Elon Musk’s Company X (formerly Twitter) sued a group of advertisers and large companies, accusing them of illegally conspiring to boycott the social network.
The company filed a lawsuit in a Texas court against food giants Unilever and Mars, private healthcare company CVS, health and renewable energy company Orsted, as well as the World Federation of Advertisers trade association. (WFA).
X claims that the defendants gave the company billions of dollars in revenue. The application relates to the period in 2022, immediately after X’s purchasethen called Twitter, by Elon Musk.
Then Twitter’s income fell: some advertisers were afraid to advertise on the platform because of the new policy of its owner, which weakened evaluation and dispersed an important part of the staff.
In the year after Musk’s purchase, the company’s advertising revenue fell by more than half. X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said: “People suffer when the market for ideas shrinks. A small group of people should not monopolize what money can be earned. “
Musk wrote in X: “For 2 years we tried to be nice and got nothing but empty words. Now it’s a war.”
WFA and the defendant companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Legal experts believe that X has little chance of winning the case: it will be difficult to prove collusion or agreement between the companies.
“As a general rule, a boycott for political reasons is not a violation of antitrust laws. This is a right to free speech protected by the First Amendment. [к Конституции США]”said Bill Baer,a deputy attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Obama administration.
Christine Bartholomew, an antitrust law expert and professor at the University at Buffalo School of Law, said X would have to prove there was “an actual boycott agreement that every advertiser was a party to,” and she said it would not easy.
And even if X wins the case, the company will not be able to force advertisers to buy advertising space on the platform.
X seeks indemnification and injunctive relief against any further attempts to infringe by not advertising on the platform. The amount of the claim was not disclosed.
The company alleges that the defendants intentionally kept advertising costs down by following standards set by WFA’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm).
Garm’s stated goal is “to help the industry deal with the problem of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its revenue through advertising.” X argues that by doing so, the defendants acted against their own economic interests by conspiring against the platform and violating antitrust laws the US.
Professor Rebecca Howe Allensworth from Vanderbilt University believes that it is an attempt by companies to make their position on Policy X known.
X claimed in his lawsuit that his competitiveness in selling digital advertising suffered because of the actions of his enemies.
2024-08-07 15:01:38
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