X (Twitter) Sues Former Advertisers
variety.com
variety.com
This looks for all the world like a desperation move.
Yeah, if you're carrying stuff that I don't think is safe for my brand to associate with, that's not "withholding" advertising from you. That's me saying that your site has become a cesspool, and I don't want to get any of it on my brand. You didn't have a right to my advertising that I'm unjustly "withholding" from you.
There is (or the lawsuit claims there is) an active House Judiciary Committee investigation of GARM (the trade organization in question), for whatever that's worth.
My take: I don't know the legal ins and outs on this. But Musk sounds like he thinks he's entitled to our ad dollars. That doesn't seem likely to attract more business - rather the opposite. (If you're going to sue people who once advertised and don't any more, then maybe it's better if I never start advertising on your platform in the first place.)
That's what, in my view, makes the whole thing insane. The very idea that companies (or people) have some sort of obligation to spend their advertising dollars in any particular outlet is very hard to comprehend.
I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet that Musk is a person who believes that spending money is a form of free speech. If that's the case, then how does he square the idea of "free speech" with the notion of "compelled speech"?
> Though in general, each business may decide with whom they wish to transact, there are some situations when a refusal to deal may be considered an unlawful anti-competitive practice, if it prevents or reduces competition in a market. The unlawful behaviour may involve two or more companies refusing to use, buy from or otherwise deal with a person or business, such as a competitor, for the purpose of inflicting some economic loss on the target or otherwise force them out of the market.
So I guess I don't know!
I am honestly surprised at the hostile response to this from HN. The right to associate freely is not what is being debated here - the article clearly says this is about anti trust. Corporations do not have the right to just do whatever they want. But leaving aside the technicalities - the existence of powerful corporate lords that control what speech is allowed is just bad. If this situation were reversed, where a small group of powerful advertisers were colluding to suppress your speech, you would definitely be upset and not would not be defending corporate power hindering free speech, which is a foundational piece of democracy.
They don’t “control” the advertising spend for that corporation. According to the logic of this ruling, however, a corporation could be sued for deciding to stop spending ad money with a given agency.
Yes, I just don't see how anti-trust laws apply here.
> Corporations do not have the right to just do whatever they want.
Correct. And the main thing (in terms of cartel/monopoly behavior) is that they can't abuse a monopoly position in order to give themselves an unfair advantage. If they avoid doing that, it's entirely legal to be a cartel or monopoly.
I am failing to see how choosing not to do business with Twitter is giving themselves any kind of unfair advantage.
> If this situation were reversed, where a small group of powerful advertisers were colluding to suppress your speech, you would definitely be upset
I certainly would! But I don't think that's what's happening here. Nobody's speech is being curtailed here. It's companies choosing what sort of thing they do and don't want to be associated with.
Twitter can continue to do whatever it likes, and even if there are enough advertisers avoiding it that it ends up putting the company out of business (which I seriously doubt), everyone on it can still speak freely as they always could. They'll just use any of the numerous other outlets to do that with.
In any case, we're just the peanut gallery and what we think isn't actually important. It's what happens in court, and in court, I am very confident that Musk will lose hard.
Yes.
> What he’s alleging here is that there is a cartel of advertisers that are behaving in anti-competitive ways.
No, he's just trying to find excuses for his business losing revenue.
Most of Twitter's revenue comes from advertising. If you run a business that's dependent on ad sales then guess what: you're dependent on advertisers. They are your customers. That's where the money comes from.
If your customer doesn't like what you're selling then they're not going to buy it. And when you then tell your customers to go fuck themselves your business is unlikely to thrive.
A fair point. But does X (and by extension Elon Musk) have the right to demand that advertisers purchase ads specifically on X?
If so, I'd love to get on that gravy train! "What? You're not spending advertising dollars on my platform? That's anti-trust! You are required to pay me!"
Which is pretty much X/Musk's argument. Which isn't very compelling, is it?
Feel free to disagree, but what specific law (anti-trust or otherwise) guarantees X the right to force folks to pay them to run ads they don't want to run on that platform.
How would you justify that? I'd be very interested to know, because if Musk can do it, so can I and I could use a few hundred million in ad revenue too.
Ads say that if I change a few shopping decisions I’ll be at the popular shows surrounded by attractive people who are totally into me, but it’s worth entertaining the possibility that’s not true. They are presenting an argument they think is going to do best but the fact that they had to shop for the most sympathetic judge in the country suggests a certain lack of confidence in the merits. In the absence of involvement by an actual competitor it’s hard to see a successful antitrust case especially when anyone who dislikes their current ad agency has many alternatives, including simply buying ads directly – it’s hardly like there’s some law requiring Twitter to refuse payment from anyone who doesn’t go through one of these groups.
I would bet that law firms love fragile rich people. "Sure, we'll write up that lawsuit for you, bill coming soon!"
Expect the district court judge to play along. It's possible the 5th Circuit may go along with this farce as well (several of the panels would gladly give Musk whatever he wants, but if it goes to an en banc review it's unlikely the full bench would agree), but even the current SCOTUS wouldn't rule in Musk's favor.
I still think it's funny he publicly changed political parties immediately after his horse sex scandal came out.
And even funnier how they welcomed him despite the direct contradiction to their stated beliefs.
I don't really see him as "right wing" so much as exploiting the right wing. But maybe those two things are synonymous anymore.
The judge in this federal district court is known for his rulings attempting to impose Christian theocracy on Americans.
One of the things we hear the us conservatives, not even far right yet is to boycott brands because of inclusive ads for example. It's in their righ, but shows that the ideology is not about freedom of expression but control of speech and action.