The Effort to Shut Us Up Knows No Bounds When It Comes to Globalist Elites Who Hate Their Customers
Well, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has just released a staff interim report about a group called GARM, it’s damned scary if you care the least bit about free speech
The Effort to Shut Us Up Knows No Bounds When It Comes to Globalist Elites Who Hate Their Customers
JUL 11
Want to see something really scary? Who can forget this?
Well, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has just released a staff interim report about a group called GARM, which intends to play the role of schoolmarm on all of us.
Here are some highlights from the Executive Summary:
The Committee on the Judiciary has jurisdiction over the “[p]rotection of trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.” In exercising oversight of the adequacy and sufficiency of existing U.S. antitrust laws, the Committee has been investigating apparent collusion within the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and specifically its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative. Through GARM, large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members. This collusion can have the effect of eliminating a variety of content and viewpoints available to consumers.
Created by WFA in 2019, GARM quickly amassed tremendous market power in the advertising industry. Among other data points:
WFA members represent roughly 90% of global advertising spend, or almost one trillion dollars annually.
GARM includes every major advertising agency holding company in its ranks and includes the world’s largest media buying agency, GroupM, on its Steer Team.
GARM’s Steer Team, which acts as a board of directors and is also closely involved in GARM’s day-to-day operations, includes four large corporations (Unilever, Mars, Diageo, and Procter & Gamble) that spend billions annually on advertising.
GARM reports to the WFA Executive Committee, which must endorse GARM’s work and includes representatives from AB InBev, L'Oréal, Nestlé, IBM, as well as many more large corporations and household name brands.
GARM calls itself “an industry first effort that unites marketers, media agencies, media platforms, industry associations, and advertising technology solutions providers to safeguard the potential of digital media by reducing the availability and monetization of harmful content online.” GARM claims that it was created to drive transparency in policies to help companies achieve “brand safety,” or in other words “transparency on where ads [are] placed [to] mak[e] sure that [advertisers] don’t inadvertently support” certain content on social media platforms.
To achieve this goal, GARM asserts that it works in the “content monetization” space, defined as “what content ads actually support and the practice of insertion of the ads online.” GARM disclaims involvement in “content moderation,” which is the “practice and determination of what content is appropriate for hosting[,] recommend[ing,] and [making] availab[le] on [a] platform.” GARM admits, however, that “[c]ontent monetization and moderation are inextricably linked and lapses in moderation put advertising and advertisers at risk[.]” In other words, GARM’s monetization work has the effect of influencing what content appears online.
For an organization reliant on speech and persuasion in advertising, GARM appears to have anti-democratic views of fundamental American freedoms. In discussing his views on freedom of speech, GARM’s leader and co-founder, Rob Rakowitz, has expressed frustration with an “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution” and complained about using “‘principles for governance’ and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).” With this worldview, GARM pushed what it called “uncommon collaboration” to “rise above individual commercial interest[.]”
Section 1 of the Sherman Act makes unreasonable restraints of trade illegal. Included in these illegal restraints are certain group boycotts and coordinated actions that harm consumers. Documents produced to the Committee suggest that GARM may have engaged in coordinated conduct that violates Section 1. GARM has undertaken various actions to eliminate the monetization, and in effect existence, of certain voices online.
For example:
Twitter and Elon Musk: According to one GARM member, GARM recommended that its members “stop[] all paid advertisement” on Twitter in response to Mr. Musk’s acquisition of the company. GARM’s internal documents show that GARM was asked by a member to “arrange a meeting and hear more about [GARM’s] perspectives about the Twitter situation and a possible boycott from many companies.” GARM also held “extensive debriefing and discussion around Elon Musks’ [sic] takeover of Twitter,” providing ample opportunity for the boycott to be organized. GARM bragged about “taking on Elon Musk” and “[s]ince then [Twitter was] 80% below revenue forecasts[.]”
Spotify and The Joe Rogan Experience: At the urging of its members, GARM and its Steer Team threatened Spotify over alleged misinformation on Joe Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, because Mr. Rogan stated an opinion that young, healthy people need not receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
GARM even admitted it was acting outside of the scope of its work on brand safety, explaining to one of its members that “[b]rand safety is somewhat separate on Spotify versus say Facebook Newsfeed because brands aren’t being slotted into” the podcast. In other words, the companies could easily choose whether to advertise on or avoid Mr. Rogan’s podcast and, therefore, GARM had no business interfering in Spotify’s decision.
GARM even admitted the antitrust implications of getting caught, when Mr. Rakowitz told one GARM member that he “can’t publicly advise all clients to do X – that gets us into hot water by way of anticompetitive and collusive behaviors.” To get around this problem, Mr. Rakowitz offered to “help [brands] formulate a [point of view] 1:1.” In doing so, even as Mr. Rakowitz mistook his trade association members with “clients,” such a coordinated action implicates antitrust law.
Candidates, platforms, and news outlets with opposing political views: GARM and its members discussed a strategy of blocking certain news outlets like Fox News, The Daily Wire, and Breitbart News. One GARM Steer Team member candidly wrote that although he “hated their ideology and bulls**t,” his company “couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion[s]” so the company “watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line.”
Additionally, GARM pushes its members to use news rankings organizations, like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard, that disproportionately label right-of-center news outlets as so-called misinformation.
GARM and its Steer Team even participated in efforts to label a social media advertisement paid for by President Donald Trump as “misinformation.” When Facebook would not label the advertisement as misinformation, Mr. Rakowitz told a colleague that it was “[h]onestly reprehensible[.]” A GARM Steer Team member expressed concern about Mr. Musk exposing the truth regarding how Twitter was previously used to censor the Hunter Biden laptop and Biden family influence peddling story, describing Mr. Musk’s position as an “overtly partisan take[.]”
…The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms. The information uncovered to date of WFA and GARM’s collusive conduct to demonetize disfavored content is alarming. The Committee will continue its investigation into the companies that participate in this conduct to inform potential legislative reforms.
What we see with GARM the Schoolmarm is an outrageous attempt by the CEOs of companies such as Coca Cola, who hang with Klaus Schwab and the WEF crowd, to enforce political correctness on all of us. They hate us, in fact.
Of course, we knew Coca Cola executives hated us from the moment they came out against a Georgia election integrity law less strict than Delaware’s. But, this GARM matter takes things to whole new level, something really scary. It's the same arrogant behavior we fight every day on global warming and a host of other issues. Globalist elites just want to shut us up, but they also want us customers, so they need be afraid because we have the ultimate power to do something really scary to them; like no longer buying their products.