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CCDH is a member of the [[Stop Hate For Profit]] coalition.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Frazer|first=Jenni|title='The reason social media companies tolerate hate? Profit'|url=https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/meet-the-man-trying-to-drive-antisemitism-offline/|access-date=2020-12-10|website=jewishnews.timesofisrael.com|language=en-US}}</ref>
CCDH is a member of the [[Stop Hate For Profit]] coalition.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Frazer|first=Jenni|title='The reason social media companies tolerate hate? Profit'|url=https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/meet-the-man-trying-to-drive-antisemitism-offline/|access-date=2020-12-10|website=jewishnews.timesofisrael.com|language=en-US}}</ref>

== History and structure ==
{{Primary sources|section|date=September 2021}}
According to the official records, the non-profit was registered as a company in 2018 as Brixton Endeavours Limited. Its first director was Morgan James McSweeney.<ref name="companies">{{cite web|date=10 May 2020|title=Center For Countering Digital Hate Ltd|url=https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11633127/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200410094741/https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11633127/|archive-date=10 April 2020|work=Companies House}}</ref> The company changed its name to Center for Countering Digital Hate in August 2019.<ref name="companies" />

=== Board of Directors ===
Morgan James McSweeney, currently chief of staff to [[Keir Starmer]],<ref>{{cite web|date=9 Dec 2020|title=Morgan McSweeney|url=https://macemagazine.com/people/80-morgan-mcsweeney-chief-of-staff-to-keir-starmer/|work=Keir Starmer MP}}</ref>{{better source|This seems to be a blank page - plus is it reliable and isn't what he was doing in 2018 more relevant than what he is doing now?|date=December 2020}} was the first Director of the CCDH.<ref name="companies-people">{{cite web |url=https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11633127/officers%7C|title=Center For Countering Digital Hate Ltd|work=Companies House|date=10 May 2020}}</ref> Upon the launch of the center in September 2019, he was joined by David Craig Roberts; Siobhan Marie McAndrew,<ref name="companies-people" /> a sociology lecturer at the [[University of Bristol]];<ref>{{cite web|date=10 May 2020|title=Dr Siobhan McAndrew|url=http://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/people/person/siobhan-m-mcandrew/|work=University of Bristol}}</ref> and Kirsty Jean McNeill,<ref name="companies-people" /> an executive director at [[Save the Children]] and Board member of the [[Holocaust Educational Trust]] and the [[Coalition for Global Prosperity]].<ref>{{cite web|date=9 Dec 2020|title=Kirsty McNeill|url=https://twitter.com/kirstyjmcneill?lang=en|work=Save the Children}}</ref> McSweeney resigned in April 2020.

More recent directors include Simon Clark (Chair); Tom Brookes, Executive Director, Strategic Communications at the [[European Climate Foundation]];<ref>{{cite web|date=9 Dec 2020|title=Tom Brookes|url=http://europeanclimate.org/member/tom-brookes/|work=European Climate Foundation}}</ref> [[Damian Collins]]; [[Jonny Oates, Baron Oates|Jonny Oates]]; and Ayesha Saran.<ref name="companies-people" />

=== CEO ===
CCDH's current CEO, Imran Ahmed, was raised in [[Manchester]] and holds an MA in Social and Political Sciences from the [[University of Cambridge]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Our People {{!}} Center for Countering Digital Hate|url=https://www.counterhate.com/our-people|access-date=2021-05-18|website=CCDH|language=en}}</ref> He is a trustee of [[Victim Support]]<ref>{{cite web|title=Board of Trustees|url=https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/more-us/about-us/people/board-trustees|publisher=Victim Support}}</ref> and sits on the steering committee for the [[Commission for Countering Extremism]]'s Pilot Task Force.<ref>{{cite web|last=|first=|date=26 May 2020|title=Pilot Task Force Steering Committee|url=https://extremismcommission.blog.gov.uk/2020/04/15/our-steering-committee/|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|work=Commission for Countering Extremism}}</ref> Before founding the CCDH in 2018, he served as a political advisor to the [[Shadow cabinet|shadow]] foreign secretary [[Hilary Benn]] MP in the UK Parliament and as political advisor to [[Alan Johnson|Alan Johnson MP]], leader of the [[Labour In for Britain|Labour Remain campaign]], in the [[2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|2016 Brexit referendum]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=In the thick of it|url=https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/attend-an-event/event-listing/in-the-thick-of-it/|access-date=2021-05-13|website=www.parliament.uk|language=en}}</ref><ref name="auto4">{{Cite web|last=Frazer|first=Jenni|title='The reason social media companies tolerate hate? Profit'|url=https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/meet-the-man-trying-to-drive-antisemitism-offline/|access-date=2021-05-13|website=jewishnews.timesofisrael.com|language=en-US}}</ref>

