NEW: Texas AG Ken Paxton investigates possible conspiracy by ad companies to boycott social media platforms
"It is completely unacceptable and un-American that the Department of Justice under the Biden Administration failed to enforce antitrust laws against its perceived political allies."
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened up an investigation into the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) in what the AG has called a potential "coordinated plan or conspiracy to withhold advertising dollars from certain social media platforms." This comes after a suborganization of WFA, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), allegedly pushed an advertiser boycott of X.
The AG sent an investigative demand letter to the WFA as part of an ongoing probe into a "potential anticompetitive scheme" that boycotts some social media platforms from getting advertising dollars.
The investigative demand from Paxton sent to the WFA "requests documents and information related to WFA and its sub-organization known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (“GARM”) organizing their membership to potentially boycott social media platforms that are deemed to violate their 'Brand Safety Standards,'" per a press release from the Texas AG.
Paxton said of the investigation, "It is completely unacceptable and un-American that the Department of Justice under the Biden Administration failed to enforce antitrust laws against its perceived political allies. Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to undermine."
X owner Elon Musk posted in response to the investigation launch announcement, saying, "It’s still a major problem."
Earlier this year, the GARM was the subject of a House Judiciary Committee hearing in which evidence was presented that was enough to convince Musk that the advertisers were pressed to boycott advertising on X. Musk said at the time, “Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, X has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket. Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution.”
After Musk’s X as well as Rumble, an alternative video platform to YouTube, filed suit against GARM for antitrust violations, WFA shut down the organization.
Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski told Fox News at the time, “What the World Federation of Advertisers has done is they created a monopoly to basically tell all these advertisers how they should spend money based on certain speech."
The AG sent an investigative demand letter to the WFA as part of an ongoing probe into a "potential anticompetitive scheme" that boycotts some social media platforms from getting advertising dollars.
The investigative demand from Paxton sent to the WFA "requests documents and information related to WFA and its sub-organization known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (“GARM”) organizing their membership to potentially boycott social media platforms that are deemed to violate their 'Brand Safety Standards,'" per a press release from the Texas AG.
Paxton said of the investigation, "It is completely unacceptable and un-American that the Department of Justice under the Biden Administration failed to enforce antitrust laws against its perceived political allies. Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to undermine."
X owner Elon Musk posted in response to the investigation launch announcement, saying, "It’s still a major problem."
Earlier this year, the GARM was the subject of a House Judiciary Committee hearing in which evidence was presented that was enough to convince Musk that the advertisers were pressed to boycott advertising on X. Musk said at the time, “Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, X has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket. Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution.”
After Musk’s X as well as Rumble, an alternative video platform to YouTube, filed suit against GARM for antitrust violations, WFA shut down the organization.
Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski told Fox News at the time, “What the World Federation of Advertisers has done is they created a monopoly to basically tell all these advertisers how they should spend money based on certain speech."
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