The UK's War on Anonymity Has Come to America
摘要
Effort 调查报道称，五个英国非政府组织及其美国分支机构正协同游说美国州议会和国会，以 “儿童安全” 为口号推动数字身份法，意图取消成年人的网络匿名权。文章指出这些法律在英国已被用于监控、逮捕和监禁政治异见者，并详述了各组织的运作：5Rights 基金会参与起草加州 AB 2273 法案并游说 42 项法案、涉及 18 个州，其中 11 项已立法；CCDH 由英国工党顾问创立，曾发起抵制 X 的运动并支持英国审查立法，2024 年被指控违反《外国代理人登记法》；ISD 与美国国务院、欧盟及英国多部门签有超 1700 万美元合同，其报告将政治异议与 “虚假信息”“极端主义” 混为一谈；Reset Tech 及其美国分支 2024 至 2026 年第二季度花费 135 万美元游说，且与 5Rights 和 ISD 存在领导层重叠。文章还指出 5Rights 创始人、英国上议院议员 Beeban Kidron 主张禁止 VPN，这一政策将使英国与俄罗斯、中国、朝鲜为伍。
荐读理由
这篇调查披露了英国数字身份法背后的外国非政府组织正以儿童安全为名游说美国各州，用具体游说金额和法案清单支撑，能帮你提前看清匿名权与年龄验证立法背后的真实推手，避免被公关话术带偏判断。
原文
The UK’s War on Anonymity Has Come to America
The NGOs Behind Britain's Digital ID Laws are Targeting American Statehouses
An Effort investigation has identified a coordinated operation to influence American lawmakers by five foreign non-government organizations and their US affiliates. These NGOs have converged upon a unified strategy: use the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ to advocate for digital ID laws that would prevent adults from using the internet anonymously.
In Britain, they succeeded in passing those laws. They now form part of a system which surveils, arrests, and jails political dissidents. Digital ID laws are a key component used to strip Brits of internet anonymity, an otherwise effective technological countermeasure against authoritarianism.
British NGOs are now replicating their playbook in the United States of America, attempting to pass a patchwork of digital ID laws in 21 states and the US Congress.
One British NGO, 5Rights, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, but has failed to file critical information related to its foreign leadership. All five foreign NGOs have influenced American policy, either directly or using American proxies with significant foreign management.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) was founded by British Labour consultants Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney2.
CCDH has already been involved in censorship scandals in the US and UK. They led a boycott campaign against X immediately after Elon Musk’s acquisition, sponsored major censorship legislation in the UK, and frequently hosted events in which US and UK government officials advocated for censorship.3
| Federal filing period | Registrant | Reported amount | Reported issue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 Q3 | Lot Sixteen | $20,000 | Online misinformation and hate speech; COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. LDA report. |
| 2021 Q4 | Lot Sixteen | $20,000 | Online misinformation and hate speech; COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. LDA report. |
| 2022 Q1 | Lot Sixteen | $10,000 | Online misinformation, hate speech, and platform accountability. LDA report. |
| 2026 Q1 | CCDH, in house | $5,698.31 | Section 230 reform; the Sunset Section 230 Act; the DEFIANCE Act; and the AI LEAD Act. |
America First Legal, a law firm connected with the Trump administration, accused CCDH of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in 2024. The US Department of Justice has not publicly announced any investigation into CCDH, and did not respond to our request for comment.
Effort independently corroborated the core claims made in this letter about the nationalities and residences of CCDH leadership — that Imran Ahmed is CEO of both organizations and is a British national, that Clark and Brookes are shared directors of both US and UK entities, and that McNeill was a board member until July 11, 2024.
CCDH supported bills with the explicit intent of importing British laws. A joint statement by Buffy Wicks, the lead author of AB 2273, Jordan Cunningham, another AB 2273 author, and 5Rights Foundation states, “The Bill is practicable and realistic, drawing as it does on the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC).”
AB 2273 was co-designed by 5Rights Foundation, a foreign principal that paid to lobby for AB 2273, according to their own Foreign Agents Registration Act filing.
