A prominent British campaigner against online disinformation, who has been informed he faces potential removal from the United States, has launched a scathing attack on major technology companies, accusing them of "sociopathic greed" and of corrupting the political system to avoid accountability.
Legal Battle and Accusations of Political Corruption
Imran Ahmed, the chief executive and founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), is one of five European nationals barred from entering the US by the State Department. The department accused the group of leading organised efforts to pressure American tech platforms into censoring or suppressing viewpoints they oppose.
Ahmed, who lives lawfully in Washington DC with his American wife and infant daughter, now risks deportation. However, in a significant development late on Thursday, a US court granted him a temporary restraining order blocking any attempt to remove or detain him. A hearing scheduled for Monday is expected to confirm this protective order.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Ahmed stated he believes he is being targeted specifically for his organisation's work demanding greater transparency and accountability from social media and artificial intelligence firms. "This has never been about politics," he asserted, noting that CCDH had worked successfully with the first Trump administration and would do so again.
He argued the action stems from corporations that "simply do not want to be held accountable" and are using their financial influence in Washington to corrupt the system. "There is no other industry that acts with such arrogance, indifference and a lack of humility and sociopathic greed at the expense of people," Ahmed said.
A Wider Campaign Against European Regulation
The visa sanctions are widely viewed as the latest offensive against European regulatory efforts aimed at combating hate speech and misinformation online. Among the others barred is Thierry Breton, the former European internal market commissioner who has been instrumental in shaping the EU's Digital Services Act.
A State Department official, Sarah Rogers, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the message was clear: "if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you're unwelcome on American soil." Campaigners in the UK fear that if a future Trump administration intensifies its attacks on tech regulation, the British government could face further pressure.
Ahmed, who began his career working with Labour politicians in Westminster, said he has not yet formally received notification from the US government and believes the case against him is unfounded. He expressed confidence that his First Amendment rights would be upheld in court.
Confronting Tech Titans and Personal Sacrifice
The CCDH has repeatedly drawn the ire of powerful tech figures. Its reports documenting the surge in racist, antisemitic, and extremist content on Elon Musk's X led the platform to unsuccessfully sue the group last year, with Musk later labelling it a "criminal organisation." More recently, the centre published research highlighting harmful responses from the latest version of ChatGPT regarding suicide and eating disorders.
"We've seen that social media and AI companies are increasingly under pressure as a result of organisations like mine," Ahmed said. "No one likes being exposed as mendacious or hypocritical, but they call their friends in government or they call their pitbull litigation lawyers and start suing."
Ahmed emphasised that the issue of hate speech and misinformation is increasingly bipartisan, with concerns raised by Republican politicians as well as Democrats. He stated he was prepared for a legal fight, having previously taken on "the world's biggest corporations."
The personal cost, however, has been real. He spent Christmas apart from his family as the legal battle unfolded, a precautionary move given other cases where green card holders were detained far from their support networks. The emotional toll hit home when his wife told him their daughter had spoken her sixth word in his absence. "The only time I felt any sadness at all is last night when my wife told me that our child said her sixth word, and then I cried a bit," he confessed.
Despite the pressure, Ahmed remains resolute, drawing a distinction between his chosen path and the tragedies faced by families he has met through his work. "I chose to take on the biggest companies in the world, to hold them accountable, to speak truth to power. There is a cost attached to that. My family understands that."
