Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

[Seacoaster(1)]

This isn’t good business or even good or strategy just pathetic and a joke. More resources wasted in this dirt merchant.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertising Coalition Over ‘Massive’ Boycott
Companies unfairly targeted the social-media platform over safety standards, according to the lawsuit; ‘we tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,’ Musk says

Aug. 6, 2024 at 6:51 pm

The boycott began in November 2022 after Musk acquired Twitter, the lawsuit said. The coalition started the boycott due to a concern that Twitter would change its content and safety standards under Musk’s leadership, according to the complaint.

At least 18 brands associated with the coalition stopped advertising on Twitter from November 2022 through December 2022, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more of the coalition’s members cut back spending on ads through 2023.

X said the coalition violated antitrust laws by having its members agree to a boycott, which X called a “coercive exercise of market power.”

The companies cited in the X lawsuit were part of the World Federation of Advertisers group, which has dozens of members. The group has an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which pushes for safeguards to remove harmful content, such as child sexual abuse material and content promoting terrorism, so it isn’t placed next to ads from their members.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media noted “the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott,” the lawsuit said. “The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors.”

After acquiring the platform in 2022, Musk pledged to loosen content restrictions to encourage free speech. Outside researchers and critics have said Musk’s platform has allowed the proliferation of hateful and false content. The company has disputed such criticisms and has said it has made progress on reducing the spread of hateful content.

The World Federation of Advertisers and the other defendants didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit doesn’t resemble a typical antitrust claim, said Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in antitrust law.

“If people have simply switched purchasing ads from one platform to another, it’s not clear how that is going to be harming competition and ending up at higher prices,” he said.

In the complaint, X argues social-media platforms that comply with GARM’s standards are able to avoid competing on prices with X because those platforms “know that GARM-member advertisers and advertising agencies have agreed not to purchase advertising from Twitter (and now X).”

Over the last year in meetings on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and others, Musk complained about advertisers boycotting X and complained about Global Alliance for Responsible Media. In meetings Musk joked “GARM, it’s like HARM,” according to a person in attendance. In May, Jordan subpoenaed GARM for documents for evidence of anticonservative bias. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan is chairman of, published: “Garms Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.”


Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The lawsuit references that report, which found that GARM may have violated antitrust laws by withholding advertising spending from social-media platforms and conservative media outlets.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought the platform in 2022, partially in response to Musk’s inflammatory posts. Last year, several large advertisers ditched the platform after the billionaire described an antisemitic post as “the actual truth.” At a conference, he said advertisers pulling their ads from X can “go f— yourself.”

In multiple X posts on Tuesday, Musk urged companies who have faced advertising boycotts to also file lawsuits.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk said on X.

Musk has gotten more litigious in recent months. On Monday, he revived his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. X has sued watchdog group Media Matters for America, and is bankrolling a lawsuit against Disney. Musk is also facing lawsuits from Twitter employees he laid off and from Don Lemon, who briefly had a partnership deal with X.

From the archive: Elon Musk lashed out at advertisers boycotting X during an interview at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. The billionaire said anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising money could “go f— yourself.” Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, has been trying to persuade advertisers to return. With X’s lawsuit, the company is now trying to bring them back by force.

Yaccarino, in a video post addressed to X users, said “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

“They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future,” said Yaccarino, who was wearing a necklace that said “free speech.” “That puts your global town square, the one place you can express yourself freely and openly, at long term risk.”

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, said one issue with the X complaint is that it didn’t seem like advertisers pulled spending because they wanted to suppress competition.

“It seemed like they did so because they didn’t believe in the policies of X,” she said. If the primary purpose was to make that kind of a point, such action would be protected by the First Amendment, she added.

Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives, said Tuesday it was also filing antitrust lawsuits against companies that withheld advertising money.

X’s ad revenue fell sharply in the year after Musk bought the platform. Recently, though, Musk has touted his own internal metric which he claims shows record usage on X.

Elon Musk Inc.

More coverage of the billionaire entrepreneur and his businesses, selected by editors

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected], Joseph De Avila at [email protected], Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Alexa Corse at [email protected]

... Musk is a punch line to a joke. He is competing with Trump to be the world's biggest crybaby. He is an entitled a-hole.

Saw BBC news report of Musk working with far right protesters in Northern Ireland. Calling for a race war at worse, civil war at best. News reports mention’s government attempts to get ahead of nonsense and danger of social media platforms. Irish protesters want their country back.