5Rights is the leading NGO promoting the British Age Appropriate Design Code / AB 2273 model across American states. 5Rights engaged on 42 bills across 18 states, 11 of which have become law.
5Rights paid Capitol Connection $50,000 to lobby in the California Legislature from May to September 2022. They did not disclose this lobbying on behalf of a foreign agent until 2024, over a year after the bill they lobbied for passed.
In their disclosure, Capitol Connection denied that 5Rights was supervised, owned, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized by a foreign government, foreign political party, or other foreign principal. They did not submit any information for question 12, which could have clarified what level of control Kidron, their founder and then-director, had over 5Rights.
5Rights is a British nonprofit founded by Baroness Beeban Tania Kidron, who sits in the British House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British Parliament.
Despite the British government using these laws to target political dissidents, Baroness Kidron and 5Rights now advocate for VPN bans, a change that would add the UK to a small number of authoritarian regimes — Russia, China, and North Korea — that ban VPNs.4
A central node in that British censorship ecosystem is the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. They have contracted with the US State Department, European Union, and several UK ministries for a total of over $17M US dollars.5
$11.21m
$5.54m
$0.72m
$0$5m$10m
ISD’s contracts explicitly describe a mission to control internet speech. In the reports and policy recommendations produced for these contracts,6 ISD conflates political dissent with “misinformation”, “extremism”, “hate speech”, or even “violent extremism”, both justifying and enabling censorship by governments foreign and domestic.
| Period | Government counterparty | Contract description | Reported amount | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport | “Research into climate-related mis/disinformation affecting the UK” | £37,677 | Contract record |
| 2022 | Ofcom | “Analysis of online hate in the UK” | £79,250 | Contracts Finder |
| 2021–2023 | US Department of State | “Young people’s online and offline initiatives” | $422,408.08 | USAspending |
| 2023–2024 | US Department of State | “Social cohesion and anti-Ukraine narratives” | $246,669 | USAspending |
| 2023–2024 | US Department of State | “Community resilience against hate and polarization” | $249,783.96 | USAspending |
| 2024 | US Department of State | “City-led strategies against hate initiative” | $24,578.09 | USAspending |
| 2024–2027 | European Commission, DG CNECT | “Digital Services Act compliance monitoring, five-member consortium” | €4,861,089 consortium total; ISD share undisclosed | TED award notice |
ISD has lobbied federally in the United States.7 Their report states that “a majority of Board members sit on both boards so that decisions can be taken collectively.”
Reset Tech is yet another global consortium with overlapping leadership. Reset describes its own governance as follows: “We are governed by a Board of Directors that oversees our global operations.”8
Reset Tech Action, Reset Tech’s US 501(c)4 affiliate, spent $1,352,800 lobbying Congress and state legislatures from 2024 through Q2 2026. Effort found significant overlap between Reset Tech and 5Rights: 4 of 6 bills it lobbied for are bills 5Rights engaged with, including AB 2273, the bill 5Rights also lobbied for.9
Reset Tech is also tied to ISD through their EU affiliate, Reset Tech GmbH, which received €4.9M from the EU government as part of the consortium led by ISD.
In theory, there may be age verification laws which do not contribute to authoritarian control of speech. However, when foreign principals are lobbying for age verification law, during a time when those laws are being used to suppress political speech in their home countries, it cannot be a surprise if those laws are used for the same purposes in America.
Footnotes
Effort mapped engagements based on public statements, records, and news coverage. The map is a lower bound of engagements the Effort team was able to verify, but the list of engagements might be incomplete.
Morgan McSweeney is identified as a founder by The Times and the New Statesman in coverage of the launch. CCDH’s website continues to identify Imran Ahmed as its founder and CEO.
CCDH-supported UK censorship legislation:
In an article titled “The VPN loophole in the fight to protect children,” Kidron called social media bans without VPN bans “for show and headlines, not for children.” This rhetoric is deployed for a VPN-ban policy which would predominantly affect adults.
