British National Behind COVID-19 Censorship May Be Deported By Trump Administration

The Telegraph is reporting that Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), may soon have his visa revoked by the Trump administration. CCDH is best known for its “Disinformation Dozen” report, which called on social media platforms to censor accounts spreading “misinformation” about COVID-19 and vaccines. The report cited twelve names and said up to 65% of all “anti-vaccine misinformation” comes from these individuals, which included Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sherry Tenpenny, Joseph Mercola, and Erin Elizabeth, among others.

The report calls for companies to deplatform the twelve individuals, as well as “key organizations” that spread the messages of the “disinformation dozen,” and specifically names the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) and its CEO, Del Bigtree. Media Matters and NBC News referenced this report in coverage of Facebook’s ban on The HighWire‘s page for reportedly “violating policies on misinformation that could cause physical harm.” The report was also cited the following year by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki during the Biden administration, and referenced in the landmark case Missouri V. Biden, which alleged the administration pressured social media companies to censor the “disinformation dozen” as well as other users sharing information that increased vaccine skepticism among members of the public.

Ahmed wrote the introduction to the disinformation dozen report and stated, “Facebook, Google, and Twitter have put policies into place to prevent the spread of vaccine misinformation; yet to date, all have failed to satisfactorily enforce those policies. All have been particularly ineffective at removing harmful and dangerous misinformation about coronavirus vaccines, though the scale of misinformation on Facebook, and thus the impact of their failure, is larger. Further, they have all failed to remove the accounts of prominent anti-vaxxers who have repeatedly violated their terms of service, as documented in later sections of this report.”

Under the Robert F. Kennedy portion of the report, CCDH alleges that Kennedy spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, posing a threat to pregnant women. In the linked Facebook post, Kennedy said, “With no data showing COVID vaccines are safe for pregnant women, and despite reports of miscarriages among women who have received the experimental Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Fauci and other health officials advise pregnant women to get the vaccine.” Kennedy’s post was in February 2021.

The Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, published on November 20, 2020, says that pregnant women were excluded from the vaccine safety trials. It further states that there is “insufficient data to make conclusions about the safety of the vaccine in subpopulations such as children less than 16 years of age, pregnant and lactating individuals, and immunocompromised individuals.”

In February of 2024, the ICAN obtained free-text entries from the V-safe vaccine safety monitoring system after a lengthy court battle. The HighWire reported several of these entries that included miscarriages, stillbirths, and premature labor.

Jefferey Jaxen also reported for The HighWire about the results of a June 2021 study that claimed 12% of the 827 study participants experienced “spontaneous abortion.” Seven hundred of the participants received their vaccination in the third trimester, which would not be classified as a spontaneous abortion, as those only happen during the first 20 weeks. 104 of the 127 women who received the COVID-19 vaccine during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy experienced a spontaneous abortion, a rate of 82%.

Tracy Beanz reported extensively for The HighWire about the Missouri v. Biden case and the discovery that found the Biden administration threatened social media platforms with section 230 violations if they don’t take action in censoring content that is skeptical of vaccine safety and efficacy. Beanz wrote, “Facebook, after threats from the Government, censored the speech of the vaccine-injured, despite knowing the information was true. And, CISA, an agency responsible for securing our country’s ‘critical infrastructure,’ declared your thoughts ‘cognitive infrastructure,’ thereby falling under their control. Orwell’s 1984 doesn’t begin to explain it, and the judge in the case has used the term several times.”

Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in 2023, led an investigation into Imran Ahmed and CCDH. Jordan requested the names of employees who communicated with members of the Biden administration or with any company. CCDH’s counsel responded and declined to provide the information on First Amendment grounds.

Breitbart reported at the same time that CCDH receives funding from the Oak Foundation, which it describes as a “shadowy, investment entity based in Geneva, Switzerland” that is funding “communist China’s bid for global dominance” through support for the Belt and Road Initiative.

Sayer Ji, one of the named “Disinformation Dozen,” reported about the potential deportation of Ahmed for his Substack and described a “tangled web of political influence,” including the fact that Morgan McSweeney co-founded CCDH and now serves as the chief of staff for Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the United Kingdom. Britain passed the Online Safety Act to censor online content, and CCDH claimed it was “instrumental in passing” the law.

Ji reports that Ahmed was “caught stating that a ‘black ops’ campaign was being carried out against U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Ji said this would be a potential violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Ji celebrates the latest news that Ahmed may be deported by the Trump administration, stating, “If the Trump administration follows through, it sends a powerful message: censorship is not without consequences. Free societies have to draw a line when private ‘fact-checkers’ and partisan NGOs collude to suppress legitimate debate. “

Ji added, “For years, a handful of organizations (CCDH chief among them) have acted as unelected arbiters of truth, pressuring Big Tech and governments to erase voices they disagree with. They operated with little transparency, often under an altruistic banner that obscured their political ties. Now, the curtain is being pulled back.”