I had to skim quite a few down the search results to find an article that described what it meant by suing for “illegal boycott” in more detail.
https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/elon-musk-x-sues-advertisers-garm-boycott-1236097110/
X’s lawsuit alleged that the advertisers’ “boycott” violated Section 1 the U.S.’s Sherman Act antitrust law, which broadly prohibits agreements among distinct actors that unreasonably restrain trade, “by withholding purchases of digital advertising from Twitter.”
“The conduct of Defendants and their co-conspirators alleged herein is per se illegal, or, in the alternative, illegal under the Rule of Reason or ‘quick look’ analytical framework,” the X lawsuit said. “There are no procompetitive effects of the group boycott, which was not reasonably related to, or reasonably necessary for, any procompetitive objectives of the GARM Brand Safety Standards.”
The “unlawful conduct” alleged by X is the subject of “an active investigation” by the House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary, the lawsuit said. The committee’s interim report issued on July 10 concluded that, “The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms. The information uncovered to date of WFA and GARM’s collusive conduct to demonetize disfavored content is alarming.”
If Musk is part of that collusion, then is it still a conspiracy?
He told them to fuck off, they fucked off.
But what would it even change? The businesses would no longer be able to make an explicit agreement, probably have to pay a fine, but can they be forced to advertise or will they just proceed to coincidentally all decide not to advertise without explicitly colluding?
This requires proof for collusion, does it not?
I would think. And if that proof exists, it will come up at the appropriate time during legal proceedings. I’m skeptical there is any.
I guess they could call the entire existence of GARM to be collusion; companies banding together to “punish” companies who don’t follow their guidelines. But X is (was?) a voluntary member of GARM, so it seems that would be a difficult argument for them to make without implicating themselves too.
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He can sue, but he won’t win in any sane court.
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They’d never even hear it. To give this lawsuit any credibility, they’d have to effectively say that businesses spending/donating money is not free speech. Which would effectively be the opposite of Citizens United.
Maybe they’ll say billionaires can sue as long as it’s an official act.
You think they give a shit about consistency?
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Even funnier, he literally told advertisers to go fuck themselves lol. Now he goes whining back to Mommy for new rules for his little kingdom.
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It would make an interesting precedent. Bud Light can then sue over the boycott with the whole LGBTQ thing because some didn’t buy their beer. Celebrities being cancelled can try to sue magazines for not running their articles or ads. It’s going to be such an unholy mess.
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Ah yes, the pinnacle of small govt: legislating how advertisers spend their money when they won’t spend that money on Republican platforms
he’s gonna sue twitter users for using adblockers on the site isn’t he?
I hope exhibit A of the defences evidence is Elon telling them all to go fuck themselves.
You can’t sue people for… making normal business decisions? You’d think Musk would understand that if he was a real businessman, LOL RIGHT he’s not.
ETA: He really is a 13yo in a 53yo body.
Elon’s temper tantrum…
One of the most poignant comments I’ve seen on this is it’s a ploy to draw attention from his PAC and other negative media
Dunno how much attention it’s gonna draw away from it when it inevitably comes out that his PAC funded the committee that turned over the “evidence” that’s being used to prop up his court case.
While I think it will have that effect, Musk isn’t smart enough to have thought about it that deeply.
Don’t underestimate him. He’s shown he’s a spoiled brat, but he’s not shown that he’s incapable of elaborate and spiteful plots to get his way.
A smart decision in his eyes might be a dumb one in ours but that doesn’t mean he’s actually stupid.
Writing him off as an idiot is a one way ticket to being blindsided while you’re distracted by something else.
But I do think he’s an idiot. There’s nothing to suggest he is intelligent beyond the average person, and many decisions he’s made that suggest he’s less intelligent.
Elon Musk: Your honor these mean jerks won’t pay to advertise in my nazi bar and it hurts my feels.
Musk being shocked they don’t like his Apartheid Ad Network.
