President Donald Trump’s top consumer protection and antitrust official has approved a massive $13.5 billion merger that will reshape the advertising industry, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin of coordination against outlets based on their political viewpoints.
The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday morning that it has decided not to block a merger between Omnicom and IPG, two rival firms which together make up a third of the world’s “Big Six” advertising agencies. But rather than rubber stamp the deal, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson extracted a major concession: the firms have agreed to cease all coordination related to viewpoint discrimination, refrain from any coordination in the future, and submit to strict compliance mandates.
Ferguson on Monday in his <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/omnicom-ipg-ferguson-statement_0.pdf">official statement on the decision</a> said the firms have offered not only to cease coordination in any way that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on political viewpoints, but to cooperate with the FTC’s investigation into past collusion and submit to regular compliance reviews.
The FTC appeared poised to block the merger based on evidence of past “anticompetitive” coordination against conservative news organizations, an issue the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/technology/ftc-investigation-advertising-boycotts.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commission is actively investigating</a>. Ferguson on Monday pointed the finger at the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, better known as GARM, which was disbanded in controversy after it was caught directing ad dollars away from right-of-center outlets, including The Daily Wire.
“A Congressional investigation concluded that GARM banded together the most powerful firms in their industry to choke off the vital advertising revenue of those who disagreed with them,” Ferguson said in a Monday statement, adding that GARM aimed “to destroy publishers of content of which they disapproved.”
“GARM was neither the beginning nor the end of harmful and potentially unlawful collusion in this industry,” Ferguson said, a reference to concerns that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-jim-jordan-investigating-ad-industry-attempt-to-create-new-garm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GARM would reconstitute itself</a>.  “Numerous other industry groups and private organizations have publicly sought to use the chokepoint of the advertising industry to effect political or ideological goals.”
The conditions proposed by the companies, however, “mitigate” the FTC’s concerns about politically-motivated collusion in the future.
“Today, Omnicom and IPG have committed themselves to help stop that sort of coordination in their industry,” Ferguson said. “This consent agreement will help mitigate the dangers inherent in a consolidated national advertising market.”
“I hope the conditions imposed on this merger will encourage all advertising firms to adopt similar practices and thereby reduce the temptation to collude to the detriment of their customers, independent journalists, small and independent media companies, consumers, and the American public square,” he concluded.
GARM came under fire in 2024 after a congressional investigation, first reported by The Daily Wire, uncovered overt political bias in the advertising coalition that was being used to keep ad dollars away from websites that weren’t deemed “brand safe.”
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/garm-exposed-house-judiciary-report-says-ad-coalition-broke-law-to-silence-conservatives" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GARM Exposed: House Judiciary Report Says Ad Coalition Likely Broke Law To Silence Conservatives</a>
Internal emails from ad executives involved in the coalition, which included both Omnicom and IPG, showed that The Daily Wire was put on a “High Risk exclusion list” and “categorized as Conspiracy Theories.” Other emails show that the highest ranking official derided people “advocating for freedom of speech online” and complained that the Constitution was written “by white men exclusively.”
Daily Wire Editor Emeritus and co-founder Ben Shapiro testified to Congress that GARM was a “cartel,” and effectively made it impossible for conservatives to run an ad-based business.
“GARM acts as a cartel,” Shapiro said. “Its members account for 90 percent of ad spending in the United States–almost $1 trillion. In other words, if you’re not getting ad dollars from GARM members, it’s nearly impossible to run an ad-based business.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/04Q1cPX9n9c?si=qbfxzrpn9nfP3ZEB" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
The concessions by Omnicom and IPG — which, once merged, will represent the largest ad firm in the world — are a sea change for the ad industry.
While individual companies are certainly still able to decide where they’d like to advertise, it has become standard practice in recent years for the industry to move in concert. Rather than making individual decisions, the industry giants created blacklists using biased third party “misinformation” services such as Newsguard. Entire business sectors would cut off access to disfavored publications based on exclusion lists that became industry standard.
According to the consent decree issued by the FTC on Monday, the firms have agreed to submit annual compliance reports on the matter of coordination for the next five years, as well as spot compliance reports any time the FTC requests one.
The FTC is urging publishers to alert the commission if they believe they are the “object of unlawful collusion.”
The agreement also stipulates that the firms will cooperate with the FTC on all past coordination to boycott publishers based on viewpoint.
“This Agreement requires Omnicom and IPG to cooperate with the Commission in any investigation relating to media-buying services,” Ferguson said, adding that “investigating and policing censorship practices that run afoul of the antitrust laws is a top priority of the Trump-Vance FTC.”
It is unclear whether the other four major ad firms — Publicis, WPP, Dentsu, and Havas — will take action regarding their own practices following the change by Omnicom and IPG. The ad industry has been gathered at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, where the potential merger was certainly a main topic of discussion.
The public will have 30 days to submit comments to the FTC on the merger decision.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson Testifies During House Hearing

