Elon Musk attends the session “Exploring the New Frontiers of Innovation: Mark Read in conversation with Elon Musk” during day three of the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024 in Cannes, France on June 19, 2024.
Marc Piasecki |
A global advertising association said it was suspending operations of a unit specializing in brand safety for two days after Elon Musk's social media company X sued the group, alleging it organized an illegal advertising boycott.
The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) confirmed on Thursday that it would shut down its nonprofit initiative Global Alliance for Responsible Media. GARM was launched in 2019, among other things, to help advertisers avoid having their ads displayed next to content they consider harmful.
Business Insider was the first to report on the closure of GARM.
X, formerly Twitter, filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday against the WFA and its member companies, including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health. The suit alleges that the WFA engaged in anti-competitive behavior and organized an advertising boycott that ultimately damaged X's financial health.
In the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Texas, X's lawyers cited previous allegations made by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee against GARM, saying the group's activities “rob consumers of choice” and are “likely illegal under antitrust law.”
Russell Dye, a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee, called the dissolution of GARM “a major victory for the First Amendment and a major victory for Chairman Jordan's oversight work.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a post on X: “This is an important recognition and a necessary step in the right direction. I am confident that this means ecosystem-wide reform is coming.”
Following Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, numerous advertisers paused their campaigns as civil rights and other groups noted an increase in hate speech and problematic content on the platform.
During a public interview in November, Musk told advertisers to fuck off if they tried to “blackmail” him by suspending their X-dollar ad spend.
“The whole world will know that these advertisers ruined the company, and we will document it in detail,” Musk said at the time.
X has since sued various watchdog organizations such as Media Matters and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which have published reports about the rise in hate speech and homophobic, conspiracy-theoretical and other inflammatory content on the site.
In March, a California judge dismissed X's lawsuit against the CCDH, saying: “This case is about punishing the defendants for their statements.”
Ruben Schreurs, chief strategy officer at media marketing group Ebiquity, called X's lawsuit against WFA an example of “weaponized litigation” that “simply serves to silence those voices and paralyze those organizations” trying to make the Internet safer, especially for children.
Brands are engaged in a political battle, Schreurs said. The House committee said in March that it had received evidence that GARM members had illegally collaborated to “demonetize conservative platforms and voices.”
Schreurs said X's lawsuit against the WFA will likely be dismissed. Still, he is concerned about the aggressive actions against advertisers and said the legal action is “more political in nature than fact-based.”
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