Huge news on Thursday as the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) announced that it will discontinue operations of its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative in the face of the antitrust suit filed against the entities by Elon Musk. On Tuesday, Musk filed suit in federal court in the Northern District of Texas against GARM and WFA.
His company filed the federal lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), targeting its members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, Unilever, and the trade body behind it, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). GARM didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
CEO Linda Yaccarino announced the lawsuit in an open letter to advertisers, stating it was “not a decision we took lightly, but it is a direct consequence of their actions.”
The suit followed a 39-page House report issued in July setting forth the harms caused by GARM. The House Judiciary Committee shared Thursday's announcement on its Twitter/X account.
#BREAKING: The “Global Alliance for Responsible Media” is discontinuing.
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 8, 2024
Big win for the First Amendment.
Big win for oversight.
Related: Social Media Censorship Is Very Real and Jonathan Turley Has the Receipts
As Brandon Morse reported following the Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro July testimony before Congress:
As Shapiro pointed out during his testimony, much of this is focused on two fronts. Firstly, there's censoring and silencing right-leaning websites such as RedState or the Daily Wire so that the information they present isn't seen by the wider population. Oftentimes, they are labeled as sites that contain "misinformation" or "disinformation," or as Shapiro notes as his favorite, “insensitive,” “irresponsible,” and “harmful” treatment of “debated sensitive social issues.”
Then, of course, there were the Democrats' attempts at forcing social media sites to suppress posts and stories that might cause issues for the Democrat Party's narrative. Anything that challenged or disrupted the narrative they put forth was to be punished or, as some Democrats threatened, the social media sites would be punished.
Here's more on the decision to discontinue the initiative.
Stephan Loerke, the CEO of the WFA, wrote in an email to members, seen by Business Insider, that the decision was "not made lightly" but that GARM is a not-for-profit organization with limited resources.
Loerke said that the WFA and GARM intend to contest the allegations in X's suit in court and that it was confident the outcome of the case "will demonstrate our full adherence to competition rules in all our activities."
And here's what prompted the litigation by Musk:
X's lawsuit alleged that after Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, GARM persuaded top brands not to advertise on X.
Twitter's advertising revenue plummeted after Musk's takeover, with large advertisers among those who fled the platform after the company changed owners. Musk had fired hordes of sales and safety staff and brought back previously banned accounts to the platform.
Now, before we get overly excited, let's be mindful that just because "GARM" appears to be folding, that doesn't mean the motivation behind its inception is going anywhere, and Musk — and all of us — need to remain vigilant and pushback when similar efforts emerge to squelch speech that runs counter to the preferred narrative.
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