Musk and Twitter have filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), Mars and Unilver.

Musk is trying to get his act together after Twitter became an increasingly questionable buy for the billionaire. He says there is a conspiracy against the platform after the WFA shook him down after taking over the site. This follows a hearing in the US House of Representatives last month on alleged collusion by the Global Alliance of Responsible Media (GARM). This is an initiative set up by the WFA, whose members include companies such as Electronic Arts, Twitch and Tiktok.

Linda Yaccarino, CEO of Twitter, said in a video with a lot of hand waving and slow speech (as if she was explaining to children) that she was shocked by the evidence uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee that a group of companies had engaged in a systematic, illegal boycott of the platform, and that this was unacceptable. As a result, WFA, GARM, Mars, Unilever, Orsted, and CVS were sued. In the rest of the video, Yaccarino talks about how the city’s central square, where we can express ourselves freely and openly, is now under long-term threat…

After Musk took over Twitter, he eliminated the moderation team, giving conspiracy theorists free rein. Last year, Media Matters reported that Apple’s ads were appearing alongside neo-Nazi content, prompting many companies to temporarily stop advertising (Sony, Warner, Ubisoft) before Twitter sued Media Matters, which will go to trial next April.

After the hearing in July, Unilever chairman Herrish Patel said that none of the platforms had a right to their advertising money, implying that advertisers had a right to protect their brand by advertising only on platforms that were harmless to them. The GARM initiative describes itself as a forum for creating solutions that improve online safety for both consumers and advertisers, and aims to create an ecosystem that leads to the removal of harmful content from advertiser-supported social media. Twitter says it complies.

Musk was more succinct: he said they had been trying to make peace for two years and now it was time for war…

Source: PCGamer, Media Matters, GARM

A Message to X Users pic.twitter.com/6bZOYPhWVa

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) August 6, 2024