An ad industry group named in X’s antitrust lawsuit is “discontinuing,” two days after the social media company filed a lawsuit accusing major advertisers of an “illegal boycott” against the company. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) is “discontinuing activities,” according to an email reported by Business Insider.
GARM was created in 2019 to help set brand safety guidelines for major advertisers, and is part of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which was also named in . According to Business Insider, WFA CEO Stephan Loerke told members that GARM is a nonprofit with limited resources, but that the groups planned on fighting the lawsuit.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino said the news was “an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction” in a statement . The company’s lawsuit, which was filed in Texas, claims that the WFA, GARM and a handful of major advertisers “conspired … to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue from Twitter.” X faced steep declines in its ad revenue over the last two years as advertisers have following multiple reports about hate speech and antisemitic content on the platform.
GRAM was previously named in a House Judiciary Committee report that alleged the group had an “anti-conservative bias” and engaged in “anti-competitive” behavior. It has called those allegations “unfounded.” In a statement on earlier this week, the group pointed out that it was formed in the wake of a mass shooting that was streamed live on Facebook, with the goal of addressing the monetization of harmful content online. “Suggestions that GARM practices may impinge on free speech are a deliberate misrepresentation of GARM’s work,” it wrote. “GARM is not a watchdog or lobby. GARM does not participate in or advocate for boycotts of any kind.”
