During the Brexit campaign, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) was founded in the wake of the 2016 murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a right-wing extremist – an effort by people who had known and worked with Cox to tackle the forces that radicalised people to hateful violence.

Its founder, former Labour staffer Imran Ahmed, for a time ran the not-for-profit out of an office borrowed from Labour Together, the think-ank project that helped launch Keir Starmer to Labour leadership and into 10 Downing Street. CCDH became a transatlantic project, chronicling hate speech and disinformation on the internet, how it spread, and how it might be tackled.

Now, Imran Ahmed is one of five individuals “sanctioned” by the US Department of State, supposedly as part of a “war on censorship” launched at the behest of Donald Trump. All five have had their visas revoked, according to the announcement, and face deportation from the US.

Trump’s administration abuses its power daily and routinely, but its actions on free speech are truly Orwellian in their scope. Trump and the Republican Party have........

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