Ahmed previously co-authored the book ''The New Serfdom: The Triumph of Conservative Ideas and How to Defeat Them'' with Labour MP [[Angela Eagle]].<ref name="bbp">{{cite web|date=10 May 2020|title=Imran Ahmed|url=https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/authors/imran-ahmed|work=Bite Back Publishing}}</ref>


==Activities==
==Activities==

Revision as of 15:59, 18 September 2021

"CCDH" redirects here. For the Moroccan human rights organization, see National Human Rights Council (Morocco).
Center for Countering Digital Hate
Company typePrivate company limited by guarantee
Founded2018[1]
FounderImran Ahmed[2]
Headquarters
London Edit this on Wikidata
Key people
Imran Ahmed (CEO)
Tom Brookes
Simon Clark (Chair)
Damian Collins MP
Kirsty McNeill
Siobhan McAndrew
Lord Jonathan Oates
Ayesha Saran[3]
Revenue400,000 Euro (2020) Edit this on Wikidata
Websitewww.counterhate.co.uk

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is a non-profit organisation with offices in London and Washington, DC.[4] It campaigns for big tech firms to stop providing services to individuals who may promote hate and misinformation, including neo-Nazis and anti-vaccine advocates.

CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition.[5]

Activities

The CCDH has targeted social media platforms for what it claims are insufficient efforts on their part to fight neo-Nazis[6] and anti-vaccine advocates.[7]

Campaigns

Campaign against Galloway and Hopkins

Further information: Twitter suspensions

In January 2020, the CCDH campaigned against Katie Hopkins, a far-right political commentator, and George Galloway, a veteran left-wing politician and broadcaster.[8] TV presenter Rachel Riley and the CCDH directly lobbied "big tech" companies to have these individuals removed from major social media platforms. According to media reports, Riley and Imran Ahmed had a "secret meeting" with Twitter's London based staff in January 2020, demanding the removal of Hopkins and Galloway from their platform.[9]

CCDH's attempt to remove Galloway from Twitter failed, but Hopkins had her account suspended for a week in February 2020,[10] and removed permanently in July 2020.[11]

Campaign against David Icke

In April 2020 the CCDH launched a campaign against the British conspiracy theorist David Icke, who gained increased media attention during the COVID-19-associated lockdown in the United Kingdom.[12] The CCDH released a 25-page pamphlet attacking Icke entitled #DeplatformIcke[13] and campaigned to persuade social media platforms to remove his accounts, portraying him as a "hate actor".

In November 2020, Twitter removed Icke's account for violating the site's rules against spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.[14]

Other campaigns

The CCDH notified Google that the Zero Hedge website had published what it called "racist articles" about the Black Lives Matter protests. As a result, in June 2020, Google found that reader comments on Zero Hedge breached its policies and banned Zero Hedge from its advertising platform.[15]