Other nations are going to realize, if they don't already, that the First Amendment hamstrings the US federal government and states from acting forcefully against the criminal propaganda and mis- and dis-information, and start regulating twitter and Musk with a heavy hand. Musk's goal is to disable what he calls "legacy media" and have his platform fill the zone -- all the zones -- with turd.

[Typical Lax Dad]

This isn’t good business or even good or strategy just pathetic and a joke. More resources wasted in this dirt merchant.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertising Coalition Over ‘Massive’ Boycott
Companies unfairly targeted the social-media platform over safety standards, according to the lawsuit; ‘we tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,’ Musk says

Aug. 6, 2024 at 6:51 pm

The boycott began in November 2022 after Musk acquired Twitter, the lawsuit said. The coalition started the boycott due to a concern that Twitter would change its content and safety standards under Musk’s leadership, according to the complaint.

At least 18 brands associated with the coalition stopped advertising on Twitter from November 2022 through December 2022, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more of the coalition’s members cut back spending on ads through 2023.

X said the coalition violated antitrust laws by having its members agree to a boycott, which X called a “coercive exercise of market power.”

The companies cited in the X lawsuit were part of the World Federation of Advertisers group, which has dozens of members. The group has an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which pushes for safeguards to remove harmful content, such as child sexual abuse material and content promoting terrorism, so it isn’t placed next to ads from their members.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media noted “the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott,” the lawsuit said. “The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors.”

After acquiring the platform in 2022, Musk pledged to loosen content restrictions to encourage free speech. Outside researchers and critics have said Musk’s platform has allowed the proliferation of hateful and false content. The company has disputed such criticisms and has said it has made progress on reducing the spread of hateful content.

The World Federation of Advertisers and the other defendants didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit doesn’t resemble a typical antitrust claim, said Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in antitrust law.

“If people have simply switched purchasing ads from one platform to another, it’s not clear how that is going to be harming competition and ending up at higher prices,” he said.

In the complaint, X argues social-media platforms that comply with GARM’s standards are able to avoid competing on prices with X because those platforms “know that GARM-member advertisers and advertising agencies have agreed not to purchase advertising from Twitter (and now X).”

Over the last year in meetings on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and others, Musk complained about advertisers boycotting X and complained about Global Alliance for Responsible Media. In meetings Musk joked “GARM, it’s like HARM,” according to a person in attendance. In May, Jordan subpoenaed GARM for documents for evidence of anticonservative bias. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan is chairman of, published: “Garms Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.”


Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The lawsuit references that report, which found that GARM may have violated antitrust laws by withholding advertising spending from social-media platforms and conservative media outlets.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought the platform in 2022, partially in response to Musk’s inflammatory posts. Last year, several large advertisers ditched the platform after the billionaire described an antisemitic post as “the actual truth.” At a conference, he said advertisers pulling their ads from X can “go f— yourself.”

In multiple X posts on Tuesday, Musk urged companies who have faced advertising boycotts to also file lawsuits.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk said on X.

Musk has gotten more litigious in recent months. On Monday, he revived his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. X has sued watchdog group Media Matters for America, and is bankrolling a lawsuit against Disney. Musk is also facing lawsuits from Twitter employees he laid off and from Don Lemon, who briefly had a partnership deal with X.

From the archive: Elon Musk lashed out at advertisers boycotting X during an interview at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. The billionaire said anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising money could “go f— yourself.” Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, has been trying to persuade advertisers to return. With X’s lawsuit, the company is now trying to bring them back by force.

Yaccarino, in a video post addressed to X users, said “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

“They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future,” said Yaccarino, who was wearing a necklace that said “free speech.” “That puts your global town square, the one place you can express yourself freely and openly, at long term risk.”

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, said one issue with the X complaint is that it didn’t seem like advertisers pulled spending because they wanted to suppress competition.

“It seemed like they did so because they didn’t believe in the policies of X,” she said. If the primary purpose was to make that kind of a point, such action would be protected by the First Amendment, she added.

Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives, said Tuesday it was also filing antitrust lawsuits against companies that withheld advertising money.

X’s ad revenue fell sharply in the year after Musk bought the platform. Recently, though, Musk has touted his own internal metric which he claims shows record usage on X.

Elon Musk Inc.