We use conversion rates for July 27, 2026: €1 = $1.1389 and €1 = £0.85524. It excludes the £635,204 aggregate for three unnamed government contracts and the £2,322,079 unallocated government-and-multilateral remainder.
| Period | Government counterparty | Recipient ISD entity | Contract / award / spend record | Reported amount | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Government counterparties not named | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Three government contracts reported in the annual-return summary | £635,204 | Charity Commission record |
| 2024 | Multiple governments and multilaterals | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Accounts-listed funders: US State Department; European Union; UK FCDO, DCMS and Home Office; Australian DFAT; Danish MFA; New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs; Public Safety Canada; Canadian Privy Council; UNESCO; German Government; and Ministerium der Finanzen des Landes | Not separately disclosed | ISD 2024 accounts |
| 2024 | Government and multilateral institutions | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Undisclosed remainder after the three-contract aggregate | £2,322,079 | Calculated from £2,957,283 less £635,204; see 2024 accounts. |
| 2019–2021 | London MOPAC | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Comprehensive scoping, engagement and consultation process | £50,000 | MOPAC contract register |
| 2022 | Ofcom | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Analysis of online hate in the UK | £79,250 | Contracts Finder |
| 2022–2024 | London MOPAC | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Shared Endeavour Fund independent fund evaluation | £49,961.75 | MOPAC register |
| 2023–2024 | London MOPAC | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Shared Endeavour Fund independent fund evaluation extension | £61,746 | MOPAC register |
| 2023 | UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Research into climate-related mis/disinformation affecting the UK | £37,677 | Open-contract record |
| 2024 | UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | PPM consultancy spend recorded in January | £102,437.90 | FCDO spend file |
| 2024 | UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | PPM consultancy spend recorded in March | £158,752.07 | FCDO spend file |
| 2024 | UK Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Evidence review of the 2022 Leicester unrest | Undisclosed | ISD 2024 accounts |
| 2024–2027 | European Commission, DG CNECT | Institute for Strategic Dialogue gGmbH (Germany), consortium lead; Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK), consortium member | Digital Services Act compliance monitoring, five-member consortium | €4,861,089 consortium total; ISD share undisclosed | TED award notice |
| 2019–2022 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Community-based interventions program in Kenya · SLMAQM19GR2273 | $2,250,000 | USAspending |
| 2024–2027 | US Department of Justice | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Strong Cities Network community-based hate-prevention project · 15PBJA24GG02835ADVA | $2,000,000 | USAspending |
| 2022–2023 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Strong Cities Network regional hubs and governance · SLMAQM22CA0079 | $1,333,333 | USAspending |
| 2024–2026 | US Department of Homeland Security | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Domestic violent-extremism trends analysis · 23STFRG00021 | $1,249,621 | DHS notice of award |
| Period not reported | US Department of Homeland Security | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Countering violent extremism financial assistance · EMW-2023-GR-00123 | $817,129 | USAspending |
| 2017–2019 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Novation from Trialogue Educational Trust · SLMAQM17CA2016 | $567,953.63 | USAspending |
| 2024–2025 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Strong Cities Network capacity-building · SAQMIP24CA5173 | $444,005 | USAspending |
| 2021–2023 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Young people’s online and offline initiatives · SJO10021CA3010 | $422,408.08 | USAspending |
| 2024–2025 | US Department of Homeland Security | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant · EMW-2024-GR-05344 | $315,009.94 | USAspending |
| 2021–2023 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Young Cities program in Belgium · SBE20021GR3012 | $269,541.97 | USAspending |
| 2023–2024 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Community resilience against hate and polarization · SGE21023GR0096 | $249,783.96 | USAspending |
| 2023–2024 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Social cohesion and anti-Ukraine narratives · SAQMIP24GR0009 | $246,669 | USAspending |
