X files antitrust suit against advertisers over 'systematic illegal boycott' | Hacker News Reader

X files antitrust suit against advertisers over 'systematic illegal boycott'

techcrunch.com

38 pointscratermoon36 comments

One notable angle I saw on this:

"The most significant thing about X's lawsuit against GARM are not the allegations, but the Texas judge: Reed O'Connor.

He also is overseeing X's Media Matters suit and, in an extraordinary move, allowed discovery to start BEFORE a motion to dismiss was ruled on. (1/2)

That allowed for vast amounts of broad and costly data collection from Media Matters, which the group compared to "harassment," leading to layoffs due to crushing litigation costs - again, before the suit's merit's were even decided.

Now that same judge has the GARM case (2/2)" -- Bobby Allyn, https://x.com/bobbyallyn/status/1820864283665936413

This is more about lawfare, bullying organizations (in this case advertisers) by applying financial pressure via district-shopped lawsuits.

Yep. Bullying organizations - for not advertising on your platform. Meanwhile, Moron Musk is wondering why Tesla sales are tanking? People are sick of him.

https://archive.today/zZu0E

So, X's position is it is illegal to not advertise on their platform? That's insane. If you needed evidence that X is an irrelevant platform that has jumped the shark, this is it.

“Your honor, let me present to you, Exhibit A”

A TV plays a video of Elon asking advertisers to f** off in front of hundreds of people in the audience.

No. X's position is that a multi-company cartel colluded to not advertise on X in order to damage its business.

> multi-company cartel

That's one way to spin it. Another way to spin it, which is how it will be presented in court, is this "cartel" is tasked with advising their clients on how to direct their advertising budget to maximize their reach and protect their brand.

Then that entity is a monopoly and should be investigated as a monopoly for anti trust issues. No matter how you slice it this is a clear anti-trust case that needs to be decided in court.

They're an advisor. Companies are under no obligation to heed their advice. So no, there's no anti-trust case at all and as such this case should be summarily dismissed.

Would it be illegal for any one company to not advertise in order to damage its business?

How about individuals? Is my not buying a Tesla in order to deny that revenue to the Musk world considered illegal?

> X's position is that a multi-company cartel colluded to not advertise on X in order to damage its business

Sort of. Musk has been attempting to weaponise litigation. The transparent aim of the suit is to bully departed advertisers to spend less on ads than they would on legal. The oversight being those are different departments, with the more-likely result being the manager who ran ads on X being fired while legal sutures the wound. (Even the suit being against the trade association defeats its own purpose.)

The lawsuit is against GARM, but also against members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted and Unilever. Those aren't particularly bully-able. They have enough money to fight this to the end, and the cost of fighting it may well be less than they judge the cost to be for the bad PR of associating with X.

The affected parties will counter sue. I have no idea who X is using for legal counsel, but they are not the best. Methinks this is a form of "advertising" designed to gin up right-wing ire and get them using X. Think of it as "social advertising." I suspect it will backfire massively.

No doubt the MAGA crew will respond by advocating for boycotts of the advertisers listed. Remember when they boycotted Bud Light because Dylan Mulvaney did a promo for it?

Under Musk's legal theory, advocating for boycotts is illegal.

Yeah, it's unfortunate for X that Musk's "legal theory" doesn't align with the legal theory actually used by US courts

Under Musk's legal delusions, "free speech" means "if you don't listen to what I say you're censoring me"

In that regard, his argument that corporate entities are illegally censoring X for political views flies in the face of the SCOTUS opinion in Citizens United.

Ironic since Citizens United enables billionaires like Musk to use their corporate entities to engage in political speech. Musk is just a child who expects the world to bow down in his presence.

I think that's a proportionally relevant response to inviting extremists and brand risks onto your platform.

This feels like _extremely weird_ messaging for _prospective_ advertisers? Like, who's going to advertise there after this, even if that were otherwise an attractive prospect?

So weird and laughable. CEO makes a video extolling the global town square and how it's at risk because of advertisers. Meanwhile it's owned by the richest man in the world and the CEO says usage is higher than ever.

Suing your advertisers is a good way to attract more advertisers...

Just like mistreating and firing talent is a good way to attract more talent.

- Beatings will continue until morale improves school of business

The best way to avoid getting sued by Twitter is to never advertise on the platform, ever.

If you're boycotting an ad platform, you aren't their advertiser anymore.

If you stop advertising you may be in their cross-hairs.

Having never advertised on Twitter is frankly an asset for a brand manager today.

We have a winner. And Elon is making that more true every day.

Given that GARM [1] is simply a recommendation body, that specifically does not penalize its members for going against it’s recommendations, I think it’ll be incredibly hard for X to prove collusion here or targeted ill intent as a group.

I also like that the organization is named after the guardian to hells gate [2]. Which is very apt for guarding against neo-Twitter.

Ultimately, I think this is a classic case of a weaponised lawsuit to try and fear monger. Notice that Linda’s video [3] keeps trying to extol how X is the only place that has an open town square (provably false given how Elon has been operating) and trying to rally their users as if this actively harms them (nevermind many users pay to use the platform)

It’s also telling that they’re joined by Rumble, a similarly supposed “free-speech but not” platform, it’ll be hard to show that their content moderation is not to blame for driving advertisers away rather than being targeted as a company.

[1] https://wfanet.org/leadership/garm/about-garm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmr

[3] https://fxtwitter.com/lindayaX/status/1820838625245880634

> a classic case of a weaponised lawsuit

Of course a lawsuit like this is not intended to win on merits. The goal is to cost the defendant (in this case GARM and the companies) more money than its worth. You might even call it legalized extortion.

This won't lead to the Streisand effect, not at all...

I wonder why advertisers are leaving??? Maybe bc of things like this where users are pushed conspiracy theories and extremist right wing content?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/comments/1ehq5ig/why_are_99...

Don't forget the multiple cases of them unbanning users after they posted child abuse.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1805805057843380528 https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgwa7z/twitter-elon-musk-dom...

The latter even watermarked a screenshot of his copy of a video called "Daisy's destruction" and posted it. It is horrific and inexcusable these people are allowed to continue posting on twitter AND get ad revenue.

Also, Twitter has always been one of the shittier platforms for advertising return on investment.

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