Report: How GARM's Advertising Cartel Helped Corporations Collude with Foreign Governments to Silence American Speech
June 27, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report titled, "Exporting Censorship: How GARM's Advertising Cartel Helped Corporations Collude with Foreign Governments to Silence American Speech." The report reveals the ways in which the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) has coordinated its efforts to control online content and censor disfavored speech with foreign governments. Through its investigation, the Committee also discovered that GARM's Initiative Lead and co-founder, Robert Rakowitz, stated that silencing President Trump was his "main thing," likening the President's rhetoric to a "contagion" that he must contain "to protect infection overall."
Documents and communications produced to the Committee show that GARM:
Documents and communications produced to the Committee show that GARM:
- Colluded with both advertisers and foreign regulators to pressure Twitter to comply with GARM's demands;
- Distributed nonpublic information about Twitter to member companies knowing that it would lead to boycotts of Twitter;
- Prepared coordinated statements for its members urging a boycott of Twitter;
- Pressured social media companies to remove content despite knowing that its efforts were unwanted by American consumers.
GARM's collusive activity not only hurt consumers but also GARM's members who sacrificed opportunities because they were led to believe that these brand safety precautions were both necessary and beneficial in promoting advertisers' core business objectives.
GARM attacked the ability of Americans to access relevant advertisements and online content under the misguided banner of brand safety, preventing consumer preferences from driving market outcomes and replacing those preferences with the wishes of an ideologically motivated cartel.
The Committee will continue to exercise its oversight of the adequacy and sufficiency of existing U.S. antitrust laws and evaluate potential legislative reforms by vigorously investigating entities that seek to infringe on American consumers' civil liberties and access to free and fair markets.
Read the full interim staff report here.
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