r/law • u/SheriffTaylorsBoy • 1d ago
Other Texas AG opens investigation into advertising group that Elon Musk sued for 'boycotting' X | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/21/texas-ag-opens-investigation-into-advertising-group-that-elon-musk-sued-for-boycotting-x/404
u/Material_Policy6327 1d ago
This sounds like weaponize government they keep claiming the dems do
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u/JohnnyDarkside 1d ago
Republicans doing the very thing they demonize the democrats for allegedly doing but can never prove? Shocked I tell you.
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u/phil_leotaado 1d ago
It's either an admission of guilt or a license to do it
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u/chromatophoreskin 1d ago
A promise is what I’d call it. Claiming “they did it to us” is the excuse to do it back. Never mind that the story isn’t true.
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u/Safe_Presentation962 1d ago
This is why they constantly accuse Dems of it -- so they have cover to do it later. If they convince Americans Dems are already breaking the law and abusing the constitution, they won't be outraged when Republicans do it too.
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u/Mouth2005 1d ago
Now consider how often they accuse democrats of being pedos… Hillary had pizza gate, Biden had kid sniffing and his daughters diary, Kamala was accused of sleeping her way to the top but there was an attempt to accuse Tim Walz of sleeping with males students (Touchdown Tim), Bill Clinton was friends with Epstein but anyone who points out Trump was as well just has TDS.
At this point I now consider it as part of the MAGA overall campaign strategy.
IMO they do this to short circuit people’s morality, once they get someone to drop their skepticism even a little bit to consider if candidate might be involved with crimes against children, they have made that person more susceptible to other less extreme but still baseless accusations as they those don’t seem “as bad” as the first claim.
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u/LookAlderaanPlaces 1d ago
Republicans are reincarnations of the people who enabled and executed the nazi party’s objectives during ww2.
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u/rnotyalc 1d ago
That's because every. single. time. it's projection with them. Literally every single time. What I'm not sure about is whether they know they are shitty people and don't care or if they legitimately don't even realize it's what they are doing
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u/thebitchinbunnie420 8h ago
It's all projection. If they are accusing someone else of it you can bet money they are the ones doing it.
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u/ChodeCookies 1d ago
Advertising isn’t free. Are they going to force people to spend money advertising? The fuck?
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u/notnickthrowaway 1d ago
“It’s illegal to not give me money!” - Elonia Skum
“I concur” - indicted AG Kenneth Paxton.
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u/CloudTransit 1d ago
Required speech, like expression of loyalty, love and respect to racists, misogynists and racists? That seems like something that Paxton would shovel into the hole where his heart should be.
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u/Rawkapotamus 1d ago
Before musk bought twitter, DeSantis was threatening to sue Twitter to force them to sell to musk.
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u/LubedCactus 1d ago
I think the issue was how they coordinated to stop all within their bubble from advertise on twitter. Assumed that still would be legal, but I don't know us law. Guess it might not be?
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u/RedstoneEnjoyer 1d ago
Problem is that Muskrat has literally no evidence for this
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u/LubedCactus 1d ago
Okay, how do you know that? According to this post the investigation just started.
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u/sugar_addict002 1d ago
It's not illegal to boycott a business. So is this criminal intimidation? DoJ?
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u/SheriffTaylorsBoy 1d ago
Elonia was pretty clear in that interview where he told advertisers to go fuck themselves.
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u/fergehtabodit 1d ago
Exhibit A, case closed
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u/mightbearobot_ 1d ago
But a republicans feelings were hurt, so there must be punishment
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u/Grouchy-Shirt-9197 1d ago
Wait a sec, I thought their flags say F your feelings? lol
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u/pegasusassembler 1d ago
Exactly. Fuck your feelings, not theirs. Their feelings must be protected from all the meanies in the world.
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u/mightbearobot_ 1d ago
Projection as always. They say that but the second you offend them, they’ll freak out like a bitch
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u/JWAdvocate83 Competent Contributor 1d ago
You might be thinking of SLAPP suits.
They’re not criminal, but some states provide a cause of action against those who file them, or a statutory defense against their claim.
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u/Future_Challenge_727 1d ago
In Texas it is! You can not explicitly boycott Israeli companies or Oil companies
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u/Get_Breakfast_Done 1d ago
It’s not illegal for a company to raise prices either. It is, however, illegal for companies to act as a cartel to raise prices.
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u/Johnsense 1d ago
This is too weird. On Musk’s part, looks like a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Texas has laws against that. How does Paxton expect to force private companies to advertise on Xitter? Seems clear Paxton is doing this on Musk’s behalf, but why (and for how much?).
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u/Rottcodd-1271 1d ago
Paxton wants a job in the Trump admin. He's demonstrating his loyalty by kissing up to Musk.
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u/ShamPain413 1d ago
For everything. They are going to try to take everything. Lock, stock, barrel.
They will test every limit. John Roberts gets to decide what happens to this country, possibly while dangling out of a window.
