The Rise of Transnational Censorship and the Fight for Sovereignty of Speech

On Sept. 10th, 2005, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched a Global Health Resilience Initiative tying vaccine “disinformation” to disease resurgence, sparking alarm

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Executive Summary

• On Sept. 10th, 2005, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a Global Health Resilience Initiative targeting "disinformation" about vaccines, linking false information to disease resurgence while raising concerns about potential censorship under the guise of public health protection.

• The UN's Global Principles for Information Integrity represents a coordinated multi-stakeholder approach to combat misinformation, but critics argue it creates an approved cartel of truth that could suppress dissenting views under the banner of "integrity."

• The "Disinformation Dozen" campaign by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) exemplifies how flawed research can lead to mass censorship, with Facebook later debunking CCDH's claim that 12 people caused 65% of vaccine misinformation online.

• Legal challenges including Missouri v. Biden and lawsuits against CCDH are exposing the "censorship-industrial complex," revealing unconstitutional government pressure on social media platforms and holding censorship advocates accountable for their overreach.

Europe's New Health Initiative Targets "Disinformation"

"As a medical doctor by training, I am appalled by the disinformation that threatens global progress on everything from measles to polio," declared European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her recent State of the Union address.¹ Von der Leyen warned lawmakers that "we are on the brink -- or even at the start -- of another global health crisis," linking the resurgence of once-controlled diseases to the spread of false information.¹ As part of her speech, she announced a flagship Global Health Resilience Initiative to bolster health systems and counter these threats, positioning the EU to lead on global health security.² While details remain scant, the message was clear: the EU will invest in fighting "disinformation" to protect public health.

This push comes amid the US media’s fixation on outbreaks of measles (it is unclear if the MMR vaccine campaigns are driving cases, or if these are wild-type eruptions)-- including a highly contested ‘outbreak’ in Texas this year -- and increased reporting on the potential of polio's return.³

European officials argue that inaccurate anti-vaccine narratives have eroded public trust in vaccinations, allowing preventable diseases to gain ground. The proposed solution is a broad effort to "strengthen resilience" against misleading information. "When independent media are dismantled or neutralized, our ability to preserve democracy is weakened," von der Leyen noted, pledging support for journalism and media literacy alongside cracking down on harmful content.⁴⁵ In her view, combating disinformation -- whether about vaccines or any topic -- is essential to safeguard both public health and democratic institutions.

Critics, however, worry that this new crusade against "disinformation" could become a pretext for censorship. Von der Leyen's call to action blurs the line between protecting citizens and policing speech. By framing misinformation as an urgent public health danger, governments may feel justified in silencing certain viewpoints "for the greater good." As we have seen during COVID-19, today's "false" information can sometimes be tomorrow's vindicated opinion -- and empowering authorities to decide truth from falsehood is a slippery slope. Nowhere was this more egregious than former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy accusing truth tellers of ‘harming people with disinformation’ while he directed Big Tech platforms like Facebook to cover up vaccine injuries and deaths, as documented below.

The EU's initiative, though well-intentioned, raises tough questions: Who gets to label information as false or dangerous? And what checks ensure that censorship powers won't be abused to stifle legitimate debate?

The U.N.'s "Information Integrity" Agenda -- Censorship Rebranded?

This European campaign is part of a wider global trend. The United Nations recently launched a set of Global Principles for Information Integrity: Recommendations for Multi-stakeholder Action.⁶ The U.N.'s guidelines urge technology companies, governments, media, civil society, and even advertisers to work together to "protect information integrity" -- essentially, to weed out misinformation, disinformation, and "hate speech" across digital platforms.⁶ On paper, the U.N. emphasizes a balancing act: it claims that efforts to counter false information must "uphold human rights such as freedom of expression" even as they combat content that "undermines democratic processes [and] public health."⁶ The principles call for "societal trust," "healthy incentives," "public empowerment," and even a "free, pluralistic media", seemingly reassuring critics that free speech will be preserved.⁷⁸

In practice, though, "information integrity" may be little more than a slick rebranding of censorship. Nowhere is that more evident than in the U.N.'s multi-stakeholder approach. The initiative envisions hundreds of NGOs, media outlets, and Big Tech firms collaborating to monitor and flag "low-integrity" information -- effectively creating an approved cartel of truth. High-integrity content (that which aligns with official narratives) would be elevated, while low-integrity content (deemed "false" or misleading) could be suppressed or blacklisted. In other words, the same gatekeepers decide which voices get heard and which are silenced, only now under the U.N.'s banner of "integrity." It is a short leap from encouraging social media platforms to promote "trusted" sources, to actively purging dissenting views in the name of the public good. Mike Benz does a brilliant job of breaking down the the hidden agenda operative.

