6 ms·

X's likelihood of prevailing in boycott suit is higher than I thought

68 points by jawns 2y ago

nuz 2y ago
I know X is majority hated these days on here but this sounds like a great victory for all if they win imo
- jonhohle 2y ago
  This seems like possibly a winning strategy for anyone who is simultaneously deplatformed, debarked, etc. as well. It’s hard to disagree that there are pariahs that you’d not want as customers. On the other hand, I’d much rather live a world where the phone company operates phones and sells access to networks, ISPs sell server space, banks deal with financial instruments, and all of them leave their social, political, or moral stances to themselves. I don’t go to my local retailer for a lecture on the social injustice of the month. The idea of a Reddit style world where if you participate in one community, regardless of your behavior, you’ll be banned from another is about as distopian as it gets.
  - peeters 2y ago
    According to the article, the only part illegal about "simultaneously deplatforming" someone would be if the action were coordinated by competitors ("we'll ban John Smith if you do too"). I don't think there would be an argument with the same legal reasoning if platforms independently decided to deplatform someone, or even if they saw another platform deplatform someone and let that influence their decision. The Reddit example might be closer to the type of coordination it targets, but it would be hard to apply anti-monopoly legislation to volunteer Reddit mods.
  - haswell 2y ago
    I don’t think it makes sense to include X or any other social media in the same category as those lower level infrastructure services. I’d describe my feelings about the advertising boycott as very mixed, and think it’s worth maintaining a clear distinction between these categories of service. I’d find it equally dystopian to live in an environment that doesn’t allow companies to take a principled stance against obvious abuse or to stop spending money when a company goes through dramatic changes that fundamentally alter the advertising environment. What I’m most curious about is whether or not the boycotts were truly contingent vs. just centrally organized.
    - jonhohle 2y ago
      I wasn’t trying to relate the two directly. The ADL has a list, for example, that many companies that are competitors in different markets use to inflict financial and/or business consequences on those who are added to the list. It would seem that would count as per se contingent. On the one hand, some on that list are abhorrent. On the other hand, some just disagree with the positions of the ADL and the ADL knows it can turn screws on those that cross their path. That power seems unacceptable, and apparently may be illegal. Should those not convicted of any crime, living freely in society, be prohibited from buying milk at a grocery store because their words or ideas are considered incorrect by some self selected taste makers? If you disagreed with those with the power to make those lists would you feel the same way?
  - atmavatar 2y ago
    There's a sharp difference between the other examples you list (aside from perhaps Reddit) and X. When a person posts an antisemitic on X, the people who notice said post do not know with any certainty what ISP was used, so there's nothing to associate the post with a given ISP. Furthermore, even if readers did know what ISP was used, the general assumption (correct or no) is that ISPs don't monitor traffic going through their pipes, so they neither know nor can control what data is sent over the wire, thus absolving them of any responsibility for what someone decides to post on X. Contrast this with X itself. As the host of said message, there's a direct link between the content seen and X. As X already moderates content on its platform, a claim can be made that it bears responsibility for posts that are left up for any significant amount of time. The fact X sells ad space which appears next to the hosted content only reinforces this responsibility. If you prefer to deal with a meatspace analogy: consider a billboard company. Should someone rent space on a billboard in a widely-visible area and paint a giant penis on it, most onlookers would disapprove, and they'd foster a growing discontent with the company the longer it's left up. However, few, if any, would attack the nearby Lowe's or Home Depot for selling paint and paint brushes that could have been used for the picture or go after the city for daring to build and maintain the roads allowing access to the billboard. X is a digital billboard company. They aren't neutral here: they're actively aiding you in getting your message in front of more people with the hope that any engagement your message triggers will increase ad revenue.
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      In my opinion, this is just a perspective pushed by very online political activists that want to push this idea that two different companies associating with each other through spending means their brands are jointly responsible for the content of one of them. But they aren’t. They are separate entities. It doesn’t matter to me if a company like Coca-Cola or Apple shows an ad next to some other content I dislike or on a platform I dislike.
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        True or not, almost everyone in the marketing profession believes that you don't want your brand associated in any way with toxicity or negativity, so that's going to drive the actions of advertisers. If a platform permits content that advertisers do not accept, they are going to respond predictably, whether or not we think it's fair or right.
