X's likelihood of prevailing in boycott suit is higher than I thought

https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/group-boycotts.html

by jawns • 2 years ago

68 90 2 years ago

shaungallagher.pressbin.com

nuz• 2 years ago

I know X is majority hated these days on here but this sounds like a great victory for all if they win imo

jonhohle2• 2 years ago

This seems like possibly a winning strategy for anyone who is simultaneously deplatformed, debarked, etc. as well.

It’s hard to disagree that there are pariahs that you’d not want as customers. On the other hand, I’d much rather live a world where the phone company operates phones and sells access to networks, ISPs sell server space, banks deal with financial instruments, and all of them leave their social, political, or moral stances to themselves. I don’t go to my local retailer for a lecture on the social injustice of the month. The idea of a Reddit style world where if you participate in one community, regardless of your behavior, you’ll be banned from another is about as distopian as it gets.

peeters• 2 years ago

According to the article, the only part illegal about "simultaneously deplatforming" someone would be if the action were coordinated by competitors ("we'll ban John Smith if you do too"). I don't think there would be an argument with the same legal reasoning if platforms independently decided to deplatform someone, or even if they saw another platform deplatform someone and let that influence their decision.

The Reddit example might be closer to the type of coordination it targets, but it would be hard to apply anti-monopoly legislation to volunteer Reddit mods.

haswell• 2 years ago

I don’t think it makes sense to include X or any other social media in the same category as those lower level infrastructure services.

I’d describe my feelings about the advertising boycott as very mixed, and think it’s worth maintaining a clear distinction between these categories of service. I’d find it equally dystopian to live in an environment that doesn’t allow companies to take a principled stance against obvious abuse or to stop spending money when a company goes through dramatic changes that fundamentally alter the advertising environment.

What I’m most curious about is whether or not the boycotts were truly contingent vs. just centrally organized.

atmavatar• 2 years ago

There's a sharp difference between the other examples you list (aside from perhaps Reddit) and X.

When a person posts an antisemitic on X, the people who notice said post do not know with any certainty what ISP was used, so there's nothing to associate the post with a given ISP. Furthermore, even if readers did know what ISP was used, the general assumption (correct or no) is that ISPs don't monitor traffic going through their pipes, so they neither know nor can control what data is sent over the wire, thus absolving them of any responsibility for what someone decides to post on X.

Contrast this with X itself. As the host of said message, there's a direct link between the content seen and X. As X already moderates content on its platform, a claim can be made that it bears responsibility for posts that are left up for any significant amount of time. The fact X sells ad space which appears next to the hosted content only reinforces this responsibility.

If you prefer to deal with a meatspace analogy: consider a billboard company. Should someone rent space on a billboard in a widely-visible area and paint a giant penis on it, most onlookers would disapprove, and they'd foster a growing discontent with the company the longer it's left up. However, few, if any, would attack the nearby Lowe's or Home Depot for selling paint and paint brushes that could have been used for the picture or go after the city for daring to build and maintain the roads allowing access to the billboard.

X is a digital billboard company. They aren't neutral here: they're actively aiding you in getting your message in front of more people with the hope that any engagement your message triggers will increase ad revenue.

brookst3• 2 years ago

Why? It sounds like a huge loss for free speech to me. it seems bizarre that it could be illegal to encourage boycotts based on political opinions. Was the Bud Light boycott also illegal?

tazu2• 2 years ago

This isn't about "encouraging boycotts", it's about business competitors colluding to weild their market power for political reasons. No one is saying that individual companies shouldn't be able to make their own decisions---it's the collusion. In this case, the collusion was allegedly orchestrated by GARM.

beanjuiceII• 2 years ago

people stopped buying bud light, vendors still stocked bud light

Zak• 2 years ago

I have mixed feelings here. I find the advertisers' position in this particular case fairly reasonable. The last time I followed a link to a Twitter post, one of the first comments depicted American politicians bowing before a caricature of a Jew draped in an Israeli flag. If I was running ads, I think I wouldn't want my brand to appear next to that. Musk's response to advertisers saying so was literally to tell them to go fuck themselves. If someone were to say that to me, I probably wouldn't do business with them anymore.

On the other hand, there's a trend for social media platforms lately to downrank anything that's not advertiser-friendly whether it's Facebook posts containing profanity or Youtube videos about guns. I don't think tech billionaires suing each other about it is an ideal resolution, but I don't like this trend.

drawkward4• 2 years ago

Welcome to late stage capitalism, where all that matters is profit!

lawn• 2 years ago

Companies not being allowed to leave a platform that has nosedived in quality is "good for all"? Really?

jawns3• 2 years ago

The lawsuit says that companies are free to leave the platform based on their own independent judgments. It argues that antitrust law prohibits the companies from making an agreement with their competitors about whether to do so.

pstrateman• 2 years ago

They disbanded the non profit in a blatant attempt to avoid discovery.

