The attorney general of Texas is investigating an effort by advertising firms to demonetize X and other platforms and coerce the platform into censoring its own users.
AG Ken Paxton announced Thursday that he’s launching an investigation into an alleged conspiracy by advertising firms using boycotts to pressure companies like X into censoring users. "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,” he wrote in an X post.
Paxton is specifically investigating whether the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) violated the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act of 1983 and whether or not the Biden administration failed to enforce antitrust policy.
WFA controls 90 percent of all ad spending worldwide, according to the Foundation of Freedom Online. It then uses its massive market control and its peer pressure campaign, GARM, to steer advertisers away from sites and audiences that allow certain speech — oftentimes conservative speech.
GARM weaponized its “Brand Safety Standards” to pressure advertisers into boycotting Twitter (now X) after Elon Musk bought it and promised to make it pro-free speech, according to a July House Judiciary Committee report. GARM also tried to redirect ad revenue away from Spotify to pressure it to cancel podcaster Joe Rogan, according to the report.
In his press release about the investigation, Paxton said, “Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to undermine. Today’s document request is part of an ongoing investigation to hold WFA and its members accountable for any attempt to rig the system to harm organizations they might disagree with.”
WFA and GARM have been under scrutiny on multiple different fronts this year, as Rumble and X filed a lawsuit against GARM, and the House Judiciary Committee has scrutinized GARM.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
