Elon Musk’s social media platform X, sued a global ad alliance on Tuesday, along with several major companies including Unilever Mars and CVS Health. The lawsuit accused them of conspiring unlawfully to shun and deliberately cause the social network to lose revenue. The company that was formerly Twitter accused defendants of a massive advertiser boycott.
X has filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and the individual companies in Texas federal court on Tuesday.
Musk tweeted Tuesday: “We tried peace and now it’s war.”
In the lawsuit, it was alleged that advertisers, through an initiative of the World Federation of Advertisers called Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), collectively and maliciously withheld from X “billions of dollar in advertising revenue”. The company claimed that they had acted against their economic self-interests as part of a conspiracy to undermine the platform, which violated US antitrust laws.
Linda Yaccarino said in a Tuesday statement about the lawsuit that “people are hurt when the market of ideas is constrained.” No small group should be able to monopolize the monetization of ideas.
She wrote: “The result – or perhaps the intention – of this protest was to deny X’s users the Global Town Square, whether they were sports fans, gamers and journalists, or parents, political leaders, corporate leaders, or activists.”
Requests for comment from The World Advertising Federation as well as Unilever Mars CVS Health and Orsted were not immediately responded to.
After Musk purchased the company in 2022, ad revenue at X dropped for several months. Brands were wary of the rapid changes Musk initiated. After Musk slashed the content moderation team at X he has seen a dramatic increase in antisemitic material, including ads that run alongside posts expressing pro Nazi sentiments. Media Matters is one of these organizations. A lawsuit filed by X will be heard in April 2025.
In 2019, the advertising group launched its responsible media initiative to “assist the industry in addressing the challenge of illegal and harmful content on digital platforms, as well as its monetization through advertising”.
X stated in its lawsuit it has applied brand safety standards that are comparable with those of its competitors, and that they “meet” or exceed the measures specified by Global Alliance for Responsible Media. The company wants unspecified damages as well as a court order to stop any further attempts to conspire against ad dollars.
In the lawsuit, X was said to have become a “less-effective competitor” in digital advertising.
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