The Center for Countering Digital Hate is a London-based advocacy group that targets accused “hate groups” and individuals for de-platforming campaigns to remove them from major social media outlets. The Center is best known for working with Rachel Riley to remove controversial far-right commentator Katie Hopkins from Twitter and conspiracy theorist David Icke from Facebook and Youtube.

In June 2020, the group launched a campaign that was promoted by NBC’s News Verification Unit against American conservative commentary website The Federalist, seeking to have Google ban the site from its advertising platform.¹

CCDH has ties to the left-wing British Labour Party. The group’s founder, Imran Ahmed, is a former advisor to Labour Members of Parliament Hilary Benn and Angela Eagle. Board member Kristy McNeill is a former adviser to former Labour Party British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and former board member Morgan McSweeney resigned from the board to become chief of staff to Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.²

Targets

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 well known for her commentary on social media where she is an outspoken proponent of immigration restrictions and has made inflammatory comments that have led to accusations of racism.³ She has also attracted attention for being retweeted by President Donald Trump.⁴ In mid-January, Riley and Center CEO Imran Ahmed held a meeting with Twitter executives in London to advocate for Hopkins’s removal from their platform on the grounds that she was using Twitter to “spread hate.”⁵⁶

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.⁷

George Galloway

In January, the Center and Riley also targeted former radical-left Member of Parliament George Galloway, whom they accused of spreading anti-Semitism online. At their meeting with Twitter executives, the Center and Riley pointed to an allegedly anti-Semitic Tweet which had gotten Galloway fired from talkRADIO. Though Twitter reviewed Galloway’s profile, his account was not suspended.⁸⁹

David Icke

In April, the Center launched a campaign to de-platform David Icke, a conspiracy theorist best known for his theory that shape-shifting reptilians secretly control the world.¹⁰ In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, Icke has promoted a conspiracy theory that Jews and other nefarious elites have been using vaccines and the 5G cellular network to make people vulnerable to COVID-19.¹¹ He also claims that healthy people cannot be infected by the disease.¹² In response, the center published a 25-page essay entitled #deplatformicke which publicly called for his removal from all major tech and social media websites.¹³ As of May 2, the Center’s open letter attached to its essay had collected over 800 signatures.¹⁴

In early May, Youtube and Facebook deleted Icke’s accounts on their sites.¹⁵ 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.”¹⁶

Zero Hedge

On June 16, financial blog Zero Hedge was banned from Google’s advertising platform, effectively demonetizing the site. Google made the decision after receiving a report from the Center which claimed that comment sections on Zero Hedge articles regarding Black Lives Matter contained racist content.¹⁷

The Federalist

Also on June 16, Google’s advertising platform issued a warning to The Federalist, a right-of-center political website, over racism in comment sections related to the George Floyd protests. The possible policy violation was brought to Google’s attention by the Center.¹⁸

Elon Musk

The CCDH has written several reports and articles criticizing X/Twitter owner Elon Musk since the latter 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,” ¹⁹ claiming that Musk has allowed for a rise in hate speech on the platform since his acquisition. ²⁰ 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.” ²¹ In July 2023, a lawyer representing Musk sent a letter accusing Ahmed and the CCDH of publishing falsified reports that claimed the platform was taking little action against accounts accused of “tweeting hate.” ²² After Ahmed called the letter a “declaration of war” X/Twitter filed a lawsuit against the CCDH, claiming that 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. As of October 2023, the lawsuit is ongoing. ²³

COVID-19

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, the CCDH, in March 2021, launched an online report discussing online disinformation relating to Covid-19. The report and subsequent campaign allegedly opposed several public health official views on methods of controlling the virus. According to the Center’s website, misinformation relating to the virus had been peddled by four types of actors: hate groups, groups which financially profit from misinformation, fringe political groups, and innocently misinformed citizens. ^{24 25} 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 by claiming that the results were, “free of evidence…[while] neglecting to explain how they came up with their numbers and conclusions.” ²⁶

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.²⁷ The Center’s message has been endorsed by Rachel Riley and senior Labour Party figures including London Mayor Sadiq Khan and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson.²⁸

Funding

According to tax records, during Imran Ahmed’s first year as chief executive of the CCDH in 2021, the company raised roughly $1.47 million with around $1.1 million coming from donor-advised fund Schwab Charitable Fund.²⁹

In August 2023, U.S House Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter demanding the CCDH release lists of its funders as well as communications it has had with social media companies and federal agencies accused of attempting to censor Americans. After failing to do so, Jordan sent a subpoena to the organization while accusing the latter of colluding with the Biden Administration. ³⁰

People

Center for Countering Digital Hate has ties to the left-wing British Labour Party and British left-progressivism. Imran Ahmed, a former Labour political advisor who wrote a book attacking the legacy of free-market thinker and Nobel-laureate economist Friedrich Hayek, founded CCDH in 2017. Ahmed previously advised then-Labour MP Hilary Benn and Angela Eagle, a Labour Party politician serving as an MP as of June 2020.³¹Board members with ties to the Labour Party include Kristy McNeill, at one-time an advisor to former British Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown. Morgan McSweeney resigned from the CCDH board to become chief of staff for Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.³²

Other board members are associated with left-progressive organizations: Simon Clark is a nonresident senior fellow with the Democratic establishment-aligned think tank Center for American Progress, Johnny Oates is a Member of the UK House of Lords for the Liberal Democrats party, and Ayesha Saran is “migration program manager” for a UK-based left-progressive foundation.³³Game show host Rachel Riley is listed as the organization’s “patron.”³⁴

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2. Lucas, Fred. “4 Things to Know About the British Group Targeting The Federalist.” The Daily Signal, June 23, 2020. https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/06/21/4-things-to-know-about-the-british-group-targeting-the-federalist/.
3. Hutzler, Alexandra. “Who is Katie Hopkins? Far-Right British Activist Known For Racist Rants Finds Support from Donald Trump.”
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17. Fraser, Adele-Momoko. “Google bans website ZeroHedge from its ad platformover comments on protest articles.” June 16, 2020. Accessed June 25, 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-bans-two-websites-its-ad-platform-over-protest-articles-n1231176.
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31. Lucas, Fred. “4 Things to Know About the British Group Targeting The Federalist.” The Daily Signal, June 23, 2020. https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/06/21/4-things-to-know-about-the-british-group-targeting-the-federalist/.
32. Lucas, Fred. “4 Things to Know About the British Group Targeting The Federalist.” The Daily Signal, June 23, 2020. https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/06/21/4-things-to-know-about-the-british-group-targeting-the-federalist/.
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