Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opens an investigation into an obscure left-wing advertising group to determine whether it participated in a “coordinated scheme or conspiracy.” To boycott “certain social media platforms” his office said Thursday.
Paxton is investigating whether the powerful World Federation of Advertising and its now-defunct non-profit branch, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), pressured “advertisers to not buy online advertising space from those sites”. which violated its “brand safety standards”.
GARM and its members faced intense scrutiny after a House Judiciary Committee report released in July accused them of coordinated efforts to suppress free speech online and restrict advertisements to multiple media outlets, including The Post and Elon Musk’s Was accused of.
Republicans sought documents and information from WFA and GARM as part of the civil investigation. According to Paxton, any evidence of collusive boycotts could violate state antitrust laws.
“Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenues from the entities they seek to undermine,” Paxton said in a statement. “Today’s document request is part of an ongoing investigation to hold WFA and its members accountable for any attempts to manipulate the system to disadvantage organizations with which they may disagree.”
The WFA did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Shortly after Paxton announced the WFA investigation, Musk posted on Twitter: “This is still a big problem.”
The House report cited evidence that included internal emails from GARM’s hardline executive Robert Rakowitz, which appeared to show Given.
In response to the revelations, Musk filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against WFA, GARM, and some major advertisers for allegedly organizing an advertising boycott.
Boycott Cost X” billions of dollars in advertising revenue“According to the lawsuit.
WFA and GARM have vehemently denied wrongdoing. However, GARM shut down in August, citing the rising legal costs of its fight against Musk.
In October, X announced that it had Settlement reached with Unilever, one of the defendantsWhich had planned to resume advertising for its brands on the platform.
Antitrust claims against the other defendants are still pending.
