The relationship between X and the powerful advertising group known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) keeps getting increasingly interesting – and puzzling.
X predecessor Twitter was a member, but the social platform left GARM after Elon Musk became the new owner. However, only recently, X announced that it was “excited” to rejoin GARM.
And now Musk has declared that X “has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket.”
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“Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” his post reads.
But it’s not just any “boycott racket” – he was referring to a US House Judiciary Committee interim report, that goes into how GARM (set up by the World Federation of Advertisers, WFA, and associated with the World Economic Forum, WEF) colluded to leverage advertising in a bid to control speech on his platform, and conservative media outlets.
That’s despite GARM’s stated purpose of simply providing “brand safety.” But it turns out the alliance, which gathers scores of the world’s largest and richest corporations and advertiser associations with a collective share in the ad market reaching close to a trillion dollars annually – may have been doing “a little extra.”
Namely, just after Musk took over in November 2022, “brand safety” was used as a weapon to blacklist creators, content, and companies. It proceeds from the Committee’s report that this had to do with exerting influence and carrying out online censorship for what, at least in the case of the recommendation to boycott Twitter (because of the Musk takeover) appear to be political reasons. Namely, the liberal part of US (and not only) politics and media were and continue to be strongly critical of Musk, and it has now been revealed that targeting Twitter’s already shaky revenues was one of the anti-Musk tactics and a successful one.
Despite GARM head Robert Rakowitz’s statements denying any organized boycott, an email from early February 2023 that the Committee obtained said the company rebranded as X was facing “80% below revenue forecasts.”
The Committee’s report said it came as GARM “recommended that its members ‘stop all paid advertisement’ on Twitter in response to Mr. Musk’s acquisition of the company.”
The report adds, “GARM’s internal documents show that GARM was asked by a member to ‘arrange a meeting and hear more about (GARM’s) perspectives about the Twitter situation and a possible boycott from many companies.”
Although Musk’s threat of legal action doesn’t name any names, including GARM itself, it will put X’s decision to renew the GARM partnership to the test – and perhaps explain it.
