Are US Taxpayers Funding ‘Dark-Money’ Censorship Network?

Written by Brenda Baletti PhD on February 15, 2025. Posted in Current News

A new analysis of government spending shows that several U.S. taxpayer-funded organizations are linked to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, according to a Substack report by Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo

The center created “The Disinformation Dozen” list that targeted Ji, Children’s Health Defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an influential nonprofit anti-‘disinformation’ organization, authored “The Disinformation Dozen” list.

The group allegedly collaborated with U.S. and foreign governments and Big Tech to censor Ji, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD founder and former chairman, and others for spreading “disinformation.”

A new analysis of government spending published by DataRepublican.com showed that at least 17 heavily taxpayer-funded U.S. organizations also may have funneled money into CCDH’s operations, Ji reported.

“The revelation that so many U.S.-based organizations are funding CCDH confirms what many of us have been warning about: that censorship efforts are not merely private initiatives but part of a broader, coordinated strategy involving government-linked entities and foreign influence networks,” Ji told The Defender.

Ji said this provides more evidence that censorship is being outsourced, “creating a system of plausible deniability for those seeking to silence dissenting voices under the guise of combating ‘misinformation.’”

CCDH famously drafted a list of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” — which included Ji, founder of the natural health website GreenMedInfo; Kennedy; Dr. Joseph Mercola; and Ty and Charlene Bollinger, founders of The Truth About Vaccines and The Truth About Cancer websites.

CCDH alleged in its report that just 12 accounts produced the majority of “anti-vaccine … disinformation” on social media.

Meta investigated and dismissed the report, and released a statement that there “isn’t any evidence” to support the report’s claims and that the small sample used in CCDH’s analysis was “in no way representative of the hundreds of millions of posts that people have shared about COVID-19 vaccines” on Facebook.

“There is no justification for [CCDH’s] claim that their data constitute a ‘representative sample’ of the content shared across our apps,” Meta stated.

Yet, the report was used by the White House and Twitter, now X, to censor the people and organizations on CCDH’s list, and by legacy media outlets such as NPR, The Guardian and others to discredit the people on the list.

“Twitter Files” documents published in 2023 by investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker detailed how Twitter and the White House used CCHD’s “Disinformation Dozen” report to justify censoring the people on the list.

Last year, reporting by Thacker and Matt Taibbi, based on internal documents leaked by CCDH insiders, revealed that CCDH planned to “kill” X, shut down popular social media accounts on other platforms, censor non-establishment voices and “bring back” attacks on “antivaxx” voices, among other things.

According to the documents, CCDH planned to organize “black ops” against Kennedy, who was a U.S. presidential candidate at the time. The group also planned to pressure Substack to remove COVID-19 vaccine critics Mercola and Alex Berenson from its platform.

The documents reveal that CCDH has pushed for a U.S. social media censorship law akin to the European Union’s “Digital Services Act” and the U.K.’s “Online Safety Act.”

Ji said:

“Despite their baseless claims and accusations, CCDH and similar organizations have had a powerful impact. They have provided the justification for widespread deplatforming, demonetization, and reputational attacks against independent journalists, scientists, and advocates.

Their reports — often methodologically flawed and politically motivated — are treated as authoritative sources by mainstream media and tech platforms, leading to real-world suppression of speech. The fact that they are now directly linked to potential violations of U.S. election laws raises serious questions about accountability and transparency.”

Who is behind the CCDH?

CCDH does not disclose its funders — even though journalists, including Thacker, and a U.S. congressional committee have requested that information.

CCDH also did not respond to The Defender’s request for information on its funding sources.

Imran Ahmed, CCDH’s CEO and founder, previously worked for Merrill Lynch. He was a British Labour Party political operative and is the co-author of “The New Serfdom: The Triumph of Conservative Ideas and How to Defeat Them.”

Ahmed emerged during the pandemic as a “vaccine and disinformation expert,” although he lacked any experience that would qualify him as such, Thacker reported.

The organization’s website states only that it is funded by “philanthropic trusts and members of the public.” It has denied receiving any grants, contracts or funding from the U.S. government.

DataRepublican.com used a financial tracing tool to follow donations made by taxpayer-funded organizations to other nonprofits.

CCDH has a relatively small budget of under $2.5 million. Publicly available information shows where some of those donations come from, including the Tides Foundation, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund and Schwab Charitable Fund.

However, some of the funding for the organizations making direct donations to CCDH can be traced back to nonprofit and philanthropic organizations that receive major funding from the U.S. government and redistribute that money to other organizations, DataRepublican.com showed.

Some of the 17 organizations that fund CCDH’s direct funders include the National Endowment for Democracy, the sister nonprofit of USAID; Freedom House; the National Democratic Institute; Global Communities; World Vision; Save the Children Federation; Columbia University; Princeton University and others.

Other investigations have also shown that CCDH has connections to key political and Hollywood figures.

For example, a 2023 investigation by Thacker revealed the CCDH received anonymous donations of upwards of $1 million and hired a lobbying firm. A search of the 2021 tax filings of the Schwab Charitable Fund — a donor-advised fund that allows anyone to donate anonymously — revealed a $1.1 million donation to CCDH.

Thacker also discovered that CCDH’s chairman is Simon Clark, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP). He also uncovered ties between CCDH, Ahmed and Hollywood.

A subsequent investigation by Ji traced some of the organizations that financially support CCDH, including several U.K.-based nonprofits affiliated with legacy media organizations, the U.K. government and major philanthropic organizations such as the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation.

“These hidden contributions reveal a coordinated pipeline of financial influence involving U.S. intelligence-adjacent entities, UK Crown interests, and Soros-backed organizations like the Tides Foundation,” Ji wrote.

Questions about the organization’s activities and funding sources led Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to subpoena CCDH as part of a 2023 congressional investigation into the nonprofit’s censorship-related activities.

The subpoena requested all communications and documents “between or among CCDH, the Executive Branch, or third parties, including social media companies, relating to the identification of groups, accounts, channels, or posts for moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation.”

It also requested details about any grants, contracts or funds from the U.S. government, CCDH replied that such information doesn’t exist. However, Ji’s report this week throws that response into question.

Ahmed continues to appear in mainstream media as a critic of X and the Trump administration calling for “transparency and accountability.”

“CCDH’s role as a foreign influence operation masquerading as a ‘nonprofit’ watchdog must be fully investigated,” Ji wrote. “Congress, media and civil rights organizations must demand answers.”

He added:

“This corrupt dark-money network must be exposed and dismantled. CCDH is not a ‘hate speech watchdog’ but a weaponized political hit squad, funded by taxpayer dollars and foreign actors, used to silence voices that challenge establishment power.”

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