That tells me everything I need to know about who is in the right.

amunster• 2 years ago

Do you have an alternate source that describes this? The article here says the non profit was disbanded due to financial drain from the lawsuit. Plus there is no federal anti-SLAPP statute.

brookst3• 2 years ago

That seems like the exact opposite of the takeaway here. Rich people who successfully destroy opposition with lawsuits should not be seen as “in the right” just because they have billions to spend silencing people.

ceejayoz3• 2 years ago

Discovery can't be avoided that way.

SimianSci• 2 years ago

1. This doesnt avoid discovery

2. GARM is about the size of 2 people working out of a conference room once a month. This isnt a large organization, this is a trade association. They folded because there is no money to support fighting a Bully Litigant

3. Elon has a history of suing small organizations out of existance with frivelous lawsuits that drain the company's coffers.

woodruffw6• 2 years ago

My understanding of the Sherman Act’s restrictions on collective boycotting is that they depend on evidence of non-competitive collusion between companies that would ordinarily compete in a market. But GARM’s actions don’t on face value meet either prong of that definition: it’s not clear that the companies have colluded to boycott Twitter, or that buying ad space on Twitter is comparable to competing in their actual market segments (the things they’re buying advertising space for). Or to make it intuitive: seeing that your competitors also don’t pay for a service isn’t collusion; it’s market research.

But even if these conditions were somehow met: what’s the legal relief here? Surely a court can’t compel Coca-Cola (or whoever) into a minimum amount of ad spending on a particular social media site.

delichon• 2 years ago

But what turns this into illegal collusion, the X lawsuit argues, is when businesses make those decisions contingent on cooperation with competitors.

So the same as for price fixing. It's legal to set your own price, but can be illegal to agree to do that with competitors even at the same price.

woodruffw6• 2 years ago

I’m not seeing where it’s evidenced that this is what’s actually happening. Twitter’s lawyers can put whatever rationale they want in their suit, but it’s not even remotely clear to me that company $FOO only stopped advertising on Twitter because they conferred with competitor $BAR. If anything, the fact that the lawsuit is against CAGM indicates the opposite: $FOO observed a general disinvestment in advertising on Twitter, and deduced through normal market research that their ad spend wasn’t worth it.

Maybe discovery will reveal collusion here, but it relies on an unlikely premise: companies with significant ad spend have entire teams dedicated to PR, and it would be astonishing if they couldn’t provide independent internal research demonstrating the risk Twitter posed to their brand as a sufficient reason to stop paying for ads.

qingcharles• 2 years ago

I found the case and checked the prayer for relief to see what they are asking for. Declaration that the so-called collusion was illegal, money damages, and an injunction to stop them from further colluding to not buy ads.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69017972/x-corp-v-world...

bagels• 2 years ago

The last bit... Surely the court wouldn't want to force these companies to continue to advertise against their will on a platform that can sue them for not advertising? Monetary damage make sense if twitter prevails though.

jasode• 2 years ago

Fyi... a commenter[1] in a reddit thread focused on whether the alleged collusion tried to "extort something of economic value from Twitter/X" -- such as forcing Twitter to offer cheaper ad pricing. An association watchdog like GARM telling their members that a social platform is unsafe for their brand and causing them to pull advertising from it isn't an example of extorting a thing of value from Twitter.

I don't know if his legal analysis is correct but it sounds interesting.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/...

https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1enote4/...

woodruffw6• 2 years ago

Right — this use of the Sherman Act implies that advertisers were attempting to collude to force Twitter into lower ad prices for an eventual return, when all available evidence suggests that Twitter’s advertising segment is toxic to their public image and thus not worth any money at all.

I think the closest comparison would be 4chan complaining that they can’t charge more for ads: ads are cheap on 4chan not because of collusion, but because virtually no company wants their brand associated with 4chan’s content.

tourmalinetaco2• 2 years ago

The question I have is how many advertisers that pulled out, that actively posted on Twitter under a brand account, ceased posting under said account and/or deleted it outright? I would assume if Twitter is too toxic of a platform to advertise on, then they would want to cease brand association entirely no?

throw3108225• 2 years ago

when all available evidence suggests that Twitter’s advertising segment is toxic to their public image and thus not worth any money at all.