- brookst 2y ago
  Why? It sounds like a huge loss for free speech to me. it seems bizarre that it could be illegal to encourage boycotts based on political opinions. Was the Bud Light boycott also illegal?
  - tazu 2y ago
    This isn't about "encouraging boycotts", it's about business competitors colluding to weild their market power for political reasons. No one is saying that individual companies shouldn't be able to make their own decisions---it's the collusion. In this case, the collusion was allegedly orchestrated by GARM.
    - alamortsubite 2y ago
      > it's about business competitors colluding to weild their market power for political reasons Did they choose not to advertise on X for political reasons, or because associating their brands with toxic content would damage their profitability?
      - netsharc 2y ago
        [flagged]
        KennyBlanken 2y ago
        That's exactly what Musk has claimed, and supposedly his reason for buying Twitter. It's also a common refrain from bigots of all types: "saying all non-whites are dishonest lazy violent criminals isn't bigotry, it's a political position!" You used to see this shit on slashdot back in the early aughts and it's just as tiresome today.
    - knowsuchagency 2y ago
      He sued the nonprofit out of existence because they encouraged (not forced) companies not to advertise on his platform as he told them all to go fuck themselves. If that sounds like a free speech win, you might be the kind of genius who should start a car or rocket company.
- Zak 2y ago
  I have mixed feelings here. I find the advertisers' position in this particular case fairly reasonable. The last time I followed a link to a Twitter post, one of the first comments depicted American politicians bowing before a caricature of a Jew draped in an Israeli flag. If I was running ads, I think I wouldn't want my brand to appear next to that. Musk's response to advertisers saying so was literally to tell them to go fuck themselves. If someone were to say that to me, I probably wouldn't do business with them anymore. On the other hand, there's a trend for social media platforms lately to downrank anything that's not advertiser-friendly whether it's Facebook posts containing profanity or Youtube videos about guns. I don't think tech billionaires suing each other about it is an ideal resolution, but I don't like this trend.
  - afsdgiadnion 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - drawkward 2y ago
    Welcome to late stage capitalism, where all that matters is profit!
- lawn 2y ago
  Companies not being allowed to leave a platform that has nosedived in quality is "good for all"? Really?
  - jawns 2y ago
    The lawsuit says that companies are free to leave the platform based on their own independent judgments. It argues that antitrust law prohibits the companies from making an agreement with their competitors about whether to do so.
pstrateman 2y ago
They disbanded the non profit in a blatant attempt to avoid discovery. That tells me everything I need to know about who is in the right.
- amunster 2y ago
  Do you have an alternate source that describes this? The article here says the non profit was disbanded due to financial drain from the lawsuit. Plus there is no federal anti-SLAPP statute.
- brookst 2y ago
  That seems like the exact opposite of the takeaway here. Rich people who successfully destroy opposition with lawsuits should not be seen as “in the right” just because they have billions to spend silencing people.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Discovery can't be avoided that way.
- SimianSci 2y ago
  1. This doesnt avoid discovery 2. GARM is about the size of 2 people working out of a conference room once a month. This isnt a large organization, this is a trade association. They folded because there is no money to support fighting a Bully Litigant 3. Elon has a history of suing small organizations out of existance with frivelous lawsuits that drain the company's coffers.
woodruffw 2y ago
My understanding of the Sherman Act’s restrictions on collective boycotting is that they depend on evidence of non-competitive collusion between companies that would ordinarily compete in a market. But GARM’s actions don’t on face value meet either prong of that definition: it’s not clear that the companies have colluded to boycott Twitter, or that buying ad space on Twitter is comparable to competing in their actual market segments (the things they’re buying advertising space for). Or to make it intuitive: seeing that your competitors also don’t pay for a service isn’t collusion; it’s market research. But even if these conditions were somehow met: what’s the legal relief here? Surely a court can’t compel Coca-Cola (or whoever) into a minimum amount of ad spending on a particular social media site.
- delichon 2y ago