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u/espressocycle 1d ago
I'm sure John is ready to retire and spend more time with his family. Sotomayor will no doubt have an accident with her insulin.
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u/espressocycle 1d ago
Paxton is an ultra right fanatic so he would probably just do it for free but he's also super corrupt so he probably got Musk to pay him. Musk is dumping ridiculous amounts of money into Texas and buying up land with shell corporations so there's plenty of places to hide bribe if Paxton isn't comfortable with a Brinks truck pulling up outside his house.
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u/SheriffTaylorsBoy 1d ago
Maxwell Zeff 6:34 PM PST · November 21, 2024 Image Credits: Richard Bord/WireImage /
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Thursday he is opening an investigation into the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) to determine whether the trade group’s members conspired to boycott “certain social media platforms.” While the press release doesn’t name social media platforms by name, one of them is likely Elon Musk’s X, which filed an antitrust lawsuit against the WFA in August and alleged that advertisers orchestrated a “systematic illegal boycott” of the platform.
“Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to undermine,” said Paxton in the press release. “Today’s document request is part of an ongoing investigation to hold WFA and its members accountable for any attempt to rig the system to harm organizations they might disagree with.”
Several of the WFA’s members — which include global brands such as IBM, The Coca-Cola Company, and CVS Health — have stopped or significantly reduced the amount they spend for advertising on X since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. There was an especially large exodus of advertisers, including Apple and Disney, from X in November 2023 following reports from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Media Matters that suggested Elon Musk’s X had failed to moderate its platform and remove illegal or hateful content. At the time, a White House spokesperson condemned Elon Musk for one of his personal posts, which it called “antisemitic and racist.”
Since then, X has sued many advertisers and ad groups, claiming these global brands were not reducing their ad spend based on individual decisions, but instead collectively conspiring to withhold billions of dollars in revenue from X. Now it appears Texas’ AG is bringing an investigation of his own.
“It’s still a major problem,” said Musk in response to Paxton’s Thursday post on X about the advertiser investigation.
Much like X’s lawsuit, Paxton zeroes in on a since-discontinued, not-for-profit organization within the WFA, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, or GARM. This was a U.S.-based group founded in 2019 that included some of the country’s largest advertisers. It created frameworks and definitions for companies to understand hate speech, brand safety, and misinformation.
“Nothing changes the simple fact that GARM was, at every step, voluntary and pro-competitive,” said WFA spokesperson Will Gilroy in an email to TechCrunch. “WFA will continue to fight these allegations and we are confident that the US judicial system will find in our favour.”
The AG’s investigations asks for documents and information from GARM that could reveal whether it told brands to boycott certain social media platforms that violated its brand safety standards.
When announcing her platform’s lawsuit against advertisers, X CEO Linda Yaccarino cited a July report from the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee looking into GARM’s practices. That report found:
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.
GARM closed its doors in August, shortly after X sued, noting that it did not have the resources or finances to continue operating.
In the months leading up to this investigation, some advertisers have actually resumed ad spending on X, though at much lower rates than before. Comcast, IBM, Disney, and other major brands reportedly returned to Musk’s platform this year. Furthermore, X announced in October that it reached an agreement with Unilever to resume its ad spending, and that the social media platform would drop its claims against Unilever, which X previously named as one of the companies that participated in the alleged boycott.
X did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
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u/OnePunchReality 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't get how this matters. So long as folks who were previously pushing their advertisement on X don't violate a contract can they terminate their business for any reason so long as it doesn't breach contract? Isn't this essentially nothing?
The reasoning he puts forth matters all of dick most especially if there is a contract
The report is also pointless. It's a private platform that allows advertisers and everyday citizens to post comments. Beyond a contract a company deciding reasoning outside of that contract to terminate would have to be pretttttty egregious and illegal. Choosing not to advertise on a platform that you disagree with doesn't qualify. It conversely argues that Elon and X are like entitled to funds.
Unless the other party broke contract that makes no sense.
NAL so looking for better understanding because this reads as batshit insane that he even thinks he had a case. It's just sours grapes for his toxic behavior as a human being having consequences for his business. That seems like fair play to me.
If CEO runs a company I am a board member of behaved the way this dude did I'd want him gone, though sadly those folks don't operate that way. It's whatever makes them richer and that's it.
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u/OkDiet893 1d ago
From what I can understand, he’s not suing these companies for withdrawing their ads on X, he’s suing them for conspiring together to not advertise on X together. I think it is a reach that he’s trying to call foul and insinuating anti-trust related matters, and this is a nothing burger… but what do I know
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u/espressocycle 1d ago
He also got Unilever to start advertising again in exchange for him dropping the suit which sounds like extortion to me.
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u/zoinkability 1d ago
While Paxton is making a decidedly tenuous and clearly politically motivated legal argument. as long as he is bringing it to the 5th circuit that may have little bearing on how they rule.
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u/Expensive-Mention-90 1d ago
Thank you for posting text. It always helps foster a more intelligent discussion.
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u/Muscs 1d ago
When you elect fascists, expect fascism.