Mastercard tries to distance itself from legacy of woke censorship

Mastercard is trying to distance itself from its previous role as an enforcer of woke ideologies.

Mastercard is a member of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which includes other global corporate giants like IBM, PepsiCo, AB InBev, Nestlé, and L'Oréal. The WFA buys approximately 90% of the world’s advertising, translating to nearly $1 trillion in ad spending annually. In 2019, the WFA created the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) to address “harmful content” and “misinformation.” GARM’s steering committee and board of directors included Procter & Gamble, Mars, Unilever, Diageo, and three trade associations. 

GARM uses the threat of boycotts to force media outlets and social media platforms to suppress content opposing the woke agenda under the pretext of “combatting misinformation.” The cartel punished disobedient companies by withholding nearly all of the world’s ad revenue, forcing them to comply with the totalitarian ideologies like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and transgenderism. Most platforms complied with GARM’s woke mandates, with the notable exceptions of the video streaming platform Rumble and Elon Musk’s X. The cartel was disbanded in August after a legal onslaught from X.

While GARM was in operation, the president of the WFA was Mastercard Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Raja Rajamannar. According to the Daily Wire, Rajamannar regularly praised GARM and its efforts and urged other companies to join.

“I very strongly urge every CMO [Chief Marketing Officer] to join this alliance,” he said in a video uploaded to Mastercard’s YouTube channel.

Now that the political winds have shifted, however, Mastercard is trying to distance itself from its involvement with GARM.

“While two members of our marketing team had participated in separate working groups, they were not aware of specific GARM plans or coordinated activities,” the payment giant told the Daily Wire.

A new policy

The statement comes as Right-leaning organizations have been confronting companies like Mastercard over their roles in GARM. Inspire Investing, a Christian investment company represented by the nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, recently drafted a shareholder resolution to investigate Mastercard’s GARM participation. The resolution draft apparently spooked Mastercard executives because shortly thereafter the company issued a new policy against participating in any GARM-like initiatives.

“We advance our marketing priorities with a close eye on the value delivered to our brand, the interest and relevance to the intended audience, and whether the media channel/platform supports our ability to deliver new and unique experiences to the end consumer,” the policy says. “Mastercard alone makes decisions on our brand and our marketing activities, independent of any third-party views.”

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement Jeremy Tedesco slammed the corporation for weaponizing its marketing budget against conservatives.

“MasterCard, their business purpose is to make sure that people can transact funds. And that’s it. And that’s what they should be doing,” said Tedesco. “They shouldn’t be taking their ad buying power and trying to shut down people they disagree with in the marketplace of ideas.”

“They used their ad buying power in collaboration with other major corporations to suppress conservative and religious content online,” he continued. “It’s really critical that these companies are held accountable for collaborating in that way, in collaborating with people who want to stop so-called misinformation and hate speech from appearing on the internet.”

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