Following a report released by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee alleging
that the ad industry's Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) violated U.S. antitrust laws by censoring conservative voices online, X owner Elon Musk says his social media company “has no
choice” but to sue GARM for a recent advertiser boycott.
“Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” reads Musk’s recent post directed at what he and
Ben Shapiro, who appeared before Congress last week, believe to be a “cartel” of left-leaning advertisers who account for the vast majority of ad spending in the U.S.
The report
accuses GARM of colluding to cut ad revenue to X and attempting to “silence disfavored voices” such as podcast host Joe Rogan, and collectively going after “disfavored”
right-wing news sites.
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“If you're not getting ad dollars from GARM members, it's nearly impossible to run an ad-based business,” Shapiro said. “And if you're not following
their preferred political narratives, you will not be deemed brand safe.”
Shapiro, as well as Musk, take issue with GARM's brand safety policies, which aim to ensure ads “are not
being placed next to, or inadvertently funding, content which could be harmful to individuals or society,” claiming that the organization's criteria are “highly subjective in theory”
and “purely partisan in practice.”
Musk is planning to take legal action against GARM for allegedly coordinating an effort to restrict free speech on X by working alongside the
advertisers who boycotted the app after the billionaire took over in 2022.
Ironically, X rejoined GARM a week before The House Judiciary Committee made
its case to Congress, announcing that it was excited to reinstate its relationship with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and is “committed to the safety of our global town square and
proud to be part of the GARM community.”
After Musk took over what was then known as Twitter, X fell out with GARM after the majority of the company's content-moderation team was
slashed, which led to an onslaught of harmful content appearing alongside advertisers’ promotions and drove away major advertising partners.
Media Matters for America reported last year
that ads for brands such as Apple, Bravo, IBM and Oracle were being placed beside pro-Nazi posts on X, while the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which X is reviving lawsuits against, reported that the company allowed racist,
homophobic and antisemitic comments to remain online.
By the start of 2024, X had lost over 71% of its value since Musk's takeover. It has not recovered its ad business, and ad revenue is down
50%, according to a recent report by Bloomberg.
With his threat to sue, Musk is not focused on individual ad partners who deserted the platform, but the concept of censoring free speech
by major organizations like GARM, which may be more difficult to prosecute.
The focus on GARM turns the spotlight away from Musk's role in spreading harmful, discredited and offensive messages
on X. By directly posting and reposting anti-trans and antisemitic rhetoric, or calling the media “a pure propagandist machine” while suggesting that the recent assassination attempt
against Donald Trump was being downplayed to his millions of followers, Musk continues to drive ad partners away from the platform -- and brands from spending money on X.