Imran Ahmed Researches Online Hate. Trump Wants to Deport Him

On with Kara Swisher

New York Magazine

Society & Culture

4.2 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed specializes in researching how hate and disinformation spread online. His work has made him a target of Elon Musk and the Trump administration — he’s one of five European tech regulators and researchers the White House wants to bar from the U.S. over claims of “foreign censorship.” Ahmed, who’s a British national based in the U.S., has sued to block his removal, and he’s not backing down from a fight with the administration over his goal to hold social media and AI companies accountable. Kara and Imran talk about the work his organization does to combat the spread of hate speech; why he thinks the Trump administration is targeting him at the behest of Elon Musk; and the stakes of his case when it comes to protections around free speech and immigration. They also talk about why so many tech CEOs are threatened by efforts to rein in the spread of disinformation on their platforms. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:15.8	This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.
0:19.0	Last year we talked a lot about the ways the tech industry
0:21.3	cozied up to the Trump administration and the ways that the Trump administration's
0:25.6	returned the favor by trying to defang any attempt to regulate them even by foreign governments.
0:31.1	The latest example of this backscratching came right before Christmas. The Trump administration
0:35.8	imposed travel bans on four European
0:37.6	tech researchers and a former regulator. It accused them of trying to censor American viewpoints
0:42.4	online, calling them, quote, agents of the global censorship industrial complex. What incredible
0:48.9	nonsense. Imran Ahmed is one of the people targeted by the White House. He's not a politician or a regulator.
0:56.5	He's a British citizen who runs an organization called the Center for Countering Digital
1:00.7	Hate. It researches the ways hate speech and disinformation spread on social media and AI platforms
1:06.0	and advocates for policy changes to combat it. Of the five, Imran is the only one who lives in the United States,
1:12.8	meaning that he could be deported. A federal judge has blocked his attention for now. I think the
1:18.4	administration is going after at the behest of Elon Musk, and of course, I think this is censorship,
1:24.1	which is the very thing they decry. Being a hypocrite is not new to the Trump administration,
1:29.0	but this creates one of the most egregious examples of it, because these people have talked
1:35.1	about being against censorship when in fact that's what they're calling for. All right, let's get
1:39.6	into my conversation with Imran. Our expert question comes from Nicole Wong. She served as deputy
1:45.2	U.S. chief technology officer during the Obama administration and was a top lawyer for Google and
1:50.1	Twitter and someone I have huge respect for who has been thoughtful about these very difficult
1:55.2	issues of policing online speech and what to do about it. So stick around.
	...

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