Center for Countering Digital Hate

CCDH has targeted Elon Musk and Twitter; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; the American conservative commentary website The Federalist; and the financial news website ZeroHedge. ^{2  2  3} CCDH’s co-founder and CEO, Imran Ahmed, has been sanctioned by the U.S. government based on allegations he attempted to censor Americans; the Trump administration was, as of February 2026, attempting to deport him. ^{4  5}

CCHD has especially close ties with members of the government of U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer, with co-founder Morgan McSweeney working as Starmer’s chief of staff in opposition and in government until McSweeney’s resignation amid mounting scandals in early 2026. ^{2  1  6}

Founding and History

The Center for Countering Digital Hate was formed in 2017 by U.K. Labour Party advisors Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney. McSweeney was a founding board member who resigned in 2020 to become the chief of staff to Labour Party politician Kier Starmer, who would later become Labour Party leader and Prime Minister of the U.K. The group incorporated as a nonprofit in Britain in 2018, originally as Brixton Endeavors Limited, before changing to its current name in 2019. The group received U.S. nonprofit status in 2021. ^{4  1}

CCDH enjoyed influence during the Biden administration, which frequently cited the group’s work to delegitimize critics. Similarly, the British government partnered with the group as a source of approved information during the COVID-19 pandemic. ^{2  1} U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) accused the group of “colluding” with Biden administration officials and subpoenaed it in 2023 for communications between it and members of the government. ^{2  7}

In October 2024, the America First Legal Foundation publicly released what it described as new evidence alleging that CCDH and members of its leadership engaged in coordinated efforts to influence U.S. government officials and social-media platforms to censor online speech. America First Legal further asserted that CCDH’s U.S. and U.K. entities lacked meaningful operational separation and that the CCDH leadership included foreign political figures and individuals affiliated with U.K. political organizations. ⁸

Based on these findings, America First Legal formally requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate whether CCDH’s U.S. operations and leadership qualify as “agents of a foreign principal” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). America First Legal’s request cited  CCDH’s reported communications with federal agencies, White House officials, and state attorneys general, as well as CCDH’s publication of reports calling for the de-platforming of specific U.S. individuals. America First Legal stated that its actions were intended to assess potential foreign influence on U.S. policymaking and to challenge what it characterizes as government-facilitated censorship of protected speech. ⁸

With the advent of the second Trump administration and following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the group’s ability to recommend censoring its political opponents has been greatly curtailed in the U.S. In early 2026, the group’s co-founder and former board member Morgan McSweeney resigned as U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s chief of staff amidst the fallout of the release of U.S. Department of Justice documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstien and former U.K. Ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson. McSweeney had been responsible for recommending Mandelson’s appointment. ⁹

McSweeney has faced further scrutiny when news broke that Labour Together, a think tank he ran until leaving in 2020 to become Starmer’s chief of staff and has been closely aligned with since, had been involved in efforts to spy on U.S. and U.K. journalists and media outlets. ⁶

CCDH faced further pressure when the Trump administration initiated efforts to deport the group’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, due to alleged efforts to censor American citizens. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing the government from deporting Ahmed in late 2025; the case was still ongoing as of February 2026. ⁵

Financials

For 2024, the Center for Countering Digital Hate reported $4,248,552 in revenues, of which $4,199,947 was from grants and contributions, and $48,048 was from investment income. It did not report any government funding. ¹⁰

CCDH reported $3,431,870 in expenses, with $889,348 spent on salaries and compensation, and $2,542,522 classified as other expenses. These expenses included $358,050 in legal expenses, $26,674 in lobbying expenses, $220,435 in advertising costs, $260,582 in travel expenses, $52,014 in dues and subscriptions, $16,708 in employee training costs, and $13,692 for meals and entertainment. ¹¹

It ended the year with $816,682 in net income and $1,773,106 in net assets. ¹²

Notable funders in 2024 and 2023 included the Samueli Foundation ($1,000,000 for general support), The Arthur M Blank Family Foundation ($400,000 for general support), the Lisa And Douglas Goldman Fund ($100,000 for countering the proliferation of online antisemitism), the Diane And Guilford Glazer Foundation ($105,000 across two grants for confronting antisemitism and the delegitimization of the state of Israel), and The Tepper Foundation ($850,000 in general support). ¹³

In 2021, CCDH’s first year operating while registered in the U.S., $1.1 million, or 75 percent of its $1.47 million budget, came from the Schwab Charitable Fund (now DAFgiving360), a donor-advised fund that is not obligated to disclose the identity of a donor who advises any particular grant. ²