Publications

See also

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference companies was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Our People". Center for Countering Digital Hate. 26 May 2020.
  3. ^ "CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE LTD". Officers (free information from Companies House). 2020-10-09. Retrieved 2020-12-07.
  4. ^ "About Us". The Center for Countering Digital Hate. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  5. ^ Frazer, Jenni. "'The reason social media companies tolerate hate? Profit'". jewishnews.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  6. ^ "Facebook Still Ignoring Warnings of Neo-Nazi Fundraising Network on Its Platforms, New Report Claims". Algemeiner.com. 2020-11-23. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  7. ^ Burki, Talha (2020-10-01). "The online anti-vaccine movement in the age of COVID-19". The Lancet Digital Health. 2 (10): e504–e505. doi:10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30227-2. ISSN 2589-7500. PMC 7508526. PMID 32984795.
  8. ^ "George Galloway sacked by talkRADIO over allegedly anti-Semitic tweet". BBC. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
  9. ^ "Countdown's Rachel Riley in secret talks over Katie Hopkins' Twitter suspension". Metro. 30 January 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  10. ^ "Katie Hopkins' Twitter Reinstated Following Week-Long Absence". Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  11. ^ Slawson, Nicola; Waterson, Jim (19 June 2020). "Katie Hopkins permanently removed from Twitter". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  12. ^ "Icke antisemitic conspiracies viewed over 30 million times, new research shows". The Jewish Chronicle. 10 May 2020.
  13. ^ "#DeplatformIcke: How Big Tech powers and profits from David Icke's lies and hate, and why it must stop" (PDF). Center for Countering Digital Hate. 10 May 2020.
  14. ^ "Twitter bans David Icke over Covid misinformation". BBC News. 2020-11-04. Retrieved 2020-11-04.
  15. ^ Fraser, Adele-Momoko (17 June 2020). "Google bans website ZeroHedge from its ad platform over comments on protest articles". NBC News. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  16. ^ "Don't feed the Troll: Sadiq Khan, Gary Lineker and Rachel Riley pledged not to publicise abuse they receive online". The Independent. 10 May 2020.
  17. ^ "How to Deal With Hate on Social Media: Don't Feed the Trolls". NHS Horizons. 10 May 2020.
  18. ^ "Gary Lineker and Rachel Riley are silencing trolls once and for all - by doing this one simple thing". Birmingham Mail. 10 May 2020.
  19. ^ "Stop engaging with online trolls altogether, public figures say". The Guardian. 10 May 2020.
  20. ^ Ahmed, Imran (2020-07-07). "It's time the tech giants cracked down on the anti-vaxx infodemic". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2021-05-21.
  21. ^ "Facebook to 'take down' coronavirus misinformation". BBC News. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  22. ^ "Social media companies 'failing to act on 90% of Covid-19 misinformation'". ITV News. 2020-06-03. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  23. ^ "Social media firms fail to act on Covid-19 fake news". BBC News. 2020-06-03. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  24. ^ Brown, Kristen V. "A Look Inside the Anti-Vaxx Playbook". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2021-05-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  25. ^ "Facebook condemned for hosting neo-Nazi network with UK links". the Guardian. 2020-11-22. Retrieved 2021-06-03.
  26. ^ ""Gas chambers" Facebook group one of several that sold neo-Nazi merchandise to fund far-right groups". Newsweek. 2020-11-23. Retrieved 2021-06-03.
  27. ^ Reporter, Metro Science (2020-09-03). "Social media 'failed to remove 95% of anti-vaccine misinformation'". Metro. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  28. ^ Campbell, Hebe (2021-04-27). "US Congress hearing probes misinformation via social media algorithms". euronews. Retrieved 2021-05-13.
  29. ^ Guenot, Marianne. "Instagram recommendation algorithms are pushing anti-vaxx and QAnon posts, NGO report says". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-05-13.
  30. ^ Hern, Alex (2021-03-09). "Instagram led users to Covid misinformation amid pandemic – report". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-09-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  31. ^ Harpin, Lee (2021-03-09). "Instagram's algorithm 'recommending' antisemitic imagery and QAnon conspiracies". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 2021-05-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  32. ^ Jarry, Jonathan (31 March 2021). "A Dozen Misguided Influencers Spread Most of the Anti-Vaccination Content on Social Media". Office for Science and Society. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  33. ^ "Covid vaccine: Social media urged to remove 'disinfo dozen'". BBC News. 2021-03-26. Retrieved 2021-05-17.
  34. ^ Srikanth, Anagha (2021-03-24). "12 prominent people opposed to vaccines are responsible for two-thirds of anti-vaccine content online: report". TheHill. Retrieved 2021-05-17.
  35. ^ Papenfuss, Mary (2021-05-14). "12 Influencers Are Behind Most Anti-Vax Hoaxes On Social Media, Surprise Research Reveals". HuffPost. Retrieved 2021-05-17.

Further reading

External links

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