The company claimed that members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media coordinated to dissuade brands from advertising on X.

The company claimed that members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media coordinated to dissuade brands from advertising on X.

X filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of major advertisers, claiming that it had violated antitrust laws by coordinating with brands to dissuade them from spending money on the social media platform.

The suit, filed in federal court in Texas, claims that the coalition, known as GARM, “conspired” with leading brands, including CVS, Unilever, Mars and the Danish energy company Orsted, to “collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” that were owed to X, then known as Twitter, in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media company in 2022.

…

With the lawsuit, X effectively declared war on advertisers, which provide the bulk of the social media company’s revenue. Since Mr. Musk acquired the company and promised to usher in a new era of unfettered free speech, many advertisers have limited their spending on X, concerned by reports of rising hate speech and misinformation there. By pursuing legal action against GARM, Mr. Musk continued to break with the leaders of other social media companies, who have forged close relationships with advertisers and been responsive to their concerns about offensive online content.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    195·
    3 months ago

    He told them to fuck off, and is now but hurt that they took his advice.

    Musk is literally that kid whose mom made you include him even though nobody liked him.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
      13·
      3 months ago

      What an absolutely fantastic example of “fuck around and find out.” Tell people to go fuck themselves, so they don’t want anything to do with you, and then you cry about it. It’s poetry.

    • Kalkaline @leminal.space
      781·
      3 months ago

      Advertisers also don’t want their products displayed next to pro-Nazi content either. Can’t forget that part.

    • DandomRude@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      3 months ago

      Yes, since Musk fired his PR team in 2020, things have gone steadily downhill for him. That was probably one of his worst decisions, considering how successful his PR team was in falsly portraying him as a tech genius and progressive visionary. Well, now it is clear to everyone that this was never even remotely true.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        3 months ago

        Considering how monumentally douchey musk is… that team was probably among the best in the world. Hope whoever picked them up on the bounce is good to them. Or just good. We don’t need another musk.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 months ago

        I wonder if he fired them because they weren’t able to recover his image after that pedophile tweet on 2018. That’s when I realized that giving him the benefit of the doubt might be a mistake. A public temper tantrum like that didn’t just show that he wasn’t any better than other billionaires, it showed he was likely worse because most of them don’t let tirades like that show from behind closed doors, if they need them at all.

        • DandomRude@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          3 months ago

          I think he fired his PR team because the image they had built up for him had gone to his head. Then there was the financial success that came with it. He probably believed that he really is a genius who is not dependent on anyone but himself - he is obviously still convinced of this abstruse idea. Yet it has always been the case that Musk was the biggest problem for his companies. It really is a PR masterstroke to hide the fact that he is actually rather incompetent for so long. This man lives exclusively from the achievements of others. This is proven by the fact that he reached a settlement with the actual founders of Tesla to allow him to call himself a Tesla co-founder - which he is not. In my eyes, Musk is the personification of the most fundamental problem that our society has: He merely takes credit for the hard work and remarkable expertise of his employees in order to present all of this to the public as the achievement of a supposedly exceptional person. This is how people like Musk and Trump, for example, see themselves. However, their miserable decisions show that they are nothing of the sort. Hubris is the term psychology uses for such inaccurate overestimation of oneself.

  • echo@lemmings.world
    431·
    3 months ago

    Guess what, Melon Husk… they aren’t required to associate with you and can quite publicly boycott you, if they like.

  • OmnislashIsACloudApp@lemmy.world
    45·
    3 months ago

    can’t wait for the clip we’re the lawyer says “Your Honor, exhibit A is a video clip of Mr Musk telling advertisers to, and I quote: ‘fuck off’”

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
    25·
    3 months ago

    “I can do whatever the shit I want and you still have to advertise with me OK” sounds like how an extremely spoiled and self centred kid would behave with his/her parents.

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
    12·
    3 months ago

    I’m super confused. How can you sue people for not using your service??? If that was true, they wouldn’t have had to shoot MLK, they would have just sued him into the ground.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
      5·
      3 months ago

      I’m going to sue X for not advertising on my platform. It’s just $1000 a week for a sign on my fridge, my entire family will see it daily!

  • Phegan@lemmy.world
    39·
    3 months ago

    They like the free market until it works against them. Capitalists are glories conmen.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    3 months ago

    Has Musk ever proceeded with one of his lawsuits till the end? Seems like he just sues people, gets the headlines and then drops out lol

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
    31·
    3 months ago

    The fact that this bizarre and insane “lawsuit” is being brought in Texas should be concerning. If he gets a conservative enough judge, neither the law nor the facts will matter at all.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
      10·
      3 months ago

      Makes me wonder how much farther this shit can go before the legal system fractures when enough people say they don’t give a fuck what any Texas judges have to say and if they have to pull business entirely out of Texas, so be it.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      24·
      3 months ago

      Maybe, but regardless of the outcome of this case, how many advertisers are going to want to advertise on Twitter if they find out he’ll sue them for not advertising on Twitter anymore?