STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- One of the frontrunners in the comprehensive attack on freedom of speech online is a U.K.-based group with opaque funding called the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)
- The CCDH has been one of the most vocal organizations calling for the de-platforming of anyone who might have the ability to influence public opinion about vaccines
- The CCDH recently posted a hit list on Twitter, listing the “Top 10 anti-vaxxers” it wants digital platforms to eradicate, including yours truly and the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), which worked with the U.S. Congress to establish the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986
- March 2, 2021, Facebook complied with CCDH’s request, removing NVIC’s account. CCDH is also calling on Facebook to eliminate NVIC from Instagram, which Facebook owns
- While you wait for a decentralized, censorship-free internet, consider ditching all social media networks that erode our civil liberties, and join those that promote freedom of speech instead.
As detailed in “Spy Agencies Threaten to ‘Take Out’ Mercola,” this website has been labeled a national security threat by British and American intelligence agencies that are collaborating to eliminate “anti-vaccine propaganda” from public discussion using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools.1,2,3
One of the public frontrunners in this comprehensive attack on my freedom of speech is a U.K.-based group with opaque funding called the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), led by Imran Ahmed, a member of the Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government’s Commission for Countering Extremism.
In its report, “The Anti-Vaxx Playbook,”4 the CCDH identifies me as one of the six most influential “anti-vaxxers” online that must be silenced for good. The other five are Barbara Loe Fisher, Del Bigtree, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sherri Tenpenny, and Andrew Wakefield.
The CCDH also admits tracking and spying on 425 vaccine-related Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter account that, together, have 59.2 million followers.5
The CCDH has been one of the most vocal organizations calling for the de-platforming of anyone who might have the ability to influence public opinion about vaccines.6 This despite the fact that public discourse and debate is a requirement not only for a well-informed public but also to protect scientific integrity and public health.
Anti-Hate Group Publishes Digital Hit List
More recently, the CCDH published an updated hit list on Twitter,7 now listing the “Top 10 anti-vaxxers” it wants digital platforms to eradicate. The list shows, by way of crossing out names, which have already been successfully de-platformed, and from which social media.
As of March 3, 2021, Kennedy Jr. has been banned from Instagram, and the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), co-founded and led by Fisher, has been removed from Facebook.
“Facebook has removed the NVIC, another page spreading vaccine misinformation run by Barbara Loe Fisher,” CCDH said in its Tweet.8 “But Facebook has allowed the NVIC to carry on spreading misinformation on Instagram, which it owns. Facebook, it’s time for action across your platforms.”