I know this reality firsthand. My own platform, GreenMedInfo, was placed on multiple “lists”—from the CCDH’s notorious Disinformation Dozen blacklist to a BBC Click/Institute for Strategic Dialogue report (built on data from NewsGuard) that ranked my site as one of 34 so-called “disinformation-hosting websites.” These reports weren’t neutral audits; they were weapons of reputational warfare, used to justify algorithmic suppression, advertiser boycotts, and outright deplatforming. Whistleblower evidence later confirmed that CCDH censorship word lists were funneled directly to Twitter’s AI systems to target and silence users at scale. What looked like independent research was, in practice, a coordinated effort between Big Tech, media, NGOs, and government-linked actors to silence dissenting health voices—including mine.

Evidence from recent years shows how easily these ostensibly well-meaning frameworks slide into outright censorship. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a sprawling "censorship-industrial complex" emerged, blurring public and private efforts to police online speech. A U.S. federal appeals court found that officials from the White House, the CDC, the Surgeon General's office, and other agencies "coerced or significantly encouraged" social media companies to remove or suppress content deemed "misinformation," "in violation of the First Amendment," under the pretext of public health and safety.⁹ The 5th Circuit Court's review of communications revealed an "ongoing, widespread effort" by government actors to pressure Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others into mass censorship: officials would flag specific posts and even demand entire accounts be banned -- sometimes targeting content that did not actually violate the platforms' own rules.¹⁰ This pressure was often accompanied by implicit threats of regulatory retaliation if platforms didn't fall in line.¹¹¹²

For example, President Biden publicly accused Facebook of "killing people" by not censoring vaccine-critical posts, and his Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, warned that if tech companies didn't do more, "legal and regulatory measures" might be taken.¹² Internally, White House officials sent an onslaught of "asks" -- which at times read more like demands -- pushing platforms to expand their content removal policies beyond factual falsehoods to encompass broader categories of "dangerous" speech.¹⁰ The result was that social media companies "seemingly complied": giving officials expedited access to flag content, hastily de-prioritizing or deleting flagged posts, and deplatforming some users outright.¹³ The 5th Circuit judges noted this went far beyond government's own right to counter misinformation with truth; it became a regime of "government-directed censorship."¹⁴

This case -- Missouri v. Biden -- offers a stark warning about the path we're on. It shows that "information integrity" initiatives, when enforced by authorities, pose a direct threat to free expression. If even the U.S., with its strong First Amendment traditions, succumbed to a censorship push behind closed doors, one can imagine how global principles might be leveraged by less transparent governments or international bodies. The terminology may have changed -- "information integrity," "content moderation," "resilience" -- but the core issue remains the same: the power to silence inconvenient speech.

Mike Benz on the Hidden Machinery Behind “Information Integrity”

As former State Department official Mike Benz explains in detail, the U.N.’s push for Global Principles of Information Integrity is not a neutral framework but a transnational censorship blueprint. In his analysis, “information integrity” is simply the latest branding for a whitelist–blacklist system of speech control: high-integrity content (aligned with official narratives) is amplified, while “low-integrity” content (populist voices, dissenters, alternative media) is suppressed or demonetizeds.

Benz traces how this architecture has been built out over the last decade, from the Election Integrity Partnership and the Transition Integrity Project in the U.S., to the Integrity Initiative in NATO countries—each one a node in what he calls a “cartel for control over information.” These initiatives, he shows, often masquerade as safeguarding democracy, but in practice they create pretexts for state-backed censorship under the veneer of “resilience” and “trust.” Again, these are not academic matters to me, given my family and I was subject to a NATO operation myself, which I documented in detail here: Black Ops Go Digital: How NATO Operatives Deploy Military Grade PsyOps to Transform Private Citizens into Public Enemies.

