After the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary released a report accusing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of colluding with companies to censor conservative voices online, Elon Musk chimed in. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote that X “has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators” behind an advertiser boycott on his platform.
“Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” Musk wrote, leading several X users to suggest that Musk wants it to be illegal for brands to refuse to advertise on X.
Among other allegations, Congress’ report claimed that GARM—which is part of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), whose members “represent roughly 90 percent of global advertising spend, or almost one trillion dollars annually”—directed advertisers to boycott Twitter shortly after Musk took over the platform.
Twitter/X’s revenue tanked after Musk’s takeover, with Bloomberg reporting last month that X lost almost 40 percent of revenue in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. That’s worse than prior estimates last May, which put Twitter’s loss around one-third of its total valuation. Ars chronicled the worst impacts of the ad boycott, including sharp drop-offs in the US, where an internal Twitter presentation leaked to The New York Times showed Twitter’s ad revenue was down by as much as 59 percent “for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May” in 2023.
Last year, Musk sued other “collaborators” in the X boycott, including hate speech researchers, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and Media Matters for America (MMFA). However, his suit against the CCDH was dismissed this March, and Media Matters has claimed that Musk filing his MMFA lawsuit in Texas may be “fatal” because of a jurisdictional defect.
TIL advertisement market is worth 1000 billion $.
Assuming 2 billion people owning an internet capable device, that’s 500 $ per person.
It’s estimated to be around 66% of the global population, or 5.35b people… so $186.92 per person
Guess my number was old. :(
We’re worth less now because they’ve already taken a bunch of our money.
Yes yes. We see that online people has gone from 2B -> 5.3B. Oopsie daisy my numbers must be out of date.
Meanwhile “what has capitalism ever done for humanity??”
Boycotts are speech. Calling for boycotts is speech. I’ve been told by every corporate leader and the Supreme Court that spending money is a form of speech. I would think that a free speech advocate would appreciate these things. Of course, like all outspoken libertarians, Musk’s positions are not well considered, consistent, nor actually libertarian when it doesn’t suit his own business or ideological* interests. This dude sucks at everything he does and his success perfectly demonstrates the fallacy of meritocracy in this society.
- usually racist
And now you know why he’s donating to the Trump campaign.
Because with the shift of power with project 2025 he can actually do this.
But if I call for slavers to get the blade, I’m somehow the bad guy.
Didn’t Musk tell his advertisers to leave the platform if they didn’t like Twitter anymore? Wouldn’t that alone make any tort dead upon filing?
Yeah it ties up a few billable hours but we’re not exactly talking about companies that can’t afford it.
Didn’t he tell them to “go fuck yourselves”?
Yeah, he said something like “You try to blackmail me? With money? Go fuck yourselves”.
Til not buying things is blackmailing companies
Say Elonald, why don’t you follow your own advice…?
But the free market…
advertising is the only competitive market left. I guess its easier for his ego to rationalize that everyone is teaming up against him than admit he’s a moron.
To that we say… Go fuck yourself?
As earth is my witness, I promise I did not do any drugs before coming here.
Earth will know the truth!
If we go bankrupt, it’s all those pesky customers running away. Just because we are Nazis. And now they are colluding against Nazism!
Man who claims hes a libertarian wants government to punish those who don’t give him money.
For something that isn’t a crime. Why are we feeding this troll attention? Let him fall off the face of the earth and all his “projects” fail.
fall off the face of the earth
It ain’t flat.
That’s what you took away from that comment? Man… shilling for Elon must be a literal job for you.
It ain’t fiat
Fuck round earth, fuck flat earth, I’m “Italian Sub Compact earth” all the way
With the way Tesla is tanking, I’ll say
If they were making shit up to get people to drop Twitter, maybe there’d be a case, and I half believe Musk believes his nonsense so believes they are.
But they aren’t.
Oh, nonono. You simply misunderstood him, because he’s such a genius. Didn’t you hear that he thinks he is literally the smartest engineer alive on this planet? Surely he’s not following suit of other nutjobs and simply trying to weaponize the judicial system in his favor because he essentially has unlimited money? This guy?? Nooooo…
He thinks he’s a lot of things. In reality, he’s just a living, breathing example of Dunning-Kruger in action.
He’s also now donating to Trump, who I believe absolutely will punish people for Musk, if elected.
So that is why he is donating to the Trump campaign. Best to get in the list of people he wishes to be persecuted sooner than later. Apparently it’s first come first serve.
Just as long as “serve” doesn’t mean “pay” because then it’s first come never serve.
I could have sworn I read that Musk was a free speech absolutist. Freedom for me but not for thee?
He certainly exercises his free speech to lie about his advocacy for free speech.
Musk wants freedom of speech for people. But his definition of “people” is very, very narrow.
Their obsession with “freeze peach” has always been a facade to their true desire which is to censor opposing viewpoints and make their viewpoints the only form of acceptable speech.
You’ll note that everything outside those bounds is “woke” and unacceptable
Nope he’s just a fascist hiding behind free speech.
He only believes in the first 22 words of the first amendment. If you want to speak about what he has done, or (far worse) gather with others that share your beliefs to speak extra loud… straight to jail.
I could of sworn I read that shit doesn’t actually stink, but the pile of emperic evidence has led me to believe otherwise.
This is the case with literally every conservative crowing about “free speech”. They want full freedom for themselves so that no matter what they say there can’t be any negative consequences or reactions, and everybody else can get fucked and die in an extermination camp
and the home of the braaaaaaave!
The power of maaaaanyyyyyyyyyy 🤮
*some terms and conditions apply, bravery not available in most areas
Cute of him to think he is as valuable as Israel
What do you mean by this? Elon is shit but he still has more value than a genocidal state running on hate imo.
Israel lobby made it illegal for US companies and government workers to boycott israel.
Ah okay, I figured I was misunderstanding what you meant.
What the actual fuck…
AIPAC lobbied for this shite and got it done…
Now remember this when your favourite daddy politicians tells you how congress can’t accomplish anything due to partisan grid lock ;)
I read a little on the wiki page you linked, and it seems it was in fact not passed.
The act consisted of House and Senate bills H.R. 1697 and S. 720 and died in Congress
I think I linked the wrong wiki
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/999
Here is the law.
Better wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
Looks criminal part is at the state level with 38 passing such laws.
Another day, another reason to be glad I live in Massachusetts!
If he doesn’t like being blackmailed he could always just fund Twitter himself.
I was really hoping someone else said it already, but… is this really “Technology news”? It’s about a billionaire and advertising on his social media website.
Social media’s impact on society is relevant to technology. I would even say it is one of the most important questions in relation to technology today. So, how an owner tries to silence criticisms of his social media site for spreading fascism seems relevant to me.
