NEW YORK (AP) — A small brand safety initiative is ceasing operations days after it was targeted by social media platform X, accusing the group of helping coordinate a “massive advertising boycott” after billionaire Elon Musk bought the company in 2022.
The World Association of Advertisers has confirmed it is shutting down its Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative. In a statement on Friday, the advertising group said the latest allegations “regrettably misrepresent (GARM’s) purpose and activities” – adding that it had “created a distraction and placed a significant strain on its resources and finances”.
X, formerly Twitter, sued the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted on Tuesday. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas, specifically targeted GARM’s alleged role in contributing to an advertising pause, according to X, after Musk acquired the company for $44 billion in October 2022.
X alleges that advertisers conspired with and through GARM to “collectively deprive the company of billions of dollars in advertising revenue.” The suit also alleges that the defendants violated antitrust laws in the process, citing recent findings by the Republican-led U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
“No small group should be able to monopolize what is monetized,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote on the platform on Thursday in response to a post by the Republican Judiciary Committee celebrating the news of GARM’s shutdown. She called the move a “necessary step in the right direction.”
The demise of GARM may be a victory for X for now, but the company could still face a lengthy legal battle with the group of advertisers it sued. And it wasn’t immediately clear whether GARM’s work on digital security will be continued by the larger World Federation of Advertisers organization.
GARM was founded in 2019. A small team of two was involved in the initiative, a spokesperson for the World Federation of Advertisers confirmed to The Associated Press.
Since its inception, the group said in its announcement Friday, GARM has worked to raise transparency in social media ad placement by providing voluntary tools “to help advertisers avoid inadvertently supporting harmful and illegal content.” This has helped reduce such ads from 6.1% in 2020 to 1.7% in 2023, the World Federation of Advertisers said.
X’s lawsuit this week centers on the early days of Musk’s takeover of the platform formerly known as Twitter, rather than a more recent dispute with advertisers that emerged a year later. In November 2023, a number of advertisers began leaving X over concerns that their ads might appear alongside pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site overall.
Musk later said those advertisers were engaging in “extortion” and essentially told them to go away. He has since tried to walk back those comments somewhat.