Crucially, Benz highlights the role of Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), who has pitched this censorship agenda directly to the U.N. In Ahmed’s own words, no matter what issue you care about—climate change, gender, war funding—control of the information ecosystem is the master key to winning, because it ensures your opponents’ voices can be filtered out. CCDH’s “STAR framework” (Safety, Transparency, Accountability, Responsibility) aims to hardwire censorship into law and platform design worldwide, targeting both companies and their executives if they resist.

Benz connects this to a broader British intelligence influence operation, linking CCDH to networks around Christopher Steele and Richard Dearlove. Their explicit priority, revealed in leaked documents, was to “kill Musk’s Twitter” by weaponizing advertiser boycotts, EU/UK regulatory threats, and U.N. leverage. In other words, the UN’s “information integrity” push is not an abstract set of guidelines—it’s the institutionalization of the very playbook that CCDH, Ahmed, and their partners have already deployed against dissenters in the U.S. and beyond

The "Disinformation Dozen" and CCDH -- A Blacklist Backfires

Perhaps no example illustrates the dangers of this censorship crusade better than the saga of the "Disinformation Dozen." In March 2021, a little-known British nonprofit, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), published a report that would become hugely influential -- and controversial. CCDH claimed that just 12 individuals were responsible for "up to 65%" of all anti-vaccine misinformation circulating on social media.¹⁵ This group of twelve -- which included figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joseph Mercola, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Rizza Islam, Dr. Rashid Buttar, Erin Elizabeth, Sayer Ji, Dr. Kelly Brogan, Dr. Christiane Northrup, and Ben Tapper, among others¹⁶ -- was dubbed the "Disinformation Dozen." CCDH's message to Big Tech was unmistakable: deplatform these dozen superspreaders, and you will stem the tide of falsehoods.

The report gained traction in halls of power. Almost immediately, it appears to have informed U.S. officials' censorship demands. Internal emails later showed that White House staffers specifically pressured Facebook to take action against the "Disinfo Dozen." In one exchange, a Facebook executive noted White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty "criticized [our] efforts to censor the 'Disinformation Dozen'," implying the administration wanted a tougher crackdown.¹⁷ By July 2021, the White House publicly called out these individuals; Press Secretary Jen Psaki boasted that Facebook had removed "posts from 12 people" for misinformation and pressed the platform to ban them entirely.¹⁵ Within days, accounts associated with several of the twelve were suspended or permanently deleted across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Yet CCDH's narrative was deeply flawed -- perhaps deliberately so. Facebook's own analysis debunked the "65%" figure as baseless. The company found "there isn't any evidence" to support CCDH's claims, noting that the report was based on an extremely small sample of posts "in no way representative of the hundreds of millions" of social media posts about COVID vaccines.¹⁸ In other words, CCDH cherry-picked data to exaggerate the influence of its chosen villains. The 12 people on the blacklist were indeed prominent vaccine skeptics -- but they were hardly responsible for two-thirds of all COVID misinformation online. Facebook concluded the methodology was so shoddy that it could not be taken seriously.¹⁸

None of this stopped the "Disinformation Dozen" report from doing its damage. It provided the perfect talking point for those seeking to justify sweeping censorship. Journalists repeated the catchy statistic ad nauseam; lawmakers waved the report in hearings to shame tech CEOs. Platforms, under political pressure, felt compelled to act against the named individuals. Lives and livelihoods were upended. Several of the "Dozen" saw years of work -- their social media profiles, businesses, and reputations -- erased or maligned overnight. (Full disclosure: the author was one of those targeted by CCDH's report, alongside Robert "Bobby" Kennedy Jr.) We experienced firsthand how a spurious "hate research" outfit managed to weaponize the "misinformation" label to silence dissenting views on health and medicine.

