Free Republic

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...

The World Federation of Advertisers is shutting down GARM after Rumble and X filed suit against them.What are they hiding?https://x.com/chrispavlovski/status/1821584901017354384 Business Insider: "The advertising trade group The World Federation of Advertisers told its members on Thursday that it was discontinuing activities for its Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative following an antitrust lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X against the company earlier this week.""Stephan Loerke, the CEO of the WFA, wrote in an email to members, seen by Business Insider, that the decision was "not made lightly" but that GARM is a not-for-profit organization with limited resources." https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1821586670803886110 Elon Musk...

The House Judiciary Committee released a damning report Wednesday morning with shocking details of corporate collusion to silence conservative viewpoints through targeting Breitbart News, Joe Rogan, and Twitter (now X) among others.The committee released its report just hours before hearing testimony from Herrish Patel, President of Unilever USA, and Christian Juhl, Global Chief Executive Officer of GroupM. Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) alleges those companies, as members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media’s (GARM) Steer Team, may have violated antitrust laws in their efforts to deprive conservative media outlets and personalities as well as companies daring to platform conservative viewpoints...

The leader of the World Federation of Advertisers' Global Alliance for Responsible Media falsely claimed it did not direct its members to blacklist Twitter after Elon Musk purchased the platform, since renamed X, according to a House Judiciary Committee GOP interim staff report. Rob Rakowitz's claim during his transcribed interview with the committee is contradicted by a GARM member's documentation of "discussions about the boycott, noting that the company had pulled advertisements from Twitter based on GARM's recommendations," a committee press release Monday says. The report documents how GARM "participated in boycotts and coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news...

X owner Musk came out swinging against the leftist media hall monitor NewsGuard and called for the whole company to be “disbanded immediately.” Musk responded to criticism from WikiPedia co-founder Jimmy Wales who whined in a post Oct. 17 about the X platform allegedly removing “all the core features that made it even remotely possible to tell real journalists from fakes.” Through discussion on the X thread, Foundation For Freedom Online Executive Director Mike Benz pointed out to Musk that Wales was an advisor to the leftist biased NewsGuard, “which is knee deep in a plot to get gov’ts to...

Conservative media outlets and journalists are fighting a network of organizations working to kill their advertising revenue by slapping them with misinformation labels. The World Federation of Advertisers and its subsidiary, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media or GARM, have led the charge in steering blue-chip advertisers away from news outlets whose content it subjectively deems harmful, sensitive or “misinformation.” The British-based Global Disinformation Index and the U.S. company NewsGuard also have developed lists and ratings systems that attack credibility and scare advertisers away from top conservative news outlets. House investigators have questioned Biden administration officials about funding the efforts...

Meet the Company Trying to Control Your MindAnd these platforms are shaping the future of media, entertainment and cultureThere’s a group of people who control what you are allowed to see – the news you read, the videos you watch, the posts you engage with.You haven’t heard of them. You don’t know their names, but they determine, through methods both direct and indirect, whether you are allowed to be exposed to particular messages. Their decisions can bankrupt companies, silence voices and fundamentally shift cultural norms. Who are these people and how do they do this?Well, at the top level you...