The Anatomy of Ad Boycotts: How World's Biggest Companies Impose Censorship

The advertising cartel that was effectively curbing free speech through demonetising outlets they disliked for their content was shut down after Elon Musk's X filed a lawsuit against them.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) was founded by an association calling itself the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). WFA's members are the world's largest companies owning brands that are well known worldwide. These companies represent around 90% of the world's total advertising spending, amounting to nearly €1 trillion a year. Many of these companies were also members of GARM, the WFA's 'responsible media initiative'. The list included technology giants Microsoft and Meta, major food and grocery manufacturers Unilever, Mars, Coca-Cola, Colgate Palmolive, etc., as well as oil companies Shell and BP, restaurant chain McDonald's, and even furniture manufacturer IKEA. The list of GARM members published on WFA webpage until this week was, of course, much longer.

WFA website promoted GARM as a tool to help companies that have signed up for the initiative to address illegal or harmful content distributed on digital media platforms and its monetisation via advertising. According to the explanation, this meant that they did not want to see their member companies' advertisements next to illegal or harmful content. It is only natural that no company, large or small, would want to see an advertisement for its product or service next to, for example, child pornography or a post that incites terrorism. But the problem is that, in practice, it is not the legality of the posts that GARM and the member companies that followed its recommendations monitored, but whether or not the content of the posts was otherwise to their liking. In other words, the issue is not, for example, child pornography or terrorism, but rather what ideological or political viewpoint a particular post advocates. A media platform that publishes content that is not ideologically appealing to big businesses can thus face a de facto advertising boycott, which in the worst case could end up in the media company's bankruptcy.

“World’s Biggest Brands Seek To Control Online Speech”

In the first half of July, the House Judiciary Committee, which had been investigating GARM's conduct, published a report whose title leaves no room for interpretation: 'GARM’s Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek To Control Online Speech'. The report took a detailed look at the problem. “Through GARM, large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetise platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members,” it explaines.

One example cited in the report concerns the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) by Elon Musk at the end of October 2022. The popular platform had previously been known for its robust restrictions on free speech, with much of the censorship decisions being made at the direct behest of the US government. In particular, the government sharply directed Twitter's behaviour during the Covid crisis, when, under the guise of fighting misinformation and disinformation, it wanted platforms to remove factual posts deemed inappropriate by the government, such as those questioning the effectiveness or safety of Covid vaccines or the criticism of government's use of coercive unscientific measures during the crisis. The content was also blocked on political grounds – for example, an article published in The New York Post in October 2020, shortly before the last US presidential election, describing the corrupt business practices of the then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, was not allowed to be posted. We've covered Twitter's conduct back then at length here.

Twitter (now X) owned by Elon Musk lost billions because of GARM activities. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Musk, who values freedom of expression, promised to put an end to such behaviour when he bought the platform and was therefore subjected to an exceptionally strong and politically motivated barrage of criticism. GARM was also clearly on the side of these critics, the opponents of restoring free speech, by advising its large-scale corporate members to stop buying advertising on Twitter after its acquisition by Musk. In fact, in communications between themselves, they bragged that Twitter had lost 80% of its turnover as a result of the move.

Fighting 'misinformation'

In another example cited in the report, GARM threatened Spotify at the height of the Covid crisis because they deemed the views presented on its most popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, unacceptable. In April 2021, the host of the podcast Joe Rogan said in one of his shows, when talking about Covid vaccines, that in his opinion young and healthy people do not need to receive Covid vaccines. While this was then and is now a common sense position, given that the disease does not pose a threat to young and healthy people and vaccines do not prevent its spread, GARM considered Rogan's statement to be misinformation and decided to threaten Spotify.

The Congress report also gives examples of how GARM has tried to enforce its political views in a completely covert way. For example, in 2020, they pressured Facebook to declare Donald Trump's campaign ad 'misinformation', and when the platform disagreed, GARM leader and co-founder Rob Rakowitz wrote that the platform's decision was "honestly reprehensible". GARM and its members also discussed strategies to block conservative-leaning publications such as Fox News, The Daily Wire, and Breitbart News.

Not surprisingly, GARM's pressure has not been limited to political and ideological issues, as its member companies are also interested in monitoring what users of social media platforms say about their products. For example, Unilever, a major producer of consumer goods, used GARM and the 'misinformation' card to address a video on TikTok in which an influencer criticised a shampoo brand owned by the company.

In addition, GARM encouraged its members to use the services of associations such as the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard. These bodies compile lists of publications that they say are spreading misinformation and should therefore be boycotted by advertisers. There are real economic consequences of being on this list because companies do indeed monitor these ratings and do not want to advertise their products and services in the publications on the list. For example, GDI included the British publication UnHerd on its list of outlets that spread misinformation and it meant them a huge economic disadvantage. Asking for an explanation from GDI, UnHerd was told that their site disseminates anti-LGBTQI+ content, and some of their authors are known for their 'gender-critical' beliefs – for example, feminist author Kathleen Stock. While GDI did not even mention any misinformation in its explanation, it also refused to change UnHerd's rating. There are, of course, other examples where GDI identifies a publication as a purveyor of misinformation not because of the facts, but because of its ideological positions.

Congressional committee: this is breaking the law

It is worth separately pointing out that GARM was also working on implementing an artificial intelligence tool that would help them automatically identify content they don't like for whatever reason. In essence, this could lead to automatic censorship, where there is no human involvement at all in these demonetization decisions. “Such concentrated market power is dangerous, and the implications of AI technology on advertising censorship are frightening,” the report states.

The report concludes that GARM was violating US antitrust law by engaging in these activities, as such agreements between companies to organise boycotts that harm consumers are illegal. “This collusion can have the effect of eliminating a variety of content and viewpoints available to consumers,” the report says.

On Tuesday, X announced that it is filing a lawsuit against GARM, WFA and some of its member companies, as it believes they were subjected to an illegal advertising boycott. Linda Yaccarino, X's CEO, said GARM's conduct caused X to lose billions of dollars. “This is not a decision we took lightly, but it is a direct consequence of their actions,” she commented. X's lawsuit was joined by the free speech video platform Rumble, which has also been harmed by GARM's advertising boycotts.

On Friday GARM announced that it was "discontinuing" its activities.