The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an advertising entity, announced that it has disbanded following lawsuits alleging it censored conservative voices.
Rumble and X both filed lawsuits against the coalition. Elon Musk’s lawsuit against GARM argued that it colluded with advertising groups to “withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from conservative sources.
According to Rumble’s lawsuit, GARM and “co-conspirators collectively agreed to restrict the output of digital advertising on social media platforms, to fix price-related terms for digital advertising on social media platforms, and to withhold purchasing digital advertising from Rumble and other social media platforms.”
GARM said in a statement that it will “discontinue its activities.”
The statement described GARM as a “voluntary cross-industry initiative created in 2019 to address digital safety,” adding that it has “enhanced transparency in ad placements on digital social media by providing voluntary and pro-competitive tools for the advertising industry.”
“GARM is a small, not-for-profit initiative, and recent allegations that unfortunately misconstrue its purpose and activities have caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances. [World Federation of Advertiser] therefore is making the difficult decision to discontinue GARM activities,” the statement said.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino declared that “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized. This is an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction. I am hopeful that it means ecosystem-wide reform is coming.”
Last month, the House Judiciary Committee released a report detailing GARM’s efforts to control online speech.
The report explained how GARM and other advertising groups “participated in boycotts and coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content that GARM and its members deem disfavored,” the committee explained.
According to the report, GARM aimed to censor news outlets such as Fox News, The Daily Wire, and Breitbart News. One GARM member wrote that while he “hated” the outets’ ideology, he could not “justify blocking them for misguided opinion[s].”
GARM was working on developing AI tools that would integrate its social media standards “seamlessly” across platforms.
“Such an automated censorship effort could result in the demonetization of any views or voices that GARM’s advertising cartel dislikes, potentially without any human involvement at all,” the committee wrote in the report. “Such concentrated market power is dangerous, and the implications of AI technology on advertising censorship are frightening.”
