The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) — which has come under scrutiny in recent months for allegedly trying to censor conservative viewpoints and having “anti-democratic views of fundamental American freedoms” — has disbanded.
This comes just days after social media platform X filed a lawsuit against GARM — an initiative of The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) — accusing them of illegally colluding to “collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from the platform.
Earlier this summer, the House Judiciary Committee released a report detailing its findings on GARM’s practices in which they cite several examples of the group’s efforts to “eliminate the monetization, and in effect existence, of certain voices online.”
GARM was founded in 2019 by the WFA “to help the advertising industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising.”
A spokesperson for the project told Fox News Digital that the primary catalyst for GARM’s establishment was an attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, which was live streamed on Facebook.
“This followed a slew of high-profile cases where brands’ advertisements appeared next to illegal or harmful content, such as child pornography and content promoting terrorism,” the spokesperson said. “This included the 2017 London Times exposé entitled ‘Big brands fund terror through online adverts.’”
GARM’s website says that it offers “voluntary frameworks” designed to “help brands choose the content they want their ads to appear next to.”
The organization explained in a statement shared Friday that their tools “have supported brand owners in their independent development of their own bespoke, brand-specific safety frameworks to ensure that their advertising dollars do not inadvertently support illegal or harmful content that damages their brands.”
Despite these assertions, the House Judiciary Committee found that GARM likely violated federal anti-trust laws due to combination of the “high market share” controlled by the group and its advertisers and “the direct evidence of demonetizing certain viewpoints to limit consumer choice.”
“Evidence obtained by the Committee shows that GARM and its members directly organized boycotts and used other indirect tactics to target disfavored platforms, content creators, and news organizations in an effort to demonetize and, in effect, limit certain choices for consumers,” the report said.
Among the examples cited in the report of GARM’s influence on the demonetization of certain content involved Elon Musk and X, Joe Rogan and Spotify, political candidates, and news outlets such as Fox News, The Daily Wire and Breitbart News.
Musk argued in the lawsuit filed earlier this week that GARM convinced key brands to stop advertising on X — then known as Twitter — after he acquired the platform in 2022.
Video hosting platform Rumble also filed suit against the WFA this week, similarly alleging that GARM and other “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.”
This, they argued, served to “depriv[e] users of the benefits that flow from full and fair competition in digital advertising on social media platforms” and “inhibit[ed] the growth and profitability of one of the largest online video platforms in the United States.”
On Tuesday, August 6, Musk made a post on X encouraging “any company who has been systematically boycotted by advertisers to file a lawsuit.”
“There may also be criminal liability via the RICO Act,” he added, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
In an open letter to advertisers posted by X CEO Linda Yaccarino announcing the platform’s lawsuit against GARM, it was argued that “the consequence — perhaps the intent — of this boycott was to seek to deprive X’s users, be they sports fans, gamers, journalists, activists, parents or political and corporate leaders, of the Global Town Square.”
“To put it simply, people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is undermined and some viewpoints are not funded over others as part of an illegal boycott,” Yaccarino continued. “This behavior is a stain on a great industry, and cannot be allowed to continue.”
Yaccarino posted a brief statement to X Thursday afternoon responding to the announcement of GARM’s disbandment.
“No small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized,” Yaccarino wrote. “This is an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction. I am hopeful that it means ecosystem-wide reform is coming.”
GARM issued a statement Friday speaking to their disbandment, suggesting that the controversy in which they have been embattled “misconstrue[d]” its purpose and “caused a distraction.”
“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,” the group said. “GARM therefore is making the difficult decision to discontinue its activities.”
