A top Republican on Aug. 30 announced a subpoena against a group that tries to pressure Big Tech companies into banning users.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, issued the subpoena to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The subpoena seeks documents and communications regarding contact between the center and President Joe Biden’s administration.
“To date, CCDH has failed to produce a single document, despite admissions to the Committee and to the press that part of CCDH’s work includes directly engaging with the Executive Branch and social media companies,” the committee said in a statement. “CCDH’s counsel has informed the committee that CCDH will not comply with voluntary requests, leaving the committee with no choice but to subpoena.”
The ‘Disinformation Dozen’
The CCDH, which is based in London but has an office in Washington, has openly advocated for Big Tech companies such as Facebook to ban users, including presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The nonprofit released a letter that it sent to Mr. Jordan previously, alleging that the committee “may not have a clear understanding of CCDH’s mission or work.” It said that as part of efforts to “stop the spread of online hate and disinformation,” it has “collaborated with governmental officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations.”
The CCDH also said that it’s entirely funded by private donors and doesn’t receive any funding from the U.S. government.
The group in 2021 released a report called “The Disinformation Dozen,” in which it identified and profiled 13 people, including Mr. Kennedy before he announced his candidacy. It listed Ty and Charlene Bollinger collectively in the No. 3 spot.
The group said the people featured in the report were posting “anti-vaccine content” on social media platforms and that “the most effective and efficient way to stop the dissemination of harmful information is to deplatform the most highly visible repeat offenders.”
Among the posts that the center highlighted was one made in late 2020 predicting that people would be required to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination to travel, which ended up being correct.
The House panel is targeting the CCDH because documents made public in recent court cases show that White House officials cited its report when pressuring platforms to ban users, including Mr. Kennedy.
White House officials also spoke about the so-called disinformation dozen in public.
“There’s about 12 people who are producing 65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said from the White House podium.
Lawsuit
X, formerly known as Twitter, sued the CCDH on July 31 for allegedly engaging in a campaign to drive advertisers away.The federal complaint, filed in California, accused the nonprofit of illegally accessing secure data. The nonprofit accessed the data in part by convincing third parties to let it access data that was provided by X, the company said.
The CCDH then selectively picked a small number of posts to make a false claim that hate speech on the platform has risen since Mr. Musk took over, the filing alleged.
A number of media outlets reported on the claim, helping to convince advertisers to stop buying ads on X, according to the company.
“CCDH’s scare campaign to global advertisers and its ongoing pressure on brands is an attempt to stifle freedom of speech on the X platform,” the lawsuit said.
Imran Ahmed, CCDH founder and CEO, said in a statement that X CEO Elon Musk was attempting to silence the nonprofit.
“The Center for Countering Digital Hate’s research shows that hate and disinformation is spreading like wildfire on the platform under Musk’s ownership and this lawsuit is a direct attempt to silence those efforts. People don’t want to see or be associated with hate, antisemitism, and the dangerous content that we all see proliferating on X,” Mr. Ahmed said in a statement.
“Musk is trying to ‘shoot the messenger’ who highlights the toxic content on his platform rather than deal with the toxic environment he’s created. CCDH has no intention of stopping our independent research—Musk will not bully us into silence.”
The Democrat attorneys general cited the CCDH report and urged Twitter and Facebook to remove Mr. Kennedy and others from their platforms.
“In 2021, in an extraordinarily anti-American move, 12 state attorneys general did the bidding of an organization with extraordinary foreign ties to pressure social media companies to censor Americans’ speech," Gene Hamilton, America First Legal’s general counsel, said in a statement.
“We are going to obtain any and all communications between those offices and anyone associated with CCDH so that the American people can see for themselves the extent of this foreign-influence operation at the state level.”
