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October 23, 2024 - 7:40pm
According to documents published in America by investigative reporters Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi, “British advisers to Kamala Harris hope to ‘kill [Elon] Musk’s Twitter’”, demonstrating that “England, not Russia, is the culprit in a real foreign election interference story.”
They aren’t referring to the British Labour volunteers said to be assisting the Democratic candidate’s presidential bid, but instead to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a pro-censorship charity and campaign group co-founded in 2018 by Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney. The political advisor is here ascribed quasi-magical powers, such that “no political operative in the Western hemisphere is more in demand than Starmer’s ‘Rasputin’, regularly hailed as a genius.”
To British eyes, that and other claims in the article — including that Starmer’s election victory “relied heavily” on the CCDH — look overblown. The organisation played no discernible part in Labour’s campaign, while McSweeney stepped down as a CCDH director on 6 April 2020, two days after Starmer became leader of the Labour Party.
But in a recent and thus far unpublished conversation with me, Imran Ahmed, a former Parliamentary aide who also co-founded the CCDH and serves as its chief executive, said a number of things that free speech advocates less radical than Elon Musk may find worrying.
He spoke of his “five-year plan” to make social media platforms “accountable” for their content, and to make it impossible for anyone to generate revenue from what the CCDH classes as “hate speech”. By this term, Ahmed doesn’t just mean overt expressions of racism or other prejudices, but rather what he calls “lies” and “disinformation”. In his view, “lies and hate are inextricably linked.”
What’s more, a glance at the CCDH website will confirm that its definition of lies is unusually expansive. It includes, for example, “the new climate denial” — not denial per se of the proposition that human beings and the greenhouse gases we emit cause global warming, but challenges to Government policies that are supposedly going to fix it.
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SubscribeThere have been comments about the changes noticeable on Unherd in terms of content and also the “i’m not a robot” requirement. It looks to me very much like the editorial team have had to adapt to political interference following Unherd being subject to investigation a while back by a body such as CCDH (it may have been them or another similar quango); this was documented on here, but not the repercussions. Is that what we’re seeing now?
Morgan McSweeney is looking like the Labour equivalent of Dominic Cummings – out of control and having influence way beyond his capacity to comprehend the implications of his actions. He. like Cummings, was most likely using a political party as a platform rather than out of any sincere wish to engender a more cohesive social realm. This article then, is absolutely vital and dare i say it: should’ve been published much earlier in the day. Articles published late (in UK time) tend not to be read / reacted to quite as much. Perhaps this also is deliberate; whatever, i commend Unherd for publishing it.
There’s a real battle going on regarding the online world. We’re only just beginning to understand the full extent of how it can change not just our societies and political realms, but the very nature of humanity itself. Strap yourself in, and hang onto your seats!
And embrace scepticism (not its shadow – cynicism) as you seek to retain your critical thinking faculties for the ride!
I’m not a robot. 😉
Only a robot would use that emoji….
I would be interested to know what proportion of UnHerd subscribers are UK based. I am based in Australia (West Coast), and find that I am often the first commenter on those “later in the day” articles.
It was the GDI (Global Disinformation Index) and Clare Melford who claim to be impartial but they clearly are not.. There was never a follow up piece to that “run in” with them.
https://unherd.com/2024/04/inside-the-disinformation-industry/
Imran Ahmed appeared on Triggernometry a while back. I wouldn’t be too worried by him. He’s a fairly typical rent-a-trot and quite dim. Flies into a spitting rage as soon as anyone points out, however politely, that he’s talking bolleaux, which he does almost incessantly. Not a serious threat.
“British advisers to Kamala Harris hope to ‘kill [Elon] Musk’s Twitter”, demonstrating that “England, not Russia, is the culprit in a real foreign election interference story.”
England is turning into Russia. Your government is going to impose draconian censorship laws common in places they tell us we should fight (so we can defend our western democratic values and freedom of speech).
The irony is beautiful but absolutely tragic.
They have forgotten that actually the British public aren’t that stupid that they need nannying over what they do on the Internet.
I’m not especially “pro-censorship”, but I do note that X is owned by Elon Musk, and I am as a matter of general principle in favour of things that make his life more difficult.
I am as a matter of general principle in favour of things that make his life more difficult.
Why?
Because he is a dangerous lunatic.
Hardly explains anything. What has he done to define him as “a dangerous lunatic”? Two things to be clarified there.
In his eyes, Musk is a hate criminal. He doesn’t understand it, but he feels this way because he has developed feelings of hate because of Elon Musk. They want to eradicate everything and everyone who makes them hate. That’s what ‘hate crime’ is all about.
We’re all entitled to dislike public figures. I dislike Musk.
He thinks he is “above the law” for a start. Also, he has turned X into a haven for ultra-Right Wingers.
he has turned X into a haven for ultra-Right Wingers.
How do you know this? Are you reading it?
Perhaps someone in power decides you are a dangerous lunatic and decides to make your life more difficult. Btw, is SpaceX dangerous lunacy? Tesla? Starlink?
Are youbon a position to defend yourself from government and Intel agency schitz who decide to mess you up?
You appear to be the dangerous lunatic.
