Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro is testifying to Congress on Wednesday for a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the alleged conspiracy to suppress conservative voices under the guise of “brand safety.”
A report was released by the committee early Wednesday morning outlining how member organizations of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, or GARM, colluded to demonetize disfavored online content. The report also uncovers apparent political bias by those driving the effort, with the founder of GARM privately espousing “anti-democratic views of fundamental American freedoms,” including free speech.
Shapiro’s testimony will expose the political motivations behind this censorship, its impact on media freedom, and the failed attempts to silence outlets like The Daily Wire, Fox News, and Breitbart, as well as figures such as Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Donald Trump.
The hearing will be streamed in full below:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) condemned GARM in his opening statement, saying that it has engaged in “coordinated actions that harm consumers by limiting the choices available to Americans.”
“They came together, agreed to limit advertising on certain platforms that millions of Americans choose to watch, read, or listen to,” Jordan added.
He also noted that they have a bias against conservative organizations like The Daily Wire. “These people do not like conservatives. Again, do not take my word for it, here’s what employees at GroupM said to GARM’s leader about Fox News, The Daily Wire, and Breitbart News,” Jordan said before quoting individuals who said “they hated their ideology,” when discussing removing advertisements from conservative sites.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D, NY), the ranking Democrat on the committee, defended GARM in his opening statement, saying it was necessary to keep “racist” content off the Internet, and suggested that The Daily Wire and similar sites are full of “hate speech” and “violent propaganda.”
Flanked by a pink-haired assistant, Nadler said it was a “conspiracy theory” that conservative content was being censored. He lauded the size of The Daily Wire’s audience and business success, arguing that there is no evidence it has been throttled.
“Imagine what he could do if GARM wasn’t targeting the Daily Wire,” Jordan said following Nadler’s remarks.
Shapiro’s testimony detailed how GARM colluded to demonetize conservative commentators and news organizations like The Daily Wire.
Watch @benshapiro‘s opening statement in the House Judiciary Committee: pic.twitter.com/S0i47n7Vvl
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 10, 2024
“There is in fact an informal pressure system created by Democratic legislators, this White House, legacy media, advertisers, and pseudo-objective brand safety organizations,” Shapiro asserted. “That system guarantees that advertising dollars flow only to left-wing media brands.”
Democrats took aim at Shapiro during questioning. Rep. Pramila Jayapal attacked Ben Shapiro over his views, accusing him of making “hateful” statements.
“One of our witnesses has repeatedly made hateful and derogatory comments about LGBTQ+ people in the past,” Jayapal said. “Mr. Shapiro has argued that transgender and gay Americans suffer from a psychological disorder or mental illness and has denigrated same-sex couples raising children. I and my fellow Americans consider this deeply offensive.”
Shapiro was not given a chance to respond.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) fired off a series of questions to Shapiro focused on a variety of social issues, including abortion and gay marriage.
@RepSwalwell attempts to spar with @benshapiro. It doesn’t end well for the China’s spy guy.
FULL EXCHANGE: pic.twitter.com/Cb7Jz8hgPS
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 10, 2024
Shapiro mocked the repeated mentions of Project 2025 by Democrats in his exchange with Swalwell. “It seems that Democrats on this committee think that—sort of like Peter Pan and Tinkerbell—if they say Project 2025 enough, their presidential candidate becomes alive again,” Shapiro said.
After the exchange, a Republican member of the committee apologized to Shapiro for Swalwell’s line of questioning on Shapiro’s religious beliefs.
In an exchange with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Shapiro argued that it’s the secrecy of the coordinated effort that he takes issue with.
“If they simply wish to levy a boycott against a right-wing source, they should simply say that’s what they’re doing,” Shapiro said. “Hiding behind fake standards in order to project objectivity is a major problem in transparency for the market.”
Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) said The Daily Wire is a “reflection of mainstream ideas and conservative thought” and does not have anything to do with the objectionable content that Democrats and the witnesses keep trying to move the focus to, such as terrorist content and child porn.
Shapiro challenged his fellow witnesses on the panel from the ad industry to “name a single conservative host who they would deem to be ‘brand safe’ for their advertisers.” The ad executives were unable to provide any.
Jordan highlighted during the hearing communications from a Global Brand Safety official with GroupM, who in a discussion about conservative news outlets Breitbart and The Daily Wire, said: “As much as we hated their ideology and bulls**t, we couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion.” His solution was closely monitoring the outlets until they slipped up.
Montgomery went on to say in the emails: “I don’t know The Daily Wire that well, but I imagine most of our clients wouldn’t want to be on either side of politically divisive content, so they probably block them anyway,” the emails provided by Jordan went on to read. “We should watch them carefully to make sure they don’t stoop below the GARM floor. If we block DW – why wouldn’t we blocking Fox News?”
The CEO of GroupM, Christian Juhl, claimed in his testimony that advertisers simply don’t want their content to be near “divisive” content that alienates their audience.
Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) grilled Juhl on the email from Montgomery about how the company “hated their ideology.”
“What ideology of Daily Wire and Breitbart does your company hate exactly?” Moore asked Juhl.
“Um, it’s not an ideology that they’re talking about and John Montgomery no longer works at the company,” Juhl responded after a long silence.
“He said ‘we hated their ideology’ in quotes so what do you think, if he wasn’t talking about ideology exactly what did he mean by that?” Moore Fired back.
“I think that’s an individual viewpoint that he was espousing, it’s not the firm’s decision, it’s not Group M’s position, and I can’t speak for GARM directly,” Juhl responded.
“That letter does use the first person plural as in ‘we,’ as opposed to ‘I,’ so the idea that he was speaking solely on his own behalf, while also I believe in that email signing with his corporate title at the bottom of the email, it sort of beggars belief that this is non-representative of the generalized worldview of the company,” Shapiro said.
The hearing wrapped up shortly before 2:00 p.m.