Organization Philosophy/Left-Wing Affiliations

The Center for Countering Digital Hate is a left-of-center organization that seeks to restrict the audiences of people and organizations that it accuses of fostering hate or misinformation, though such people are often opponents of either a faction within the British Labour Party or the American Democratic Party.  In a 2023 profile in Tablet magazine, Paul D. Thacker wrote that “one might conclude that CCDH functions as an arm of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, to be deployed against the perceived enemies of corporate Democrats, whether they come from the left or the right.” ²

Simon Clark, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former senior fellow with the left-wing Center for American Progress, chaired CCDH’s board as of its 2024 tax filing. ¹⁴ The Center for American Progress was founded by John Podesta—a Democratic operative who was, among many other roles, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. ¹

CCDH has strong connections to establishment factions within the British Labour Party. CCDH’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, was formerly an advisor to various Labour politicians, and other people affiliated with the group have also worked within the Labour Party. CCDH also acquired Stop Funding Fake News, a digital-censorship campaign which has been credited with instigating the internal party machinations that kicked Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn out of his former position as leader of the Labour Party in 2020. ²  The group’s co-founder and former board member Morgan McSweeney would go on to become Labour Party leader Kier Starmer’s chief of staff. ¹⁵

Notable Targets and Campaigns

Katie Hopkins

In January 2020, the Center for Countering Digital Hate and British television presenter Rachel Riley began a campaign against Katie Hopkins, a British columnist and reality-television star. Hopkins is an outspoken proponent of immigration restrictions and has made inflammatory comments that have led to accusations of racism. ¹⁶ She has also attracted attention for being retweeted by President Donald Trump. ¹⁷

In mid-January 2020, Riley and CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed held a meeting with Twitter executives in London to advocate for Hopkins’s removal from its platform on the grounds that she was using Twitter to “spread hate.” ^{18  19}

On January 30, Hopkins’s Twitter account was suspended for a week, and all her past tweets were hidden. Twitter attributed the suspension to a violation of its “hateful conduct” policy. On June 19, Hopkins’s account was permanently suspended. ¹⁷

David Icke

In April 2020, the Center launched a campaign to de-platform David Icke, a conspiracy theorist best known for his claims that shape-shifting reptilians secretly control the world. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, Icke promoted a conspiracy theory that Jews and other nefarious elites used vaccines and the 5G cellular network to make people vulnerable to COVID-19. He also claims that healthy people cannot be infected by the disease. In response, the Center published a 25-page essay entitled #deplatformicke which publicly called for his removal from all major technology platforms and social-media websites. ^{20  21  22  23  24}

In early May, YouTube and Facebook deleted Icke’s accounts. YouTube issued a public statement that Icke had violated “policies prohibiting any content that disputes the existence and transmission of Covid-19 as described by the WHO and the NHS.” ^{24  25}

ZeroHedge

In June 2020, the financial blog ZeroHedge was banned from Google’s advertising platform, effectively demonetizing the site. Google made the decision after receiving a report from the Center claiming that comment sections on ZeroHedge articles regarding Black Lives Matter contained racist content. ³

The Federalist

Also on June 16, 2020, Google’s advertising platform issued a warning to The Federalist, a right-of-center political website, over alleged racism in comment sections related to the George Floyd protests. The purported policy violation was brought to Google’s attention by the Center. ³

Elon Musk

CCDH has written several reports and articles criticizing X/Twitter owner Elon Musk since Musk bought the company in October 2022. According to CCDH founder Imran Ahmed: “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,” claiming that Musk has allowed for a rise in hate speech on the platform since his acquisition. In an interview with Financial Times, Ahmed described his efforts to drive away investors to X, claiming that, “We don’t talk in the language of technology, we talk in the language of morality … Advertisers are also human beings. Some of them just don’t want to fund the primary vector of hate and disinformation in our society.” ²

In July 2023, a lawyer representing Musk accused Ahmed and CCDH of publishing falsified reports that claimed the platform was taking little action against accounts accused of “tweeting hate.” Ahmed responded stating, “Musk has just declared open war.” Musk’s X filed a lawsuit against CCDH, claiming the group had illegally obtained Twitter data by accessing computer files belonging to technology company Brandwatch, which had worked with Twitter on how to advertise and promote on the platform. ² This lawsuit was dismissed in March 2024. ²⁶

In October 2024, documents leaked from CCDH and reported by journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi claimed that CCDH was going to mount a “Kill Musk’s Twitter” campaign to be launched by early 2024 with the purpose of financially weakening the social-media platform X by pressuring advertisers to pull away funding prior to the 2024 presidential election on November 5, 2024. According to the leaked documents, the “Kill Musk’s Twitter” campaign would have involved arranging meetings with roughly 16 congressional offices regarding Musk’s own lawsuit against CCDH over what news outlet Express Tribune called “manipulating data to create a false narrative of increasing hate speech on Twitter.” In addition, the leaked documents claim the CCDH met with lawmakers to promote adopting an “anti-disinformation” regulator to similar to the European Union’s Digital Services Act.  ²⁷

