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 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.”
Hellbound and Down 