Elon Musk's X has just filed a lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). The suit accuses the group of violating anti-trust laws by creating an advertising cartel designed to restrict money going to any site or publication which refuses to meet GARM's definition of "brand safe." On X, Musk himself described the move as a declaration of war:

We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words.

Now, it is war. https://t.co/MEzH0vqz0p

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2024

Chris Pavloski is the CEO of Rumble which is also joining the lawsuit:

BREAKING: Rumble has joined @X to sue a cartel of advertisers and ad agencies who conspired to block ad revenue from going to certain platforms and content creators.

GARM was a conspiracy to perpetrate an advertiser boycott of Rumble and others, and that's illegal. pic.twitter.com/7mnYkyoKuR

— Rumble 🏴‍☠️ (@rumblevideo) August 6, 2024

Musk encouraged other companies around the world to file similar lawsuits.

I strongly encourage any company who has been systematically boycotted by advertisers to file a lawsuit.

There may also be criminal liability via the RICO Act.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2024

The CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino released a video statement explaining the move. "No small group of people should be able to monopolize what gets monetized," she said. 

Well said by @LindayaX!
pic.twitter.com/8nbWkhl5R4

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2024

Yaccarino makes reference to a House Judiciary Committee report that was released last month titled "GARM’S HARM: HOW THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BRANDS SEEK TO CONTROL ONLINE SPEECH." That report suggested that GARM, a creation of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), may have violated the Sherman Act. The executive summary also included a series of examples.

Section 1 of the Sherman Act makes unreasonable restraints of trade illegal.15 Included in these illegal restraints are certain group boycotts and coordinated actions that harm consumers.16 Documents produced to the Committee suggest that GARM may have engaged in coordinated conduct that violates Section 1. GARM has undertaken various actions to eliminate the monetization, and in effect existence, of certain voices online. For example: 

• Twitter and Elon Musk: According to one GARM member, GARM recommended that its members “stop[] all paid advertisement” on Twitter in response to Mr. Musk’s acquisition of the company.17 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.” 18 GARM also held “extensive debriefing and discussion around Elon Musks’ [sic] takeover of Twitter,” providing ample opportunity for the boycott to be organized.19 GARM bragged about “taking on Elon Musk” and “[s]ince then [Twitter was] 80% below revenue forecasts[.]”20 
• Spotify and The Joe Rogan Experience: At the urging of its members, GARM and its Steer Team threatened Spotify over alleged misinformation on Joe Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, because Mr. Rogan stated an opinion that young, healthy people need not receive the COVID-19 vaccine.21 GARM even admitted it was acting outside of the scope of its work on brand safety, explaining to one of its members that “[b]rand safety is somewhat separate on Spotify versus say Facebook Newsfeed because brands aren’t being slotted into” the podcast.22 In other words, the companies could easily choose whether to advertise on or avoid Mr. Rogan’s podcast and, therefore, GARM had no business interfering in Spotify’s decision.23 GARM even admitted the antitrust implications of getting caught, when Mr. Rakowitz told one GARM member that he “can’t publicly advise all clients to do X – that gets us into hot water by way of anticompetitive and collusive behaviors.”24 To get around this problem, Mr. Rakowitz offered to “help [brands] formulate a [point of view] 1:1.”25 In doing so, even as Mr. Rakowitz mistook his trade association members with “clients,” such a coordinated action implicates antitrust law.
• Candidates, platforms, and news outlets with opposing political views: GARM and its members discussed a strategy of blocking certain news outlets like Fox News, The Daily Wire, and Breitbart News. One GARM Steer Team member candidly wrote that although he “hated their ideology and bulls**t,” his company “couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion[s]” so the company “watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line.”26 Additionally, GARM pushes its members to use news rankings organizations, like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard, that disproportionately label right-of-center news outlets as so-called misinformation.27 GARM and its Steer Team even participated in efforts to label a social media advertisement paid for by President Donald Trump as “misinformation.”28 When Facebook would not label the advertisement as misinformation, Mr. Rakowitz told a colleague that it was “[h]onestly reprehensible[.]” A GARM Steer Team member expressed concern about Mr. Musk exposing the truth regarding how Twitter was previously used to censor the Hunter Biden laptop and Biden family influence peddling story, describing Mr. Musk’s position as an “overtly partisan take[.]”29 

As David pointed out last month, Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire have been particularly vocal about GARM and the harm they believe it has caused. Shapiro testified before congress about how GARM operates to cut off ad revenue to conservative sites.

GARM is pushing a collective boycott on conservative outlets.

This stifles not only free speech but also ad revenue that news outlets rely on to grow their businesses.

Listen to this exchange between @RepFitzgerald and @BenShapiro. pic.twitter.com/WJs6TBCdPt

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) July 10, 2024

Targeting the advertisers of conservative news outlets is nothing new. Media Matters, Sleeping Giants and others have been doing it for years. But GARM takes this to a new level. Instead of leading campaigns one advertiser at a time, GARM can potentially coordinate 90% of the world's advertising money all at once. As William Jacobson and Kimberley Kaye suggested last month, this is industrial scale deplatforming.

Ultimately, they are trying to deprive you, the audience, of hearing those arguments and coming to conclusions on your own. 

GARM presents a particular threat because of the collective global brands it represents, and the fact that until now it operated sight unseen. 

But it’s the same well-worn tactic of trying to deplatform and destroy conservative media rather than debating issues on the merits, in order to control what you are allowed to say and what you are allowed to hear.

Hopefully, X and Rumble won't be the only companies that get in on this. Maybe a few more lawsuits will cause GARM and the WAF to reassess its commitment to deplatforming.