Global companies collude to censor conservatives

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) likely violated federal antitrust law when it used its “enormous market power” in the advertising world to encourage the demonization of news sites, platforms and podcasts it deems guilty of misguided thinking, according to a new report released Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee.

Shortly after Rob Rakowitz co-founded GARM in 2019 with the World Federation of Advertisers, he lamented that “people who are standing up for free speech on the Internet” are pursuing a “radical interpretation()” of free speech. To stop this First Amendment phenomenon and prevent it from globalizing, he called for “an unusual collaboration” that “rises above individual commercial interest.”

“For an organization that relies on words and persuasion in advertising, GARM clearly holds anti-democratic views on basic American freedoms,” the report warns.

GARM says it “protects the potential of digital media by limiting the availability and monetization of harmful content online” using a steering group comprised of four major advertisers (Proctor & Gamble, Mars, Unilever and Diageo), the world’s largest media buying agency (GroupM) and three industry associations.

“GARM also includes the so-called ‘Big Six’ as members. In the advertising industry, ‘Big Six’ refers to ‘the largest advertising agency holding companies in the world.’ Together, these companies own nearly all of the major advertising agencies,” the report notes.

Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits organizations like GARM from conspiring against or restraining trade. But House Republicans warn that the ongoing “collusion” between GARM and the world’s largest advertisers inevitably leads to unfair censorship of popular dissidents’ views on First Amendment-protected speech.

When Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into X, GARM, at Rakowitz’s behest, organized a boycott among its members to prevent advertisers from spending money there. Rakowitz denied any role in the coordinated campaign against Musk’s free speech efforts in a transcript of an interview with Republican investigators, but documents obtained by the committee indicate that he “took credit for Twitter’s revenue decline.”

Steer Team member Unilever also complained to Rakowitz about “issues” related to the platform’s “overtly biased views (e.g. the Hunter Biden laptop whistleblower case).”

GARM used a similar tactic against “The Joe Rogan Experience” in 2022 after Steer Team member Joe Barone of GroupM determined that advertisers and platforms like Spotify should be concerned about alleged “disinformation” about Covid-19 vaccines being touted by the prominent podcaster. The committee noted that “GroupM knew there were no brand safety concerns because it did not purchase ads on Mr. Rogan’s podcast, but nevertheless sought to silence Mr. Rogan’s views” by reporting its concerns to GARM.

Coca-Cola also reached out to GARM about Spotify and Rogan’s program. Rakowitz “indicated that he couldn’t collectively tell every GARM member what to do” because it “got us in trouble through anti-competitive and collusive behavior,” so he “instead advised GARM members individually what to do, effectively uniting all GARM members.”

“Mr. Rakowitz’s power comes from GARM members and their advertising dollars. Because power rests with members, when members provide feedback to Mr. Rakowitz, he is likely to provide that feedback to the platforms. Ultimately, once platforms hear from Mr. Rakowitz, the companies have a choice of either giving in to his demands or risking losing advertising revenue,” the report noted.

GARM doesn’t just use its own influence to convince companies to turn against dissidents. It also urges companies to use government-backed censorship rankings like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard, which repeatedly blacklist conservative media outlets like The Federalist, to determine who is bearing the brunt of their coordinated boycotts.

Media outlets like The Daily Wire, Breitbart, and even Fox News, which could “cross the line” by offering what the commission called “unpopular views,” were also heavily monitored and scrutinized by Steer Team members like GroupM, who used emails to express their hatred of the publications’ conservative roots.

The icing on the cake of all the GARM shenanigans was that the organization “pressured Facebook to take coordinated action around the upcoming election, similar to the actions the platform took during the COVID-19 pandemic to censor speech.” Steer Team member Unilever even pressured Facebook to censor one of former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign ads that discussed “Sleepy Joe.”

“GARM and its members use their power to influence elections… by pressuring platforms to label content as disinformation,” the report noted.

Republican Party investigators said GARM’s “collusion to demonetize objectionable content is alarming.”

“The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinated activities that deprive consumers of choice is likely to be inconsistent with antitrust law and to threaten fundamental American freedoms,” the report concluded.

The House Judiciary Committee released its report the same day it held a hearing on “collusion within the Global Alliance for Responsible Media” and “whether existing civil and criminal penalties and current antitrust enforcement actions are sufficient to deter anticompetitive collusion in online advertising.”

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and a producer for The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured on The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University, where she studied political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.