More coverage of the billionaire entrepreneur and his businesses, selected by editors

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected], Joseph De Avila at [email protected], Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Alexa Corse at [email protected]

... Musk is a punch line to a joke. He is competing with Trump to be the world's biggest crybaby. He is an entitled a-hole.

Saw BBC news report of Musk working with far right protesters in Northern Ireland. Calling for a race war at worse, civil war at best. News reports mention’s government attempts to get ahead of nonsense and danger of social media platforms. Irish protesters want their country back.

Other nations are going to realize, if they don't already, that the First Amendment hamstrings the US federal government and states from acting forcefully against the criminal propaganda and mis- and dis-information, and start regulating twitter and Musk with a heavy hand. Musk's goal is to disable what he calls "legacy media" and have his platform fill the zone -- all the zones -- with turd.

The local BBC seemed to indicate the government is going to use a heavy hand. They implied he is working with some far right groups in England. Not just providing his platform. There was a particular group named and I didn’t write it down. What a turd.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/08/07/elo ... ts-grip-uk

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/far-r ... arliament/

I wonder if Youth circulated this stuff in an effort to share information at the dinner table as he put it.

[Farfromgeneva]

This isn’t good business or even good or strategy just pathetic and a joke. More resources wasted in this dirt merchant.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertising Coalition Over ‘Massive’ Boycott
Companies unfairly targeted the social-media platform over safety standards, according to the lawsuit; ‘we tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,’ Musk says

Aug. 6, 2024 at 6:51 pm

The boycott began in November 2022 after Musk acquired Twitter, the lawsuit said. The coalition started the boycott due to a concern that Twitter would change its content and safety standards under Musk’s leadership, according to the complaint.

At least 18 brands associated with the coalition stopped advertising on Twitter from November 2022 through December 2022, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more of the coalition’s members cut back spending on ads through 2023.

X said the coalition violated antitrust laws by having its members agree to a boycott, which X called a “coercive exercise of market power.”

The companies cited in the X lawsuit were part of the World Federation of Advertisers group, which has dozens of members. The group has an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which pushes for safeguards to remove harmful content, such as child sexual abuse material and content promoting terrorism, so it isn’t placed next to ads from their members.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media noted “the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott,” the lawsuit said. “The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors.”

After acquiring the platform in 2022, Musk pledged to loosen content restrictions to encourage free speech. Outside researchers and critics have said Musk’s platform has allowed the proliferation of hateful and false content. The company has disputed such criticisms and has said it has made progress on reducing the spread of hateful content.

The World Federation of Advertisers and the other defendants didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit doesn’t resemble a typical antitrust claim, said Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in antitrust law.

“If people have simply switched purchasing ads from one platform to another, it’s not clear how that is going to be harming competition and ending up at higher prices,” he said.

In the complaint, X argues social-media platforms that comply with GARM’s standards are able to avoid competing on prices with X because those platforms “know that GARM-member advertisers and advertising agencies have agreed not to purchase advertising from Twitter (and now X).”

Over the last year in meetings on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and others, Musk complained about advertisers boycotting X and complained about Global Alliance for Responsible Media. In meetings Musk joked “GARM, it’s like HARM,” according to a person in attendance. In May, Jordan subpoenaed GARM for documents for evidence of anticonservative bias. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan is chairman of, published: “Garms Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.”


Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The lawsuit references that report, which found that GARM may have violated antitrust laws by withholding advertising spending from social-media platforms and conservative media outlets.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought the platform in 2022, partially in response to Musk’s inflammatory posts. Last year, several large advertisers ditched the platform after the billionaire described an antisemitic post as “the actual truth.” At a conference, he said advertisers pulling their ads from X can “go f— yourself.”

In multiple X posts on Tuesday, Musk urged companies who have faced advertising boycotts to also file lawsuits.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk said on X.

Musk has gotten more litigious in recent months. On Monday, he revived his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. X has sued watchdog group Media Matters for America, and is bankrolling a lawsuit against Disney. Musk is also facing lawsuits from Twitter employees he laid off and from Don Lemon, who briefly had a partnership deal with X.

From the archive: Elon Musk lashed out at advertisers boycotting X during an interview at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. The billionaire said anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising money could “go f— yourself.” Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, has been trying to persuade advertisers to return. With X’s lawsuit, the company is now trying to bring them back by force.

Yaccarino, in a video post addressed to X users, said “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

“They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future,” said Yaccarino, who was wearing a necklace that said “free speech.” “That puts your global town square, the one place you can express yourself freely and openly, at long term risk.”

