Global Alliance for Responsible Media is 'discontinuing' after X filed a lawsuit | Hacker News Reader

Global Alliance for Responsible Media is 'discontinuing' after X filed a lawsuit

businessinsider.com

23 pointshn19868 comments

I feel like this lawsuit has been deeply misunderstood on social media, as legal issues often are. No one is questioning the fact that advertisers can individually make purchasing decisions for any reason. However, collective action by major market participants is precisely the thing that antitrust law was designed to regulate. We often associate antitrust with sellers colluding (usually to raise prices), but collusion by major buyers can be just as serious.

If you read the legal complaint[1], you can see that Musk already has evidence that the advertisers engaged in this boycott primarily because GARM told them to. Some were actually eager to go back, and wrote emails to GARM asking if they were allowed to go back yet.

So again, the idea isn't that "my customers aren't allowed to leave." It is closer to, "they are using collective bargaining in a way disallowed by antitrust law, to achieve a more favorable deal than they could have gotten with 1-on-1 bargaining." The "more favorable deal" part of that doesn't have to mean price, it could instead mean "we had to spend money implementing certain technologies and human processes to assure brand safety."

I'm guessing the GARM people got legal advice and concluded that, at the very least, this has enough merit that it won't be quickly dismissed -- and they still have to consider the similar investigation being conducted by the House Judiciary Committee.

[1] https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdvxxwoqzvx/...

Nah, "And hopefully this puts to bed the idea that the organization was some kind of powerful "cabal" with the ability to crush orgs. It was a nonprofit coalition of major brands that gave recommendations. And it publicly folded at the first sign of conflict from a threat made by the richest person on earth."

https://www.threads.net/@mac_ryan_/post/C-a3Yl5p2Qb?xmt=AQGz...

I am really surprised that HN users don’t seem to understand that this is about cartel behavior and anti-trust, but I am also not surprised because so many people were dismissive of the lawsuit and the issues here simply due to their own personal political stances and hatred of Musk.

The reality is that a small group of powerful ad agencies control not just the spending of their own clients, but also industry standards, access to advertising spaces, etc. These companies are clearly acting in coordination - it may just be a small group of activists inside - but regardless, there is enough coordination for these companies to make politically charged spending decisions that are identical and simultaneous. Just like a cartel like OPEC would be illegal under US law, cartels in advertising are illegal. GARM seems to me like a way to conduct cartel behavior but with more opaqueness to hide what these companies are actually doing.

Personally, even leaving aside anti trust, no one should want something like what has happened in a free democratic society. We basically have a few powerful advertising corporations who are controlling political speech and suppressing those who don’t align with their own views. Free speech is foundational in a democracy and I don’t think anyone should want corporations to hinder free speech if they support a democratic political process.

So anyone can just dismantle nonprofit organizations simply by filing a lawsuit, as ridiculous as it is?

Perhaps, but the act could also cement positions of participants and serve as a warning to others to route around hostile forces.

No, not anyone. Elon Musk can do it, because he controls one of the most powerful media platforms in the world and has more money to burn on lawyers, bribes and chicanery than most countries, and a history of being able to ruin lives and get away with it. No one cares if you or I do it.

If the organization is so corrupt and guilty that the mere filing of a lawsuit sends them running, then it's probably a good thing that the lawsuit was filed.

Well they folded quickly. They'll probably start another organization that does the same thing under a different name.

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