  > But what turns this into illegal collusion, the X lawsuit argues, is when businesses make those decisions contingent on cooperation with competitors. So the same as for price fixing. It's legal to set your own price, but can be illegal to agree to do that with competitors even at the same price.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    I’m not seeing where it’s evidenced that this is what’s actually happening. Twitter’s lawyers can put whatever rationale they want in their suit, but it’s not even remotely clear to me that company $FOO only stopped advertising on Twitter because they conferred with competitor $BAR. If anything, the fact that the lawsuit is against CAGM indicates the opposite: $FOO observed a general disinvestment in advertising on Twitter, and deduced through normal market research that their ad spend wasn’t worth it. Maybe discovery will reveal collusion here, but it relies on an unlikely premise: companies with significant ad spend have entire teams dedicated to PR, and it would be astonishing if they couldn’t provide independent internal research demonstrating the risk Twitter posed to their brand as a sufficient reason to stop paying for ads.
    - Jensson 2y ago
      > companies with significant ad spend have entire teams dedicated to PR, and it would be astonishing if they couldn’t provide independent internal research demonstrating the risk Twitter posed to their brand as a sufficient reason to stop paying for ads. Do you really believe that hundreds of social science teams would reach the same conclusion at the same time independently of each other, like these hundreds of advertisers did? Social science isn't that exact, there would be big brands not leaving if they acted independently, or at least they wouldn't all leave at the same time.
jasode 2y ago
Fyi... a commenter[1] in a reddit thread focused on whether the alleged collusion tried to "extort something of economic value from Twitter/X" -- such as forcing Twitter to offer cheaper ad pricing. An association watchdog like GARM telling their members that a social platform is unsafe for their brand and causing them to pull advertising from it isn't an example of extorting a thing of value from Twitter. I don't know if his legal analysis is correct but it sounds interesting. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/eli5_what_is_the_legal_reasoning_behind_x_twitter/lh84e9s/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/... https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/eli5_what_is_the_legal_reasoning_behind_x_twitter/lh85khn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/... https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/eli5_what_is_the_legal_reasoning_behind_x_twitter/lh88i9m/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/...
- woodruffw 2y ago
  Right — this use of the Sherman Act implies that advertisers were attempting to collude to force Twitter into lower ad prices for an eventual return, when all available evidence suggests that Twitter’s advertising segment is toxic to their public image and thus not worth any money at all. I think the closest comparison would be 4chan complaining that they can’t charge more for ads: ads are cheap on 4chan not because of collusion, but because virtually no company wants their brand associated with 4chan’s content.
  - tourmalinetaco 2y ago
    The question I have is how many advertisers that pulled out, that actively posted on Twitter under a brand account, ceased posting under said account and/or deleted it outright? I would assume if Twitter is too toxic of a platform to advertise on, then they would want to cease brand association entirely no?
    - woodruffw 2y ago
      My understanding is that Twitter allows for username reuse, so a major company deleting their account would be an even greater brand risk than just letting it go idle. (But even if the account doesn’t go idle: I think there’s a significant difference in kind between a company’s account being generally active and paying for advertising to appear next to increasingly extreme and negative content.)
ineedaj0b 2y ago
hacker news commentary can no longer rationally judge Elon ventures. If you are reading, turn back! Haters and Fans are the only left. There’s no dispassionate lawyers reading this thread on a Sunday.
- ineedaj0b 2y ago
  [flagged]
orwin 2y ago
This is so American. I've been told multiple times 'vote with your wallet'. That's a typical neolib/neocon saying. Organize yourselves to vote with your wallet? Illegal! Kill this idea with fire! Sue them! They're Hamas/Marxist/anticapitalists! We can't allow them to organize! 'Back in my days, we had a sense of community, we had more meaningful relationships' I doubt this kind of people are dumb enough to not see their hypocrisy, so I have to believe it's purposeful.
- pocketarc 2y ago
  As with everything, there's nuance. > Organize yourselves to vote with your wallet? Illegal! Individuals voting with their wallet together? Legal. Companies voting with their wallet together? Illegal. Companies are not individuals. Companies have lots of restrictions on working together, so that they keep competing.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > Companies voting with their wallet together? Illegal. Companies being told to "go fuck yourselves" by Twitter's CEO and complying? Legal.
  - orwin 2y ago
    Sorry, I should have added nuance : illegal for unions and non-profits, mostly immoral for individuals, the only moral and legal boycott is BUD is what I learned from USians.
  - throw310822 2y ago
    The problem here- if I understand correctly- is not that companies were voting with their wallets, even together. The problem is that they were willing to do it only as long as all the others were doing the same. Some companies standing by their principles, and willing to pay the price for it, is one thing. Making sure that nobody else benefits from the space you leave is another.
  - drawkward 2y ago
    >Companies are not individuals Unless they want to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence politics, that is!