He’s trying to claim that companies colluded to stop advertising on X and that violates antitrust laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_boycott
But it’s strange because this refusal to advertise on twitter doesn’t really harm competition in anyway. Concerted refusal to deal is supposed to be like when 3 big bad companies want to hurt a smaller competitive company so they get together and boycott any suppliers that deal with this competitor or force them to get a worse deal.
The companies GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) represents are big enough (90% of advertising $) but they aren’t really competitors to twitter. If say facebook and tiktok got together and told GARM they wouldn’t run any of their ads unless they stopped working with twitter that would be much more in the spirit of the law.
But Twitter might still have a tiny bit of a case if they can prove they met GARM’s standards but were still excluded anyway. I doubt that’s enough for any major payouts though unless the judge is crazy. And honestly I think it’s still dumb because even if GARM settles it just tells advertisers “Okay you can advertise on twitter if you want they meet our standards”…but are advertisers really going to want to advertise on the site that just sued them?
Also I don’t even think GARM prohibits members from advertising with companies it doesn’t recommend and just offers suggestions, which makes this case even more insane if that’s true. In that situation it’s like the health inspector gives a restaurant a “D” and the restaurant sues customers for not eating there anymore.
Don’t forget the customers of the restaurant also saw the head chef personally farting on all the plates before the food was placed on them. It’s not just the health inspector’s report.
This is hilarious.
Should every company, regardless of whether they’ve advertised on Twitter before, be federally mandated to spend a certain percentage of their advertising budget on Musk’s little shitshow?
What, exactly, is the solution he has in mind?
More government intervention in markets, because that’s what Republicans stand f- oh wait, er…
Advertising communism apparently. 🤣
Well it would go well together with the corporate socialism…
We gone full circle.
I remember when this was announced 2 years ago. Any update?
Former twitter is still shit.
You can sue your… customers, basically for choosing not to do business with you!?
Even if he wins a one-time payment (no way), how could this do anything but make everyone not want to advertise on Twitter??
You don’t understand. Bad publicity is good publicity.
Or maybe, in this particular case… No publicity.
No publicity is good bad publicity like… Well yeah you might have a point there
Elon is the dumbest genius 🤦♂️
I can’t wrap my head around the ridiculousness of it. Or grasp why some US political figures are lapping it up.
Imagine McDonald’s suing you because you didn’t buy enough big macs this quarter. It’s crazy. You’re not automatically entitled to having customers.
Please drink verification can
To quote Legal Eagle on Nebula: it depends. Suppose that the customers had a deal with Twitter granting them special pricing, but on the condition that they spend a certain amount during a given period. Then the customers could be breaching the terms of the contract by dropping out halfway through. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here, and IANAL of course, but it seems plausible to me.
So what you are thinking is all the media outlets are so shit they didn’t read the case and none of them found it saying, breach of contract. Could be true with how a lot of reporting goes these days, but why would the lawyers for X have not just said, this suit is about breach of contract, not conspiracy to boycott a poor billionaire’s company he is embezzling money to through Tesla?
I haven’t read the case either. But what I do know is the news media isn’t always as nuanced in their reporting of court cases, as the cases warrants.
If that is the case here I don’t know. Musk is a POS, so everything is definitely possible. All I’m saying is that if it actually is a breach of contract, then Musk could have a case.
But imagine signing a contract, where you have to buy a set amount of advertising, with no clause about the site’s conduct and reputation.
You can in case of protected group discrimination sue the business, but suing customers is something new.
A House Republican lead committee said that the boycott is illegal but also said they don’t know if there’s really a law against it.
Republicans: Corporations should have freedom of expression (Citizens United)!
Also Republicans: Corporations shouldn’t be able to choose what platforms to run ads on!
I can sue X for not advertising on the my Instagram page then? Lol.
Who does he think he is, Israel?
Takes one apartheid asshole to recognize another eh? Lol