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, said one issue with the X complaint is that it didn’t seem like advertisers pulled spending because they wanted to suppress competition.

“It seemed like they did so because they didn’t believe in the policies of X,” she said. If the primary purpose was to make that kind of a point, such action would be protected by the First Amendment, she added.

Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives, said Tuesday it was also filing antitrust lawsuits against companies that withheld advertising money.

X’s ad revenue fell sharply in the year after Musk bought the platform. Recently, though, Musk has touted his own internal metric which he claims shows record usage on X.

Elon Musk Inc.

More coverage of the billionaire entrepreneur and his businesses, selected by editors

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected], Joseph De Avila at [email protected], Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Alexa Corse at [email protected]

... Musk is a punch line to a joke. He is competing with Trump to be the world's biggest crybaby. He is an entitled a-hole.

Saw BBC news report of Musk working with far right protesters in Northern Ireland. Calling for a race war at worse, civil war at best. News reports mention’s government attempts to get ahead of nonsense and danger of social media platforms. Irish protesters want their country back.

https://youtu.be/aXkZvv4DzxE?si=ZjlmKcIFE_b_AHEP

[Farfromgeneva]

This isn’t good business or even good or strategy just pathetic and a joke. More resources wasted in this dirt merchant.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertising Coalition Over ‘Massive’ Boycott
Companies unfairly targeted the social-media platform over safety standards, according to the lawsuit; ‘we tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,’ Musk says

Aug. 6, 2024 at 6:51 pm

The boycott began in November 2022 after Musk acquired Twitter, the lawsuit said. The coalition started the boycott due to a concern that Twitter would change its content and safety standards under Musk’s leadership, according to the complaint.

At least 18 brands associated with the coalition stopped advertising on Twitter from November 2022 through December 2022, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more of the coalition’s members cut back spending on ads through 2023.

X said the coalition violated antitrust laws by having its members agree to a boycott, which X called a “coercive exercise of market power.”

The companies cited in the X lawsuit were part of the World Federation of Advertisers group, which has dozens of members. The group has an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which pushes for safeguards to remove harmful content, such as child sexual abuse material and content promoting terrorism, so it isn’t placed next to ads from their members.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media noted “the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott,” the lawsuit said. “The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors.”

After acquiring the platform in 2022, Musk pledged to loosen content restrictions to encourage free speech. Outside researchers and critics have said Musk’s platform has allowed the proliferation of hateful and false content. The company has disputed such criticisms and has said it has made progress on reducing the spread of hateful content.

The World Federation of Advertisers and the other defendants didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit doesn’t resemble a typical antitrust claim, said Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in antitrust law.

“If people have simply switched purchasing ads from one platform to another, it’s not clear how that is going to be harming competition and ending up at higher prices,” he said.

In the complaint, X argues social-media platforms that comply with GARM’s standards are able to avoid competing on prices with X because those platforms “know that GARM-member advertisers and advertising agencies have agreed not to purchase advertising from Twitter (and now X).”

Over the last year in meetings on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and others, Musk complained about advertisers boycotting X and complained about Global Alliance for Responsible Media. In meetings Musk joked “GARM, it’s like HARM,” according to a person in attendance. In May, Jordan subpoenaed GARM for documents for evidence of anticonservative bias. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan is chairman of, published: “Garms Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.”


Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The lawsuit references that report, which found that GARM may have violated antitrust laws by withholding advertising spending from social-media platforms and conservative media outlets.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought the platform in 2022, partially in response to Musk’s inflammatory posts. Last year, several large advertisers ditched the platform after the billionaire described an antisemitic post as “the actual truth.” At a conference, he said advertisers pulling their ads from X can “go f— yourself.”

In multiple X posts on Tuesday, Musk urged companies who have faced advertising boycotts to also file lawsuits.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk said on X.

Musk has gotten more litigious in recent months. On Monday, he revived his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. X has sued watchdog group Media Matters for America, and is bankrolling a lawsuit against Disney. Musk is also facing lawsuits from Twitter employees he laid off and from Don Lemon, who briefly had a partnership deal with X.

From the archive: Elon Musk lashed out at advertisers boycotting X during an interview at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. The billionaire said anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising money could “go f— yourself.” Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, has been trying to persuade advertisers to return. With X’s lawsuit, the company is now trying to bring them back by force.