kevinh 2y ago
So this non-lawyer read the initial complaint, looked into two cases, and thinks he has a meaningful understanding of how the lawsuit is going to go? Why is some random layman's opinion given any weight here?
- smitty1e 2y ago
  The countering question is: why does the economic/legal model have to be so over-engineered that nobody outside the Priesthood is capable of grasping the nuances? One should think that keeping the complexity minimized would be a goal of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    It's a noble goal but the reality is the world is obscenely complex, and made evermore complex by adversarial forces trying to blow holes in each others' cases.
    - smitty1e 2y ago
      But to punt on the need to communicate would seem to reinforce the adversarial forces, no?
      - StackRanker3000 2y ago
        But is it realistic to get to a point where laymen across the board have a clear understanding of every facet of the law, even with great communication? Or is it so complicated that you’ll just have to defer to those that have spent years training in it? To the other person’s point, I’m not convinced that it’s overengineered per se, it just deals with an incredibly complex system.
        smitty1e 2y ago
        "Complexity is a subsidy."--Jonah Goldberg. I submit that you're setting yourself up for a mugging.
ajrat 2y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/technology/elon-musk-x-advertisers-boycott.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/technology/elon-musk-x-ad... In the wake of Mr. Musk’s acquisition, GARM recommended that advertisers pause their spending, and several major companies, including CVS and Unilever, did so. Those two companies were also named in X’s suit. The lawsuit seems like a slam dunk for X. Why does Unilever need a consultant for this? It is obvious: You don't want your washing powder ad to appear next to controversial content? Then either a) negotiate with Twitter to make the ad appear selectively or b) come to your own conclusion not to advertise at all or c) or publicly state that you do not want to sell to Republicans at all. But this whole state of affairs that there are increasingly single authorities for determining who can post what on the Internet is alarming.
- phatfish 2y ago
  [flagged]
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  or (d) consult with an industry/sector group that does its own independent assessment of the likelihood of any advertising restrictions and limitations that you request of Twitter actually being honored, and when they say "very little chance", decide not to use that advertising platform. Oh wait, that's what they did!
jpalawaga 2y ago
I always thought the pretenses for this lawsuit were extremely thin. Now that I see GARM was shuttered as a result of financial pressures from the lawsuit, I believe this was this was actually the goal all along. It didn’t matter that the reason was flimsy. It just had to pass muster.
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  I think they were shuttered because they realized that the lawsuit had legal merit. Shutting down the operation was the simplest way to limit liability.
  - drawkward 2y ago
    I tHiNk VaCcInEs CaUsE aUtIsM.
- throw310822 2y ago
  What I don't understand and perhaps someone could clarify: does this stop the lawsuit? Do they hope it will? If it doesn't stop it, why discontinue GARM at all, what difference does it make?
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    I am guessing they will make an argument the lawsuit is now moot and seek to get it dismissed before damaging information comes out through the legal process. For example imagine a witness on stand sharing how there was indeed collusion between competitors in advertising, with the goal of suppressing political speech broadly in our democratic society, all coordinated by hiding the collusion via a nonprofit they all work with. It would be a huge scandal and make it very clear that these companies are too big and powerful and untrustworthy.
s5300 2y ago
[dead]
afsdgiadnion 2y ago
[flagged]
throwaway5752 2y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sUwRiIncKUn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sUwRiIncKUn - "Tesla CEO Elon Musk: I'll say what I want to say, and if we lose money, so be it" (May 2023) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_M_uvDChJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_M_uvDChJQ - "Elon Musk to advertisers who are trying to ‘blackmail’ him: ‘Go f--- yourself’"
jmclnx 2y ago
Maybe they can "stop" the boycott, but Twitter/X cannot force companies to advertise on their site no matter what the judge says. Global Alliance for Responsible Media disbanded, so no reason for the Suite to continue.
6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago
How would this work if you’re dependent on a legal bad thing for your business, and that thing is way cheaper than the alternative? Let’s say you’re poisoning everyone who swims in your favorite local lake but it’s somehow legal. You and your competitors probably want to switch to a non-poison process, but none of you can because if you do, you’ll go out of business. The usual solution is cooperation instead of competition, where you all agree you don’t want to poison everyone so you’ll switch processes. But is this saying that that is sometimes illegal? If so, it seems like the race-to-the-bottom we all know and hate is a legal inevitability.