It’s not those things specifically (although I am no friend of electric cars), it’s Musk personally. If, say, Jeff Bezos rather than Musk owned those things, I would have no issue.
You dislike Musk but admire Bezos? Weird.
Tell that to the people in developing nations that now have internet or to the astronauts who will be rescued by his space craft… Your vitriol against him smells a lot like jealousy…
You misunderstand. I don’t dislike the things he has done (for the most part). I dislike HIM.
But you can’t explain why. Irrational, if not quite a dangerous lunatic.
Why would you want to make the most dynamic, intelligent, driven and successful member of his generation life more difficult? Very rare and unique people like Elon Musk move humanity forward.
He is absolutely mad, and deeply unpleasant. Just looking at his puffy, sweaty face makes me feel unwell. I have always wondered why the conspiracists are so down on Bill Gates. If you need a textbook “Bond Villain” baddie, Musk ticks every box.
So at the end ofvthe day you are just a stupid pebble in an empty can:
Nothing but useless noise.
Coming from a guy who doesn’t even post under an actual name. I appreciate this site is full of Musk fanboys, but I am not one of them.
There are some people who, if the BBC said the moon is made of cheese, would be looking for it in Waitrose.
Is that because he’s super cool and makes space rockets and you don’t?
I understand he was bullied at school. That makes sense. If he’d ever gone to a school I attended, he would have copped it big time for sure (creepy weird kids did, at least in my generation). I suspect he is the way he is because his school days were so horrible, and he’s trying to get the world back.
I’m beginning to wonder what your school life was like.
It sounds like it might have been in Russia.
Australia actually, but I appreciate that the likes of you don’t understand the difference.
Australia actually
Ah, that explains it: the country that discovered woke just as everyone else decided it’s all a bit naff, eh? Still, New Zealand is worse.
I enjoyed it, as it happens.
Surely you meant “and he’s trying to get back at the world”? Tut tut, your cover is almost blown with this careless syntax, but nice use of an Oxford comma – you do pay some attention to your orders!
What? It is an immutable law of nature that in the comments section of every English-language website, there’s is always a self appointed member “English Language Police”, who adds nothing to the debate, but smugly corrects what he considers to be incorrect use of the language.
there’s is always a self appointed member (of the) “English Language Police”
Yes, that’s always going to be bad news for Australian commenters.
It’s the creepy weird ones that grow up to be really interesting and break technological boundaries and blow your mind though.
The ones that do the bullying are the ones that love censorship organisations, covid lockdowns and generally being bossy. Obviously it fits the school bully mentality well. They have to persecute those that are different because they don’t have an original bone in their body and so lacking in their own abilities and imagination they feel like everyone else should be docile sheep conformists like them.
Thanks for the analysis, Dr Freud.
Well your views are very extreme in a liberal society. You have a very 50s Cold War mentality which is quite unusual these days. Most people I know that have opinions like yours are long gone from this world. Good on you for sticking to them, but your view of Musk is a bit of a mystery.
Admitting that bigotry is fine if it suits you is both shocking and revolting.
I apologise, Your Holiness. I didn’t realise the Dalai Lama posted on here.
The best thing about Musk apart from the cars, rockets and PayPal is that he so annoys puritanical authoritarians and busybodies. Long may he thrive.
He annoys a lot of people (unsurprisingly). I am fond of those bumper stickers that are starting to appear on Teslas: “I bought this before I knew Elon was Crazy”.
He annoys a lot of people
As I said: the best thing about him is that he annoys the kind of people who signal their virtue with bumper stickers.
https://open.substack.com/pub/lowstatus/p/needs-musk?r=1fl6hp&utm_medium=ios
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, comrade.
Unfortunately it seems that almost any outside involvement with the Labour Party is aimed at fundamentally changing the social fabric of this country without consent.
The question is who is Imran Ahmed, who is he related to, where did he get his money from and how do we hold him accountable
Watch or listen to him on Triggernometry. Very revealing. He embodies everything that’s wrong with current efforts to control people’s behaviour.
Don’t worry journalists – it’s only going to affect that nasty Elon.
Once they’ve achieved that (and of course embedded legislation within an international perma-treaty) you won’t be next…
I’m sure it will all turn out just fine. Maybe keep Fridays free for compulsory prayer.
The odious CCDH is not at all transparent about who funds it. This is important because they themselves spread lies and hate in their pro-vax campaign. How much money did they get from pharmaceutical companies? How much are they getting from Musk’s competitors? Disgusting and untrustworthy.
There is some sense in regulation of social media but that would be for eg – people creating fake CVs on linked-in to obtain work by deception, or advocating for terrorism, fgm etc. So it has to have a regulatory content based on known harms and outcomes. Censoring people who disagree with socialism (a religion) warmism (an un-proven theory) simply won’t work: it will be “whack-a-mole” with the added disadvantage for the likes of mcsweeney and starmer that ideas forced underground get more traction because of this.The current flourishing of antisemitism across the broad left and trad far right is a good example: Combat 18 and sandal wearing yoghurt knitters can bond over their shared hatred of pyramid builders, can they bury the hatchet sufficiently far away to work together in government? i doubt it !
Shutdown this Orwellian nightmare, disband it, destroy its files and records, and jail its leaders. That photo is the photo to describe, “The banality of evil.”