Few thoughts should strike us as more sobering than the realization that free speech can depend on one man’s iron will. But since we find ourselves in precisely that predicament, perhaps we should thank God for X owner Elon Musk.
On Tuesday, Musk republished an X post from X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who had announced a massive antitrust lawsuit against a powerful cartel of woke advertisers who had allegedly engaged in collusion to suppress online, overwhelmingly conservative political content the cartel members dislike.
Significantly, in a post titled “An open letter to advertisers,” Yaccarino named not only woke cartel members but also “potentially additional defendants, depending what the legal process reveals.”
The phrase “potentially additional defendants” amounted to a shot across the bow of every woke advertiser that may have colluded to suppress conservative or anti-establishment political speech from any content creator on any platform, X or otherwise.
And Musk’s language was brutally clear:
“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk wrote.
We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war https://t.co/elgT62uDtF
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2024
The X owner has more than 193 million followers on his own platform. Thus, as of Wednesday morning — less than 24 hours later — his publication of Yaccarino’s letter already had more than 27.3 million views.
Do you support Elon Musk’s fight for free speech?
In her lengthy “open letter” missive announcing the lawsuit, Yaccarino cited a House Judiciary Committee report from July 10 about the Global Alliance for Responsible Media,
That remarkable and chilling report, titled “GARM’s Harm: How the World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech,” identified the culprits in what the report called a “likely illegal” pattern of collusion by advertisers engaged in “alarming” behavior.
In effect, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media acts as a censorship arm of the World Federation of Advertisers.
“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. This collusion can have the effect of eliminating a variety of content and viewpoints available to consumers,” the report stated.
GARM itself even boasted of what it called “reducing the availability and monetization of harmful content online.”
Furthermore, Rob Rakowitz, GARM’s pro-censorship leader and co-founder, has argued against an “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution.”
As proof of GARM’s “likely illegal” activity, the report cited the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
“Section 1 of the Sherman Act makes unreasonable restraints of trade illegal,” the report stated. That includes “certain group boycotts and coordinated actions that harm consumers.”
Indeed, according to the report, Rakowitz himself acknowledged as much when he admitted to a GARM member that he “can’t publicly advise all clients to do X – that gets us into hot water by way of anticompetitive and collusive behaviors.”
Alas, future censorship efforts might not even require human advice, the report warned.
“GARM’s partners are developing AI tools that will integrate GARM’s standards seamlessly across social media platforms. Such an automated censorship effort could result in the demonetization of any views or voices that GARM’s advertising cartel dislikes, potentially without any human involvement at all. Such concentrated market power is dangerous, and the implications of AI technology on advertising censorship are frightening,” the report stated.
Yaccarino wrote that she reacted to the report with astonishment.
“After a career in media and advertising, I thought I had seen everything,” she wrote.
Then, Yaccarino pledged to do something about it by naming GARM, WFA and major GARM members in X’s antitrust lawsuit.
“The illegal behavior of these organizations and their executives cost X billions of dollars,” she wrote.
Furthermore, the X CEO made it clear that Musk’s war could extend to other woke advertisers guilty of possible collusion.
“To those who broke the law, we say enough is enough. We are compelled to seek justice for the harm that has been done by these and potentially additional defendants, depending what the legal process reveals,” she wrote.
In other words, this “war” is not restricted to those Yaccarino named. In effect, as of now, it’s unlimited.
Then, she described the lawsuit as involving “more than damages – we have to fix a broken ecosystem that allows this illegal activity to occur.”
Indeed, one can only guess the number of smaller, overwhelmingly conservative publishers the woke advertisers might have illegally boycotted into oblivion.
Thus, we find ourselves in a strange and unsettling situation. Because one of the world’s richest men happens to care about free speech, small publishers and ordinary people have a fighting chance.
Imagine, however, a world in which Musk had not purchased X. That sort of imaginative exercise causes shivers, but it also should inspire gratitude.
After all, God already saved former President Donald Trump from a would-be assassin’s bullet. It seems He might have big plans for Musk, too.