68 points by jawns 2y ago

nuz 2y ago

I know X is majority hated these days on here but this sounds like a great victory for all if they win imo

jonhohle 2y ago
This seems like possibly a winning strategy for anyone who is simultaneously deplatformed, debarked, etc. as well. It’s hard to disagree that there are pariahs that you’d not want as customers. On the other hand, I’d much rather live a world where the phone company operates phones and sells access to networks, ISPs sell server space, banks deal with financial instruments, and all of them leave their social, political, or moral stances to themselves. I don’t go to my local retailer for a lecture on the social injustice of the month. The idea of a Reddit style world where if you participate in one community, regardless of your behavior, you’ll be banned from another is about as distopian as it gets.
- peeters 2y ago
  According to the article, the only part illegal about "simultaneously deplatforming" someone would be if the action were coordinated by competitors ("we'll ban John Smith if you do too"). I don't think there would be an argument with the same legal reasoning if platforms independently decided to deplatform someone, or even if they saw another platform deplatform someone and let that influence their decision. The Reddit example might be closer to the type of coordination it targets, but it would be hard to apply anti-monopoly legislation to volunteer Reddit mods.
- haswell 2y ago
  I don’t think it makes sense to include X or any other social media in the same category as those lower level infrastructure services. I’d describe my feelings about the advertising boycott as very mixed, and think it’s worth maintaining a clear distinction between these categories of service. I’d find it equally dystopian to live in an environment that doesn’t allow companies to take a principled stance against obvious abuse or to stop spending money when a company goes through dramatic changes that fundamentally alter the advertising environment. What I’m most curious about is whether or not the boycotts were truly contingent vs. just centrally organized.
  - jonhohle 2y ago
    I wasn’t trying to relate the two directly. The ADL has a list, for example, that many companies that are competitors in different markets use to inflict financial and/or business consequences on those who are added to the list. It would seem that would count as per se contingent. On the one hand, some on that list are abhorrent. On the other hand, some just disagree with the positions of the ADL and the ADL knows it can turn screws on those that cross their path. That power seems unacceptable, and apparently may be illegal. Should those not convicted of any crime, living freely in society, be prohibited from buying milk at a grocery store because their words or ideas are considered incorrect by some self selected taste makers? If you disagreed with those with the power to make those lists would you feel the same way?
- atmavatar 2y ago
  There's a sharp difference between the other examples you list (aside from perhaps Reddit) and X. When a person posts an antisemitic on X, the people who notice said post do not know with any certainty what ISP was used, so there's nothing to associate the post with a given ISP. Furthermore, even if readers did know what ISP was used, the general assumption (correct or no) is that ISPs don't monitor traffic going through their pipes, so they neither know nor can control what data is sent over the wire, thus absolving them of any responsibility for what someone decides to post on X. Contrast this with X itself. As the host of said message, there's a direct link between the content seen and X. As X already moderates content on its platform, a claim can be made that it bears responsibility for posts that are left up for any significant amount of time. The fact X sells ad space which appears next to the hosted content only reinforces this responsibility. If you prefer to deal with a meatspace analogy: consider a billboard company. Should someone rent space on a billboard in a widely-visible area and paint a giant penis on it, most onlookers would disapprove, and they'd foster a growing discontent with the company the longer it's left up. However, few, if any, would attack the nearby Lowe's or Home Depot for selling paint and paint brushes that could have been used for the picture or go after the city for daring to build and maintain the roads allowing access to the billboard. X is a digital billboard company. They aren't neutral here: they're actively aiding you in getting your message in front of more people with the hope that any engagement your message triggers will increase ad revenue.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    In my opinion, this is just a perspective pushed by very online political activists that want to push this idea that two different companies associating with each other through spending means their brands are jointly responsible for the content of one of them. But they aren’t. They are separate entities. It doesn’t matter to me if a company like Coca-Cola or Apple shows an ad next to some other content I dislike or on a platform I dislike.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      True or not, almost everyone in the marketing profession believes that you don't want your brand associated in any way with toxicity or negativity, so that's going to drive the actions of advertisers. If a platform permits content that advertisers do not accept, they are going to respond predictably, whether or not we think it's fair or right.
brookst 2y ago
Why? It sounds like a huge loss for free speech to me. it seems bizarre that it could be illegal to encourage boycotts based on political opinions. Was the Bud Light boycott also illegal?
- tazu 2y ago
  This isn't about "encouraging boycotts", it's about business competitors colluding to weild their market power for political reasons. No one is saying that individual companies shouldn't be able to make their own decisions---it's the collusion. In this case, the collusion was allegedly orchestrated by GARM.
  - alamortsubite 2y ago
    > it's about business competitors colluding to weild their market power for political reasons Did they choose not to advertise on X for political reasons, or because associating their brands with toxic content would damage their profitability?
    - netsharc 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - KennyBlanken 2y ago
        That's exactly what Musk has claimed, and supposedly his reason for buying Twitter. It's also a common refrain from bigots of all types: "saying all non-whites are dishonest lazy violent criminals isn't bigotry, it's a political position!" You used to see this shit on slashdot back in the early aughts and it's just as tiresome today.
  - knowsuchagency 2y ago
    He sued the nonprofit out of existence because they encouraged (not forced) companies not to advertise on his platform as he told them all to go fuck themselves. If that sounds like a free speech win, you might be the kind of genius who should start a car or rocket company.
Zak 2y ago
I have mixed feelings here. I find the advertisers' position in this particular case fairly reasonable. The last time I followed a link to a Twitter post, one of the first comments depicted American politicians bowing before a caricature of a Jew draped in an Israeli flag. If I was running ads, I think I wouldn't want my brand to appear next to that. Musk's response to advertisers saying so was literally to tell them to go fuck themselves. If someone were to say that to me, I probably wouldn't do business with them anymore. On the other hand, there's a trend for social media platforms lately to downrank anything that's not advertiser-friendly whether it's Facebook posts containing profanity or Youtube videos about guns. I don't think tech billionaires suing each other about it is an ideal resolution, but I don't like this trend.
- afsdgiadnion 2y ago
  [flagged]
- drawkward 2y ago
  Welcome to late stage capitalism, where all that matters is profit!
lawn 2y ago
Companies not being allowed to leave a platform that has nosedived in quality is "good for all"? Really?
- jawns 2y ago
  The lawsuit says that companies are free to leave the platform based on their own independent judgments. It argues that antitrust law prohibits the companies from making an agreement with their competitors about whether to do so.

