Shots Fired: Twitter Explores Lawsuit Against Pro-Censorship Operatives

Twitter father or mother firm X corp is exploring a lawsuit in opposition to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a UK-based darkish cash nonprofit run by a far-left British Labour Party operative named Imran Ahmed.

Earlier this month journalist Paul Thacker dropped a Twitter recordsdata exposé by way of The Disinformation Chronicle during which we study that pre-Musk Twitter staff took motion in opposition to a number of conservative accouints after the CCDH launched a report alleging that simply 12 accounts produced nearly all of anti-vaccine disinformation on social media.

Facebook, in the meantime, rejected the report, saying in a press release that “There isn’t any evidence to support this claim.”

Who is funding this group? They unfold disinformation and push censorship, whereas claiming the alternative. Truly evil.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2023

An analogous lack of proof underpins a July 20 letter from “X” attorneys to CCDH and its CEO, Ahmed, which it accused of focusing on Twitter with a number of unfounded accusations in an try to harm the corporate financially.

The letter cites a June CCDH report titled “Twitter Fails To Act On 99% Of Twitter Blue Accounts Tweeting Hate,” which X says was “false, misleading or both.”

“It has come to our attention that you and your organization, the Center for Countering Digital Hate … have made a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically,” reads the letter (by way of Paul Thacker). “CCDH usually posts articles making inflammatory, outrageous, and false or deceptive assertions about Twitter and its operations, which CCDH holds out to most of the people as supported by ‘research.”

X is also asserting that CCDH is funded by Twitter competitors – a claim they have denied, the NYT reports.

Ahmed took to Twitter to complain, writing “Threatening independent watchdogs that inform the public about wrongdoing is the kind of thing tyrants do.”

To which Thacker asks: “Why is this guy in America? Who funds him?“

Good question. This appears to be foreign government interference.

Can’t wait to get their donors below deposition!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2023

Who is Imran Ahmed? As Thacker writes:

Started by Imran Ahmed, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) sprang out of nowhere in late 2017 or early 2018. At the time, Ahmed was leaving a job as a political advisor to members of the British Labour Party and had just written a book.

As we chronicle in our simply revealed e book The New Serfdom, the dominance of market fundamentalism has been a disastrous experiment that has ripped up social cohesion and solidarity whereas the hole between the 1 per cent and the 99 per cent has soared to ranges not seen for the reason that starting of the final century. Home possession, safe employment and truthful wages appear to be relics of a bygone period. Meanwhile exploitative office practices have created a brand new serfdom leaving many individuals trapped in insecure, unfulfilling and underpaid work with no escape route.

How this background as a political operative ready Ahmed to model himself as an professional in disinformation is unclear. His LinkedIn account makes no point out of his work as a political operative in England, though his biography at CCDH states that he’s an “authority on social and psychological malignancies on social media, such as identity-based hate, extremism, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.”

Ahmed now lives in Washington DC and his group doesn’t present a listing of funders.

In early 2021, CCDH posted a report titled “The Disinformation Dozen” that alleged nearly all of COVID vaccine disinformation got here from simply 12 accounts, together with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Ahmed launched the report simply because the Biden administration started their COVID vaccine rollout and shortly earlier than the House held hearings on disinformation at social media firms.

Twitter officers started sharing Ahmed’s findings, quickly after CCDH launched them that March. “COVID-19 misinfo enforcement team is planning on taking action on a handful of accounts surfaced by the CCDH report,” reads a March 31 e mail, noting that Ahmded’s report was launched proper earlier than the House held a hearing on disinformation the place Facebook’s Mark Zuckeberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsy each testified, together with Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

7. Twitter officers mentioned taking motion based mostly on the CCDH report. “COVID-19 misinfo enforcement team is planning on taking action on a handful of accounts surfaced by the CCDH report.” pic.twitter.com/khTr1w6GhF

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) July 18, 2023

Reactions abound:

Any good friend of Adam Schiff is just not a good friend of Americahttps://t.co/dz4Mfn9Qlf

— American Voter 🇺🇸 (@AmericanVoterUS) July 31, 2023

CCDH’s former Head of Communications is a self-described “CIA operative” in her personal Twitter bio (!!) with an in depth historical past of NATO operations:

‘Covert operations, intelligence & disinformation’https://t.co/lH32ugKEhl pic.twitter.com/jC3T7CYa2O

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) July 18, 2023

Lol guess we are going to see if grifter Ahmed’s donation funders need to fund his journeys to court docket.

— ⚡️Pegasus10🦄 (@Pegasus10000069) July 31, 2023