The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), formerly Brixton Endeavors, is a British not-for-profit NGO[3] company[1] with offices in London and Washington, D.C. with the stated purpose of stopping the spread of online hate speech and disinformation.[3][4] It campaigns to deplatform people that it believes promote hate or misinformation, and campaigns to restrict media organisations such as The Daily Wire from advertising.[5] CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition.[6]
 | |
| Formation | 19 October 2018[1] |
|---|---|
| Type | Private company limited by guarantee, NGO |
| 86-2006080 | |
| Registration no. | 11633127[1] |
Key people | Imran Ahmed (CEO)[2] |
| Funding | Funded by philanthropic trusts and members of the public |
| Website | counterhate |
Formerly called | Brixton Endeavours Limited |
According to public records, the organisation was incorporated in 2018 in London as Brixton Endeavours Limited. It changed its name to Center for Countering Digital Hate in August 2019.[1] In 2021, its US office was registered as a nonprofit organisation in the United States.[7] CCDH's current CEO is Imran Ahmed.[8]
Activities
The CCDH has targeted social media platforms for what it says are insufficient efforts on their part to fight neo-Nazis[9] and anti-vaccine advocates.[10]The CCDH wrote an article asking Google to stop running advertisements for what the CCDH called "racist disinformation and conspiracies" relating to George Soros, claims that the U.S. National Institutes of Health funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the veracity of climate change claims. Advertisements from American news site The Daily Wire were targeted by CCDH in this campaign.[11][12]
Campaigns
Campaign against Galloway and Hopkins
In January 2020, the CCDH campaigned against Katie Hopkins, a far-right political commentator, and George Galloway, a veteran left-wing politician and broadcaster.[13] TV presenter Rachel Riley and the CCDH directly lobbied "Big Tech" companies to have both journalists 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.[14]
CCDH's attempt to remove Galloway from Twitter failed, but Hopkins had her account suspended for a week in February 2020,[15] and removed permanently in July 2020.[16]
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.[17] In November 2020, Twitter removed Icke's account for violating the site's rules against spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.[18]
Stop Funding Misinformation
Originally called Stop Funding Fake News, the campaign asks advertisers to stop placing ads on web sites it argues are spreading misinformation ("fake news").[19] It began as a grassroot campaign in March 2019,[20] inspired by the US success of Sleeping Giants which had convinced several advertisers not to advertise on the Breitbart News website.[19] Ted Baker, Adobe Inc., Chelsea FC, eBay and Manchester United were among the 40 brands and charities that the campaign had persuaded to stop advertising on what it called fake news sites.[21][22]
In March 2019, charity Macmillan Cancer Support removed an advertisement from The Canary Web site after complaints from the campaign and from others.[23] The campaign maintained that The Canary promoted conspiracy theories, defended antisemitism, and published fake news.[24] The Canary said changes to Google and Facebook's algorithms and the Stop Funding Fake News campaign led to The Canary downsizing its operations; it said that it was "against the actions of a state, not against Jewish people as an ethnic group" and that it had been "smeared with accusations of anti-Semitism by those who've weaponised the term for political ends".[22][25][26] Labour Party MP Chris Williamson described the campaign against The Canary as "sinister".[27]
Campaigns against Google advertisements for media organisations
The CCDH has campaigned to restrict the reach of the following media organisations by targeting their use of the Google advertising platform: Breitbart News, CNSNews, HotAir, Newsbusters, Newsmax, MRCTV, RedState, Twitchy, The Daily Wire, and Zero Hedge.[28]
The CCDH notified Google that the Zero Hedge Web site 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.[29]
Campaign against climate change deniers
In November 2021, a report by the CCDH identified "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denied climate change. Facebook said the percentage was overstated and called the study misleading.[30][31] The "Toxic Ten" publishers were: Breitbart News, The Western Journal, Newsmax, Townhall, Media Research Center, The Washington Times, The Federalist, The Daily Wire, RT, and The Patriot Post.[31]
Campaign against spreaders of anti-vaccine disinformation
The Center has identified the top 12 spreaders of anti-vaccine disinformation on social media platforms.[32][33] The "Disinformation Dozen" were: Joseph Mercola, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Sherri Tenpenny, Rizza Islam, Rashid Buttar, Erin Elizabeth, Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, Christiane Northrup, Ben Tapper,[34] and Kevin Jenkins.
TikTok
In December 2022, the CCDH reported that the social media platform TikTok promoted self-harm and dieting content to users.[35]
Twitter/X Corp.
In June 2023, the CCDH reported that after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, the site "fails to act on 99% of hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers".[36] Twitter's successor company, X Corp. responded to this by filing a lawsuit against the CCDH on 31 July 2023, saying that they "falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content."[37] On March 25, 2024 District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed the case, writing that "This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech."[38][39][40]
Funding
The CCDH was reported in 2020 by the BBC to receive funding from the Pears Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Barrow Cadbury Trust.[41]
In 2021 the Paul Hamlyn Foundation gave £100,000 to the CCDH.[42][non-primary source needed]
In August 2023, Jim Jordan, the chair of the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, wrote to CCDH requesting the CCDH provide all documents and communications between the CCDH and the U.S. Executive branch and social media companies, a list of employees, contractors and grants received, to determine if the U.S. government "has coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech".[43][44] Responding to The Washington Post reporters, the CCDH denied receiving any funds from the United States government and provided documents it said showed its bipartisan approach.[43]
Publications
- Don't Feed the Trolls: How to Deal with Hate on Social Media (2019) – a 12-page pamphlet on how Internet trolls operate, linked to a campaign of the same name involving Gary Lineker and other celebrities[45][46][47][48][49]
- The Anti-Vaxx Industry (2020) – describes how social media platforms such as Facebook enable the growth of lucrative anti-vaccination ('anti-vaxx') activism (including the finding that 400 anti-vaxx social media accounts reach 58 million followers), and that this has an impact on vaccine take-up, and recommends demonetisation as a strategy to respond to this.[50][51][52][53]
- Will to Act (2020) – argues that the largest social media companies fail to enforce their own rules preventing anti-vaccine and COVID-19 conspiracy theory content[54][55][56]
- The Anti-Vaxx Playbook (2020) – explores anti-vaxx tactics, messages, and the use of social media[57]
- Hatebook (2020) – co-authored by the Coalition for a Safer Web, accuses Facebook and Instagram of hosting 61 accounts that were selling neo-Nazi merchandise to fund far-right extremism.[58]
- Failure to Act (2021) – jointly with Restless Development, tracks action taken by social media companies in response to anti-vaccine content[59]
- Malgorithm (2021) – a critical analysis of Instagram and Facebook’s user engagement and content recommendation algorithm[60][61][62][63]
- The Disinformation Dozen (2021) – identifies the top 12 spreaders of anti-vaccine disinformation on social media platforms.[33] The report cites these individuals as responsible for 65% of all anti-vaccination content across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.[64][65] It was cited by the Biden administration in July 2021, in its criticism of Facebook and other social media companies for allowing pandemic disinformation to spread.[66][43]
- The Toxic Ten (2021) – identifies "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denied climate change.[30][31]
See also
- Internet censorship in the United Kingdom
- Stop Funding Hate, another British campaign with a similar methodology
References
Further reading
- Frazer, Jenni (2 August 2020). "'The reason social media companies tolerate hate? Profit'". Jewish News. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
- "The changing advice on tackling hate speech in a world of online anonymity". ITV News. 16 September 2019.
- "The Fight Against Digital Hate - The Assignment with Audie Cornish". CNN. 1 June 1980. Retrieved 24 August 2023.