By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.
The publication of “The Disinformation Dozen,” a list of 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers,” in 2021 sparked efforts to discredit U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sayer Ji, and other vocal critics of the COVID-19 pandemic policies and vaccines. Five years later, the release of the “Epstein Files” led to the resignation of one of the list’s architects—Morgan McSweeney.
The publication of “The Disinformation Dozen” list of the 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers” in 2021 triggered efforts to discredit US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sayer Ji, and other vocal critics of COVID-19 pandemic policies and vaccines.
Five years later, the publication of the “Epstein Files” led to the resignation of one of the architects of the list – Morgan McSweeney.
McSweeney, chief of staff to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, resigned on Sunday. In 2018, he co-founded the center later known as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which published the “Disinformation Dozen” list.
McSweeney’s resignation was a consequence of his earlier support for Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the USA.
Mandelson is mentioned in the Epstein files because of his close ties to disgraced financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. McSweeney had advised Starmer to appoint Mandelson as ambassador.
Starmer dismissed Mandelson from his post in September 2025 after emails between Mandelson and Epstein were released. In the emails, Mandelson had suggested that Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting child prostitution was unlawful and should be overturned.
The Epstein files also revealed that Mandelson had passed sensitive government information to Epstein. The British Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation against Mandelson, while Starmer apologized to the victims of Epstein’s sex trafficking.
In his resignation letter, McSweeney took “full responsibility” for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson.
Ji, who is listed as one of the “Disinformation Dozen”, told The Defender that McSweeney’s resignation shows that “the architecture behind a decade of political censorship is becoming visible”.
“The same political culture that has normalized backroom politics, denial, and proxy enforcement is also the culture that has spawned the CCDH—and protected it from critical scrutiny while reshaping public discourse on both sides of the Atlantic,” Ji wrote on Substack.
In its early years, the CCDH targeted left-wing politicians and independent media in Great Britain with accusations of antisemitism. Later, it focused on “misinformation” and “disinformation” in the USA.
The Biden administration and corporate media used the “Disinformation Dozen” list to discredit figures like Kennedy and Ji. Social media platforms banned those on the list.
Internal documents leaked in 2024 revealed that CCDH attempted to launch a “black ops” operation against Kennedy and “kill Musk’s Twitter”—now known as X. “Black ops” refers to covert operations conducted by governments or other organizations that conceal their involvement.
The Epstein files contain no evidence that Epstein was involved in the CCDH’s operations, Ji said. But they reveal an “operational lineage” that connects Epstein to figures like Mandelson and McSweeney, exposing “the hidden origins of the CCDH—and the elite networks now being brought to light by the Epstein files.”
“The Epstein files help explain why censorship became so aggressive,” said Seamus Bruner, research director at the Government Accountability Institute. “The CCDH and similar institutions functioned less as neutral watchdogs and more as enforcement mechanisms—protecting systems, not public discourse.”
CCDH exported the British censorship infrastructure to the USA.
McSweeney had been working closely with Mandelson since 2001 and, according to Ji, was also the key figure behind the founding of CCDH.
“McSweeney conceived, developed and structured the organization that later became the CCDH – initially as a political weapon within the Labour Party, later as a transatlantic non-governmental organization used against journalists, publishers, doctors and political dissidents,” Ji wrote.
According to Ji, public attention focused primarily on CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed—who now faces deportation from the US—and his role in online censorship. “If Ahmed was the enforcer, then McSweeney was the planner,” Ji wrote.
In 2018, McSweeney and Ahmed jointly founded Brixton Endeavours Limited, which they renamed CCDH in 2019. According to Ji, Jeremy Corbyn’s surprising election victory in 2017 was the catalyst for the organization’s creation.
Ji wrote that McSweeney, who described himself as a “centrist,” viewed Corbyn, who represented the left wing of the British Labour Party, as a threat. The two launched attacks against individuals and media outlets that supported Corbyn, accusing them of antisemitism. The attacks resulted in several media outlets and social media accounts being banned from the platforms.
The attacks also contributed to Corbyn’s downfall and Starmer’s subsequent rise.
According to Ji, the CCDH emerged “directly” from Labour Together and a parallel group called Stop Funding Fake News, which had been started by McSweeney and Ahmed.
Ji said the CCDH “used the same staff and infrastructure with dark money sources that they used to destroy Jeremy Corbyn – and then used the same playbook against US health publishers and independent media.”
Ji said that McSweeney sent 100 Labour Party staffers to the US to support the Democratic Party in swing states ahead of the 2024 presidential election – which led to a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.
“The same shady financing. Only the goals have changed.”
