Key Architect of ‘Disinformation Dozen’ List Resigns After ‘Epstein Files’ Reveal Tangled Web of Censorship
The censorship cartel just lost its chief engineer.
This article originally appeared on The Defender and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.
The 2021 publication of “The Disinformation Dozen” list of 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers” sparked efforts to discredit U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sayer Ji and other outspoken critics of COVID-19 pandemic policies and vaccines. Five years later, the release of the “Epstein Files” has led to the resignation of one of the list’s architects — Morgan McSweeney.
The 2021 publication of “The Disinformation Dozen” list of 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers” sparked efforts to discredit U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sayer Ji and other outspoken critics of COVID-19 pandemic policies and vaccines.
Five years later, the release of the “Epstein Files” has led to the resignation of one of the list’s architects — Morgan McSweeney.
McSweeney, chief of staff to the U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, resigned Sunday. In 2018, he co-founded what later became known as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which published the “Disinformation Dozen” list.
McSweeney’s resignation stemmed from his prior support for Peter Mandelson, former U.K. ambassador to the U.S.
Mandelson is implicated in the Epstein Files for his close ties to disgraced financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. McSweeney had advised Starmer to appoint Mandelson to his ambassadorial post.
Starmer removed Mandelson from his post in September 2025, after emails between Mandelson and Epstein were made public. In the emails, Mandelson suggested that Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a child prostitute was wrongful and should be overturned.
The Epstein Files also showed that Mandelson shared sensitive government information with Epstein. The U.K. Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation of Mandelson, while Starmer apologized to Epstein’s sex-trafficking victims.
In his resignation letter, McSweeney took “full responsibility” for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson.
But Ji, listed as one of the “Disinformation Dozen,” told The Defender McSweeney’s resignation shows that “the architecture behind a decade of political censorship is coming into view.”
“The same political culture that normalized backroom routing of power, deniability, and proxy enforcement is the culture that produced CCDH — and shielded it from scrutiny while it reshaped public discourse on both sides of the Atlantic,” Ji wrote on Substack.
In its early years, CCDH targeted left-wing political figures and independent media outlets in the U.K. with claims of antisemitism. Later, it targeted “misinformation” and “disinformation” in the U.S.
The Biden administration and corporate media used the “Disinformation Dozen” list to discredit figures like Kennedy and Ji. Social media platforms deplatformed those included on the list.
Internal documents leaked in 2024 showed that CCDH sought to launch “Black Ops” against Kennedy and “kill Musk’s Twitter” — now known as X. “Black ops” refers to secret operations carried out by governments or other organizations that hide their involvement.
The Epstein Files don’t contain evidence indicating Epstein was involved in CCDH’s operations, Ji said. But they do reveal an “operational lineage” connecting Epstein to figures like Mandelson and McSweeney, revealing “the hidden origins of CCDH — and the elite networks now illuminated by the Epstein files.”
“The Epstein files help explain why censorship became so aggressive,” said Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute. “CCDH and similar entities functioned less as neutral watchdogs and more as enforcement mechanisms — protecting systems, not public discourse.”
CCDH exported UK censorship infrastructure to the U.S.
McSweeney worked closely with Mandelson as far back as 2001, and he was also the key figure behind CCDH’s launch, according to Ji.
“McSweeney conceived, incubated and structurally engineered the operation that would later become CCDH — first as a factional political weapon inside the Labour Party, and later as a transatlantic NGO [nongovernmental organization] deployed against journalists, publishers, doctors, and political dissidents,” Ji wrote.
According to Ji, much public attention has focused on CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed — who is now facing deportation from the U.S. — and his role in online censorship. “If Ahmed was the executor. McSweeney was the designer,” Ji wrote.
In 2018, McSweeney and Ahmed co-founded Brixton Endeavours Limited, which they renamed to CCDH in 2019. According to Ji, Jeremy Corbyn’s surprising electoral success in 2017 prompted the organization’s launch.
Ji wrote that McSweeney, a self-described “centrist,” viewed Corbyn, who represented the left wing of the U.K. Labour Party, as a threat. The two launched attacks against people and media outlets who supported Corbyn, accusing them of antisemitism. The attacks resulted in several outlets and social media accounts being deplatformed.
The attacks also contributed to Corbyn’s fall from power and Starmer’s subsequent rise.
According to Ji, CCDH “emerged directly” from Labour Together and a parallel group, Stop Funding Fake News, launched by McSweeney and Ahmed.
Ji said CCDH used “the same staff, and the same dark-money infrastructure they used to destroy Jeremy Corbyn — then redeployed the identical playbook against U.S.-based health publishers and independent media.”
Ji said that McSweeney sent 100 Labour Party operatives to the U.S. to support the Democratic Party in swing states before the 2024 presidential election — resulting in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission.
‘The same dark funding. Only the targets changed’
Once it was active in the U.S., CCDH didn’t limit its activities to attempted election interference. Instead, the organization “turned its attention to American citizens — health freedom advocates, independent journalists, and public commentators who questioned COVID-era policies.”