COVID-19

In March 2021, CCDH released an online report discussing online disinformation relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the report and other CCDH content, misinformation relating to the virus had been peddled by four types of actors: hate groups, groups that financially profit from misinformation, fringe political groups, and innocently misinformed citizens. The report would later be cited by several officials from social media group X, then known as Twitter, and the Biden administration. Facebook Vice President Monika Bickert later criticized the report, with Tablet reporting that she had claimed that the results were “free of evidence…[while] neglecting to explain how they came up with their numbers and conclusions.” ^{2  28}

Don’t Feed the Trolls

In 2019, the Center for Countering Digital Hate published a 12-page pamphlet entitled Don’t Feed the Trolls: How to Deal with Hate on Social Media. The pamphlet calls for high-profile individuals on social media to entirely ignore “trolls,” or commenters who deliberately provoke negative reactions. CCHD’s message was endorsed by Rachel Riley and senior Labour Party figures, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson. ^{29  30}

Leadership

Imran Ahmed

Imran Ahmed is co-founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which he and other people associated with the British Labour Party founded in 2017 as Brixton Endeavors Limited, before changing the name in 2019. Ahmed previously worked as an advisor to several different Labour politicians before launching CCDH. While CCDH was originally founded in the U.K., it expanded its presence to the U.S. in 2021, where Ahmed now lives. ^{2  1  5}

Ahmed has been accused of using CCDH to further the interests of establishment factions within the Labour and Democratic parties. The group acquired the Stop Funding Fake News campaign, which had been involved with the ouster of former left-wing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn was replaced by Kier Starmer, who has several close associates connected to CCDH. ²

Ahmed has advocated sweeping government restrictions on online speech, going so far as to call for emergency powers that would allow governments to simply order the removal of any content it deemed to be harmful or dangerous. ⁴

The second Trump administration included Ahmed among a number of British and European Union individuals that it would be sanctioning on the grounds that they had tried to censor Americans and American companies. As of February 2026, a judge had ordered a temporary restraining order preventing the administration from deporting Ahmed, though the case was ongoing. ⁵

Morgan McSweeney

Morgan McSweeney is a co-founder and former board member of CCDH and a longtime British Labour Party operative and advisor. McSweeney left CCDH’s board in 2020 after Jeremy Corbyn was ousted from Labour Party leadership and McSweeney’s close associate, Kier Starmer, became the Labour Party leader and McSweeney was appointed his chief of staff. Starmer was later elected Prime Minister. ^{4   1}

McSweeney resigned amidst growing scandals in early 2026. In September 2025, the longtime Labour politician Peter Mandelson was removed from his post as the U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. following revelations that he had supported Jeffrey Epstein when the latter was facing sex-crimes charges. However, files released by the U.S. government in early 2026 revealed that Mandelson had continued his contact with Epstein long after Epstein’s conviction in the late 2000s. Mandelson was arrested in early February 2026 when the files showed he allegedly funneled inside U.K. government information to Epstein. ^{9  31}

McSweeney resigned as chief of staff as it became publicly known that Mandelson’s associations with Epstein were not a secret, but rather were known by various Labour Party leaders. ¹⁵

It came to light that the think tank McSweeney previously led before he became Starmer’s chief of staff, Labour Together, had hired an outside firm to dredge up dirt and information on a number of American and British journalists and newspapers that had critically reported on a failure of Labour Together to properly report its finances. ³² After McSweeney resigned from the group in 2020, he and other leaders worked closely with Labour Together to run the party. ³²

The U.S.-based, right-of-center Foundation for Freedom Online characterized McSweeney as being a “transatlantic censorship architect” due to his role in founding and continuing cooperation with the CCDH and Labour Together, and the apparent coordination to attack his political opponents in both the U.S. and the U.K. ³³
Simon Clark

As of its 2024 tax filing, Simon Clark chaired the board of CCDH. Clark had a long career in finance and has held or holds positions at the Atlantic Council, Foreign Policy for America, and the Center for American Progress as a senior fellow where he has worked on the threat of violent white supremacy in the U.S. ^{34   2  35}

Rachel Riley

Rachel Riley is a British mathematician and game-show host who has risen to prominence as an advocate for internet censorship and government control. Riley was involved in the efforts to remove Jeremy Corbyn from Labour Party leadership over his alleged antisemitism. Riley has been a vocal supporter of CCDH and is variously identified as its patron or ambassador. ^{2  36 37}