Advertising trade group World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) told members it's "discontinuing" activities for its GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) initiative.
The move came two days after Elon Musk's X filed an antitrust lawsuit in Texas against GARM, accusing it and several other entities of conspiring to withhold advertising revenue from the platform.
According to a report that first appeared in Business Insider, WFA CEO Stephan Loerke told members in an email that the organization did not make the decision to end activities "lightly," but noted that GARM is a non-profit with limited resources.
Loerke added that WFA and GARM intend to fight the lawsuit in court, and said they are confident the outcome will "demonstrate our full adherence to competition rules in all our activities."
CEO Linda Yaccarino posted on X on Thursday: "No small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized. This is an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction. I am hopeful that it means ecosystem-wide reform is coming."
The House Judiciary GOP account posted: "Big win for the First Amendment. Big win for oversight."
Yaccarino, X, did not respond to Newmax requests for further comment.
WFA spokesperson Will Gilroy on Friday responded with a link to the following statement:
"Today we announce that GARM will discontinue its activities.
"The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) was a voluntary cross-industry initiative created in 2019 to address digital safety. GARM was set up in the wake of the Christchurch New Zealand Mosque shootings during which the killer livestreamed the attack on Facebook. This followed a slew of high-profile cases where brands’ ads appeared next to illegal or harmful content, such as promoting terrorism or child pornography – creating both consumer and reputational issues for brands.
"Since its launch, GARM has enhanced transparency in ad placements on digital social media by providing voluntary and pro-competitive tools for the advertising industry. These tools provide information to help advertisers avoid inadvertently supporting harmful and illegal content, reducing such ads from 6.1% in 2020 to 1.7% in 2023. GARM's toolset includes the Brand Safety Floor and the Adjacency Standards Framework, which 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.
"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. GARM therefore is making the difficult decision to discontinue its activities."
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, also named CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, and Unilever, accusing them of conspiring to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue from Twitter, Inc. (now X)." It alleged that after Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, GARM persuaded those and other top brands not to advertise on the platform.
GARM was founded in 2019 after a video of the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, was livestreamed on Facebook. Its aim was to "help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising."
It has more than 100 members, including agencies, ad tech firms, advertising coalitions, and major multinational companies like Dell, BP, IKEA, and Pepsico.
Video-sharing platform Rumble joined the lawsuit on Tuesday, calling GARM and WFA an "advertising cartel."
Editor's note: This report was updated to include WFA's response.
Kate McManus ✉
Kate McManus is a New Jersey-based Newsmax writer who's spent more than two decades as a journalist.
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