| 2017 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Strong Cities Network CVE expertise · SLMAQM17CA1034 | $238,235 | USAspending |
| 2018 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Digital platforms for immigration integration and CVE · SBE20017GR029 | $199,727 | USAspending |
| 2021–2023 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | City Pair Program workshop · SFI30021GR3015 | $140,000 | USAspending |
| 2017–2018 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Strong Cities Network exchanges and workshops · SIN65017CA0020 | $80,000 | USAspending |
| 2020–2021 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Monitoring online information operations during COVID-19 · SFR63020CA0049 | $66,293.46 | USAspending |
| 2024–2025 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Strong Cities Network peer learning and capacity building · SUK56024GR0031 | $63,760 | USAspending |
| 2017–2018 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Travel for Strong Cities Network workshop · SUK56017CA034 | $50,000 | USAspending |
| 2008–2009 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Counter-radicalization research and network development · SUK56008GR724 | $50,000 | USAspending |
| 2017 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Indonesia CVE messaging · SLMAQM17CA1041 | $33,848.99 | USAspending |
| 2024 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | Local-leader conference on hate prevention and social cohesion · SCA52524GR0019 | $32,963.16 | USAspending |
| 2024–2025 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Strong Cities Network global summit logistics · SSF75024GR0015 | $24,992 | USAspending |
| 2024 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | City-led strategies against hate initiative · SSW80024GR0003 | $24,578.09 | USAspending |
| 2018 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Australian–American city ties · SAS20018GR034 | $17,383 | USAspending |
| 2024 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue–US | French cities countering hate-motivated violence · SFR63024CA0018 | $14,000 | USAspending |
| 2023 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Strong Cities transatlantic event travel · SNO60023GR0011 | $10,000 | USAspending |
| 2024–2025 | US Department of State | Institute for Strategic Dialogue (UK) | Smart Cities Network peer learning and capacity building · SMO55024GR0075 | $1,560.21 | USAspending |
US rows are the complete set of recipient-name matches for “INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC DIALOGUE” in USAspending’s project-grant and cooperative-agreement search through August 3, 2026; award values are shown in US dollars.
| Federal filing period | Registrant | Reported amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q1 | ISD-US | Less than $5,000 | LDA report |
| 2026 Q2 | ISD-US | Less than $5,000 | LDA report |
Reset Tech homepage global collective references: “Reset Tech”: 1, “we”: 6, and “our”: 5 (only in the context of Reset Tech).
The table totals $1,352,800 in reported lobbying payments and expenditures from 2024 through Q2 2026: $1,222,500 in federal lobbying payments, $100,000 in Maryland employer expenditures, and $30,300 in Nebraska lobbyist compensation and reimbursement.
| Filing period | Registrant | Reported amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 Q1–Q4 | Corbin Strategies | $320,000 |
| 2024 Q1–Q4 | Center Road Solutions | $170,000 |
| 2025 Q1–Q4; 2026 Q1–Q2 | EFB Advocacy LLC | $502,500 |
| 2024 Q1–Q4; 2025 Q1–Q4 | Epplin Strategic Planning | $230,000 |
| 2024 | Reset Tech Action | $100,000 |
| 2024–2025 | Reset Tech Action | $30,300 |
We identified AVPA as a significant foreign influence over age verification laws in the UK and US and added them to the map accordingly, but they are outside of the direct scope of this investigation, as we did not identify legally classified lobbying from AVPA.
AVPA is a British trade organization of age verification suppliers — members with a financial stake in age verification mandates.
AVPA’s page lists Alastair Graham as chair and Ian Moody, Tony Allen, Andy Lulham, Julie Dawson, and Ryan Bessemer as the executive committee. Their nationalities are as follows.
| Name | Role | Source confirming citizenship |
|---|---|---|
| Alastair Graham | Chair | British — Companies House officer record |
| Ian Moody | Executive Committee | British — Companies House officer record |
| Tony Allen | Executive Committee | British — Companies House officer record |
| Andy Lulham | Executive Committee | British — LinkedIn profile |
| Julie Dawson | Executive Committee | British — Companies House Yoti director record |
| Ryan Bessemer | Executive Committee | Australian — LinkedIn profile |
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