House Judiciary Committee Report Reveals How Global Advertiser Cartel Colludes to Censor and Demonetize Conservative Influencers

Since 2019, a WEF-created coalition of major corporate advertisers has coordinated action to suppress and demonetize conservative influencers, platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other disfavored content, the House Judiciary Committee revealed in a staff report Wednesday.

The Republican-led Committee has been investigating collusion within the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative, both projects of the World Economic Forum (WEF). WFA members reportedly represent roughly 90 percent of global advertising spending, or almost one trillion dollars annually.

Their report, titled, GARM’S HARM: HOW THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BRANDS SEEK TO CONTROL ONLINE SPEECH, states that through GARM, “large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action” to target conservatives and eliminate their viewpoints in the public square.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday to examine  whether existing civil and criminal penalties and current antitrust law enforcement efforts are sufficient to deter GARM’s anticompetitive collusion in online advertising.

The organization,  which was created by WFA in 2019, periodically releases an industry report measuring “brand safety performance” across all the major social media platforms, Influence Watch reports. These reports measure interaction on “debated sensitive social issues,” which GARM classifies as “insensitive, irresponsible and harmful treatment of debated social issues and related acts that demean a particular group or incite great conflict.”

GARM has targeted The Daily Wire, former President Donald Trump, Podcaster Joe Rogan, X owner Elon Musk, Fox News, and Breitbart News, among others, according to Judiciary Committee Republicans.

Musk reacted to the report in a post on X Wednesday, saying: “Extremely concerning!”

GARM members include Adidas, American Express, Bayer, BP Oil, Dell Technologies, CVS, Chanel, General Mills, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, GroupM, Hershey, HP, IKEA, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft/Heinz, Kimberly-Clark, Loreal, LinkedIn, Mars, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Meta, Microsoft, Merck, Nestle, Nike, Omnicom, Pepsi, P&G, Pinterest, Red Bull, Sanofi, Shell Oil, SXM Media, Snapchat, Sony, Spotify, Coca Cola, Disney, TikTok, Twitch, X, Verizon, Volvo, Walmart, and YouTube, and many others.

The Judiciary Committee’s report highlights an October 2021 email from John Montgomery, a top executive with the media investment company GroupM, to GARM’s far-left leader and co-founder, Rob Rakowitz.

In the email, Montgomery talks about putting Breitbart News, the Daily Wire and Fox News on the company’s “exclusion list.”

Montgomery said that as much as GroupM hated Breitbart News’ “ideology and bullsh-t,”  the company “couldn’t really justify blocking them for a misguided opinion,” at first.

But that soon changed.

“We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line—but it was a useful academic lesson,” he wrote.  Montgomery went on to assert that most of his company’s clients wouldn’t appreciate the “divisive” content of the Daily Wire and Fox News either, so he recommended blocking those outlets, as well.

 

GroupM, the world’s largest media buying agency, ended up putting the Daily Wire on its Global High Risk exclusion list, “categorized as Conspiracy Theories,” the emails show.

The report also exposes the bias of GARM’s far-left leader and co-founder, Rob Rakowitz, who has stated that he wants to “tamp down” on the amplification, acceleration, or connectedness of online content GARM deems “unsafe.”

In one email Rakowitz complains about an “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution,” which he is careful to note was written “by white men exclusively.”

Rakowitz also said he was especially concerned about people “advocating for freedom of speech online,” and claimed that “most people would agree that right to bear arms needs moderation.”

 

GARM also sought to punish Twitter/X after billionaire Elon Musk purchased the platform. According to the report, Rakowitz directed the corporate giants who make up its membership  to “stop all paid advertisement” on Twitter and “bragged about” the fact that Twitter was “80 percent below revenue forecasts” after its effort.

During his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee hearing, Wednesday, Daily Wire Founder Ben Shapiro described a fascistic coordination between Democrats in Congress, the Biden White House and GARM to tacitly threaten private companies with government action to compel them to censor or suppress conservative viewpoints.

“This drives social media companies to partner with GARM – or else,” said Shapiro.

“In 2017, Senator Dianne Feinstein told lawyers at Facebook, Google, and Twitter, ‘You created these platforms…and now they’re being misused. And you have to be the ones to do something about it – or we will,'” Shapiro testified.

Social media companies react to such threats. They have responded by adopting the standards of third-party Left-wing “informational safety” groups like the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, or GARM. GARM purportedly sets “brand safety” standards – objective standards by which advertisers and platforms can supposedly determine just what sort of content ought to be deemed “safe” for advertising. In reality, GARM acts as a cartel. Its members account for 90 percent of ad spending in the United States–almost $1 trillion. In other words, if you’re not getting ad dollars from GARM members, it’s nearly impossible to run an ad-based business. And if you’re not following their preferred political narratives – the ones Kara Swisher and Dianne Feinstein would follow – you will not be deemed “brand safe.” Your business will be throttled.

GARM’s “brand safety” standards, Shapiro noted,  include restrictions on highly subjective criteria, such as:

• “Hate speech”
• “Harassment”
• “Misinformation”
• Or, my favorite, “insensitive,” “irresponsible” and “harmful” treatment of “debated sensitive social issues.”

Shapiro pointed out that  GARM’s standards are “purely partisan in practice,” citing as an example how Daily Wire host Matt Walsh was fully demonetized on YouTube (a GARM member) for “misgendering.”

“Perfectly obvious facts now run afoul of GARM’s censorship standards,” Shapiro quipped.

In a thread on X, Shapiro also recalled how popular podcaster Joe Rogan was targeted by the White House during the pandemic.

“When Rogan said that he had taken Ivermectin after getting COVID, White House press secretary Jen Psaki pressured Spotify to take action, stating, ‘We want every platform to be doing more to be calling out mis- and dis-information, while also uplifting accurate information,'” he wrote.

GARM worked to pressure Spotify over Rogan’s podcast, “specifically over the host’s claims that young, healthy people didn’t need a COVID vaccine,” Shapiro continued. “Rakowitz admits in private emails that threats like the one it made to Spotify ‘gets us into hot water by way of anticompetitive and collusive behaviors.’”

Shapiro noted that these “coercive” government campaigns against free speech are ongoing.  “They are spurred by members of this Congress and this White House. And they must be stopped,” Shapiro said.

The Judiciary Committee report states that GARM’s “alarming” censorship activities “rob consumers of choices” and “threaten fundamental American freedoms.”

“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,” the report concludes.