EXCLUSIVE: Trump FTC Secures Landmark Agreement to End Political Collusion in Advertising Industry

advertising

Censorship

Federal Trade Commission

Ferguson

GARM

It’s not an exaggeration to say that conservative shareholder engagement is changing the corporate game. For years, Left-wing activists controlled the agendas at our largest companies, using not only their leverage as stockholders but their perpetual devotion to activism to get in the ear of America’s boards and directors. The result? Leftward drift in virtually every major company. But now conservative shareholders, from ordinary investors to major conservative nonprofits, are stepping into the game — and their engagements are bearing major fruit. The latest proof? IBM.
IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-daily-wire-addresses-the-ad-industry-following-the-fall-of-garm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">keep ad revenue away</a> from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced. After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1734374423124176944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1734374423124176944%7Ctwgr%5E42e55266e59ec08d85550be6ab044097866bd072%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdallasexpress.com%2Fbusiness-markets%2Fceo-of-tech-corp-ibm-enshrines-dei-hiring%2F">hot mic</a> discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have “got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point” in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/missouri-attorney-general-sues-tech-giant-ibm-alleging-discrimination-against-whites-asians-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.
IBM’s motto since its early years has been “THINK,” referring to the innovative spirit with which the company solves problems. Yet when it came to political bias, that motto was missing in action — and shareholders took notice. In January, the firm I work for, Bowyer Research, began <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-expands-efforts-hold-corporate-america-accountable-end-its-discriminatory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">work</a> with the Heritage Foundation to hold IBM accountable for the DEI quotas that Krishna described. The argument? Simple — use of non-meritocratic quotas based on race and gender aren’t just bad for reputation, but illegal on their face and bad for business. Shareholders, from major nonprofits to ordinary mom-and-pop investors, shouldn’t have their business returns impacted by IBM’s belief in identity politics.
As the shareholder engagement heated up on the internal front, pressure from <a href="https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far" target="_blank" rel="noopener">journalists</a> and <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1910425361034383545" target="_blank" rel="noopener">influencers</a> like Robby Starbuck increased on the external front. That pressure built and built — and the release began earlier this month, when IBM announced the end of many of its DEI initiatives and related goals, including the elimination of its diversity council, the phaseout of its supplier diversity initiatives, and no longer participating in surveys put out by radical corporate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activist groups</a> like the Human Rights Campaign, which pressures companies to cover puberty blocker access for employees’ children in the name of “health care access.”
That would have been news enough — until several days ago, when IBM also <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-secures-commitment-viewpoint-neutrality-ibm-encourages-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> to include viewpoint neutrality as part of its advertising policy in response to Heritage’s shareholder engagement. That means that biased, activist-driven, political censorship that ad cartels like GARM perpetuate is now explicitly banned under IBM corporate policy. IBM listened to its shareholders, its employees, and its customers — and the result is another company willing to make commitments to political neutrality. This is what happens when authentic shareholder advocacy, championing political neutrality, merges with external pressure to drop corporate bias: change happens, and happens in the form of concrete policy commitments, not just boilerplate PR statements. It’s a praiseworthy step.
But is the scrutiny over? Absolutely not. IBM needs to demonstrate that they’re committed to actually staying the course on being politically-neutral and quota-free. Outstanding questions remain. During our engagement on behalf of Heritage, the company <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/corpfin/no-action/14a-8/heritageibm3325-14a8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notably claimed</a> to the SEC that they couldn’t give a definition of DEI as grounds to ignore shareholder concerns — so how did they go from not knowing what DEI is to getting rid of it? (You can probably guess how.) The company holds its annual meeting of shareholders today, and if they’re savvy will make a point of focusing their messaging on business, not activism.
Achieving the commitment to neutrality at IBM was the result of a myriad of groups, from shareholders like Heritage to <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/sec-sides-with-adf-denies-absurd-attempt-from-govt-contractor-ibm-to-hide-from-shareholders-on-dei-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal giants</a> like Alliance Defending Freedom to the courageous IBM employees willing to speak out about the bias behind the scenes. And it’s going to take all of those groups to be vigilant now — not paying attention to our boardrooms is what got us into the woke mess in the first place.
This is the next phase of rooting out bias and wokeness from corporate America — watching tirelessly to see whether companies that commit to ditching DEI are actually willing to put their messaging and money where their mouths are. Smart companies will be willing to commit to change. Foolish ones will hope to either avoid scrutiny altogether or reintroduce the same tired DEI policies under the guise of <a href="https://www.shrm.org/executive-network/insights/time-to-add-b-for-belonging-to-workplace-dei-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">phrases</a> like “belonging.” It’s our job, as shareholders, as customers, and as Americans, to keep up the pressure for accountability with the leverage that we’ve been given. And above all, to make the case for what truly makes every company successful: the courage to resist activism and the fortitude to focus on business.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Traders On The Floor Of The New York Stock Exchange As Fed Chair Powell Holds New Conference

