Elon Musk’s lawsuit shatters GARM, revealing industry’s fracture and fear
By targeting an industry body like GARM, Musk taps into a broader narrative that resonates with those who see the ad industry as part of a larger conspiracy against certain conservative values. For his supporters, this campaign isn’t merely about challenging specific standards; it’s about casting Musk as a hero fighting against what they view as an elitist, anti-American establishment.
It’s all there in the raucous cheer for Musk’s triumph over GARM in a culture war far beyond the courtroom.
Linda Yaccarinno, CEO of X, said the lawsuit filed on Tuesday was an “important acknowledgment and a necessary step in the right direction” despite the fact that GARM hasn’t really been active as an organization for over a year.
Even Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of Rumble Video (the platform which chose to join X by suing GARM for “witholding advertising revenue from Rumble and other digital media platforms”) posted that this official downfall of the nonprofit “is what winning looks like
Then there was a post from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, arguably the originators of this debacle, which called GARM’s demise a “big win” for the “First Amendment” and “for oversight”.
They began investigating whether GARM members were illegally colluding to defund conservative platforms last year, and last month released a report titled, “GARM’s Harm: How the World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.” The title says it all.
The issue with that title is it overlooks Musk’s actions since he took over X in the fall of 2022. He’s slashed the content moderation team and loosened policies on what’s allowed on the platform. Despite numerous opportunities, he’s failed to address advertiser concerns about these changes. As a result, his decisions have only deepened the ad revenue crisis. And that brings us right back to the lawsuit.
“It’s unfortunate that Musk is taking so many anti-advertiser actions, and that general tone is sure to discourage advertisers of all sizes from placing ads on X,” said Chris Rigas, vp of media at Markacy.
It would be a mistake to dismiss Rigas et al’s critique of GARM as if it never faced issues—it did. At one point, there were real concerns that it had been hijacked by opportunistic ad tech firms, turning it into an opaque “scorecard” that muddled its true mission of guiding brands through responsible media buying. Yet, these issues never crossed into anything truly nefarious.
