Imran Ahmed on Trump's threat to deport him over 'censorship' for countering online hate

William Brangham:

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from detaining or deporting Imran Ahmed. He's a British-born researcher who focuses on countering online hate and misinformation. But the Trump administration accuses him of trying to censor viewpoints that he doesn't agree with.

Ahmed leads a group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate. And he is one of five European nationals recently barred entry to the U.S. by the State Department.

Imran Ahmed is in the U.S., and he joins us now.

Thank you so much for being here.

As I mentioned, the U.S. government, specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio, accuses you of trying to censor social media companies and to pressure them into taking viewpoints that you find objectionable off their sites. Rubio called you and these other individuals foreign censors. What do you make of that accusation?

Imran Ahmed, CEO, Center for Countering Digital Hate: Well, thank you. I mean, it's terribly confusing.

The work that the center does, looking into things as diverse as the spread of online hatred against Jews, antisemitism on social media platforms, which we worked on with the first Trump administration in 2020, and we have continued to work on a bipartisan basis globally, including in the United States with both the federal and state governments, and the work that we do protecting children online, looking at the spread of eating disorder and self-harm content, this is, first of all, important work that needs to be done to protect the public.

But, second, we're a nonprofit, and we can't therefore be censoring things, which is, of course, something that the government does.

William Brangham:

I mean, you seem to be arguing that your free speech rights are being violated, which is precisely what the administration argues you are doing.

Do you have a sense as to why your organization and why you in particular were targeted?

Imran Ahmed:

Yes, I mean, one of the issues that we have had is that we take on, of course, some of the biggest corporations in America, companies like X, Elon Musk, Meta, and others, and ChatGPT, so OpenAI, and these companies which typically aren't able to be held accountable properly, whether that is through the courts because of the way that U.S. law is structured, that they are the only companies in America whose products really aren't subject to any liability if they cause harm to people, even when they persuade kids to take their own lives, for example.

But we think that this is another example of these companies which have tried to evade responsibility using their big money to try and influence things in politics. And we have seen companies like X, for example, suing us before because they didn't like being held accountable.

William Brangham:

I mean, in 2023, your organization was sued by X after you reported a rise in hate speech on that platform after Musk bought X.

Musk, again, he argued that you were trying to destroy the First Amendment because you didn't like particular viewpoints that were being floated on X. Again, that case was dismissed, I know, and there's an appeal under way. What do you make of that argument that they are making that you are simply trying to come in and censor them?

Imran Ahmed:

Look, people can say things as they wish, and Mr. Musk says a lot of things.

Now, what the courts actually found was that his lawsuit, which basically said you're not allowed to research our platform and doing so is a breach of the contract that you have with X when you sign up to it, they found that he was trying to impinge on our First Amendment rights to research and communicate that research, which we did.

And that research went all around the world. It led to advertisers leaving his platform. It led to his trust and safety council resigning. He sued us for $10 million, and it was dismissed with prejudice with a SLAPP ruling, a costs awarded to CCDH.

So that's another example of how these people simply don't like being transparent or accountable.

William Brangham:

The court, a federal judge, has temporarily stopped this deportation or expulsion on your part. And we should say, you are a legal resident. You have a green card. You are married to an American. You are the father of an American.

How comfortable are you that the U.S. justice system will continue to protect you?

Imran Ahmed:

Look, I have lived in America for over five years now. I love America. I love the idea of America, the idea that laws are made by people, not by kings, that we have checks and balances on every place of power.

And I have faith in the justice system. I know that the justice system works, because when the world's richest man took on my small nonprofit and tried to sue us out of existence, it actually protected us and made sure that our costs were covered.

And I think, in this instance, what we're seeing is America working just as it was intended to.

William Brangham:

But we have seen the Trump administration, particularly when it comes to deporting foreign nationals, move very quickly, sometimes seemingly in contradiction to judicial orders.

Do you have a sense as to how close you were to being deported before this judge stepped in?

Imran Ahmed:

Well, we haven't received any notification of any actual action by the U.S. government. The State Department put out a press release, I believe, that Mr. Musk was celebrating online, saying this is great.

But there's no actual correspondence with me, as a legal permanent resident of the United States. So we don't know. But that's why I assembled an extraordinary bunch of lawyers, everyone from the ACLU, to Roberta Kaplan, our lead counsel, Chris Clarke (ph), and others, to make sure that there wasn't any chance of an arbitrary detention and being spirited away hundreds or thousands of miles away from my friends, family, and my support network.

William Brangham:

All right, that is Imran Ahmed, the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Thank you so much for being here.

Imran Ahmed:

Thank you.