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Leaked documents show US-British NGO plan for online censorship ━ The European Conservative

Leaked documents show US-British NGO plan for online censorship ━ The European Conservative

Leaked documents from a group with ties to the British Labor Party detail a plan to shut down the social media platform X.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an Anglo-American non-governmental organization, has outlined its key “annual priorities” for March to October 2024 in bulleted lists. The goal is to “kill Musk’s Twitter,” a goal supported by an “advertising focus” — that is, a campaign designed to discourage advertisers from using the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Screenshots of a CCDH monthly planner obtained by Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi illustrate this censorious sentence. More detailed proposals include a call to push for regulations in the United States and the European Union to be tightened, or at least used, to prevent “disinformation” and “hate” – loosely defined to mean things like with which the activists do not agree. “Social media companies undermine basic human rights and civil liberties by enabling the spread of online hate and disinformation,” the CCDH website says.

“This is war,” Elon Musk responded after the leaked documents were published. He later added: “This violates US criminal law against foreign interference in elections.” We are pursuing CCDH and their donors. AND their donors.”

CCDH also appears to be working with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to push legislation against so-called misinformation. Their campaign tactics around advertising boycotts are largely inspired by the similar British group Stop Funding Hate, which tried to shut down GB News before it was founded and then claimed that there was now so much hate that it needed an entirely new corporate structure.

Like Stop Funding Hate, CCDH claims to be politically impartial. While her previous targets included George Galloway and crackpot David Icke, she now focuses more on what she sees as far-right political voices and views. In the age of EU digital services law, the CCDH’s orientation towards official censorship could face an open door.

Some commentators now suggest that the presence of British Labor Party activists at the NGO’s founding in 2018 explains how CCDH now acts as one of several links between Keir Starmer’s Labor Party and Kamala Harris’ US Democrats, they say Brussels house journal Politico now treats the two as sister parties. In contrast, relations between Starmer and Donald Trump’s team have deteriorated, not least because of Labor’s plans to campaign for Harris and a subsequent complaint from a lawyer for the Republican presidential candidate.