The influential advertising coalition known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) announced its dissolution on Thursday after being hit with multiple lawsuits from social media companies alleging that it censors conservatives, Business Insider reported.
The Global Federation of Advertisers, which founded GARM, told employees it was “dissolving” the advertising group and said the decision was “not taken lightly.” according to The decision comes as technology platform X and Rumble The two companies filed separate lawsuits against GARM on Tuesday, alleging that the company conspired with advertising agencies to withhold revenue from conservative media and other “objectionable platforms.” (Related: Exclusive: Gates demands DHS documents on ties to big tech companies amid allegations of censorship of Trump assassination attempt)
#breaking news: The Global Alliance for Responsible Media is closing.
A major victory for the First Amendment.
A big win for the manager.
— House Judiciary Committee Republicans 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 8, 2024
House Judiciary Committee release The July report cited GARM's “conspiracy” to target online speech that it deemed “inappropriate” for advertisers. The committee alleged that GARM and its members “organized direct boycotts and used other indirect tactics to target and block demonetization of objectionable platforms, content creators, and news organizations, effectively seeking to limit certain consumer choices.”
GARM Safety Guidelines label “Debatable sensitive social issues” and “hate speech” are categorized as content that is “unsuitable for any advertising support.” GARM has blacklisted the following companies: Daily Wire, The coalition's brand safety executive said the platform was on a “global high-risk exclusion list” and had been classified as a “conspiracy theory.”
GARM's efforts to censor conservative and other “objectionable” content have included threatening Spotify and the Joe Rogan Experience. The Popular According to a House Judiciary Committee report, Logan misrepresented information when he “expressed the opinion that young and healthy people should not get the COVID-19 vaccine,” sparking an outcry on his podcast.
The report also argued that GARM members wrote bluntly about the conservative news outlets The Daily Wire and Breitbart News, saying they “hate their ideology and nonsense,” but that “blocking them for their erroneous opinions is not justified.”[s]So they were watching them very closely, and it didn't take long for them to cross the line.
X's lawsuit, filed in a Texas court, alleges that members of GARM illegally Conspired “Totaling billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from the platforms. (Related article: Google deals major blow as federal court rules it guilty of violating U.S. antitrust laws)
“As a condition of GARM membership, the group's members agree to adopt, implement and enforce GARM's brand safety standards, including withholding advertising from social media platforms that GARM determines do not comply with its brand safety standards,” the complaint states.
“Our platform has proven it offers advertisers a way to promote their brands and reach their target audiences safely, efficiently and effectively,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino said during a press conference on Tuesday. Open Letter “That's why I've worked in good faith with marketers around the world to introduce our innovations and address the concerns of brands we've partnered with for decades. The sad reality is that despite all our efforts, hundreds of meetings, and research to the contrary, many companies choose to ignore the facts. To those who broke the law, I say enough is enough.”
Two years of peace, now war https://t.co/elgT62uDtF
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2024
Rumble submitted The lawsuit against GARM alleges that the coalition set “arbitrary standards” for the content it wanted to monetize in order to “implement an advertiser boycott” of the platforms.
“The brand safety standards set by advertisers and their agencies should succeed or fail in the marketplace based on the advertisers' own merits, not on the coercive exercise of market power,” the lawsuit states. “All of this unlawful conduct is perpetrated at the expense of the platforms, content creators, their users, and, with complicity, the agencies' own advertising clients who pay high prices for advertising.”
GARM did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation for comment.
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