{"id":254885,"date":"2025-12-28T01:01:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T01:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/254885\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T01:01:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T01:01:28","slug":"mps-should-question-consciences-on-using-x-says-campaigner-sanctioned-by-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/254885\/","title":{"rendered":"MPs should \u2018question consciences\u2019 on using X, says campaigner sanctioned by US"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politicians using Elon Musk\u2019s X should \u201cquestion their consciences\u201d, an anti-disinformation campaigner facing deportation from the US has said.<\/p>\n

Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), was sanctioned by Donald Trump\u2019s administration on Tuesday, with officials accusing him of trying to \u201ccensor\u201d social media platforms such as X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Mr Ahmed said the influence of big tech firms, including Mr Musk\u2019s platform, was behind the bid to remove him from the US, where he is a legal permanent resident.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Press Association, he said the sanctions were \u201cactually a story about the corrupting influence of big tech and big money in Washington\u201d.<\/p>\n

He described the tech firms as \u201carrogant\u201d, \u201cindifferent to the harm they cause\u201d and \u201csociopathic in their greed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ElonBillionaire Elon Musk tried unsuccessfully to sue Imran Ahmed\u2019s organisation over its criticism of his X platform (Leon Neal\/PA)<\/p>\n

Asked whether he thought UK politicians should continue to use X, he told PA: \u201cPoliticians have to make decisions for themselves, but every time they post on X, they are putting a buck in Mr Musk\u2019s pocket and I think they need to question their own consciences and ask themselves whether or not they think they can carry on doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Ahmed, a former Labour adviser, has previously found himself in conflict with big tech, and particularly Mr Musk, who sued CCDH unsuccessfully last year over its claims there had been a rise in hate speech and disinformation on his website.<\/p>\n

The campaigner said it was \u201ctelling that Mr Musk was one of the first and most vociferous in celebrating the press release\u201d announcing the sanctions against him.<\/p>\n

He told PA: \u201cHe said it was great, and it is great, but not for the reasons that he thinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause what it has actually done is give a chance for the system to show that the advocacy that we do is both important and protected by the first amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Ahmed is one of five Europeans issued with visa bans by the US over allegations of \u201ccensorship\u201d, including Clare Melford, chief executive of the UK-based Global Disinformation Index.<\/p>\n

As a green card holder, Mr Ahmed holds legal permanent residency in the US, where he lives with his American wife and child.<\/p>\n

But the sanctions mean this status could be revoked leaving him vulnerable to deportation.<\/p>\n

Since being sanctioned, Mr Ahmed has secured a court order preventing his arrest or deportation ahead of a hearing on December 29 to consider a legal complaint he has made against the sanctions.<\/p>\n

\n The federal government can\u2019t deport a green card holder like Imran Ahmed, with a wife and young child who are American, simply because it doesn\u2019t like what he has to say<\/p>\n

Roberta Kaplan, lawyer\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr Ahmed told PA he had \u201ccomplete faith in the system\u201d to uphold his rights, and looked forward to the hearing.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said the speed with which the temporary court order was granted showed it was \u201cobvious\u201d that the US government\u2019s actions were \u201cblatantly unconstitutional\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cAmericans should be grateful for our clients\u2019 courageous work to combat antisemitism, racism, as well as efforts to harm young children on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government can\u2019t deport a green card holder like Imran Ahmed, with a wife and young child who are American, simply because it doesn\u2019t like what he has to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has signalled the sanctions could be followed by further action, potentially targeting serving politicians or officials.<\/p>\n

Other Europeans hit with travel bans were the former EU commissioner responsible for supervising social media rules, Thierry Breton, and Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of German organisation HateAid.<\/p>\n

Announcing the sanctions, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the group of leading \u201cefforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sarah Rogers, the US undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said Mr Ahmed was sanctioned because he was a \u201ckey collaborator\u201d with Joe Biden\u2019s administration\u2019s efforts to \u201cweaponise the government\u201d against US citizens.<\/p>\n

She said the CCDH had called for social media sites to \u201cde-platform\u201d anti-vaccine campaigners \u2013 including the now health secretary Robert F Kennedy \u2013 and had backed measures, including the UK\u2019s Online Safety Act, \u201cto expand censorship\u201d around the world.<\/p>\n

Mr Ahmed has links to senior Labour figures, having worked as an adviser to now-Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn during his time as shadow foreign secretary.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer\u2019s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was listed as a director at the CCDH before resigning in April 2020, according to Companies House records.<\/p>\n

A UK Government spokesperson said: \u201cWhile every country has the right to set its own visa rules, we support the laws and institutions which are working to keep the internet free from the most harmful content.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Politicians using Elon Musk\u2019s X should \u201cquestion their consciences\u201d, an anti-disinformation campaigner facing deportation from the US has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-254885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115794496220721066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}