The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has released a statement on its investigation of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which colluded with massive corporations and advertisers to boycott and demonetize conservative outlets in an attempt to control online speech.
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“Through GARM, large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members,” said the Judiciary Committee, “For an organization reliant on speech and persuasion in advertising, GARM appears to have anti-democratic views of fundamental American freedoms.”
The committee found that GARM, an initiative of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), attempted to destroy Twitter with boycotts after it was bought by Elon Musk and rebranded as X, when Musk was attempting to make the site a forum for free speech.
During a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, GARM leader Rob Rakowitz denied that the initiative ever told its member companies to boycott X, but other evidence provided to the committee by an unnamed GARM member suggests otherwise.
The member provided internal documents which proved that the company held meetings on boycotting X, and bragged about taking on Musk.
Although X remains highly successful, multiple companies, including Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers, and Sony Pictures among others, did pull their ads from the site.
GARM ostensibly pushes boycotts in the name of “brand safety,” because top advertisers do not want their brands associated with conservative or controversial opinions, and do not want their advertisements appearing alongside that content.
Following the evidence unearthed in judiciary hearings showing that GARM conspired to destroy X because it provided a forum for free speech, Musk announced on the platform that he will be taking legal action against the organization responsible for the advertiser boycott.
“Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, 𝕏 has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket. Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” said Musk on X.
Musk is far from the only target of GARM’s boycott tactics.
According to the Judiciary Committee’s investigation, GARM and its members worked to threaten music and podcast streaming service Spotify with a boycott because they host the popular podcast of Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience.
That boycott was primarily inspired by comments made by Rogan in which he expressed skepticism about the COVID vaccines, and suggested that healthy young people should have no need to take the vaccine.
In that case, GARM admitted that it was not acting for “brand safety,” because Spotify doesn’t slot advertisements directly into the podcast, and thus their products would not be associated with Rogan.
“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,” said the Judiciary report.
GARM’s attempts at censorship even extended directly into the realm of politics, with attempts to actively hinder Former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
The organization tried to pressure Facebook into labeling an advertisement from the Trump campaign as misinformation, which Facebook refused to do.
They also worked against multiple news outlets that promoted ideas they opposed, including Breitbart, the Daily Wire, and Fox News, pulling all advertisements if they said anything that GARM considered misinformation.
The Judiciary Committee’s investigation also revealed the extremely concerning future plans of the organization.
GARM intends to integrate advanced A.I. into its plan to demonetize anyone speaking out against mainstream liberal policies.
“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. Such concentrated market power is dangerous, and the implications of AI technology on advertising censorship are frightening,” said the Judiciary Committee.
GARM wants to train A.I. with its ideology, and use it to flag any social media accounts with which it disagrees and denies them advertisers, potentially destroying the livelihood of any social media influencers opposed to far-left policies.
The Judiciary Committee suggested that GARM’s coordinated actions may violate antitrust laws by robbing consumers of choice.
“The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms,” said the committee.
The committee vowed to continue investigations of companies associated with GARM, and will potentially seek legislative action to curtail their censorship attempts.
GARM is far from the only organization seeking to censor Conservative voices; social media groups, and the U.S. government itself have conspired to remove Conservative content from the internet.
[RELATED: SCOTUS Rejects First Amendment Challenge to Alleged Social Media Censorship by Federal Government…]
During the COVID lockdowns, while the government was attempting to coerce Americans into taking experimental mRNA shots, records show that the Biden Administration colluded with Amazon and Facebook to obscure content critical of vaccines or their handling of the pandemic.
Even the Maine Wire has been the recipient of some censorship.
Following a recent U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling, which found that tech companies can censor speech on their platforms without violating the First Amendment, Facebook removed thousands of posts from the Maine Wire’s account, and even went after other accounts that reposted, or mentioned our reporting.
Our Democratic Bright Blub Leadership here in Maine is a failure hanging on to a failing leader to keep their own power. King, Pingree, Goldman, and Dear Mills you have used us tax payers like through away paper rags.
Just more disgusting behavior by the liberal commies and the friends in the new world order. It’s no wonder they can’t get anything done in Congress as they have to spend all their time trying to stay ahead of the snakes on the left who are always preaching about threats to Democracy while doing the exact same thing.
I’m happy it’s being exposed.Well done.
What you need to know .
What they want you to know .
Two different topics.
When they can control the entire television radio internet news print information sources and outlets.
They will control all that you know .
You won’t even know it .
Bend over .
You mean to tell me that they’ve been censoring common sense (i.e. conservativism)?! Who would have thought!!?
-(Hint the sarcasm)
Also if you watch the video of Rep. Swalwell asking Ben Shapiro all those questions you can see how much smarter Ben is than the Dems. He destroyed Swalwell on every single one of those questions.