pstrateman 2y ago

They disbanded the non profit in a blatant attempt to avoid discovery. That tells me everything I need to know about who is in the right.

amunster 2y ago
Do you have an alternate source that describes this? The article here says the non profit was disbanded due to financial drain from the lawsuit. Plus there is no federal anti-SLAPP statute.
brookst 2y ago
That seems like the exact opposite of the takeaway here. Rich people who successfully destroy opposition with lawsuits should not be seen as “in the right” just because they have billions to spend silencing people.
ceejayoz 2y ago
Discovery can't be avoided that way.
SimianSci 2y ago
1. This doesnt avoid discovery 2. GARM is about the size of 2 people working out of a conference room once a month. This isnt a large organization, this is a trade association. They folded because there is no money to support fighting a Bully Litigant 3. Elon has a history of suing small organizations out of existance with frivelous lawsuits that drain the company's coffers.

woodruffw 2y ago

My understanding of the Sherman Act’s restrictions on collective boycotting is that they depend on evidence of non-competitive collusion between companies that would ordinarily compete in a market. But GARM’s actions don’t on face value meet either prong of that definition: it’s not clear that the companies have colluded to boycott Twitter, or that buying ad space on Twitter is comparable to competing in their actual market segments (the things they’re buying advertising space for). Or to make it intuitive: seeing that your competitors also don’t pay for a service isn’t collusion; it’s market research. But even if these conditions were somehow met: what’s the legal relief here? Surely a court can’t compel Coca-Cola (or whoever) into a minimum amount of ad spending on a particular social media site.

