EXPOSED: House Report Exposes Shadowy Corporate Coordination to Silence Breitbart News, Conservatives

3

For ads-free news, click here.

From Breitbart: The House Judiciary Committee released a damning report Wednesday morning with shocking details of corporate collusion to silence conservative viewpoints through targeting Breitbart News, Joe Rogan, and Twitter (now X) among others.

The committee released its report just hours before hearing testimony from Herrish Patel, President of Unilever USA, and Christian Juhl, Global Chief Executive Officer of GroupM. Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) alleges those companies, as members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media’s (GARM) Steer Team, may have violated antitrust laws in their efforts to deprive conservative media outlets and personalities as well as companies daring to platform conservative viewpoints of advertising dollars.

“Through GARM, large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members,” the report reads. “This collusion can have the effect of eliminating a variety of content and viewpoints available to consumers.”

In a series of posts on X, the House Judiciary Committee announced:

GARM’S HARM: HOW THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BRANDS CONTROL ONLINE SPEECH

Corporations, ad agencies, and associations through the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) participated in coordinated actions to demonetize content disfavored by GARM and its members.

Formed by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) in 2019, GARM claims that it was created to drive transparency in policies to help companies achieve “brand safety,” and even for the goal of stopping offline harm. However, GARM’s work has veered far from its claimed purpose.

GARM is powerful. Why? WFA members combine for almost $1 trillion annually in global ad spend. GARM includes every major ad agency holding company in its ranks, accounting for hundreds of ad agencies, and includes the world’s largest media buying agency in its leadership.

GARM members colluded to cut Twitter’s revenue after Elon Musk’s acquisition. As early as November of 2022, Danish energy company and GARM member Ørsted, contacted GARM to discuss “the Twitter situation” and “a possible boycott.”

GARM surveyed its members about @elonmusk’s acquisition of Twitter. GARM shared this info with its members in the context of a boycott. The survey results would give advertisers the confidence to pull ad campaigns w/o losing out to competitors.

Ørsted confirmed the boycott, writing: “Based on your recommendations, we have stopped all paid advertisement [on Twitter]…”

Rob Rakowitz, who leads GARM, denied organizing a boycott or recommending members stop advertising on Twitter. But he did take credit for Twitter’s revenue decline.

GARM went beyond brand safety to silence disfavored voices like @joerogan. A GARM Steer Team member accused Spotify of supporting Rogan’s spreading of anti-vax “misinfo.”

Why? Spotify’s CEO believed they should embrace differing opinions. Watch Rogan’s alleged comment below.

The GARM Steer Team member who had issues with Spotify was Joe Barone of GroupM. GroupM didn’t buy ads on Joe Rogan. Barone said so himself in an email. So, there wasn’t a “brand safety concern” for GroupM. They appear to have just wanted to silence Rogan’s views anyways.

GARM attacks disfavored outlets like @BreitbartNews, @realDailyWire, and @FoxNews to limit consumer choice. GroupM, a GARM member, explained to GARM’s Lead how it monitors media it doesn’t support, like Daily Wire, to find something wrong.

To classify news as “legitimate,” GARM approached orgs such as the Global Disinformation Index (GDI). GDI claims it’s neutral and independent, but docs reviewed by the Committee show how GDI consistently disfavors conservative sites.

GDI lists publications like BuzzFeed News and Huffpost as “least risky,” while publications like the New York Post and The Daily Wire as “riskiest.” GARM recommends its members work with orgs such as GDI to inform exclusion decisions.

This path and bias driven by GARM deprives news outlets that GARM dislikes of the ability to make money. Together with their membership, GARM & WFA can put specific news outlets out of business.

GARM and its members also uses its power to silence negative attention. Unilever, a GARM Steer Team member, met with TikTok about “misinformation” on the platform. What did Unilever flag to discuss? A video where an influencer gave Unilever a negative review of their shampoo.

So, what happens when GARM and its members are able to influence broad swaths of so-called misinformation policy online? The end result is more control by corporations of what consumers can say about products, less-informed consumers, and reduced competition for customers.

Now, GARM plans to push its framework using AI, which will result in automated censorship. The implications, if successful, will be the worldview of GARM and its leaders spread seamlessly across online platforms and news outlets—demonetizing views or voices that GARM dislikes.

Watch below as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) backs Patel and Juhl into a corner and forces the to admit they’ve never advertised on conservatives sites such as Daily Wire, they they have advertised on liberal leaning platforms like The View and the Washington Post.

2024-07-10 GARMs Harm – How… by Breitbart News

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

CLICK HERE FOR COMMENTS SECTION