The company claimed that members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media coordinated to dissuade brands from advertising on X.
The company claimed that members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media coordinated to dissuade brands from advertising on X.
X filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of major advertisers, claiming that it had violated antitrust laws by coordinating with brands to dissuade them from spending money on the social media platform.
The suit, filed in federal court in Texas, claims that the coalition, known as GARM, “conspired” with leading brands, including CVS, Unilever, Mars and the Danish energy company Orsted, to “collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” that were owed to X, then known as Twitter, in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media company in 2022.
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With the lawsuit, X effectively declared war on advertisers, which provide the bulk of the social media company’s revenue. Since Mr. Musk acquired the company and promised to usher in a new era of unfettered free speech, many advertisers have limited their spending on X, concerned by reports of rising hate speech and misinformation there. By pursuing legal action against GARM, Mr. Musk continued to break with the leaders of other social media companies, who have forged close relationships with advertisers and been responsive to their concerns about offensive online content.
Yes, since Musk fired his PR team in 2020, things have gone steadily downhill for him. That was probably one of his worst decisions, considering how successful his PR team was in falsly portraying him as a tech genius and progressive visionary. Well, now it is clear to everyone that this was never even remotely true.
Considering how monumentally douchey musk is… that team was probably among the best in the world. Hope whoever picked them up on the bounce is good to them. Or just good. We don’t need another musk.
I wonder if he fired them because they weren't able to recover his image after that pedophile tweet on 2018. That's when I realized that giving him the benefit of the doubt might be a mistake. A public temper tantrum like that didn't just show that he wasn't any better than other billionaires, it showed he was likely worse because most of them don't let tirades like that show from behind closed doors, if they need them at all.
What an absolutely fantastic example of "fuck around and find out." Tell people to go fuck themselves, so they don't want anything to do with you, and then you cry about it. It's poetry.
The only point of this is to elevate the Global Alliance for Responsible Media in the right-wing propaganda machine to try to get companies to distance themselves from it. Don't take bullshit suits like this at face value
Edit: Woke up this morning to multiple Republicans in Congress calling for "investigations" into GARM
The fact that this bizarre and insane "lawsuit" is being brought in Texas should be concerning. If he gets a conservative enough judge, neither the law nor the facts will matter at all.
Maybe, but regardless of the outcome of this case, how many advertisers are going to want to advertise on Twitter if they find out he'll sue them for not advertising on Twitter anymore?
Makes me wonder how much farther this shit can go before the legal system fractures when enough people say they don't give a fuck what any Texas judges have to say and if they have to pull business entirely out of Texas, so be it.
"I can do whatever the shit I want and you still have to advertise with me OK" sounds like how an extremely spoiled and self centred kid would behave with his/her parents.
I'm super confused. How can you sue people for not using your service??? If that was true, they wouldn't have had to shoot MLK, they would have just sued him into the ground.
By pursuing legal action against GARM, Mr. Musk continued to break with the leaders of other social media companies, who have forged close relationships with advertisers and been responsive to their concerns about offensive online content.
This is the most journalist way of saying "This guy is a fucking idiot."
Can't they just bring in a video of him telling advertisers to "go fuck yourself" and get this thrown out? Or would that just add Musk as a co-defendant?