CCDH Under Fire -- Subpoenas and Lawsuits for the Censors

Two years later, the tables have turned in some respects. The Center for Countering Digital Hate itself is now facing intense scrutiny and legal troubles. Congressional investigators have zeroed in on CCDH's role in the government--tech censorship nexus. In 2023, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, subpoenaed CCDH's CEO Imran Ahmed as part of an inquiry into "the federal government's collusion with private actors to suppress lawful speech."¹⁹ Internal communications revealed that CCDH was in regular contact with Biden administration officials, feeding them data and reports -- like the Disinformation Dozen -- that officials then used to prod social media companies into enforcement actions.²⁰ Ahmed has admitted to engaging with both Democratic and Republican administrations on his mission to "combat disinformation," while insisting (under oath) that CCDH takes no direct government funding.¹⁹ Still, the House committee is demanding full transparency about CCDH's funding sources and its coordination with state actors. (Notably, investigative reporting has linked CCDH to at least nine "dark money" funders, including groups with UK government ties²¹ -- belying Ahmed's claim of total independence.)

At the same time, CCDH is embroiled in a high-profile legal battle with Elon Musk's X Corp (formerly Twitter). In July 2023, X Corp filed a lawsuit accusing CCDH of orchestrating a "scare campaign" to drive advertisers away from the platform.²² According to the complaint, CCDH researchers allegedly scraped private Twitter data without authorization and then published misleading statistics to paint Twitter as overwhelmed with hate speech after Musk's takeover.²³²⁴ Musk's attorneys argue that CCDH's sensational reports -- claiming Twitter ignores 99% of hate speech, for example -- were not rigorous studies but agenda-driven hit pieces intended to defame the company and financially harm its business.²⁴²⁵ In legal filings, X Corp blasted CCDH as a "malign foreign influence operation" masquerading as a research outfit.²⁶ The lawsuit seeks to hold CCDH liable for damages under anti-hacking and defamation laws.

For his part, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Bobby) has also signaled he's not letting CCDH off the hook. After enduring years of being labeled the #2 "disinformer" on the planet, RFK Jr. announced in August 2023 that he was "happy to join Elon Musk in a libel lawsuit" against CCDH.²⁷ "As a target of CCDH's fraudulent smear campaign," Kennedy tweeted, "it's time for us to push back."²⁷ That public statement foreshadowed a broader alliance of those who had been slandered or deplatformed by CCDH's reports. Indeed, multiple members of the Disinformation Dozen are now exploring legal action against CCDH for defamation and tortious interference. When private advocacy groups effectively act as the censorship arm of the government, they may find themselves liable for violating core civil rights. At the very least, CCDH is being forced to answer uncomfortable questions under oath. Its once-vaunted credibility is in tatters -- an ironic fate for an organization that claimed to be the guardian of truth online.

Adding to CCDH’s mounting troubles, new evidence from the House Judiciary’s “Facebook Files” confirms that GreenMedInfo.com, my platform, was secretly penalized as part of the Disinformation Dozen campaign. An internal July 2021 Facebook email explicitly listed GreenMedInfo alongside Mercola.com and ChildrensHealthDefense.org, assigning a 60% demotion to my domain’s reach until October 6, 2021. This suppression was not based on any policy violation but was applied solely because of external pressure tied to CCDH’s false data and the White House’s campaign against the “Dozen.”

Even more damning is a public admission by Aaron Berman, then Meta’s Head of Misinformation Policy (and a former CIA analyst). Speaking about the Disinformation Dozen, Berman conceded that their combined output amounted to just 0.05% of all vaccine-related views on Facebook, yet Meta still removed over three dozen pages and groups and placed restrictions on affiliated accountsIMG_8696_otter_ai (1). This undercuts CCDH’s infamous “65%” claim, revealing it as grossly inflated. In other words, Meta enforced sweeping penalties not because of measurable harm, but because of political pressure and CCDH’s narrative.

Together, these two pieces of evidence establish a direct causal link: CCDH’s false report → White House pressure → Meta’s suppression of lawful speech, including my own work at GreenMedInfo. They also expose the censorship framework as pretextual and viewpoint-based, not a legitimate response to public health risks.

