are trying to blame all Muslims for what two Muslims are doing.
You don’t even know if these two Muslims are practicing Muslims.
Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau are Catholics. So do you blame all Christians for what Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau do?
I’m no expert on Islam but I didn’t think it was overly keen on Christians/non-Muslims. But I may be misrepresenting the thrust of their thinking. Also arguably blaming the religion isn’t the same as blaming all of the adherents.
Blaming the religion for what? For the Biden administration’s attempts to censor “vaccine misinformation”? That’s a stretch!
If not that, what?
Islam is totally irrelevant in this exposé by Paul D. Thacker.
FerdIII seemed to imply that religion had something to do with it, by referring to the religion of the leaders of two organisations. I was merely pointing out that blaming a religion and blaming all of its adherents are not the same thing. As to how relevant it is, I don’t know. I was just interested in the downvoters take on what he said. We agree with each other a lot here – sometimes I think we need to debate more.
practising, not practicing – unless you’re from the US. Juss sayin’
Back in November 2020 they did a report called Hatebook which highlights the international influence and recruitment drive of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. It looks a bit counter-narrative now.
https://counterhate.com/research/hatebook/
Something along those lines was also on BBC Newsnight back in 2014/15.
Since his move to the US has Ahmed become a registered foreign agent? If not we can look forward to him spending a considerable time in jail there.
Not under Biden or any other Dem.
10 quid say that he can be traced back to Soros and Schwab.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr could hand the keys to the Dems, because he takes more votes from Trump voters. So he could end up propping up the ‘deep state’, those very people that he’s been warning about. His support for Israel is strange in that context?
He’d be good as Trump’s VP. That said a large percentahge of Trump supporters aren’t going to be distracted.
The CCDH, BBC Verify, Ofcom etc…all heads of the snake, designed to stamp out any dissenting voices or anyone countering official narratives. Does it even matter who Imran Ahmed is? We know – or at least it’s a high probability – that money flows from the same sources that are funnelling money into any activity that can be seen to be breaking down society.
He’s an islamist.., my default postion is that, as one of the kuffar, I’m being lied to.
Interesting article and very well worth reading the full exposure by Thacker. The mainstream media will never expose the facts about the bad actors responsible for censoring the truth. Meanwhile MSM continues to churn out their own authorised and utterly misleading misinformation and disinformation totally unfettered.
How has the world come to this?
For some, disinformation = all opinions different from their opinion.