A devastating interim statement on the shady system of virtual censors that “rob customers of options and are good prohibited by antitrust laws” has been released by the House Judiciary Committee. according to the document titled “GARM’s Harm: How the World’s Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech”.
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GARM ( Global Alliance for Responsible Media } is an initiative of the World Federation Of Advertisers ( WFA ) which represents about 150 of the world’s top companies such as ExxonMobil, GM, General Mills, McDonald’s, Visa, SC Johnson, and Walmart, as well as 60 ad associations worldwide.  ,
According to the Committee’s report, which is based on interior corporate reports,” the extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is good illegal under the competitive laws and threatens important British freedoms.”
The report asserts that the data that has been found so far regarding WFA and GARM’s collusive behavior to demonetize rejected content is alarming.
The WFA represents about 90 % of global advertising dollars spent, almost$ 1 trillion annually.  ,
The new report establishes links between the WFA’s “responsible media” program and the taxpayer-funded Global Disinformation Index ( GDI), a London-based team that in 2022 unveiled an advertising list of 10 media outlets whose judgment sections tilted conservative or liberal, including The Post, RealClearPolitics and Reason magazine.
According to documents obtained by Congress, some GARM members believed the GDI’s list to be false, with one employee describing it as “bewildering” that the party” somehow placed the NYPost as’at most risk ‘ papers in the USA for disinformation.
However, further evidence demonstrates that WFA members were given access to the GDI’s blacklist as a way to vilify disfavored outlets and measure misinformation.
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” ]W] electronic do suggest that programs, ad-tech, companies, use separate fact-checkers to plant out mis-and-disinfo from supply chain and advertising buys. GDI is one of many — NewsGuard, IFCN, etc”, Rob Rakowitz, WFA’s action guide for the GARM system, wrote in response to the individual who complained.
” One of many”, yes. GARM, however, is five times as large as any other “fact search” business, and the world’s largest businesses and ad organizations support it.
What’s more, the review showed that the goals of “misinformation” were usually correct or libertarian-leaning shops. GRM openly urged users to avoid traditional websites.
The GDI received$ 100, 000 from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and$ 545, 000 from the National Endowment for Democracy. Both government organizations now declare that they wo n’t give GDI any more until the organization’s bias is exposed.
Rakowitz is the censor-in-chief. And his serious method of preventing the dissemination of conservative viewpoints is subjective.
Internal contacts suggest that Http people carefully monitored disfavored shops to discover justification for demonetization rather than using an objective criteria to guide choices.
One GARM member, John Montgomery, an executive at GroupM — the world’s top ad agency — wrote to Rakowitz in October 2021:” Before Breitbart crossed the line and started spouting blatant misinformation, we had long discussions about whether we should include them on our exclusion lists. As much as we hated their ideology and bulls—, we could n’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We carefully watched them, and it did n’t take long for them to cross the finish line.
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Should n’t online content be as freely disseminated as content from dead-tree outlets? If the Constitution does n’t cover all speech, what the heck?  ,
It would be one thing if these were independent organizations that were campaigning for boycotts. However, these groups received government money to create “blacklists” and may have violated antitrust laws.
The committee is still conducting its investigation.
