Rumble And X Lawsuits Expose Advertisers Cartel Controlling Free Speech On Social Media

Rumble and X have been advocates for free speech, and they've paid a price as advertisers try to control narratives.

Both Rumble and Elons Musk’s X have filed lawsuits against an advertising cartel that is alleged to conspire withholding digital advertising revenue to control online speech.

On 6 August X CEO, Linda Yaccarino, announced that X has 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. On the same day 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).

Yaccarino’s announced that X will be filing a lawsuit follow the report by the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s titled “GARM’s (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) Harm.”

The report exposes how the world’s biggest brands seeks 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.”

In her statement on behalf of X Yaccrino said: “The illegal behavior of these organizations and their executives cost X billions of dollars,” and pointed out that X has gone above and beyond to improve advertiser controls as per GARM request, yet X was still being boycotted.

“We have met and surpassed the requests made by advertisers and groups such as GARM for new tools, both to improve advertiser controls and the effectiveness of our products to drive increased value for our customers. We have proven our platform provides advertisers a way to showcase their brands and reach their target audiences safely, efficiently and effectively. That’s why I’ve worked in good faith with marketers across the globe to showcase our innovations and allay any concerns with brands whom I’ve partnered with for decades. The unfortunate reality is that despite all our efforts, hundreds of meetings and research to the contrary, many companies chose to dismiss the facts,” she said.

The Rumble lawsuit exposes how the media cartel strong-arms social media platforms: “41. Advertisers and advertising agencies use GARM to force social media platforms to adopt advertiser-friendly policies that GARM’s members were unable to obtain by acting unilaterally and in uncoordinated rivalry with one another. In 2019, Mr. Rakowitz explained GARM as a solution to frustration among the advertiser members of WFA with their inability to achieve their desired commercial outcomes in negotiations with social media platforms when acting on their own:

‘Roughly a year ago, I drove a breakthrough on the WFA Media Board that point-to-point conversations were getting the industry nowhere; Mars having a conversation with YouTube separate from P&G, and P&G having a conversation with Facebook, and conversations happening at a local and global levels was simply inefficient and not reaching beyond advertising sales teams.

“In late spring, we started to drive moment around this idea of “uncommon collaboration” to break through the deadlock. Uncommon collaboration has all sides of the industry together, uncommon collaboration has competitors working together. The goals are to rise above individual commercial interest, focus on consumers and society, to drive focus that is endorsed by major customers of these platforms in a way that cannot be ignored, and finally ensure that there’s access to the right decision makers who haven’t been part of the demands hitherto.”

According to Rumble’s lawsuit 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, using Meta’s Facebook and Instagram as examples.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino stated that the lawsuit is about more than damages, it is about fixing a broken ecosystem that allows this illegal activity to occur.

Let us know in the comments what you think about Rumble and X’s lawsuits.

by Jack Dunn

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