Meet the advertising cartel enforcing America's woke agenda

One hundred and fifty of the world’s largest corporations have formed an advertising cartel that enforces woke ideologies across the United States by boycotting businesses that do not comply.

An alliance of corporate powers

A House Judiciary Committee report published Wednesday revealed how the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which includes global corporations like IBM, Mastercard, PepsiCo, AB InBev, Nestlé, and L'Oréal, forces media and other corporations to embrace certain narratives and ideologies.

The WFA buys approximately 90% of the world’s advertising, which translates 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 includes Proctor & Gamble, Mars, Unilever, Diageo, three trade associations, and GroupM, the world’s largest advertising agency. This steering committee also acts as GARM’s board of directors.

The year it was created, GARM became a flagship partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF) to “leverage” the WEF’s “existing network.”

GARM states its objective is to “safeguard the potential of digital media by reducing the availability and monetization of harmful content online.” In other words, the coalition decides what content is put online by withholding advertising dollars. GARM also says it works with “platforms to do more to address harmful and misleading media environments.”

The Joe Rogan incident

In 2022, for example, GARM threatened Spotify with an advertising boycott after podcast host Joe Rogan said that young, healthy people need not take the COVID-19 vaccine. According to internal communications, GARM co-founder and leader Rob Rakowitz knew that ordering a boycott of Spotify could get GARM “into hot water by way of anticompetitive and collusive behaviors.”

Rakowitz, an avowed globalist, has previously complained about the US Constitution, which he said is a “literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).” Mostly, he has been concerned with the constitutional right to freedom of speech. In an email to WFA CEO Stephan Loerke, Rakowitz expressed consternation that “[p]eople are advocating for freedom of speech online” with anonymity.

“Mr. Rakowitz’s power comes from the members of GARM and their advertising dollars,” explained the House Judiciary Committee’s report. “Because power lies with the members, when members communicate an opinion to Mr. Rakowitz, he is likely to communicate that opinion on to the platforms. Ultimately, when platforms receive the message from Mr. Rakowitz, the companies have the choice to cede to his demands or risk losing their advertising revenue.”  

Coca-Cola was especially concerned about Rogan’s take on the COVID-19 shots, telling Rakowitz that this “particular issue (misinformation) does not exactly fit cleanly into [Coca-Cola’s] policy.”

‘Taking on Elon Musk’

GARM also boasted in 2022 about “taking on Elon Musk” shortly after he purchased Twitter (now X), which was a member of GARM at the time. One GARM corporation asked to “arrange a meeting and hear more about [GARM’s] perspectives about the Twitter situation and a possible boycott from many companies.” After holding extensive briefings on Musk, GARM launched a boycott of X and tanked the social media company’s advertising revenue by 80%. 

Even as they celebrated the hit to X’s revenue, WFA and GARM members discussed more strategies to destroy the social media platform that came under Elon Musk'sc control. One strategy was to send Musk a list of demands regarding what content should or should not be allowed on the platform. If all demands were not met by a specific deadline, GARM would expel Twitter from the cartel and attack it in the media.

Another GARM member expressed concern over Musk’s release of The Twitter Files, which exposed a joint censorship operation run by the former Twitter administration and the White House. 

Internal documents also show that GARM pressured Facebook to label a Trump campaign advertisement as “misinformation.” 

Blocking conservative news outlets

The cartel further discussed strategies on how to block Right-leaning news outlets like Fox News, Breitbart, and The Daily Wire. A member of GARM’s steering committee wrote that he “hated their ideology and bulls**t.” However, he admitted that his corporation “couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion[s]” so instead “watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line.”

To back up their claims about conservative sites spewing misinformation, GARM works with NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), two organizations that claim to be “neutral” and “nonpartisan” news rating sites. NewsGuard and GDI consistently rate conservative news outlets as “disinformation” while rating Leftist sites, and even false claims, as trustworthy.

GARM also launched a campaign against Fox News for its coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse, a young man who shot and killed two rioters in self-defense in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A jury acquitted Rittenhouse of all charges. But when Fox News said Rittenhouse was not guilty of murder, the WFA was infuriated.

“From a brand-owner perspective, the reasoning which has led us to put pressure and hold to account platforms on hate speech and harmful content should also apply to a media owner,” wrote Loerke. “We’ve always made it clear that the standards which we (GARM) want to see platforms enforce should be valid irrespective of media (even if [the media] has widespread popular support).”

Bad reviews also labeled ‘misinformation’

GARM worked with the European Union to develop a definition for misinformation. Both entities now define the word as “the presence of verifiably false or willfully misleading content that is directly connected to user or societal harm...”

However, GARM does not only seek to censor political “misinformation.” Unilever, for instance, complained to TikTok that a user had called one of its shampoos “straight dish soap,” which the corporation felt qualified as misinformation.

The House Judiciary Committee says it will continue to investigate GARM and its members, whose conduct “likely violates antitrust laws.” 

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