Elon Musk-owned X has driven the speech-censoring arm of a major advertising group to shut down after suing the organization for allegedly leading a “massive advertiser boycott” against X that violated antitrust laws.
“I was shocked by the evidence uncovered by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that a group of companies organized a systematic illegal boycott against X,” said X CEO Linda Yaccarino in a video statement on August 6, the day the lawsuit was filed.
Prophets of War: Lockh...
Best Price: $10.13
Buy New $14.99
(as of 02:45 UTC - Details)
“It is just wrong. And that is why we are taking action,” Yaccarino continued, announcing that the company had just filed “an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), four of its key members, and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).”
X (formerly Twitter) accused GARM, a “brand safety” non-profit initiative of WFA, of “collectively withhold[ing] billions of dollars in advertising from Twitter” after Musk bought the social media platform in late 2022.
GARM claims to help ensure that businesses aren’t “tainted” by ad placement alongside illegal or “harmful” content, which they define as including “hate speech,” “misinformation,” or even certain “insensitive” treatment of social issues.
Shortly following X’s lawsuit, WFA announced that it would “discontinue” GARM’s activities, citing a drain on its resources.
Daily Wire commentator Ben Shapiro had testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that if a media group does not align with the “preferred political narratives” of GARM, the company will not be deemed “brand safe,” and its “business will be throttled.”
Anatomy of the State
Best Price: $13.62
Buy New $17.28
(as of 03:26 UTC - Details)
Shapiro pointed out that GARM’s “brand safety standards” do not “draw the line at what is criminal, abusive, or dangerous,” but “also include restrictions on hate speech, harassment, misinformation, [and] insensitive, irresponsible and harmful treatment of debated sensitive social issues.”
“Those criteria are highly subjective in theory, and they are purely partisan in practice,” noted Shapiro, recounting how GARM standards led to YouTube’s demonetization of Daily Wire host Matt Walsh for “misgendering,” “which to GARM is to say that men are not women.”
In a thread on X, Shapiro shared snapshots of emails showing how, according to the House Committee report, “GARM and its members discussed a strategy of blocking certain news outlets like @FoxNews, @realDailyWire, and @BreitbartNews.” In one email, a top executive associated with GARM admitted that he “hated” what he described as Breitbart’s “ideology and bulls***.