Censorship "Black Ops" and the Reward for Silence

Unraveling this censorship-industrial complex reveals a disturbing pattern. Time and again, the architects of these information "black ops" -- the behind-the-scenes campaigns to crush dissent -- have faced no real accountability. In fact, many involved like CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed have been rewarded (Elevate Foundation’s recent highly publicized cash prize to Ahmed is a disturbing example of this). Consider Rob Flaherty, the former White House Director of Digital Strategy who was a central figure in the COVID-19 censorship drive. Emails and testimony show Flaherty relentlessly pressured social media giants to crack down harder on vaccine skeptics and inconvenient narratives.²⁸²⁹

He held regular meetings with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, browbeating them about "borderline content" and demanding more aggressive removal of posts.³⁰³¹ In one April 2021 email to Google, Flaherty inquired about "cracking down on vaccine misinformation" and even floated giving government agencies special access to targeting tools to reach specific audiences with pro-vaccine messaging.³²³³ Internal Google communications noted that Flaherty was fixated on content that was "NOT coming down" -- i.e. posts that hadn't been deleted yet -- and wanted to know why not.³⁴ Under his watch, the White House essentially ran a war room to flag and purge dissenting speech, including posts by journalists, scientists, and citizens that questioned lockdowns or vaccine side effects.

One would think such activities, exposed to public view, would be grounds for disgrace or at least dismissal. Instead, Rob Flaherty has failed upward. In 2024, he quietly left the White House and transitioned to a top role on President Biden's re-election campaign -- serving as Deputy Campaign Manager for Vice President Kamala Harris.³⁵ In that prominent position, Flaherty is now helping to shape messaging and digital strategy for the 2024 Biden-Harris ticket. In other words, the man who spearheaded arguably unconstitutional speech suppression is not only unpunished -- he's been promoted to help the incumbents win another term. This move has alarmed free speech advocates. How can someone under congressional subpoena and implicated in ongoing First Amendment litigation be entrusted with such authority? It sends a chilling message: those who carry out censorship on behalf of the powerful will be taken care of, even as courts and lawmakers investigate their actions.

Flaherty is by no means alone. Across the "censorship network," many officials and advisors who drove the crackdowns have landed on their feet -- or in even more influential posts. The former head of the Department of Homeland Security's short-lived Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, landed new consultancy gigs abroad. The Surgeon General, who issued an unprecedented advisory calling misinformation a "public health threat," remains in office, unapologetic about pressuring Big Tech to silence users. And as noted, Imran Ahmed of CCDH parlayed his disinformation witch hunt into seats at high-level international forums (though that influence may wane now under legal glare). It often feels like a self-reinforcing club: governments fund or applaud groups like CCDH to do the dirty work (flagging and defaming private citizens); platforms ban the targeted users; and the officials involved congratulate each other for "saving lives" or "defending democracy." Each player in the system protects the other, and accountability is elusive.

Defending Free Speech in the Age of "Integrity" Initiatives

What can be done to stop this spiral of censorship masquerading as benevolence? First, sunlight is a powerful disinfectant. Lawsuits and investigations -- from Elon Musk's courtroom offensive to House subpoenas -- are dragging the censorship machinery into the light. Transparency is kryptonite to these operations, which often rely on working in the shadows, with vague rules and secret blacklists. By exposing emails, funding flows, and backroom meetings, we can push public officials to justify their actions and perhaps deter future overreach. Already, the House Judiciary's findings and the Missouri v. Biden case have prompted a national conversation about the proper limits of government involvement in content moderation.

Secondly, it's crucial to uphold and strengthen legal protections for speech. Including protection against the free and lawful speech of US citizens being targeted in foreign jurisdictions abroad.

The U.S. courts have reaffirmed that the government cannot use private companies as proxies to do what it cannot do directly -- censor lawful speech.³⁶¹⁴ Likewise, international human rights law (e.g. Article 19 of the UDHR) protects freedom of expression. These principles must be front and center as the EU and U.N. roll out their anti-disinformation programs. If initiatives like the Global Health Resilience Initiative or the U.N.'s Information Integrity framework truly respect free expression, they should incorporate independent oversight and redress mechanisms. For instance, if content is taken down or users are penalized in the name of "integrity," there ought to be a transparent appeals process. There also must be clear lines distinguishing actual incitements to harm (which may be restricted) from mere unpopular opinions (which must be protected, even if factually debatable).

Lastly, citizens and readers play a role. We must foster a culture of critical thinking and open debate, rather than reflexively calling for authorities to silence those we disagree with. Misinformation is indeed a challenge in the digital age -- but the cure of censorship can be worse than the disease. Health authorities can and should counter false claims with better facts, better science, and respectful dialogue. Trying to bludgeon misinformation out of existence through bans and deplatforming not only fails (streisand effect, anyone?) but breeds mistrust. People begin to suspect, often rightly, that truth is being managed. The way to win back public trust -- whether about vaccines, elections, or any issue -- is through transparency and engagement, not information blackouts.

