Elon Musk attended the “Exploring New Frontiers of Innovation: A Dialogue between Mark Reed and Elon Musk” session on the third day of the 2024 Cannes International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France on June 19, 2024.
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A global advertising group has suspended operations of a unit focused on brand safety, days after Elon Musk’s X sued the association for allegedly leading an illegal advertising boycott.
The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) confirmed on Thursday that it will cease its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) non-profit programme. The program launched in 2019 in part to help advertisers avoid having their promotions appear alongside content they deem harmful.
business insider First to report the news that GARM was closing.
X (formerly Twitter) filed a federal lawsuit earlier this week against the WFA and its member companies, including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health. The lawsuit accuses WFA of engaging in anticompetitive conduct and organizing an advertising boycott that ultimately harmed X’s financial health.
In the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Texas, X’s attorneys pointed to previous charges brought against GARM by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, saying the group’s activities “deprive consumers of choice” and “under antitrust The law may be illegal”.
Russell Dye, spokesman for the House Judiciary Panel, called the disbandment of GARM “a major victory for the First Amendment and a major victory for Chairman Jordan’s oversight work.”
After Musk spent $44 billion to acquire Twitter in 2022, many advertisers paused ad campaigns as civil rights and other groups saw an increase in hate speech and problematic content on the platform.
Last November, Musk told advertisers in a public interview that if they tried to “blackmail” him by suspending X ad spending, then “fuck off.”
“The world will know that these advertisers ruined this company, and we will document this in detail,” Musk said at the time.
X has since sued various watchdog groups, including Media Matters and the Center to Counter Digital Hate (CCDH), which have published reports on the rise of hate speech as well as homophobic, conspiracy and other inflammatory content on the site.
In March this year, a California judge dismissed X’s lawsuit against CCDH, writing that “this case is to punish the defendant for his speech.”
Ruben Schreurs, chief strategist at media marketing group Ebiquity, called X’s lawsuit against the WFA an example of “weaponized litigation” that is “simply used as a tool to silence those voices and undermine organizations that are trying to make the Internet safer,” especially For children.
Schruth said brands find themselves embroiled in a political battle. house committee explain In March, it obtained evidence that GARM members illegally colluded to “destroy conservative platforms and voices.”
Schreurs said X’s lawsuit against the WFA would likely be dismissed. Still, he was concerned about aggressive moves against advertisers and said the legal actions were “more political in nature than fact-based.”
X did not respond to a request for comment.
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