Leftist Censorship Cartel GARM Disbands Following Musk Lawsuit, Ben Shapiro Testimony

The World Federation of Advertisers has disbanded a group that worked to ensure companies only advertise with “responsible” media outlets, hours after it was sued by X and Rumble.

WFA chief executive Stephan Loerke wrote to members on Thursday that the “discontinuing” of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative was “not made lightly,” Business Insider reported.

His letter added that he believes GARM will prevail against the lawsuits.

The shuttering comes weeks after Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro testified to Congress about evidence that GARM targeted conservative news outlets. GARM counted almost all advertising companies as members, and used that membership as leverage to bully tech platforms into censoring more content.

To qualify for membership, advertising firms had to pledge not to place advertisements alongside “harmful” content like “misinformation.”

But internal emails obtained by the House Judiciary Committee suggested that the advertising officials were using claims of “misinformation” as a pretext to withhold ad dollars from conservative outlets.

GARM told members not to advertise with X, formerly Twitter, after Elon Musk purchased the company, Musk’s lawsuit said. Emails show GARM chief Rob Rakowitz rejoicing that Twitter’s revenue was 80 percent below forecasts.

Emails show that Unilever, a member of GARM’s “steer team,” was angry at Musk’s views on the Hunter Biden laptop story — a reference to Musk’s opposition to Twitter’s prior ownership censoring a story harmful to Joe Biden before the election. Unilever called Musk “overly partisan.”

Will Gilroy, a WFA spokesman, did not provide comment on the shutdown to The Daily Wire, except to say that a statement would be forthcoming on its website.

The partisanship baked into GARM may still be present in its parent group. Top articles on the WFA home page are headlined “Scared to speak up about DEI or sustainability in the current environment? Don’t be: fortune favors the bold” and “Inclusion is the future for brand growth.”

In recent press releases, the group has announced a “framework to measure media’s carbon emissions” and discussed “setting targets on DEI.”

Emails show that Rakowitz consulted with advertising mega-firm and GARM member GroupM about The Daily Wire. A GroupM “brand safety” executive, Joe Barone — in an email replete with a rainbow and the phrase “black lives matter” — said, “Fyi we have Daily Wire on our Global High Risk exclusion list, categorized as Conspiracy Theories…”

Another GroupM “brand safety” executive, John Montgomery, said there was “an interesting parallel here with Breitbart.”

“As much as we hated their ideology and bullsh—, we couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line — but it was a useful academic lesson,” he wrote.

GroupM CEO Christian Juhl was replaced after he struggled to explain the emails to Congress while testifying opposite Shapiro.

The X and Rumble lawsuits say that GARM broke antitrust laws by facilitating collusion between companies that otherwise would be competitors. Emails show that the companies fretted that withdrawing advertising from X, a major platform, would be contrary to their interests — unless they had assurances that their competitors would do the same thing.

In November 2022, Orsted, a company on GARM’s “steer team,” wrote to GARM, “I’m reaching out to you to ask you if it’s possible to arrange a meeting and hear more about your perspectives about the Twitter situation and a possible boycott from many companies…we are about to make a recommendation to management about actions and when we need to consider whether we should continue promotion on the platform or find alternatives.”

Orsted ultimately removed all advertising from X “due to brand safety concerns.” At least 18 GARM members did the same, and others removed almost all their advertising, the suit said. In March 2023, Orsted wrote to GARM, “some time has passed, and I am curious to know what you would advise us to do. And what are other global advertisers doing – have they come back to the platform, or are they still off?”

“In a competitive market, advertising agencies would compete with one another on their ability to place their customers’ ads according to their customers’ individual preferences and marketing plans,” Musk’s lawsuit said. Instead, “GARM uses the market power of its members and their clients to force platforms to submit to GARM’s demands.”