Yaccarino, in a video post addressed to X users, said “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

“They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future,” said Yaccarino, who was wearing a necklace that said “free speech.” “That puts your global town square, the one place you can express yourself freely and openly, at long term risk.”

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, said one issue with the X complaint is that it didn’t seem like advertisers pulled spending because they wanted to suppress competition.

“It seemed like they did so because they didn’t believe in the policies of X,” she said. If the primary purpose was to make that kind of a point, such action would be protected by the First Amendment, she added.

Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives, said Tuesday it was also filing antitrust lawsuits against companies that withheld advertising money.

X’s ad revenue fell sharply in the year after Musk bought the platform. Recently, though, Musk has touted his own internal metric which he claims shows record usage on X.

Elon Musk Inc.

More coverage of the billionaire entrepreneur and his businesses, selected by editors

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected], Joseph De Avila at [email protected], Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Alexa Corse at [email protected]

... Musk is a punch line to a joke. He is competing with Trump to be the world's biggest crybaby. He is an entitled a-hole.

Saw BBC news report of Musk working with far right protesters in Northern Ireland. Calling for a race war at worse, civil war at best. News reports mention’s government attempts to get ahead of nonsense and danger of social media platforms. Irish protesters want their country back.

Other nations are going to realize, if they don't already, that the First Amendment hamstrings the US federal government and states from acting forcefully against the criminal propaganda and mis- and dis-information, and start regulating twitter and Musk with a heavy hand. Musk's goal is to disable what he calls "legacy media" and have his platform fill the zone -- all the zones -- with turd.

The local BBC seemed to indicate the government is going to use a heavy hand. They implied he is working with some far right groups in England. Not just providing his platform. There was a particular group named and I didn’t write it down. What a turd.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/08/07/elo ... ts-grip-uk

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/far-r ... arliament/

I wonder if Youth circulated this stuff in an effort to share information at the dinner table as he put it.

Musk can get some of that Omagh love.

[PizzaSnake]

This isn’t good business or even good or strategy just pathetic and a joke. More resources wasted in this dirt merchant.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertising Coalition Over ‘Massive’ Boycott
Companies unfairly targeted the social-media platform over safety standards, according to the lawsuit; ‘we tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,’ Musk says

Aug. 6, 2024 at 6:51 pm

The boycott began in November 2022 after Musk acquired Twitter, the lawsuit said. The coalition started the boycott due to a concern that Twitter would change its content and safety standards under Musk’s leadership, according to the complaint.

At least 18 brands associated with the coalition stopped advertising on Twitter from November 2022 through December 2022, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more of the coalition’s members cut back spending on ads through 2023.

X said the coalition violated antitrust laws by having its members agree to a boycott, which X called a “coercive exercise of market power.”

The companies cited in the X lawsuit were part of the World Federation of Advertisers group, which has dozens of members. The group has an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which pushes for safeguards to remove harmful content, such as child sexual abuse material and content promoting terrorism, so it isn’t placed next to ads from their members.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media noted “the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott,” the lawsuit said. “The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors.”

After acquiring the platform in 2022, Musk pledged to loosen content restrictions to encourage free speech. Outside researchers and critics have said Musk’s platform has allowed the proliferation of hateful and false content. The company has disputed such criticisms and has said it has made progress on reducing the spread of hateful content.

The World Federation of Advertisers and the other defendants didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit doesn’t resemble a typical antitrust claim, said Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in antitrust law.

“If people have simply switched purchasing ads from one platform to another, it’s not clear how that is going to be harming competition and ending up at higher prices,” he said.

In the complaint, X argues social-media platforms that comply with GARM’s standards are able to avoid competing on prices with X because those platforms “know that GARM-member advertisers and advertising agencies have agreed not to purchase advertising from Twitter (and now X).”

Over the last year in meetings on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and others, Musk complained about advertisers boycotting X and complained about Global Alliance for Responsible Media. In meetings Musk joked “GARM, it’s like HARM,” according to a person in attendance. In May, Jordan subpoenaed GARM for documents for evidence of anticonservative bias. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan is chairman of, published: “Garms Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.”


Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The lawsuit references that report, which found that GARM may have violated antitrust laws by withholding advertising spending from social-media platforms and conservative media outlets.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought the platform in 2022, partially in response to Musk’s inflammatory posts. Last year, several large advertisers ditched the platform after the billionaire described an antisemitic post as “the actual truth.” At a conference, he said advertisers pulling their ads from X can “go f— yourself.”

