British campaigner says tech firms behind bid to deport him from US
A British counter-disinformation campaigner has accused “sociopathic” tech firms of being behind a bid to deport him from the US.
Imran Ahmed, a former Labor Party adviser, has been endorsed by Donald Trump’s administration for his work as chief executive of the Center to Counter Digital Hate (CCDH), which campaigns against online disinformation and antisemitism.
Senior State Department officials accused Ahmed of trying to “censor” social media platforms such as Elon Musk’s X.
The billionaire unsuccessfully tried to sue CCDH last year over allegations of an increase in hate speech and disinformation on its website.
In an interview with the Guardian on Friday, Ahmed said the decision to sanction him was “never about politics” and pointed the finger at social media companies he was trying to “hold accountable”.
He said: “The problem is people who don’t want to be held accountable and who are corrupting the system because of the influence of big money in Washington and trying to shape it to their will, and their will is unaccountable.
“There is no other industry that operates with such arrogance, indifference, lack of humility and sociopathic greed at the expense of people.”
Mr Ahmed is one of five Europeans, including Clare Melford, managing director of the UK-based Global Disinformation Index, who have been banned from visas by the US over allegations of “censorship”.
Mr Ahmed, a green card holder, has legal permanent residence in the US, where he lives with his American wife and child, but sanctions mean that status could be revoked, leaving him vulnerable to deportation.
After being subjected to sanctions, Mr Ahmed obtained a court order preventing his arrest or deportation ahead of a December 29 hearing at which his legal complaint against the sanctions will be considered.
His lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said the US government’s actions were “unjust and clearly unconstitutional”, while Mr Ahmed said he was confident his right to free speech would be supported.
The Trump administration has signaled that the sanctions could potentially be followed by other actions targeting serving politicians or officials.
Other Europeans subject to travel bans included Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner responsible for overseeing social media rules, and Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of the German organization HateAid.
Mr Ahmed has links to senior figures in the Labor Party, having been an adviser to current Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn when she was shadow foreign secretary.
Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir Starmer’s private secretary, was listed as a director at CCDH before resigning in April 2020, Companies House records show.
