• by Steven Rosenbaum , Featured Contributor, January 5, 2026

Just after midnight on Christmas day, a federal judge in New York blocked the U.S. government from arresting or detaining Imran Ahmed, a leading researcher on online hate and disinformation.

That sentence alone should stop us cold.

Ahmed is the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that studies how hate, disinformation, and abuse spread across major social platforms. He is also a legal permanent resident of the United States, a husband, and the father of a child born in the U.S. According to his lawyers, instead of spending Christmas with his family, he spent it racing to court to prevent what they described as an unconstitutional attempt to detain and expel him from the country.

The judge issued a temporary restraining order and scheduled a hearing for today. Courts do not move that fast unless something is seriously wrong.

Ahmed has been clear about what is at stake for him personally and professionally. “I will not be bullied away from my life’s work of fighting to keep children safe from social media’s harm and stopping antisemitism online,” he said in a statement.

That framing matters. This is not a fringe actor testing the boundaries of speech. It is a researcher whose work has repeatedly challenged some of the most powerful companies and individuals in the digital economy.

This case is not about content moderation. It is not about visas. And it is not about whether you agree with Ahmed’s research. It is about whether the United States will allow the use of state power to punish people for studying powerful systems.

Earlier this week, the State Department barred Ahmed and four other European researchers and regulators from traveling to or remaining in the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed they had led organized efforts to pressure platforms into censoring American viewpoints. The State Department followed by asserting broad authority to impose visa restrictions and remove foreign nationals.

But Ahmed is not a tourist or a visiting academic. He lives here. His family is here. And his work, however inconvenient it may be to some, is protected speech. The real conflict is not subtle. 

Ahmed’s organization has repeatedly published research showing how hate speech and misinformation are amplified on social platforms, including X. In 2023, Elon Musk’s company sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate after it documented a rise in hate speech following Musk’s acquisition of the platform. That lawsuit was dismissed, though an appeal remains pending. The research did not disappear. The scrutiny continued.

Now the pressure has escalated from lawsuits to the threat of detention and deportation.

Ahmed is not alone.

Another organization caught in the same sweep, the Global Disinformation Index, issued a blunt statement calling the visa sanctions “an authoritarian attack on free speech” and “an egregious act of government censorship.” (Disclosure: GDI’s leadership includes a member of the Sustainable Media Center board of advisors.) GDI pointed out the obvious irony of decrying speech suppression while using state power to silence critics engaged in protected speech.

This matters because it reveals the government’s strategy.

When courts dismiss lawsuits against researchers, when facts prove stubborn, and when criticism persists, the next lever is intimidation. Make the cost of research so high that others think twice. Send a message not just to one person, but to an entire field.

We have seen this pattern before: Journalists labeled enemies. Whistleblowers prosecuted. Academics targeted. The chilling effect rarely requires mass arrests. It works through fear, uncertainty, and precedent.

The irony here is painful. Research into antisemitism, online abuse, and misinformation is being reframed as censorship, while the actual act of censorship is being carried out by the state. Studying how speech spreads is not suppressing speech. Publishing findings is not coercion. Criticism is not control.

Ahmed has said that his life’s work is protecting children from the harms of unregulated social media and confronting antisemitism online. His lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, has been equally clear: The federal government cannot deport a green card holder with an American family simply because it dislikes what he has to say. It is hard to imagine anything more un-American than that.

Today’s hearing will determine what happens next for Imran Ahmed. But the implications extend far beyond one case.

If the United States becomes a place where researchers risk detention for documenting online harm, then the debate is no longer about moderation policies or platform rules. It is about whether truth itself is allowed to be inconvenient to power.

That is not a left-right issue. It is a democratic one.

Once research itself becomes grounds for punishment, the line between accountability and intimidation begins to vanish. And when that line disappears, everyone who relies on independent inquiry is next.