WASHINGTON — A damning new congressional report shows how a little-known advertising cartel that controls 90% of global marketing spending supported efforts to defund news outlets and platforms including The Post — at points urging members to use a blacklist compiled by a shadowy government-funded group that purports to guard news consumers against “misinformation.”
The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which reps 150 of the world’s top companies — including ExxonMobil, GM, General Mills, McDonald’s, Visa, SC Johnson and Walmart — and 60 ad associations sought to squelch online free speech through its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative, the House Judiciary Committee found in an interim report released Wednesday.
“The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms,” the Republican-led panel said in its 39-page report based on internal organizational records.
“The information uncovered to date of WFA and GARM’s collusive conduct to demonetize disfavored content is alarming.”
House Republicans previously studied the extent to which the US government flouted free speech norms by leaning directly on platforms to censor content — through both the Biden White House and Department of Homeland Security — or by funding outside groups that compiled blacklists of outlets for advertisers to avoid.
The committee’s allegation of possible antitrust violations suggests a potential avenue for Justice Department action, especially if Donald Trump wins back the White House on Nov. 5.
‘Bewildering ‘ blacklist of The Post
The new report establishes links between the WFA’s “responsible media” initiative and the taxpayer-funded Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a London-based group that in 2022 unveiled an ad blacklist of 10 news outlets whose opinion sections tilted conservative or libertarian, including The Post, RealClearPolitics and Reason magazine.
Documents acquired by Congress show that some GARM members thought the GDI’s backlist was bogus — with one employee writing that it was “bewildering” that the group “somehow placed the NYPost as ‘at most risk’ paper in the USA for disinformation.”
But additional documents show that the GDI’s blacklist was nonetheless promoted to WFA members as a tool to gauge misinformation and demonize disfavored outlets.
“[W]e do advise that platforms, ad-tech, agencies, use independent fact checkers to weed out mis-and-disinfo from supply chain and ad buys. GDI is one of many – NewsGuard, IFCN, etc,” Rob Rakowitz, WFA’s Initiative Lead for the GARM program, wrote in response to the employee who complained.
In a separate email to GARM members, Rakowitz wrote that he wanted to “ensure you’re working with an inclusion and exclusion list that is informed by trusted partners such as NewsGuard and GDI – both partners to GARM and many of our members.”
Prior reporting shows the GDI received $100,000 from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and $545,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy. Both government entities have said they don’t plan to provide additional funding after the GDI’s bias was exposed.
The GARM initiative was established in 2019 and undertook some of its most controversial efforts as claims of “disinformation” were being applied without evidence to reporting and hypotheses that later gained broad acceptance — such as The Post’s articles on abandoned laptop documents that link President Biden to his son Hunter and brother James’ foreign dealings and the “lab leak” theory of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Internal communications suggest that rather than using an objective rubric to guide decisions, GARM members simply monitored disfavored outlets closely to be able to find justification to demonetize them.
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 couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line.”
‘The Twitter Situation’
Billionaire Elon Musk was one of the WFA’s top targets, according to the interim report.
“Documents obtained by the Committee show that GARM told its members to boycott advertising on Twitter after Mr. Musk’s purchase of the platform on October 28, 2022,” the report says.
A GARM member recommended that companies “stop all paid advertisement” on Twitter after Musk bought the platform, which he renamed X, with vows to respect diverse viewpoints after widespread political censorship under prior management.
Rakowitz bragged in a February 2023 email included in the report that “you may recognize my name from being the idiot who challenged Musk on brand safety issues. Since then they are 80% below revenue forecasts.”
Evidence that the WFA took active measures to undermine Musk’s stewardship of Twitter includes emails showing that Danish energy company Ørsted contacted GARM in late 2022 to discuss “the Twitter situation and a possible boycott.”
In an apparent smoking-gun follow-up, an Ørsted employee emailed Rakowitz and other WFA leaders on April 14, 2023, to say that “[b]ased on your recommendations, we have stopped all paid advertisement [on Twitter] ” but added that it is “an important platform for us to reach our audience, so we would like to consider going back.”
Rakowitz denied in a deposition before the committee that he urged Ørsted to stop advertising on Twitter and an April 18, 2023, email he sent to the company indicates he pushed back on the idea.
Republicans said they didn’t buy the denial.
“Mr. Rakowitz’s denial of any wrongdoing, in the face of clear written evidence, is not credible for many reasons,” the report says.
“First, the Committee initially contacted GARM about potentially anticompetitive conduct on March 22, 2023, between the date of Ørsted’s initial email to GARM seeking advice on ceasing paid advertising on Twitter and the date of Mr. Rakowitz’s subsequent denial
“It is not surprising that Mr. Rakowitz sent an email disclaiming his recommendation for a boycott after being put on notice that GARM’s actions were of interest to the Committee.”
‘Throttled’: Spotify and Joe Rogan
Comedian, UFC commentator and podcaster Joe Rogan was among the top targets of GARM and member ad associations, including GroupM, due to his encouragement to young listeners to rethink getting COVID-19 vaccine shots.
“In response to pressure from its members over COVID-19 statements made on Joe Rogan’s podcast, GARM pressured Spotify to punish Mr. Rogan by applying GARM’s standards on Mr. Rogan’s content,” the report says.
“In late-January 2022, Spotify met with Joe Barone, Managing Partner Brand Safety Americas, of GroupM … to discuss so-called misinformation on Spotify.”
“The alleged misinformation offered by Mr. Rogan was twofold. First, on the April 23, 2021, episode … [he] told his guest, comedian Dave Smith, his views about the COVID-19 vaccine: ‘You’re 21 years old and you say to me should I get vaccinated?’ I go, no’….. Second, on December 31, 2021, Mr. Rogan featured Dr. Robert Malone, an early mRNA researcher and COVID-19 vaccine skeptic, on his podcast. While YouTube removed the episode, Spotify refused to take it down.”
Spotify was attempting to join GARM at the time of the controversy and GroupM threatened to hold up the process, according to the records.
In February 2022, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek attempted to set up a meeting with Rakowitz, on the condition that the meeting only be between Spotify and GARM, while Rakowitz wanted to invite the initiative’s “Steer Team,” which he said “functions as a board of directors and brings together P&G, Unilever, Mars, Diageo, 4As, GroupM, ISBA, ANA.”
Amid the impasse, Rakowitz accused Spotify of a “lack of seriousness” and said he was “gravely concerned about the lack of fundamental policies and decision making at your platform” before threatening to go to the press, warning that if “we’re unable to connect and discuss the issues we’ll only be able to comment with what we’re able to glean.”
Rakowitz allegedly forwarded that email to both Barone, a Steer Team member, and former Mastercard ad consultant Ben Jankowski with the single word: “Throttled[.]”
In response, Jankowski said Rankowski’s Spotify contact “needs a smack.”
Rakowitz later told the House committee that by “throttled” he meant to write that he was “frustrated” with the course of negotiations, an explanation the panel also rejected.
“This after-the-fact rationalization defies common sense, as one definition of throttled is ‘to defeat,’ which comports with the threatening nature of Mr. Rakowitz’s email,” reads the report.
The WFA did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.