GARM's Harm: How the World's Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech

Today, the House Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report on how GARM and its members are colluding with other companies to censor not only hate speech but to censor speech that they don’t like. Which includes conservative voices.

What is GARM?

Curiously, Wikipedia lists no page describing GARM or the GARM agreement.

Per the “World Federation of Advertisers”:

Uncommon industry collaboration to improve digital safety

GARM is the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a cross-industry initiative established by the World Federation of Advertisers to address the challenge of harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising.

GARM was launched at Cannes in the summer of 2019 and has been working hard to highlight the changes needed for advertisers to feel more confident about advertising on social media. As of November 2019, GARM is a flagship project of the World Economic Forum Platform For Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture.

Per the “World Economic Forum”:

With nearly 3.8 billion people online, the world is increasingly connected, and yet the increase in dangerous, hateful, disruptive and fake content online risks threatening our global community. Members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media recognize the role that advertisers can play in collectively pushing to improve the safety of online environments. Together, they are collaborating with publishers and platforms to do more to address harmful and misleading media environments; and to develop and deliver against a concrete set of actions, processes and protocols for protecting brands.

The project focuses on addressing the following challenges:

Hate speech

Bullying

Disinformation

Use of personal data

Child exploitation

The goal is to accelerate and advance the role that advertisers can play in collectively pushing to improve the safety of online environments. This alliance drives uncommon collaboration to improve the safety, trustworthiness, and sustainability of media.

For some reason… this report from the House Judiciary Committee neglects to emphasize the links between GARM, The World Federation of Advertisers, and the World Economic Forum.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I am one of the “star” poster “celebrities” for the House Judiciary Committee’s report on how GARM and its affiliates sought to censor free speech by pressuring advertisers and threatening investigations of platforms that violate their policies.

As many know, I am still either banned or shadow-banned from most major social media platforms (including “X”). Permanently de-platformed on “Linked In” without any ability to appeal. Furthermore, mainstream media, such as Real Clear Politics, will not pick up articles that I have written or co-written. Because much of what I write is of interest to Real Clear Politics, I have often submitted my more timely and well-written pieces. Basically, the response back is crickets. There is still a complete MSM media boycott of my articles, opinions, podcasts, and opinions, and this includes almost all conservative media. Furthermore, almost all of the larger conservative media outlets (with the exception of Bannon’s “The War Room”) do not invite me to be on their shows and haven't done so since the Joe Rogan podcast. Behind closed doors, I have had people involved with those platforms share that they are scared to have me on due to pressure from their advertisers.

It turns out that Coca-Cola specifically targeted the Joe Rogan Experience over the episode featuring myself. Furthermore, whatever deal was struck between Spotify, GARM, GroupM, and Coca-Cola, among other brand names, so that Spotify could continue monetizing their platform through GARM and GroupM, did not include me!

GARM, GroupM, and companies like Coca-Cola have significantly damaged my reputation and my ability to earn a living. The collusion of the largest advertisers and companies in the world to censor me is real, and if some big, pro-bono attorney or state attorney ever wanted to take this issue on, I would be glad to be involved in such a lawsuit or join an existing lawsuit.

In 2022, I directed now Governor Landry of Louisiana that the state should work with people like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to go after the government for censoring free speech due to the lack of documents showing that I was being censored (even though it was clear that this was happening). I did this because I wanted that case to be as strong as possible, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and associates already had FOIAed documents regarding their being censored over the Great Barrington Declaration by the US government.

But now the evidence is clear: my reputation and my ability to make a living have been severely and intentionally damaged due to companies pressuring social media and MSM regarding my appearance on their broadcasts, social media, as well as my writings.

Below is the House Press Release, followed by screenshots of the interim report, in which Joe Rogan and I are specifically singled out. But unlike Joe Rogan, who has a professional relationship with Spotify, no major corporation has my back. I am on my own.

This report also documents how the GARM agreement has been working with CISA. I have previously reported how the US government targeted me for censorship.

BTW- I have never been invited back on the Joe Rogan Experience. I wonder why?

Personally, I believe that all Coca-Cola products should be boycotted until an apology is forthcoming for their behavior censoring people like myself.

How the World's Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech

July 10, 2024

Press Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report titled, "GARM's Harm: How the World's Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech." This report details how large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations through the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and specifically its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative participated in boycotts and coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content that GARM and its members deem disfavored.
 
Although GARM claims not to impact content moderation policies, or the rules that dictate what content can appear online, the Committee’s investigation shows that GARM’s efforts are aimed at removing and defunding certain content and voices, including:  

GARM directed its members to boycott Twitter after Elon Musk acquired the company. Although Rob Rakowitz, the leader of GARM, denied having done so in his transcribed interview before the Committee, a GARM member documented discussions about the boycott, noting that the company had pulled advertisements from Twitter based on GARM's recommendations.

GroupM, a GARM Steer Team member, attempted to pressure Spotify into censoring Joe Rogan due to his views on the COVID-19 vaccine. GroupM even asked Spotify how it could reconcile being a member of GARM with its stance against misinformation and threatened to halt advertising across Spotify if the platform did not take action against Joe Rogan.

Unilever, a GARM Steer Team member, sought to have a Trump campaign ad flagged as misinformation, aiming to effectively remove the ad from the platform. Facebook, however, maintains a policy of not fact-checking political candidates to ensure Americans can see speech from elected officials and hold them accountable. GARM's founder criticized this policy of transparency as "honestly reprehensible."

GARM documents obtained by the Committee show an anti-conservative bias that permeates GARM's board of directors, known as its Steer Team. When discussing conservative media outlets such as The Daily Wire, Fox News, and Breitbart, employees from GroupM stated that they hated those outlets' ideology and even discussed placing these outlets on GroupM's exclusion lists.

The information uncovered to date regarding WFA and GARM's collusive conduct in demonetizing disfavored content is alarming. The Committee will continue its investigation into companies involved in this conduct to inform potential legislative reforms.
 
Read the full interim staff report here. Read the report's appendix here.

Screenshots from the House Judicial report:

The House Judiciary Committee interim report ends with the following:

CONCLUSION

Unilateral actions are not illegal under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Although many liberal corporations have never hidden their bias against conservative Americans, these corporations are often unable to successfully silence conservative views. But what these corporations could not achieve unilaterally, they have worked extensively since 2019 to achieve by coordinating through GARM.

While each of these companies could legally choose to independently withhold advertising from any platform or news outlet it chooses, the power and purpose of collusion is obvious. In asking Mr. Rakowitz when the group boycott would end, Ørsted explained that Twitter “is an important platform for us to reach our audience, so we would like to consider going back . . . .” In other words, no single company can unilaterally pull its advertising dollars off of a platform or news outlet over the longer term because that company’s competitors will advertise and reach the audience. Collusion in the advertising space is therefore the only way to guarantee that no individual conspirator takes advantage of the artificial changes in what would otherwise be a free market for advertising space to reach consumers.

Twenty years ago, the Supreme Court described collusion as “the supreme evil of antitrust[.]” Today, this description remains true. If collusion among powerful corporations capable of collectively demonetizing, and in effect eliminating, certain views and voices is allowed to continue, the ability of countless American consumers to choose what to read and listen to, or even have their speech or writing reach other Americans, will be destroyed.

Federal antitrust laws do not diminish because GARM or its members claim to have good intentions. And the antitrust laws are still enforceable even if GARM denies the plain language of it in contemporaneous documents in testimony to Congress.

It is hard for me not to get depressed over all of this when I know the world has basically tried to target me out of existence.