An advertising industry initiative targeted by an Elon Musk lawsuit is “discontinuing” its activities and has deleted the member list from its website. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), was sued by Musk’s X Corp. over what X claims is an illegal boycott.
The WFA has halted GARM’s activities, and the GARM member page now produces a 404 error. An archived version of the page shows the initiative members, including X. X’s antitrust lawsuit has drawn skeptical responses from law professors, who say it will be difficult to prove that companies violated antitrust laws by stopping advertisements.
The WFA says GARM was created to help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising. Members can use GARM’s resources and information about best practices to learn where their advertising investments go, and to avoid placement next to illegal or harmful content that could damage their brands’ reputation.
GARM says it provides “voluntary frameworks” to help brands make advertising decisions and “does not interfere with a member’s decision as to whether or not to invest advertising resources on a particular website or channel.” The group also says that suggestions that GARM practices may impinge on free speech are a deliberate misrepresentation of GARM’s work.
The House Judiciary GOP’s official account on X called GARM being discontinued a “big win for the First Amendment” and a “big win for oversight.” X CEO Linda Yaccarino also applauded the news, saying that “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”