Once CCDH was active in the US, it did not limit its activities to attempted election interference. Instead, the organization “focused its attention on American citizens – advocates for health freedom, independent journalists, and public commentators who questioned the policies of the COVID era.”
Ji wrote:
“The rebranding was seamless. The same organizational infrastructure. The same demonetization playbook. The same reliance on irrefutable moral accusations – accusations where a denial is considered confirmation. The same exploitation of trust in institutions. The same opaque funding. Only the goals have changed.”
The report “Disinformation Dozen” highlights the CCDH’s efforts to combat alleged disinformation and misinformation. Facebook’s internal analysis later contradicted the CCDH’s claim that “Disinformation Dozen” was responsible for 65% of anti-vaccine online content, according to Ji. But “accuracy was never the goal.”
“Within a few months,” the White House cited the term “Disinformation Dozen.” “Social media platforms accelerated deplatforming efforts. Advertising revenue plummeted,” Ji said.
Ji said that the CCDH “did not act alone.” The CCDH’s activities were consistent with those of federal agencies such as the US Department of Homeland Security and those of the UK’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which was funded by the Gates Foundation.
The CCDH had also received funding from the Open Society Foundations, which are associated with financier George Soros.
“Pure tyranny disguised as public health”
Even before the publication of the “Disinformation Dozen,” the ISD supported the CCDH and its efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation. In 2019, the ISD, in collaboration with the BBC, published a report that included JIS GreenMedInfo on a list of “websites that spread disinformation” provided by the fact-checking group NewsGuard.
In 2022, investigative journalist Kris Ruby published a whistleblower statement revealing that CCDH was one of the organizations that provided Twitter with censorship word lists to identify and target users who posted on certain topics.
According to Ruby, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention played “an important role in the creation of these word lists” under Biden.
“This wasn’t about misinformation. It was about access control structures – who is allowed to speak, who is allowed to be deleted, and who decides without democratic accountability,” Ji wrote.
Several people named in the “Disinformation Dozen” said they felt vindicated by the revelations in the Epstein Files and McSweeney’s resignation.
Charlene Bollinger, founder of The Truth About Vaccines and The Truth About Cancer, said she was “grateful to have been vindicated – but even more grateful that the world now sees what we have seen and said all along… while working tirelessly to spread the truth about Big Pharma, the medical mafia and the vaccine cartel.”
“The justification is structural in nature,” Ji told The Defender. “The files show that the ‘Disinformation Dozen’ narrative wasn’t about the truth – it was about preemptively suppressing critics who had recognized the true power structures too early.”
“What we are seeing here is pure tyranny disguised as public health,” said chiropractor Ben Tapper.
Epstein’s connection to the CCDH and the “Disinformation Lecturers”
Epstein does not appear to be directly connected to the CCDH. But “the same political culture of secret backroom deals that made the Epstein network function also gave rise to the CCDH,” Ji said.
Within this network, Epstein acted “as a central hub, facilitating access, capital, and influence between areas that should never have been connected,” Ji wrote. These areas included government policy, Wall Street, pandemic financing, the enforcement of narratives, and access to elite figures like Bill Gates.
Ji said that the revelations from the Epstein files, released on January 30, which show the extent of the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein, are also devastating for McSweeney. He has been “widely described as Peter Mandelson’s protégé,” with links dating back to 2001 when McSweeney worked for Mandelson on the Labour Party’s election campaign.
Mandelson’s social connections to Epstein were known even before the files were released. However, they were generally considered lapses in an otherwise distinguished political career. Now, “that view no longer exists,” Ji wrote.
In a 2009 email to Jes Staley, a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, Epstein wrote that Mandelson was “in every respect … deputy prime minister” of the United Kingdom.
In a 2009 email exchange, Mandelson and Epstein discussed Mandelson’s efforts to lobby for a reduction in the tax on banker bonuses. In an email to Epstein, Mandelson wrote that Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, should “lightly threaten” then-British Chancellor Alistair Darling as part of this lobbying effort.
The Epstein files revealed evidence that Epstein later partnered with JPMorgan Chase to develop and fund a global pandemic preparedness infrastructure.
“The political culture that CCDH has spawned – the culture of backroom deals, dark money flows, deniable proxies, and weaponized moral framing – is the same political culture that enabled the Epstein network,” Ji wrote.
The CCDH is currently under investigation by Congress, and the deportation proceedings against Ahmed are underway.
In a filing with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York earlier this month, the US State Department described Ahmed as “a key Biden administration official in using the national security bureaucracy to censor US citizens and force US companies to censor.”