In multiple X posts on Tuesday, Musk urged companies who have faced advertising boycotts to also file lawsuits.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk said on X.

Musk has gotten more litigious in recent months. On Monday, he revived his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. X has sued watchdog group Media Matters for America, and is bankrolling a lawsuit against Disney. Musk is also facing lawsuits from Twitter employees he laid off and from Don Lemon, who briefly had a partnership deal with X.

From the archive: Elon Musk lashed out at advertisers boycotting X during an interview at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. The billionaire said anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising money could “go f— yourself.” Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, has been trying to persuade advertisers to return. With X’s lawsuit, the company is now trying to bring them back by force.

Yaccarino, in a video post addressed to X users, said “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

“They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future,” said Yaccarino, who was wearing a necklace that said “free speech.” “That puts your global town square, the one place you can express yourself freely and openly, at long term risk.”

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, said one issue with the X complaint is that it didn’t seem like advertisers pulled spending because they wanted to suppress competition.

“It seemed like they did so because they didn’t believe in the policies of X,” she said. If the primary purpose was to make that kind of a point, such action would be protected by the First Amendment, she added.

Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives, said Tuesday it was also filing antitrust lawsuits against companies that withheld advertising money.

X’s ad revenue fell sharply in the year after Musk bought the platform. Recently, though, Musk has touted his own internal metric which he claims shows record usage on X.

Elon Musk Inc.

More coverage of the billionaire entrepreneur and his businesses, selected by editors

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected], Joseph De Avila at [email protected], Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Alexa Corse at [email protected]

... Musk is a punch line to a joke. He is competing with Trump to be the world's biggest crybaby. He is an entitled a-hole.

Saw BBC news report of Musk working with far right protesters in Northern Ireland. Calling for a race war at worse, civil war at best. News reports mention’s government attempts to get ahead of nonsense and danger of social media platforms. Irish protesters want their country back.

Other nations are going to realize, if they don't already, that the First Amendment hamstrings the US federal government and states from acting forcefully against the criminal propaganda and mis- and dis-information, and start regulating twitter and Musk with a heavy hand. Musk's goal is to disable what he calls "legacy media" and have his platform fill the zone -- all the zones -- with turd.

The local BBC seemed to indicate the government is going to use a heavy hand. They implied he is working with some far right groups in England. Not just providing his platform. There was a particular group named and I didn’t write it down. What a turd.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/08/07/elo ... ts-grip-uk

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/far-r ... arliament/

I wonder if Youth circulated this stuff in an effort to share information at the dinner table as he put it.

Governments can’t and eon’t tolerate the sort of existential threat he now represents. He will be neutralized.

[Farfromgeneva]

This isn’t good business or even good or strategy just pathetic and a joke. More resources wasted in this dirt merchant.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertising Coalition Over ‘Massive’ Boycott
Companies unfairly targeted the social-media platform over safety standards, according to the lawsuit; ‘we tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,’ Musk says

Aug. 6, 2024 at 6:51 pm

The boycott began in November 2022 after Musk acquired Twitter, the lawsuit said. The coalition started the boycott due to a concern that Twitter would change its content and safety standards under Musk’s leadership, according to the complaint.

At least 18 brands associated with the coalition stopped advertising on Twitter from November 2022 through December 2022, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more of the coalition’s members cut back spending on ads through 2023.

X said the coalition violated antitrust laws by having its members agree to a boycott, which X called a “coercive exercise of market power.”

The companies cited in the X lawsuit were part of the World Federation of Advertisers group, which has dozens of members. The group has an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which pushes for safeguards to remove harmful content, such as child sexual abuse material and content promoting terrorism, so it isn’t placed next to ads from their members.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media noted “the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott,” the lawsuit said. “The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors.”

After acquiring the platform in 2022, Musk pledged to loosen content restrictions to encourage free speech. Outside researchers and critics have said Musk’s platform has allowed the proliferation of hateful and false content. The company has disputed such criticisms and has said it has made progress on reducing the spread of hateful content.

The World Federation of Advertisers and the other defendants didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit doesn’t resemble a typical antitrust claim, said Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in antitrust law.

“If people have simply switched purchasing ads from one platform to another, it’s not clear how that is going to be harming competition and ending up at higher prices,” he said.