IBM Rolls Back DEI, Commits To Political Neutrality

Business

Diversity

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Dow Jones

Heritage Foundation

Human Rights Campaign

Opinion

Robby Starbuck

Stock Market

Wall Street

Woke Culture

After being a major part of a global network of companies that cracked down on conservative speech in the name of so-called misinformation, credit card giant Mastercard is committing that it will not make marketing or branding decisions based on third-parties, according to emails obtained by The Daily Wire. 
 The announcement comes after a group of investors represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom were prepping a resolution targeting the credit card company over its involvement with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media or GARM. Mastercard will release a new company policy in the coming months making clear that third-party views will not influence branding or marketing decisions, the company told the Alliance Defending Freedom this week.
GARM, which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leftist-censorship-cartel-garm-disbands-following-musk-lawsuit-ben-shapiro-testimony" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disbanded</a> in August 2024, a month after its leaders were<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-here-ben-shapiro-testifies-to-congress-on-censorship-updated-live"> called in to testify to Congress</a>, was an organization founded by the World Federation of Advertisers to ensure that companies only advertised with media outlets deemed “responsible.” In the name of this goal, GARM targeted podcasters like Joe Rogan, platforms like Elon Musk’s X, and conservative outlets like The Daily Wire, according to a congressional <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-07-10%20GARMs%20Harm%20-%20How%20the%20Worlds%20Biggest%20Brands%20Seek%20to%20Control%20Online%20Speech.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigation</a>. The Daily Wire&#8217;s Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro testified that the aim of the advertising coalition was to &#8220;throttle viewpoints&#8221; that Democrat legislators and the Biden administration did not like.
After meetings with Alliance Defending Freedom lawyers, Mastercard, which was on the board of the World Federation of Advertisers that oversaw GARM, now says that it alone will determine its marketing and branding strategy. 
“We advance our marketing priorities with a close eye on the value delivered to our brand, the interest and relevance to the intended audience, and whether the media channel/platform supports our ability to deliver new and unique experiences to the end consumer,” a copy of the policy viewed by The Daily Wire says. “Mastercard alone makes decisions on our brand and our marketing activities, independent of any third-party views.”
That came after Inspire Investing, a Christian investment company represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, met with Mastercard to discuss a proposed shareholder resolution to call for an investigation over Mastercard’s involvement with GARM. 
A draft of the resolution viewed by The Daily Wire called for Mastercard to evaluate “how it oversees risks related to discrimination against ad buyers and sellers based on their political or religious status or views.”
After Mastercard agreed to distance itself from third-party organizations, Inspire Investing and Alliance Defending Freedom agreed to withdraw the resolution. 
“This is a meaningful step forward for Mastercard,” Inspire Investing Director of Corporate Engagement Tim Schwarzenberger told The Daily Wire. “We appreciate Mastercard’s willingness to engage with shareholders and make this important commitment to making decisions independent of third-party influences. It’s a positive step for free speech, religious freedom, and ultimately for all Mastercard stakeholders.”
After publication of this story, a Mastercard spokesman told The Daily Wire that the policy &#8220;reinforced our long-standing practices related to decision making on our marketing activities&#8221; in &#8220;conversations related to this proposal.&#8221;
The spokesman also attempted to distance the credit card company from GARM, saying, &#8220;While two members of our marketing team had participated in separate working groups, they were not aware of specific GARM plans or coordinated activities.&#8221;
Mastercard&#8217;s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Raja Rajamannar, who served as president of the World Federation of Advertisers while GARM was in operation, and regularly touted the work of GARM as a positive step for the advertising industry. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPJ8OmWwhN8&amp;t=90s">video posted to a Mastercard YouTube channel</a>, Rajamannar urged &#8220;every CMO&#8221; to join GARM.
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Jeremy Tedesco, the senior vice President of corporate engagement at Alliance Defending Freedom, said the new policy from Mastercard represented a major win for conservative customers.
“MasterCard, their business purpose is to make sure that people can transact funds. And that&#8217;s it. And that’s what they should be doing,” he told The Daily Wire. “They shouldn’t be taking their ad buying power and trying to shut down people they disagree with in the marketplace of ideas.”
He also said that it was a necessary step to hold companies accountable that supported the censorship of conservatives. 
“They used their ad buying power in collaboration with other major corporations to suppress conservative and religious content online,” he told The Daily Wire. “It’s really critical that these companies are held accountable for collaborating in that way, in collaborating with people who want to stop so-called misinformation and hate speech from appearing on the internet.”
He said that Alliance Defending Freedom has filed over 70 shareholder resolutions, had over 50 meetings with corporate leaders, and obtained 13 policy behavior changes this corporate season.
This piece has been updated to include comment from Mastercard and additional context.

Mastercard Credit Card

Mastercard, Facing Pressure Over Role In Global Censorship Effort, Agrees To Major Change