In the coming months, as Brussels, Washington, and New York all advance their respective "information integrity" agendas, it's vital to remember what's at stake. Free speech is the bedrock of a free society. Once lost, especially under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, it is very hard to regain. There is such a thing as objective fact -- but determining it is a messy, contested process that should happen in the public square, not by edict of self-appointed truth czars behind closed doors. We can of course reject genuinely dangerous falsehoods (like fraudulent medical cures or calls to violence) using existing laws and common-sense moderation. But we must also reject the creeping authoritarian instinct that says "Leave it to us, we will decide what's true or safe for you to see." That is the mindset of censors everywhere, and it has no place in an open, democratic world.

In Summary

A global alliance of governments and allied organizations is ramping up efforts to combat "disinformation," from Europe's health misinformation crackdown to U.N.-backed multi-stakeholder programs. Yet as the experience of the "Disinformation Dozen" and the U.S. censorship scandals show, these campaigns often cross the line into outright censorship, silencing legitimate debate under the banner of fighting falsehoods. The very actors who coordinated suppression of speech -- like CCDH and certain officials -- are now facing legal and public backlash for their overreach. It's a hopeful sign that free speech can prevail, but vigilance is needed. We must insist that any measures against viral lies do not become an excuse to trample fundamental freedoms. The right response to disinformation is more transparency and truth -- not secret blacklists and black ops. As Ursula von der Leyen correctly pointed out, trust is essential to democracy; that trust is only earned when people know they are hearing all sides and can judge for themselves, free from manipulation by those in power.

Together with five courageous plaintiffs, I am challenging the tyranny of censorship. Stand with us — learn more below:

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References

¹ "EU health agenda goes global in von der Leyen's address," Euronews, September 10, 2025, https://www.euronews.com/health/2025/09/10/eu-health-agenda-goes-global-in-von-der-leyens-address.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ "Against disinformation von der Leyen launches a 'Media Resilience Programme'," EU News, September 10, 2025, https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/09/10/against-disinformation-von-der-leyen-launches-a-media-resilience-programme/.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ "UN Launches Global Principles for Information Integrity," SDG Knowledge Hub, https://sdg.iisd.org/news/un-launches-global-principles-for-information-integrity/.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ "Biden Administration Illegally Pressured Social Media Platforms, 5th Circuit Affirms," Reason, September 11, 2023, https://reason.com/2023/09/11/the-5th-circuit-agrees-that-federal-officials-unconstitutionally-coerced-or-encouraged-online-censorship/.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ "Musk's X Corp. Sues Authors of 'Disinformation Dozen' Report Over Alleged 'Scare Campaign'," Children's Health Defense, https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/elon-musk-x-corp-twitter-lawsuit-ccdh/.

¹⁶ "Young Adults and Vaccine Information," IZ Summit Partners, https://www.izsummitpartners.org/content/uploads/1_Young-adults_Lindenberger-.pdf.

¹⁷ "Case 3:22-cv-01213-TAD-KDM Document 293," Missouri Attorney General's Office, July 4, 2023, https://ago.mo.gov/wp-content/uploads/missouri-v-biden-ruling.pdf.

¹⁸ "Musk's X Corp. Sues Authors of 'Disinformation Dozen' Report."

¹⁹ "Statement from CCDH CEO & Founder, Imran Ahmed, in response to a subpoena from House Judiciary Committee," Center for Countering Digital Hate, https://counterhate.com/blog/statement-from-ccdh-ceo-founder-imran-ahmed-in-response-to-a-subpoena-from-house-judiciary-committee/.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ "Musk's X Corp. Sues Authors of 'Disinformation Dozen' Report."

²² Ibid.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ "FLASHBACK: Top Harris campaign aide was key voice in WH push to remove COVID info from tech platforms," Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/flashback-top-harris-campaign-aide-was-key-voice-wh-push-remove-covid-info-from-tech-platforms.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Ibid.

³² Ibid.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ "Biden Administration Illegally Pressured Social Media Platforms, 5th Circuit Affirms."