In the complaint, X argues social-media platforms that comply with GARM’s standards are able to avoid competing on prices with X because those platforms “know that GARM-member advertisers and advertising agencies have agreed not to purchase advertising from Twitter (and now X).”

Over the last year in meetings on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and others, Musk complained about advertisers boycotting X and complained about Global Alliance for Responsible Media. In meetings Musk joked “GARM, it’s like HARM,” according to a person in attendance. In May, Jordan subpoenaed GARM for documents for evidence of anticonservative bias. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan is chairman of, published: “Garms Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.”


Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The lawsuit references that report, which found that GARM may have violated antitrust laws by withholding advertising spending from social-media platforms and conservative media outlets.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought the platform in 2022, partially in response to Musk’s inflammatory posts. Last year, several large advertisers ditched the platform after the billionaire described an antisemitic post as “the actual truth.” At a conference, he said advertisers pulling their ads from X can “go f— yourself.”

In multiple X posts on Tuesday, Musk urged companies who have faced advertising boycotts to also file lawsuits.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk said on X.

Musk has gotten more litigious in recent months. On Monday, he revived his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. X has sued watchdog group Media Matters for America, and is bankrolling a lawsuit against Disney. Musk is also facing lawsuits from Twitter employees he laid off and from Don Lemon, who briefly had a partnership deal with X.

From the archive: Elon Musk lashed out at advertisers boycotting X during an interview at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. The billionaire said anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising money could “go f— yourself.” Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, has been trying to persuade advertisers to return. With X’s lawsuit, the company is now trying to bring them back by force.

Yaccarino, in a video post addressed to X users, said “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

“They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future,” said Yaccarino, who was wearing a necklace that said “free speech.” “That puts your global town square, the one place you can express yourself freely and openly, at long term risk.”

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, said one issue with the X complaint is that it didn’t seem like advertisers pulled spending because they wanted to suppress competition.

“It seemed like they did so because they didn’t believe in the policies of X,” she said. If the primary purpose was to make that kind of a point, such action would be protected by the First Amendment, she added.

Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives, said Tuesday it was also filing antitrust lawsuits against companies that withheld advertising money.

X’s ad revenue fell sharply in the year after Musk bought the platform. Recently, though, Musk has touted his own internal metric which he claims shows record usage on X.

Elon Musk Inc.

More coverage of the billionaire entrepreneur and his businesses, selected by editors

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected], Joseph De Avila at [email protected], Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Alexa Corse at [email protected]

... Musk is a punch line to a joke. He is competing with Trump to be the world's biggest crybaby. He is an entitled a-hole.

Saw BBC news report of Musk working with far right protesters in Northern Ireland. Calling for a race war at worse, civil war at best. News reports mention’s government attempts to get ahead of nonsense and danger of social media platforms. Irish protesters want their country back.

Other nations are going to realize, if they don't already, that the First Amendment hamstrings the US federal government and states from acting forcefully against the criminal propaganda and mis- and dis-information, and start regulating twitter and Musk with a heavy hand. Musk's goal is to disable what he calls "legacy media" and have his platform fill the zone -- all the zones -- with turd.

The local BBC seemed to indicate the government is going to use a heavy hand. They implied he is working with some far right groups in England. Not just providing his platform. There was a particular group named and I didn’t write it down. What a turd.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/08/07/elo ... ts-grip-uk

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/far-r ... arliament/

I wonder if Youth circulated this stuff in an effort to share information at the dinner table as he put it.

Governments can’t and eon’t tolerate the sort of existential threat he now represents. He will be neutralized.

[Farfromgeneva]

This isn’t good business or even good or strategy just pathetic and a joke. More resources wasted in this dirt merchant.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertising Coalition Over ‘Massive’ Boycott
Companies unfairly targeted the social-media platform over safety standards, according to the lawsuit; ‘we tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,’ Musk says

Aug. 6, 2024 at 6:51 pm

The boycott began in November 2022 after Musk acquired Twitter, the lawsuit said. The coalition started the boycott due to a concern that Twitter would change its content and safety standards under Musk’s leadership, according to the complaint.

At least 18 brands associated with the coalition stopped advertising on Twitter from November 2022 through December 2022, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more of the coalition’s members cut back spending on ads through 2023.

X said the coalition violated antitrust laws by having its members agree to a boycott, which X called a “coercive exercise of market power.”

