Newly released documents confirm that the Biden administration coordinated with a UK group to trample free speech.
The Biden White House “partnered with” the UK- and US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) as part of its strategy to combat alleged “domestic terrorism.” New emails obtained by America First Legal (AFL) expose the administration’s Orwellian project to crush online content with which it disagrees. It seems it was no coincidence that former White House press secretary Jen Psaki used a CCDH report, the “Disinformation Dozen,” to insist on increased COVID-19 censorship in July 2021.
Biden’s “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” endorsed the anti-free speech Christchurch Call to Action and turned to research conducted by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the CCDH, the initially UK-based group that is now also incorporated in America, AFL explained. CCDH calls itself a “not-for-profit” NGO that “works to stop the spread of online hate and disinformation.” Leftist British politician Imran Ahmed is the CEO. As a Labor Party staffer, Ahmed reportedly coordinated with leftist outlet The Guardian to accuse UK Conservative Party figure Grant Shapps falsely of editing his Tory rivals’ Wikipedia pages, according to Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi.
After CCDH released the “Disinformation Dozen” report, the Biden White House used it to urge Big Tech companies, especially Facebook, to deplatform the highlighted COVID-19 vaccine critics.
The co-chair of the now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under secretary Robert Silvers, also took an interest in the organization. Silvers messaged Eva Hartshorn-Sanders, who at the time was CCDH’s Head of Policy, to arrange a meeting to discuss the organization’s work, AFL noted. He was then invited to CCDH’s Global Summit by Hartshorn-Sanders, who has pushed anti-free speech legislation.
But the Biden administration’s ties to CCDH do not end there. CCDH also met with Biden officials after the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse debuted, per AFL. CCDH submitted recommendations to the task force on addressing “gender-based violence.” When the White House released a 2023 blueprint on “Online Harassment and Abuse,” Hartshorn-Sanders claimed credit for policy development.
Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger slammed the government censorship collusion revealed by AFL. He accused CCDH of “hyp[ing] hate” to “demand Facebook and other social media platforms to remove content and people they don’t like.” He added, “For the government to decide what is extreme is a way of labeling someone as a potential terrorist threat.” Ultimately, Shellenberger argued, “There is no reliable connection between people’s beliefs and violence. Attempting to stop violence by censoring speech is totalitarian and Orwellian. It effectively criminalizes speech and creates a whole new category of pre-crime.”
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