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

credit card

Mastercard

Less than two months after the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) imploded amid allegations that it amounted to major corporations colluding to censor political opponents, a congressman warned that a new group may be picking up the mantle, a letter exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
Dentsu, a Japanese public relations company that was a founding member of GARM, has created the “Dentsu Coalition,” which says it wants to boost “credible news.” The 614 Group, an advertising consulting firm, is co-leading the coalition, which it said aims to “ensure that journalism … thrives by leveraging the collective power of the [ad] industry’s foremost players.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a letter Thursday to Dentsu Americas CEO Michael Komasinski that “The Dentsu Coalition appears to be pursuing objectives similar to GARM’s. Before dissolving, GARM routinely attempted to delineate which news outlets were credible enough to receive” advertising dollars. At its founding, GARM said it was <a class="c-link" href="https://wfanet.org/knowledge/item/2019/06/18/Global-Alliance-for-Responsible-Media-launches-to-address-digital-safety" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://wfanet.org/knowledge/item/2019/06/18/Global-Alliance-for-Responsible-Media-launches-to-address-digital-safety" data-sk="tooltip_parent">led by</a> &#8220;Experts at Dentsu, GroupM, IPG, Publicis Media, and Omnicom Media Group, representing media agencies.&#8221;
GARM pushed members — including some of America’s largest companies and major advertisers — to defer to third-party media-rating organizations to evaluate which news sources were “credible.” Those organizations, in turn, often had left-wing biases and connections to the government. One listed mainstream papers like the New York Post and the Washington Examiner as not “credible” enough to be advertised on.
In early August, GARM announced that it was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leftist-censorship-cartel-garm-disbands-following-musk-lawsuit-ben-shapiro-testimony" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disbanding,</a> crippled by legal fees, and having attracted the very controversy it said it would avoid for its clients by keeping them unassociated with conservative-leaning media.
“Under the Sherman Act, Dentsu’s coordinated actions may be illegal, regardless of ‘[t]he social justifications proffered for [the] restraint of trade.&#8217; As outlined in the Committee’s report, the anticompetitive effects of GARM’s actions were severe,&#8221; Jordan wrote in the <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/10/2024-10-03-JDJ-to-Dentsu.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a>. &#8220;Initiatives like GARM starve disfavored news outlets of crucial funding. News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson highlighted this anticompetitive conduct when he stated on a recent company earnings call, &#8216;GARM[’s] harm is real&#8217; thanks to &#8216;coordinated boycott[s] of media platforms perceived to be unfashionable by illiberal liberals.’”
The letter demands that Dentsu produce any documents related to it taking over GARM activities. Dentsu will be responding to the Committee imminently and will not be commenting prior to such a response.
GARM emails obtained by Jordan&#8217;s committee revealed that its leader consulted with advertising mega-firm and GARM member GroupM about The Daily Wire. A GroupM “brand safety” executive, Joe Barone — in an email replete with a rainbow and the phrase “black lives matter” — said, “Fyi we have Daily Wire on our Global High Risk exclusion list, categorized as Conspiracy Theories …”
Another GroupM “brand safety” executive, John Montgomery, said there was “an interesting parallel here with Breitbart,” in which purported &#8220;misinformation&#8221; rules could be used as a pretext for ideologically-motivated censorship.
“As much as we hated their ideology and bulls***, we couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line — but it was a useful academic lesson,” he wrote. GroupM CEO Christian Juhl was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ad-firm-replaces-ceo-after-congressional-face-off-with-ben-shapiro-on-censorship" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replaced</a> after he struggled to explain the emails to Congress while testifying opposite Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro.
The emails also showed a GARM member was upset that X owner Elon Musk did not think the New York Post&#8217;s story on Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop should have been censored before the 2020 election. The Department of Justice later acknowledged that the Post&#8217;s story was true.
Musk <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/musk-says-x-will-sue-perpetrators-and-collaborators-in-the-advertising-boycott-racket-against-conservatives" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared Shapiro&#8217;s congressional testimony</a> on his platform and encouraged states to seek criminal charges for the &#8220;advertising boycott racket.&#8221; In July, X and video platform Rumble <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/x-rumble-sue-advertising-cartel-for-allegedly-breaking-antitrust-laws-to-force-censorship">sued</a> the World Federation of Advertisers, GARM&#8217;s parent group. Rumble called it an &#8220;advertising cartel,&#8221; and X alleged that “GARM celebrated—and took responsibility for—the massive economic harm imposed on Twitter by the boycott, boasting within just a few months of the start of the boycott that ‘they [Twitter] are 80% below revenue forecasts,’” the X lawsuit reads.
The Daily Wire and The Federalist are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-judge-slaps-down-biden-administrations-attempt-to-dismiss-daily-wire-censorship-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suing the State Department</a>, for allegedly backing private firms such as Newsguard and the Global Disinformation Index, some of the purported credibility raters that also sought to financially harm conservative news outlets. All three lawsuits are filed in federal court in Texas.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) (R) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY)

