Advertising Cartel Controlling Free Speech Discontinues Activities After X And Rumble Lawsuits
Elon Musk has one big victory against woke advertisers for free speech so far.
Two days after Rumble and Elon Musk’s X filed lawsuits against an advertising cartel that they claim conspired to withhold digital advertising revenue to control online speech, the World Federation of Advertisers (“WFA”), one of the defendants, said that it is shutting down the activities of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (“GARM”), a committee of the WFA.
We reported earlier that on 6 August, the X CEO, Linda Yaccarino, announced X filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted and Unilever.
Rumble, too announced that they are suing the World Federation of Advertisers (“WFA”), an international not-for-profit association (with GARM being a committee of the WFA and reports to the WFA Executive Committee and comprised of many of the world’s largest advertisers), the WPP (a multi-national holding company and one of the largest marketing and advertising holding companies in the world and member of GARM) and GroupM (part of the multinational holding group WPP plc, owning four advertising agencies and is the largest media buying company in the world).
Their lawsuits came in the wake of a report by the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee titled “GARM’s (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) Harm,” exposing how the world’s biggest brands seek to control online speech. According to the report: “Evidence obtained by the Committee shows that GARM and its members directly organized boycotts and used other indirect tactics to target disfavored platforms, content creators, and news organizations in an effort to demonetize and, in effect, limit certain choices for consumers.”
The lawsuits claim that GARM has successfully forced changes to the business operations of some of the largest social media platforms through its abuse of its members’ market power, citing Meta’s Facebook and Instagram as examples.
Now, just two days after filing the lawsuits, the World Federation of Advertisers told its members that it was "discontinuing" activities for its Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative. Reportedly, Stephan Loerke, the CEO of the WFA, wrote in an email to members that the decision was not made lightly but that GARM is a not-for-profit organization with limited resources.
According to Loerke, the WFA and GARM intended to contest the allegations in X's suit in court and were confident the outcome of the case would demonstrate their full adherence to competition rules in all our activities. However, the announcement of GARM's discontinuation of activities could also quite reasonably be interpreted as a mea culpa.
The GOP House Judiciary responded to the news of the discontinuation of GARM’s activities and posted on X: “#BREAKING: The “Global Alliance for Responsible Media” is discontinuing. Big win for the First Amendment. Big win for oversight.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino also responded positively to the news: “No small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized. This is an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction. I am hopeful that it means ecosystem-wide reform is coming.”
Do you think the WFA shutting down the activities of the GARM is an admission of guilt? Let us know in the comments.
by Jack Dunn