Elon Musk attends the session “Exploring the New Frontiers of Innovation: Mark Read in Conversation with Elon Musk” during the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – Day Three in Cannes, France, June 19, 2024.
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A global advertising association said it was suspending operations of a unit focused on brand safety two days after Elon Musk’s social media company X sued the group, accusing it of organizing an illegal advertising boycott.
The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) confirmed Thursday that it is ending its nonprofit initiative, Global Alliance for Responsible Media. GARM was launched in 2019 in part to help advertisers avoid having their promotions appear alongside content they deem harmful.
Business Insider was the first to report GARM’s closure.
X, formerly Twitter, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the WFA and its member companies, including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health. The lawsuit alleges that the WFA engaged in anticompetitive behavior and organized an advertising boycott that ultimately harmed X’s financial health.
In the complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas, X’s attorneys referred to previous allegations made by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee against GARM, which said the group’s activities “deprive consumers of choice” and are “likely illegal under the antitrust laws.”
Russell Dye, a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee, called the dissolution of GARM “a great victory for the First Amendment and a great victory for President 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 hope it signifies that ecosystem-wide reform is underway.”
Following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, a number of advertisers suspended their campaigns due to what civil rights groups and others said was a rise in hate speech and problematic content on the platform.
In a public interview in November, Musk told advertisers to “go fuck themselves” if they tried to “blackmail” him into suspending their ad spending on X.
“The whole world will know that these advertisers killed the company and we will document it in great detail,” Musk said at the time.
X has since sued various watchdog organizations such as Media Matters and the Center for Countering Digital Hate, or CCDH, which have published reports on the rise of hate speech and homophobic, conspiratorial and other inflammatory content on the site.
In March, a California judge dismissed X’s complaint against the CCDH, writing: “This case seeks to punish the defendants for their speech.”
Ruben Schreurs, chief strategy officer at media marketing group Ebiquity, called X’s lawsuit against the WFA an example of “weaponized litigation” that “simply serves as a vehicle to stifle these voices and cripple organizations” trying to make the web safer, especially for children.
Brands are finding themselves caught in a political battle, Schreurs said. The House committee said in March it had obtained evidence that GARM members had illegally colluded to “demonetize conservative platforms and voices.”
According to Mr. Schreurs, X’s complaint against the WFA will probably be dismissed. However, he is concerned about the aggressive measures taken against advertisers and believes that the legal actions “are more political than factual in nature.”
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