EXCLUSIVE: Jim Jordan Investigating Ad Industry Attempt To Create New GARM

Jim Jordan

Social Media Censorship

The following is the text of a letter sent by The Daily Wire to advertising industry professionals to highlight the findings of the House Judiciary Committee&#8217;s investigation into GARM, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. A PDF of the letter can be <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/2024.07.10-ProposedFinal.DWOpenLetter.AdIndustry.GARM_.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">viewed here</a>.
&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;
An Open Letter to our Advertising Industry Colleagues
Re:  U.S. House Judiciary Report on GARM Censorship Cartel
Dear Colleague,
Earlier today the House Judiciary Committee released a <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/house-judiciary-committee-report-exposes-shadowy-corporate-coordination-silence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shocking report</a> detailing its findings after a months-long investigation into what it describes as “apparent collusion” between the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (“GARM”) and some of the world’s largest brands, advertising holding companies, and social media platforms to demonetize conservative media outlets.
The Committee’s report details the scandalous perspective of GARM leader and co-founder, Mr. Rob Rakowitz, in never-before-disclosed emails. Mr. Rakowitz articulates his frustration with “extreme global interpretations of the US Constitution”, including “people advocating for freedom of speech online” and “taking US norms and applying them globally,” while “using principles of governance and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).” Mr. Rakowitz acknowledges “the professional fallout would be horrendous” if his opinion on this matter were to be publicly disclosed.
The Committee found evidence of GARM leadership and GARM Steer Team members discussing how to target conservative media like The Daily Wire, Breitbart, and Fox News. When specifically discussing The Daily Wire, one GARM member – an executive at GroupM – communicated to Mr. Rakowitz that: “I don’t know Daily Wire that well, but I would imagine that most of our clients wouldn’t want to be on either side of politically divisive content, so they probably block them anyway – but we should watch them carefully to make sure they don’t stoop below the GARM floor. If we block DW – why wouldn’t we block Fox News?” Another GroupM executive confirmed, “Fyi we have Daily Wire on our Global High Risk exclusion list, categorized as Conspiracy Theories…”
According to the report, Mr. Rakowitz regularly directs GARM members to use exclusion and inclusion lists from “trusted partners” like NewsGuard and GDI in order to “continue to give a leg up to professional news outlets.” Mr. Rakowitz continued, “we’re eager to make sure that ad dollars and media platforms stay clear of bad actors.”
Mr. Rakowitz describes GARM as, “the first ever consortium that&#8217;s brought together multiple global advertisers […], all of the agency holding companies, and significant media platforms.” The goal of GARM, according to Mr. Rakowitz, “is to remove harmful content from advertiser-supported media on digital media platforms, and ensure that the industry works together to ensure that this is prioritized by executives and enabled by media experts and technicians.”
