Global Alliance for Responsible Media disputes X lawsuit but stops operations.

The SLAPP seems to working as intended.

An advertising industry initiative targeted by an Elon Musk lawsuit is “discontinuing” its activities and has deleted the member list from its website.

Stephan Loerke, the CEO of the WFA, wrote in an email to members, seen by Business Insider, that the decision was “not made lightly” but that GARM is a not-for-profit organization with limited resources.

Today, 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.

  • Supermariofan67
    6·
    4 months ago

    I think there’s a bit more to it than that.

    It’s very unfortunate that this came as a result of a baseless tantrum from Elon. And his arguments are contrary to free speech.

    That said… GARM is actually bad, and the world is a better place without it in my opinion. They are frequently involved in censoring legitimate journalism of violent events, anything that’s inappropriate from children, etc. You know how so many YouTubers have to carefully tiptoe around mention of controversial topics, even in non-controversial contexts, for fear of getting demonetized? I understand the POV of avoiding advertising near hate, but the fallout has real consequences when legitimate content is inevitably caught up.

    https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/09/jim-jordan-celebrates-successful-speech-suppression-as-a-claimed-win-for-free-speech/

    Another way to see it is that GARM is simply a trade organization by advertisers for advertisers, with one single goal: to maximize profits for the advertising industry. No corporation actually cares about ethics; it’s just that appearing to be ethical is often profitable, and in this case, advertisers believe that avoiding advertising near controversial content is better for their bottom line. If one believes that advertising is one of the most abusive industries in our modern society, it could be seen that anything to make it a little harder for advertisers to extract more profits is a win.