A self-described "disinformation" tracker that Republicans accuse of helping to censor conservative voices online has shared ties with the British government, records show.
As part of his sprawling "censorship" investigation, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) in August subpoenaed the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a United States charity with a London-based arm the White House has cited as an expert on thwarting purported disinformation. But the U.K. entity has other affiliations raising eyebrows among watchdog groups: Its board of directors has included British politicians, officials, and their staffers.
THE MCCORMICK-CASEY PENNSYLVANIA MATCHUP LINING UP TO BE BIGGEST SENATE RACE IN 2024
“The CCDH has been one of the government’s go-to organizations to justify censoring conservative content," Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, told the Washington Examiner. "Americans should be very concerned that the Biden administration has given an entity affiliated with a foreign government such sway over American civil liberties."
The Biden White House and Facebook have been in close contact on fighting alleged COVID-19 disinformation, with the U.S. government in 2021 going so far as to send posts to the social media company it determined to be tied to the CCDH's "Disinformation Dozen," a report the group published labeling certain social media accounts as peddling coronavirus-related falsehoods, according to emails first reported on by the Washington Examiner.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate was incorporated in the United Kingdom in October 2018, and its founder and CEO is Imran Ahmed, former senior political adviser to Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn and ally of Angela Eagle, a British Labour Party Member of Parliament and co-author of his 2018 book. The CCDH has also come under the national spotlight due to X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, accusing it in a July lawsuit of making "false" claims after alleging hate speech spiked on the platform after CEO Elon Musk's October 2022 takeover.
As far as its mission, the CCDH says it "works to stop the spread of online hate and disinformation through innovative research, public campaigns and policy advocacy." The organization has on several occasions presented testimony and evidence to the British Parliament on social media regulations and has supported an amendment that would require advertisers to say on their websites which domains carry their content to purportedly stop the spread of "climate denial, anti-vaxx propaganda, political misinformation, incel ideology and racial hatred," according to Parliament records.
One person listed in British corporate records as a board member of the CCDH is Damian Collins, a conservative member of Parliament who between 2016 and 2019 was chairman of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. He was also parliamentary undersecretary of state for tech and the digital economy in the British government's Science, Innovation, and Technology Department in 2022.
In July 2023, the U.K.'s government issued a decision saying Collins was permitted to accept an unpaid director role with the CCDH. However, the government declared that he was barred from disclosing privileged information to the CCDH or lobbying, records show.
Kirsty McNeill, another board member for the CCDH, worked as strategy director between 2010 and 2011 to the office of Gordon Brown, former U.K. prime minister, and his wife, Sarah Brown, according to her LinkedIn. McNeill is currently running as a Scottish Labour Party candidate.
Board member Matthew Gould was the British ambassador to Israel between 2010 to 2015 and previously held various senior roles in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Gould between May 2019 and September 2022 was director general for digital transformation under the U.K.'s Department of Health and Social Care, his LinkedIn shows.
"It is essential Congress pass legislation to keep foreign nationals and foreign entities from sabotaging the free speech rights of Americans and using a censorship regime to interfere in American elections," Stephen Miller, president of the conservative group America First Legal, which recently filed public records requests to the Biden administration for possible communications between top officials and the CCDH, told the Washington Examiner.
"The malign conduct of the CCDH tears the very fabric of our society," Miller, ex-senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, added.
Meanwhile, recent board members for the CCDH have included Lord Jonathan Oates, a liberal British politician who was chief of staff for U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and Morgan McSweeney, campaign director for the Labour Party.
Clegg, now-president of Meta's global affairs, emailed with then-senior COVID-19 response coordinator for the White House, Andy Slavitt, in 2021 in connection to the CCDH's Disinformation Dozen, the Washington Examiner reported. "I realise that our position on this continues to be a particular concern for you which is why our teams regularly engage with a range of experts to check whether we are striking the right balance here," Clegg told Slavitt after the White House inquired about alleged COVID-19 disinformation.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate did not return a request for comment.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
A source close to the House Judiciary Committee said it gave the CCDH a Sept. 29 deadline to respond to its subpoena. The panel asked for "communications between the Executive Branch and CCDH, internal CCDH communications discussing communications from the Executive Branch, and CCDH communications with third parties that may have been working with the Executive Branch," documents show.
"Center for Countering Digital Hate is a conduit for laundering British national security state and intelligence agency agenda items through dark arts political operations," Mike Benz, head of the censorship watchdog Foundation for Freedom Online and a former Trump State Department official, told the Washington Examiner.