delichon 2y ago
> But what turns this into illegal collusion, the X lawsuit argues, is when businesses make those decisions contingent on cooperation with competitors. So the same as for price fixing. It's legal to set your own price, but can be illegal to agree to do that with competitors even at the same price.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  I’m not seeing where it’s evidenced that this is what’s actually happening. Twitter’s lawyers can put whatever rationale they want in their suit, but it’s not even remotely clear to me that company $FOO only stopped advertising on Twitter because they conferred with competitor $BAR. If anything, the fact that the lawsuit is against CAGM indicates the opposite: $FOO observed a general disinvestment in advertising on Twitter, and deduced through normal market research that their ad spend wasn’t worth it. Maybe discovery will reveal collusion here, but it relies on an unlikely premise: companies with significant ad spend have entire teams dedicated to PR, and it would be astonishing if they couldn’t provide independent internal research demonstrating the risk Twitter posed to their brand as a sufficient reason to stop paying for ads.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > companies with significant ad spend have entire teams dedicated to PR, and it would be astonishing if they couldn’t provide independent internal research demonstrating the risk Twitter posed to their brand as a sufficient reason to stop paying for ads. Do you really believe that hundreds of social science teams would reach the same conclusion at the same time independently of each other, like these hundreds of advertisers did? Social science isn't that exact, there would be big brands not leaving if they acted independently, or at least they wouldn't all leave at the same time.

jasode 2y ago

Fyi... a commenter[1] in a reddit thread focused on whether the alleged collusion tried to "extort something of economic value from Twitter/X" -- such as forcing Twitter to offer cheaper ad pricing. An association watchdog like GARM telling their members that a social platform is unsafe for their brand and causing them to pull advertising from it isn't an example of extorting a thing of value from Twitter. I don't know if his legal analysis is correct but it sounds interesting. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/eli5_what_is_the_legal_reasoning_behind_x_twitter/lh84e9s/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/... https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/eli5_what_is_the_legal_reasoning_behind_x_twitter/lh85khn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/... https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/eli5_what_is_the_legal_reasoning_behind_x_twitter/lh88i9m/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/...

woodruffw 2y ago
Right — this use of the Sherman Act implies that advertisers were attempting to collude to force Twitter into lower ad prices for an eventual return, when all available evidence suggests that Twitter’s advertising segment is toxic to their public image and thus not worth any money at all. I think the closest comparison would be 4chan complaining that they can’t charge more for ads: ads are cheap on 4chan not because of collusion, but because virtually no company wants their brand associated with 4chan’s content.
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago
  The question I have is how many advertisers that pulled out, that actively posted on Twitter under a brand account, ceased posting under said account and/or deleted it outright? I would assume if Twitter is too toxic of a platform to advertise on, then they would want to cease brand association entirely no?
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    My understanding is that Twitter allows for username reuse, so a major company deleting their account would be an even greater brand risk than just letting it go idle. (But even if the account doesn’t go idle: I think there’s a significant difference in kind between a company’s account being generally active and paying for advertising to appear next to increasingly extreme and negative content.)

ineedaj0b 2y ago

hacker news commentary can no longer rationally judge Elon ventures. If you are reading, turn back! Haters and Fans are the only left. There’s no dispassionate lawyers reading this thread on a Sunday.

ineedaj0b 2y ago
[flagged]

orwin 2y ago

This is so American. I've been told multiple times 'vote with your wallet'. That's a typical neolib/neocon saying. Organize yourselves to vote with your wallet? Illegal! Kill this idea with fire! Sue them! They're Hamas/Marxist/anticapitalists! We can't allow them to organize! 'Back in my days, we had a sense of community, we had more meaningful relationships' I doubt this kind of people are dumb enough to not see their hypocrisy, so I have to believe it's purposeful.

pocketarc 2y ago
As with everything, there's nuance. > Organize yourselves to vote with your wallet? Illegal! Individuals voting with their wallet together? Legal. Companies voting with their wallet together? Illegal. Companies are not individuals. Companies have lots of restrictions on working together, so that they keep competing.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  > Companies voting with their wallet together? Illegal. Companies being told to "go fuck yourselves" by Twitter's CEO and complying? Legal.
- orwin 2y ago
  Sorry, I should have added nuance : illegal for unions and non-profits, mostly immoral for individuals, the only moral and legal boycott is BUD is what I learned from USians.
- throw310822 2y ago
  The problem here- if I understand correctly- is not that companies were voting with their wallets, even together. The problem is that they were willing to do it only as long as all the others were doing the same. Some companies standing by their principles, and willing to pay the price for it, is one thing. Making sure that nobody else benefits from the space you leave is another.
- drawkward 2y ago
  >Companies are not individuals Unless they want to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence politics, that is!

