The Global Alliance for Responsible Media has decided to "discontinue activities" after a lawsuit filed against them by Elon Musk's X and the Rumble platform. The group was under fire for antitrust violations after they had orchestrated ad boycotts of both platforms using their monopoly. 

The House Judiciary said this was a "Big win for the First Amendment" and a "Big win for oversight." The House Committee brought questions about GARM, their monopoly on advertisers, and their use of that monopoly to influence online speech to a hearing. 

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski simply wanted to know "what are they hiding?" He has been forthcoming in discussing the ad boycott of his platform.

The World Federation of Advertisers, which organized GARM as part of its efforts to police speech online using ad placement and the withholding of same, said they plan to contest the allegations of boycotting and censorship that were leveled at the group in the suit. They claim to be in compliance.

Members of WFA were informed of the decision on Thursday via email. That email said that the decision was "not made lightly." but that they were confident that the case "will demonstrate our full adherence to competition rules in all our activities."

Speaking to Fox on Wednesday about the suit, Pavlovski explained that "What the World Federation of Advertisers has done is they created a monopoly to basically tell all these advertisers how they should spend money based on certain speech." That's why the suit was launched.

In speaking about the suit on X, CEO Linda Yaccarino said "I was shocked by the evidence uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee that a group of companies organized a systematic illegal boycott against X. It is just wrong. And that is why we are taking action." She then announced an anti-trust lawsuit against GARM as well as "four of its key members and the World Federation of Advertisers."

"We tried peace for two years," X owner Elon Musk said, "now it's war."

In 2022, GARM expanded its reach even further into the ad marketplace. "The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) has opened its membership to independent brand safety solutions providers, in addition to advertisers, media agencies, media platforms and industry associations. This is a significant expansion for the cross-industry initiative, which aims to eliminate ad support for harmful content on digital media platforms," the group said.

"GARM has previously partnered with a number of ad tech companies and solutions providers on the organisation’s Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework, work which started in May 2020 with the IAB TechLab, also a member of GARM," they state. "After several months of collaboration and expansion of GARM’s work, the GARM Steer Team recognised the need for a more structured way of working to help further drive standards and solutions into practice." That structure is likely the facilitated boycott of platforms that GARM does not feel align with their mission. It is key to note that they do not define "harmful content."