This is in contradiction with the argument put forward by the lawsuit: that brands were willing to boycott X only as long as they were sure their competitors were doing the same. If it were true that brands avoid X because "it's toxic to their public image", then they should be delighted to know that their competitors are still advertising there!

somedude895• 2 years ago

It would divert the ad spend from X to the NYT and other traditional media though, so you could argue they have something to gain from the boycott. News outlets have lost a lot of money to social media companies the past two decades.

jawns3• 2 years ago

The conduct that the Sherman Act prohibits is broader than what you are describing. But even if it were not, the thing of value that is allegedly being extorted here is control over brand safety policies. The advertisers are accused by X of colluding with competitors to use their combined market power to deprive X of more revenue than if each advertiser made its decision independently.

I don't necessarily agree with the lawsuit, but those are the legal issues at play.

orwin2• 2 years ago

This is so American.

I've been told multiple times 'vote with your wallet'. That's a typical neolib/neocon saying.

Organize yourselves to vote with your wallet? Illegal! Kill this idea with fire! Sue them! They're Hamas/Marxist/anticapitalists! We can't allow them to organize!

'Back in my days, we had a sense of community, we had more meaningful relationships'

I doubt this kind of people are dumb enough to not see their hypocrisy, so I have to believe it's purposeful.

pocketarc• 2 years ago

As with everything, there's nuance.

Organize yourselves to vote with your wallet? Illegal!

Individuals voting with their wallet together? Legal. Companies voting with their wallet together? Illegal.

Companies are not individuals. Companies have lots of restrictions on working together, so that they keep competing.

ceejayoz3• 2 years ago

Companies voting with their wallet together? Illegal.

Companies being told to "go fuck yourselves" by Twitter's CEO and complying? Legal.

orwin2• 2 years ago

Sorry, I should have added nuance : illegal for unions and non-profits, mostly immoral for individuals, the only moral and legal boycott is BUD is what I learned from USians.

throw3108225• 2 years ago

The problem here- if I understand correctly- is not that companies were voting with their wallets, even together. The problem is that they were willing to do it only as long as all the others were doing the same. Some companies standing by their principles, and willing to pay the price for it, is one thing. Making sure that nobody else benefits from the space you leave is another.

drawkward4• 2 years ago

Companies are not individuals

Unless they want to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence politics, that is!

kevinh• 2 years ago

So this non-lawyer read the initial complaint, looked into two cases, and thinks he has a meaningful understanding of how the lawsuit is going to go? Why is some random layman's opinion given any weight here?

stonethrowaway• 2 years ago

That’s usually part of my evaluation on whether something is worth taking seriously. The difficulty is going down that road, you’ll nullify a great portion of what’s posted here and elsewhere. To put it bluntly, people talk out of their ass.

Some people call it credentialism and they think an argument should be able to stand on its own. And those that think this, you’re welcome to have someone who isn’t a trained surgeon operating on your heart just because they make a convincing argument as to where the problem is and what the fix is. I’ll go with the bloke who is trained and has a few surgeries under their belt.

tourmalinetaco2• 2 years ago

Some arguments are absolutely able to stand on their own, particularly in fields where credentials don’t necessarily hold any value. A doctor is far more vetted than a stockbroker, for example, and that stockbroker is unlikely to make any major returns on their costumer’s investments, even with good “knowledge” of the market. They certainly won’t go much higher than the market averages without major insider knowledge. Credentials can only go so far, especially when you can get credentials in a fair amount of fields without any practical knowledge or understanding of said subject.

smitty1e4• 2 years ago

The countering question is: why does the economic/legal model have to be so over-engineered that nobody outside the Priesthood is capable of grasping the nuances?

One should think that keeping the complexity minimized would be a goal of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society.

llamaimperative• 2 years ago

It's a noble goal but the reality is the world is obscenely complex, and made evermore complex by adversarial forces trying to blow holes in each others' cases.

wesselbindt2• 2 years ago

That's an interesting question, but not a good counterquestion. Your question acknowledges and accepts that the legal system is too complex for us to give weight to a layman's opinion, and hence is completely in agreement with your parent question. A counterquestion, albeit a poor one, would be "is the economic/legal model so overengineered that no one outside the priesthood is capable of grasping the nuances?" The question is loaded and the answer to the non-loaded version is obvious, so it's not a great counterquestion.

jawns3• 2 years ago

OP here. Initially I was not going to respond to your comment, because you are right, I am not a lawyer. My background is in journalism. I would not trust me to represent anyone, including myself, in a legal proceeding.

