Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into a shadowy left-leaning advertising cabal over whether it participated in a “coordinated plan or conspiracy” to boycott “certain social media platforms,” the office said. his on Thursday.
Paxton is investigating whether the powerful World Advertising Federation and its now-defunct nonprofit arm, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), pressured “advertisers not to buy online advertising space” from infringing sites. brand safety standards”.
GARM and its members faced intense scrutiny after a House Judiciary Committee report released in July accused them of a coordinated effort to suppress free speech online and limit advertising in a host of media outlets. , including The Post and Elon Musk’s X.
The Republican requested documents and information from WFA and GARM as part of the civil investigation. According to Paxton, any evidence of a secret boycott could violate state antitrust laws.
“Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to mine,” Paxton said in a statement. “Today’s document request is part of an ongoing investigation to hold the WFA and its members accountable for any attempts to rig the system to harm organizations with which they may disagree.”
The WFA did not immediately return a request for further comment.
Shortly after Paxton announced the WFA investigation, Musk tweeted on X: “This is still a big problem.”
The House report cited evidence that included internal emails from radical GARM executive Robert Rakowitz, who appeared to boast X was “80% below revenue projections” after GARM targeted the social media app for brand safety issues .
In response to the revelations, Musk hit WFA, GARM and a handful of major advertisers with a federal antitrust lawsuit for allegedly orchestrating an ad boycott.
According to the lawsuit, the boycott cost X “billions of dollars in advertising revenue.”
WFA and GARM have vehemently denied wrongdoing. However, GARM shut down in August, citing the mounting legal costs of its fight against Musk.
In October, X announced it had reached a settlement with one of the defendants, Unilever, which had plans for its brands to resume advertising on the platform.
Antitrust claims against the other defendants are still pending.
#Texas #Ken #Paxton #investigates #GARM #cartel #boycott #conspiracy
Image Source : nypost.com