kevinh 2y ago

So this non-lawyer read the initial complaint, looked into two cases, and thinks he has a meaningful understanding of how the lawsuit is going to go? Why is some random layman's opinion given any weight here?

smitty1e 2y ago
The countering question is: why does the economic/legal model have to be so over-engineered that nobody outside the Priesthood is capable of grasping the nuances? One should think that keeping the complexity minimized would be a goal of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  It's a noble goal but the reality is the world is obscenely complex, and made evermore complex by adversarial forces trying to blow holes in each others' cases.
  - smitty1e 2y ago
    But to punt on the need to communicate would seem to reinforce the adversarial forces, no?
    - StackRanker3000 2y ago
      But is it realistic to get to a point where laymen across the board have a clear understanding of every facet of the law, even with great communication? Or is it so complicated that you’ll just have to defer to those that have spent years training in it? To the other person’s point, I’m not convinced that it’s overengineered per se, it just deals with an incredibly complex system.
      - smitty1e 2y ago
        "Complexity is a subsidy."--Jonah Goldberg. I submit that you're setting yourself up for a mugging.

ajrat 2y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/technology/elon-musk-x-advertisers-boycott.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/technology/elon-musk-x-ad... In the wake of Mr. Musk’s acquisition, GARM recommended that advertisers pause their spending, and several major companies, including CVS and Unilever, did so. Those two companies were also named in X’s suit. The lawsuit seems like a slam dunk for X. Why does Unilever need a consultant for this? It is obvious: You don't want your washing powder ad to appear next to controversial content? Then either a) negotiate with Twitter to make the ad appear selectively or b) come to your own conclusion not to advertise at all or c) or publicly state that you do not want to sell to Republicans at all. But this whole state of affairs that there are increasingly single authorities for determining who can post what on the Internet is alarming.

phatfish 2y ago
[flagged]
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
or (d) consult with an industry/sector group that does its own independent assessment of the likelihood of any advertising restrictions and limitations that you request of Twitter actually being honored, and when they say "very little chance", decide not to use that advertising platform. Oh wait, that's what they did!

jpalawaga 2y ago

I always thought the pretenses for this lawsuit were extremely thin. Now that I see GARM was shuttered as a result of financial pressures from the lawsuit, I believe this was this was actually the goal all along. It didn’t matter that the reason was flimsy. It just had to pass muster.

xhkkffbf 2y ago
I think they were shuttered because they realized that the lawsuit had legal merit. Shutting down the operation was the simplest way to limit liability.
- drawkward 2y ago
  I tHiNk VaCcInEs CaUsE aUtIsM.
throw310822 2y ago
What I don't understand and perhaps someone could clarify: does this stop the lawsuit? Do they hope it will? If it doesn't stop it, why discontinue GARM at all, what difference does it make?
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  I am guessing they will make an argument the lawsuit is now moot and seek to get it dismissed before damaging information comes out through the legal process. For example imagine a witness on stand sharing how there was indeed collusion between competitors in advertising, with the goal of suppressing political speech broadly in our democratic society, all coordinated by hiding the collusion via a nonprofit they all work with. It would be a huge scandal and make it very clear that these companies are too big and powerful and untrustworthy.

s5300 2y ago

[dead]

afsdgiadnion 2y ago

[flagged]

throwaway5752 2y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sUwRiIncKUn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sUwRiIncKUn - "Tesla CEO Elon Musk: I'll say what I want to say, and if we lose money, so be it" (May 2023) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_M_uvDChJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_M_uvDChJQ - "Elon Musk to advertisers who are trying to ‘blackmail’ him: ‘Go f--- yourself’"

jmclnx 2y ago

Maybe they can "stop" the boycott, but Twitter/X cannot force companies to advertise on their site no matter what the judge says. Global Alliance for Responsible Media disbanded, so no reason for the Suite to continue.

6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago

How would this work if you’re dependent on a legal bad thing for your business, and that thing is way cheaper than the alternative? Let’s say you’re poisoning everyone who swims in your favorite local lake but it’s somehow legal. You and your competitors probably want to switch to a non-poison process, but none of you can because if you do, you’ll go out of business. The usual solution is cooperation instead of competition, where you all agree you don’t want to poison everyone so you’ll switch processes. But is this saying that that is sometimes illegal? If so, it seems like the race-to-the-bottom we all know and hate is a legal inevitability.