GARM’s Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework includes standards targeting objectively criminal, abusive, and dangerous content; however, GARM also includes subjective standards that, in practice, are used to target conservative media for merely discussing debated and sensitive topics in a manner that is disfavored by GARM and its leadership. The application of the subjective elements of GARM’s Brand Safety Floor also frequently lead to conservative media content being erroneously maligned as misinformation, harassment, or even hate speech.
Based on the Committee’s findings, it appears that GARM’s two primary objectives are: (1) the accumulation of power; and (2) to bankrupt media companies, content producers, and even social media platforms who do not fall into lock step with GARM. According to the report, “The threat Mr. Rakowitz can pose to an entire platform is enormous, evidenced by his taking credit for Twitter’s revenue decline.”
We at The Daily Wire do not oppose rating agencies providing tools and information to advertisers so that they can make informed, targeted advertising placement decisions, and we do not feel entitled to earn advertising spending from advertisers merely because of our position in the marketplace. We are, however, gravely concerned with how GARM and its leaders have privately wielded their considerable concentration of market power &#8211; 90% of all ad spend worth $1 trillion &#8211; to target and attempt to bankrupt conservative media like The Daily Wire, and we are now calling for further investigations by Congress to fully understand the depth and breadth of this apparent censorship cartel, as well as to immediately halt any government coordination with these sophisticated and coercive campaigns against free speech.
Indeed, we have recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-and-the-federalist-sue-biden-state-department-over-censorship-effort" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued the U.S. State Department</a> over alleged coordination with GARM’s own “trusted partners” NewsGuard and GDI, among others, to target The Daily Wire and other conservative media.
Because today’s Congressional report has highlighted the intentions and apparently collusive behavior of GARM and its members, we are asking that you earnestly evaluate your commitment to principles of free speech and that you reject GARM, Mr. Rakowitz, and any similar actors’ efforts to subvert conservative media.
If it is true that an informed public is essential to a functioning representative democracy, then everyone should oppose efforts to suppress conservative media’s vital role &#8211; and Constitutional mandate &#8211; to help preserve a free and open society.
We ask that you take a stand on the side of freedom with The Daily Wire and other conservative media on this issue.
Please do not hesitate to reach out and we look forward to speaking with each of our advertising industry colleagues about this important issue very soon.
With Kind Regards,
The Daily Wire

