Advertising 'cartel' pushed censorship alongside activists, mainstream media
“It had one purpose, which was to create uniform standards of censorship on social media and online platforms,” said Allum Bokhari of the now-defunct Global Alliance for Responsible Media group.
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In August 2024, Elon Musk announced he was launching a lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a division of the World Federation of Advertisers after ads were pulled from X, then Twitter, following his purchase of the platform.
Launched in 2019, GARM claimed its goal was improving digital safety and removing harmful content online and consisted of advertisers, agencies, media companies, platforms and industry organizations.
Musk's lawsuit alleges that GARM conspired with major advertisers in an effort to boycott X, attempting to bully Musk and the platform into complying with censorship demands.
On Tuesday night's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Allum Bokhari from the Foundation for Freedom Online joined the show to provide an update on this legal battle.
“It [GARM] had one purpose, which was to create uniform standards of censorship on social media and online platforms,” Allum said of the now-defunct group. He continued:
And that's exactly what they would do, they would go to platforms like Spotify and say, 'hey, did you know that Joe Rogan, your top podcaster, had a vaccine skeptic on, were you aware of this, we don't like this'.
That's essentially what they were doing, and it's kind of extraordinary because the platforms and the personalities they complained about were extraordinarily popular; Joe Rogan, the number one podcaster in the world, and they were complaining about one episode with a vaccine skeptic.
They also, in communications that were obtained through congressional subpoenas, you can see them admitting to targeting conservative media, targeting media they didn't like, by watching them like hawks for any transgression of their principles.