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.
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.
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.
fall off the face of the earth
It ain’t flat.
It ain’t fiat
Fuck round earth, fuck flat earth, I’m “Italian Sub Compact earth” all the way
That’s what you took away from that comment? Man… shilling for Elon must be a literal job for you.
He’s also now donating to Trump, who I believe absolutely will punish people for Musk, if elected.
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.
Meanwhile, toilets lobby to jail everyone that refuses to eat out of them.
If he doesn’t like being blackmailed he could always just fund Twitter himself.
But if I call for slavers to get the blade, I’m somehow the bad guy.
Lol
But the free market…
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.
Let’s just start with deporting two illegal immigrants from South Africa and see how that feels first.
The video shows Kimbal talking about Zip2, the company Elon founded in 1995, and the challenge of raising money in the 1990s. The two men were amazed that anyone would invest $3 million in their company.
“In fact, when they did fund us, they realized that we were illegal immigrants,” Kimball says in the video.
“Well, I mean…” Elon says.
“Yes, we were,” Kimbal replies.
“I’d say it was a gray area,” Elon insists as the crowd laughs.
“We were illegal immigrants…” Kimbal says, continuing his story about how they were sleeping in an office when raising money from venture capitalists.
-Milken Institute interview, May 2013>
Everyone knows that only counts if you’re brown
New law, everyone must be nice to me :(
What’s this? Another petty tyrant king demanding taxes from his serfs? These billionaires are fucked up in the head. They can’t just sit back, killing their livers, getting drunk and wasted on drugs on their yachts. No, they have to bend the world to their will at the expense of everyone else living in it. Even then, that isn’t enough.
Wasn’t he crying that he can’t be extorted with money or something? Fucking cry baby.
Dude literally told advertisers to go fuck themselves and is now like “well wait, I didn’t mean it like that” lmao
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!
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.
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.