U.S. Congress Wrangles With Agreement To Solve Government Shutdown

The Daily Wire Addresses The Ad Industry Following House Judiciary Committee Investigation

Ben Shapiro

House Judiciary Committee

Responding to the House GOP&#8217;s exposé of the apparent collusion between supposed guardians of free speech and advertisers, billionaire Elon Musk said on Thursday that his social media platform X would sue the perpetrators of the advertising boycott against conservative news organizations.
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), held a hearing on Wednesday. During the hearing, they interviewed four people regarding the issue: The Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro; Herrish Patel, the president of Unilever; Christian Juhl, the Global Chief Executive Officer of GroupM; and Spencer Waller, a professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
“Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, X has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket. Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” Musk tweeted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, 𝕏 has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket. 
Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution. <a href="https://t.co/5W4yf1wxVO">https://t.co/5W4yf1wxVO</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1811360296218341403?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 11, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The House Judiciary Committee released a report in which it <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-07-10%20GARMs%20Harm%20-%20How%20the%20Worlds%20Biggest%20Brands%20Seek%20to%20Control%20Online%20Speech.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>, “In exercising oversight of the adequacy and sufficiency of existing U.S. antitrust laws, the Committee has been investigating apparent collusion within the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and specifically its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative. Through GARM, large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members.”
Earlier this month, Musk&#8217;s X <a href="https://x.com/Safety/status/1807793931003768991">announced</a> it had &#8220;reinstated&#8221; its relationship with the WFA and GARM and was &#8220;proud to be part of the GARM community!&#8221; X is currently <a href="https://wfanet.org/leadership/garm/members-governance">listed</a> as a GARM member on WFA&#8217;s website.
“By basically demonetizing conservative platforms and websites, you make it that tough for those ideas to be heard,” Jordan <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/jim-jordan-garm-conservative-speech/2024/07/10/id/1172009/">told</a> Newsmax. “We asked the question for one of the companies who is on the board of this organization GARM, Global Alliance for Responsible Media — misnamed, should be named HARM — one of the companies that was there. I said, do you advertise on The Daily Wire? Do they advertise on Newsmax? Do they advertise on Breitbart?”
“And the answer to those questions was no. But they advertise on &#8216;The View.&#8217; They advertise in The Washington Post. So it&#8217;s totally biased. We all know that instinctively, but now we have documents that show it,” he added.
Jordan pointed out a reported attempt by GARM to boycott X after Musk bought it in October 2022.
“They use this term &#8216;uncommon collaboration,&#8217; which is a fancy way of saying it&#8217;s a cartel, and we&#8217;re going to set these standards,” Jordan said. “But the standards are such that they&#8217;re so subjective. They can sort of be gotten around any way you want. And then all they really do is advertise on left sides or where there are sites with no politics, and they never seem to put any advertising dollars or very little when it comes to conservative platforms and conservative websites.”
RELATED: 
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<li><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/garm-exposed-house-judiciary-report-says-ad-coalition-broke-law-to-silence-conservatives">GARM Exposed: House Judiciary Report Says Ad Coalition Likely Broke Law To Silence Conservatives</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-shapiro-delivers-blistering-opening-statement-to-congress-on-cartel-silencing-conservatives">Ben Shapiro Delivers Blistering Opening Statement To Congress On &#8216;Cartel&#8217; Silencing Conservatives</a></li>
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Elon Musk of RPA attends the Conference European Jewish

Elon Musk Responds To Ben Shapiro Testimony, Says X Will Sue ‘Collaborators In The Advertising Boycott Racket’