Ji wrote:
“The rebranding was seamless. The same organizational infrastructure. The same demonetization playbook. The same reliance on unfalsifiable moral accusations — accusations where the denial is treated as confirmation. The same exploitation of institutional trust. The same dark funding. Only the targets changed.”
The “Disinformation Dozen” report highlights CCDH’s efforts to target alleged disinformation and misinformation. Facebook’s own internal analysis would later contradict the CCDH’s claim that the “Disinformation Dozen” was responsible for 65% of anti-vaccine content online, Ji said. But “precision was never the point.”
“Within months,” the White House cited the “Disinformation Dozen” label. “Social media platforms accelerated deplatforming. Advertising revenue collapsed,” Ji said.
Ji said CCDH “did not act alone.” CCDH’s activities were aligned with those of federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and with those of the U.K.-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which received funding from the Gates Foundation.
CCDH had also received funding from the Open Society Foundations, linked to financier George Soros.
‘Pure tyranny dressed up as public health’
Even before the publication of the “Disinformation Dozen,” ISD endorsed CCDH and its efforts to target “misinformation” and “disinformation.” In 2019, ISD, in collaboration with the BBC, published a report that included Ji’s GreenMedInfo on a list of “disinformation-hosting websites” provided by fact-checking group NewsGuard.
In 2022, investigative journalist Kris Ruby published whistleblower testimony showing that CCDH was one of the organizations providing Twitter with censorship word lists used to identify and target users who posted on selected topics.
According to Ruby, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under Biden “played a significant role in the creation of these word lists.”
“This was not about misinformation. It was about permission structures — who may speak, who may be erased, and who decides, without democratic accountability,” Ji wrote.
Several people named in the “Disinformation Dozen” said they felt vindicated by the Epstein Files revelations and McSweeney’s resignation.
Charlene Bollinger, founder of The Truth About Vaccines and The Truth About Cancer, said she is “grateful to be vindicated — but more grateful that the world is now seeing what we have seen and said all along … as we worked tirelessly to tell the truth about Big Pharma, the medical mafia and the vaccine cartel.”
“The vindication is structural,” Ji told The Defender. “The files demonstrate that the ‘Disinformation Dozen’ narrative was not about truth — it was about pre-emptive containment of critics who were identifying real power structures too early.”
“What we’re looking at is pure tyranny dressed up as public health,” said chiropractor Ben Tapper.
Epstein’s connection to CCDH and ‘Disinformation Dozen’
Epstein does not appear to be directly linked to CCDH. But the “same political culture of deniable backroom operations that made the Epstein network functional also produced CCDH,” Ji said.
Within this network, Epstein “functioned as a switchboard — routing access, capital, and influence between domains designed never to appear connected,” Ji wrote. The domains included government policy, Wall Street, pandemic financing, narrative enforcement and access to elite figures such as Bill Gates.
Ji said revelations from the Epstein Files, released Jan. 30, showing the extent of Mandelson’s dealings with Epstein, are also damning for McSweeney. He was “widely reported to be Peter Mandelson’s protégé,” with ties dating back to 2001, when McSweeney worked for Mandelson on Labour’s election campaign.
Mandelson’s social ties to Epstein were known before the files were released. But they were widely viewed as a blip on an otherwise distinguished political career. Now, “that framing is no longer available,” Ji wrote.
In a 2009 email to JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley, Epstein said Mandelson was “for all intents and purposes … deputy prime minister” of the U.K.
In a 2009 email exchange, Mandelson and Epstein discussed the former’s efforts to lobby to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses. In an email to Epstein, Mandelson wrote that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon should “mildly threaten” then-U.K. Chancellor Alistair Darling as part of these lobbying efforts.
The Epstein Files revealed evidence showing that Epstein later worked with JPMorgan Chase to develop and finance pandemic preparedness infrastructure globally.
“The political culture that produced CCDH — the culture of backroom operations, dark money, deniable proxies, and weaponized moral framing — is the same political culture that made the Epstein network possible,” Ji wrote.
CCDH is under congressional investigation, and deportation proceedings against Ahmed are ongoing.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York earlier this month, the U.S. Department of State described Ahmed as a “key collaborator with the Biden administration on weaponizing the national security bureaucracy to censor U.S. citizens and pressure U.S. companies into censoring.”
Related articles in The Defender
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UK Activist Behind ‘Disinformation Dozen’ Faces Possible U.S. Deportation
Congressional Investigation into Authors of ‘Disinformation Dozen’ Intensifies
Mastermind Behind ‘Disinformation Dozen’ List Took Money From Foundation Linked to Soros
Are U.S. Taxpayers Funding ‘Corrupt Dark-money Network’ That Censored CHD, RFK Jr. and Others?
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He didn't get sacked because of his propaganda.
It's related to his buddy Mandelson, who looks to be a morally depraved POS of the worst sort.