However, after thinking it through a little bit more, I did want to say something in my own defense, so that your comment doesn't discourage anyone else who is curious by nature.

This was a topic that piqued my curiosity, and so I put in the time to read the filing and research other relevant court cases. I did not mention them all in my blog post, but I did a fair amount of review of case law that might be relevant here. Likewise, in my books, I review academic studies and then put them in plain language that a general readership can understand.

Isn't this what we should be encouraging on Hacker News? "Hey, there was a subject I was curious about, so I endeavored to learn a little more about it; doing so led me to update my priors, and here is what I know now." Dismissing that because I lack the right credentials feels a little gate-keepy.

I'm not claiming to be a legal expert. I merely learned something about the law and published it in case it piques someone else's interest as well. The title of the post makes it clear that the point is about me realizing my assumptions were inaccurate, not about what I think the outcome of the case will be.

globalnode• 2 years ago

While I agree with your statement here, in the future you could anticipate these sorts of objections with a standard disclaimer :) -- something I intent to do myself after reading all these posts. Its extra work but necessary given that there's always someone that will object.

ajrat• 2 years ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/technology/elon-musk-x-ad...

In the wake of Mr. Musk’s acquisition, GARM recommended that advertisers pause their spending, and several major companies, including CVS and Unilever, did so. Those two companies were also named in X’s suit.

The lawsuit seems like a slam dunk for X.

Why does Unilever need a consultant for this? It is obvious: You don't want your washing powder ad to appear next to controversial content? Then either a) negotiate with Twitter to make the ad appear selectively or b) come to your own conclusion not to advertise at all or c) or publicly state that you do not want to sell to Republicans at all.

But this whole state of affairs that there are increasingly single authorities for determining who can post what on the Internet is alarming.

PaulDavisThe1st• 2 years ago

or (d) consult with an industry/sector group that does its own independent assessment of the likelihood of any advertising restrictions and limitations that you request of Twitter actually being honored, and when they say "very little chance", decide not to use that advertising platform.

Oh wait, that's what they did!

jpalawaga• 2 years ago

I always thought the pretenses for this lawsuit were extremely thin.

Now that I see GARM was shuttered as a result of financial pressures from the lawsuit, I believe this was this was actually the goal all along. It didn’t matter that the reason was flimsy. It just had to pass muster.

xhkkffbf3• 2 years ago

I think they were shuttered because they realized that the lawsuit had legal merit. Shutting down the operation was the simplest way to limit liability.

drawkward4• 2 years ago

I tHiNk VaCcInEs CaUsE aUtIsM.

throw3108225• 2 years ago

What I don't understand and perhaps someone could clarify: does this stop the lawsuit? Do they hope it will? If it doesn't stop it, why discontinue GARM at all, what difference does it make?

blackeyeblitzar4• 2 years ago

I am guessing they will make an argument the lawsuit is now moot and seek to get it dismissed before damaging information comes out through the legal process. For example imagine a witness on stand sharing how there was indeed collusion between competitors in advertising, with the goal of suppressing political speech broadly in our democratic society, all coordinated by hiding the collusion via a nonprofit they all work with. It would be a huge scandal and make it very clear that these companies are too big and powerful and untrustworthy.

throwaway5752• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sUwRiIncKUn - "Tesla CEO Elon Musk: I'll say what I want to say, and if we lose money, so be it" (May 2023)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_M_uvDChJQ - "Elon Musk to advertisers who are trying to ‘blackmail’ him: ‘Go f--- yourself’"

ineedaj0b• 2 years ago

hacker news commentary can no longer rationally judge Elon ventures.

If you are reading, turn back! Haters and Fans are the only left. There’s no dispassionate lawyers reading this thread on a Sunday.

jmclnx• 2 years ago

Maybe they can "stop" the boycott, but Twitter/X cannot force companies to advertise on their site no matter what the judge says.

Global Alliance for Responsible Media disbanded, so no reason for the Suite to continue.

6gvONxR4sf7o• 2 years ago

How would this work if you’re dependent on a legal bad thing for your business, and that thing is way cheaper than the alternative? Let’s say you’re poisoning everyone who swims in your favorite local lake but it’s somehow legal. You and your competitors probably want to switch to a non-poison process, but none of you can because if you do, you’ll go out of business.

The usual solution is cooperation instead of competition, where you all agree you don’t want to poison everyone so you’ll switch processes. But is this saying that that is sometimes illegal?

If so, it seems like the race-to-the-bottom we all know and hate is a legal inevitability.

X's likelihood of prevailing in boycott suit is higher than I thought

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