The companies cited in the X lawsuit were part of the World Federation of Advertisers group, which has dozens of members. The group has an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which pushes for safeguards to remove harmful content, such as child sexual abuse material and content promoting terrorism, so it isn’t placed next to ads from their members.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media noted “the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott,” the lawsuit said. “The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors.”

After acquiring the platform in 2022, Musk pledged to loosen content restrictions to encourage free speech. Outside researchers and critics have said Musk’s platform has allowed the proliferation of hateful and false content. The company has disputed such criticisms and has said it has made progress on reducing the spread of hateful content.

The World Federation of Advertisers and the other defendants didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit doesn’t resemble a typical antitrust claim, said Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in antitrust law.

“If people have simply switched purchasing ads from one platform to another, it’s not clear how that is going to be harming competition and ending up at higher prices,” he said.

In the complaint, X argues social-media platforms that comply with GARM’s standards are able to avoid competing on prices with X because those platforms “know that GARM-member advertisers and advertising agencies have agreed not to purchase advertising from Twitter (and now X).”

Over the last year in meetings on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and others, Musk complained about advertisers boycotting X and complained about Global Alliance for Responsible Media. In meetings Musk joked “GARM, it’s like HARM,” according to a person in attendance. In May, Jordan subpoenaed GARM for documents for evidence of anticonservative bias. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan is chairman of, published: “Garms Harm: How The World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech.”


Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The lawsuit references that report, which found that GARM may have violated antitrust laws by withholding advertising spending from social-media platforms and conservative media outlets.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought the platform in 2022, partially in response to Musk’s inflammatory posts. Last year, several large advertisers ditched the platform after the billionaire described an antisemitic post as “the actual truth.” At a conference, he said advertisers pulling their ads from X can “go f— yourself.”

In multiple X posts on Tuesday, Musk urged companies who have faced advertising boycotts to also file lawsuits.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk said on X.

Musk has gotten more litigious in recent months. On Monday, he revived his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. X has sued watchdog group Media Matters for America, and is bankrolling a lawsuit against Disney. Musk is also facing lawsuits from Twitter employees he laid off and from Don Lemon, who briefly had a partnership deal with X.

From the archive: Elon Musk lashed out at advertisers boycotting X during an interview at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. The billionaire said anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising money could “go f— yourself.” Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, has been trying to persuade advertisers to return. With X’s lawsuit, the company is now trying to bring them back by force.

Yaccarino, in a video post addressed to X users, said “no small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

“They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future,” said Yaccarino, who was wearing a necklace that said “free speech.” “That puts your global town square, the one place you can express yourself freely and openly, at long term risk.”

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, said one issue with the X complaint is that it didn’t seem like advertisers pulled spending because they wanted to suppress competition.

“It seemed like they did so because they didn’t believe in the policies of X,” she said. If the primary purpose was to make that kind of a point, such action would be protected by the First Amendment, she added.

Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives, said Tuesday it was also filing antitrust lawsuits against companies that withheld advertising money.

X’s ad revenue fell sharply in the year after Musk bought the platform. Recently, though, Musk has touted his own internal metric which he claims shows record usage on X.

Elon Musk Inc.

More coverage of the billionaire entrepreneur and his businesses, selected by editors

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected], Joseph De Avila at [email protected], Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Alexa Corse at [email protected]

... Musk is a punch line to a joke. He is competing with Trump to be the world's biggest crybaby. He is an entitled a-hole.

Saw BBC news report of Musk working with far right protesters in Northern Ireland. Calling for a race war at worse, civil war at best. News reports mention’s government attempts to get ahead of nonsense and danger of social media platforms. Irish protesters want their country back.

Other nations are going to realize, if they don't already, that the First Amendment hamstrings the US federal government and states from acting forcefully against the criminal propaganda and mis- and dis-information, and start regulating twitter and Musk with a heavy hand. Musk's goal is to disable what he calls "legacy media" and have his platform fill the zone -- all the zones -- with turd.

The local BBC seemed to indicate the government is going to use a heavy hand. They implied he is working with some far right groups in England. Not just providing his platform. There was a particular group named and I didn’t write it down. What a turd.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/08/07/elo ... ts-grip-uk

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/far-r ... arliament/

I wonder if Youth circulated this stuff in an effort to share information at the dinner table as he put it.

Governments can’t and eon’t tolerate the sort of existential threat he now represents. He will be neutralized.

Mm I don’t know about that