GARM Advertising Cartel Shuts Down After Lawsuit: The Ripple Effect on Digital Advertising
The digital advertising landscape has seen significant upheavals, but none as sudden and dramatic as the recent shutdown of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) advertising cartel. The shutdown came just 48 hours after a lawsuit was filed by X and Rumble, sending shockwaves through the industry. In this article, we will explore the implications of this shutdown, the potential reasons behind it, and what it means for the future of digital advertising.
GARM, or the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, was an organization formed by major advertisers, media agencies, and platforms to combat harmful content online and ensure brand safety. It aimed to create a safer digital environment by setting industry standards for content moderation and advertising practices.
The Role of GARM in Digital Advertising
GARM played a pivotal role in shaping the digital advertising landscape by promoting responsible media practices. It worked closely with social media platforms, advertisers, and agencies to ensure that advertisements did not appear alongside harmful or inappropriate content.
The Power of an Advertising Cartel
The concept of an advertising cartel is not new, but GARM’s influence was unprecedented. As a collective of some of the biggest names in the industry, GARM had the power to dictate terms to platforms and publishers, significantly influencing how content was moderated and how advertisements were placed.
The Lawsuit That Shook GARM
X and Rumble File a Lawsuit
In a surprising turn of events, social media platforms X and Rumble filed a lawsuit against GARM. The lawsuit alleged that GARM’s practices were anti-competitive and violated antitrust laws by unfairly limiting the advertising opportunities for certain platforms and creators.
Allegations of Bias and Censorship
The lawsuit brought to light accusations that GARM’s content moderation guidelines were biased and led to the censorship of certain viewpoints. X and Rumble argued that these practices were not only unfair but also stifled free speech and innovation in the digital space.
The Legal Grounds of the Lawsuit
The legal grounds for the lawsuit were rooted in antitrust laws, which are designed to prevent monopolistic practices and promote fair competition. X and Rumble argued that GARM’s practices amounted to a form of collusion, where the biggest players in the industry conspired to control the market to their advantage.
The Immediate Aftermath
GARM’s Sudden Shutdown
Just 48 hours after the lawsuit was filed, GARM announced its shutdown. This abrupt decision left many in the industry stunned and raised questions about the organization’s internal workings and the strength of the allegations against it.
The Reactions from the Industry
The shutdown of GARM was met with a mix of reactions. Some industry players expressed relief, viewing GARM’s collapse as a victory for free speech and fair competition. Others, however, were concerned about the vacuum left by GARM’s absence and what it could mean for brand safety and content moderation moving forward.
Impact on Advertisers and Platforms
Advertisers and platforms are now facing a period of uncertainty. GARM’s standards and guidelines had provided a framework for ensuring that ads were placed in a safe environment. Without this framework, brands and platforms may struggle to navigate the complex and ever-changing digital landscape.
The Broader Implications
What Does This Mean for Brand Safety?
Brand safety has always been a top priority for advertisers, and GARM played a crucial role in maintaining it. With GARM gone, there are concerns that the standards for what constitutes a safe environment may become less consistent, leading to potential risks for brands.
The Future of Content Moderation
Content moderation is another area that could be significantly impacted by GARM’s shutdown. GARM’s guidelines were widely adopted by platforms, but without a centralized authority, there may be a lack of uniformity in how content is moderated across different platforms.
In the wake of GARM’s shutdown, there is likely to be increased scrutiny from government regulators. There may be calls for more stringent regulations to ensure that digital platforms maintain high standards of content moderation and brand safety without the influence of an advertising cartel.
The Potential for New Alliances
The Rise of New Industry Groups
The collapse of GARM could lead to the formation of new industry groups focused on responsible media practices. These new alliances may take a different approach, emphasizing transparency, fairness, and inclusivity in their guidelines and practices.
Opportunities for Smaller Platforms
The shutdown of GARM could also present new opportunities for smaller platforms. Without the dominance of a large cartel, smaller platforms may have a better chance to compete and attract advertisers who are looking for alternative options.
The Importance of Innovation
Innovation will be key in the post-GARM landscape. Platforms that can develop new and effective ways to ensure brand safety and content moderation without relying on a centralized authority will likely thrive in this new environment.
Conclusion
The shutdown of the GARM advertising cartel marks a significant moment in the history of digital advertising. While it brings challenges, particularly in terms of brand safety and content moderation, it also opens up new opportunities for innovation and fair competition. As the industry adapts to this new reality, it will be crucial for advertisers, platforms, and regulators to work together to create a digital environment that is both safe and competitive.
FAQs
What was GARM?
GARM, or the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, was an organization that aimed to promote responsible media practices by setting standards for content moderation and advertising.
Why did GARM shut down?
GARM shut down just 48 hours after a lawsuit was filed by X and Rumble, which alleged that GARM’s practices were anti-competitive and violated antitrust laws.
What are the implications of GARM’s shutdown?
The shutdown of GARM could lead to challenges in maintaining brand safety and consistent content moderation standards. It also presents new opportunities for smaller platforms and innovation in the industry.
How will this affect digital advertising?
The digital advertising landscape is likely to see increased uncertainty and competition. Advertisers and platforms may need to find new ways to ensure brand safety and navigate content moderation.
What can we expect in the future?
We can expect to see new industry groups forming, increased government regulation, and a greater emphasis on innovation in digital advertising practices.
Ah, the primaries are behind us. Now onto the general election.
Primaries are always ugly affairs. The inexperienced always take them too seriously. It’s like a family battle royale at Thanksgiving. Most of the time, fences are mended. Sometimes they aren’t. Rarely do general elections, outside of the presidency, reach the climax of insanity you see in primary elections. Especially in smaller local races.
Well, that’s about to change.
St. Joseph County Council District I is the hotbed of attention in Michiana. The primary was ugly for Republicans. For such a small race, it was all a bit out of proportion. However, what if I told you the general election race for District I was even MORE interesting?
Tami Springer has worked for the University of Notre Dame for 42 years. She’s raised 7 children and “coordinated our annual college food drive for 19 years in a row for the St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry. I served on the Board of the South Bend League of Women Voters and I was President of the Staff Advisory Council at Notre Dame.”
Pretty vanilla political stuff. But …
She’s also the power of attorney for Joe Freakin Exotic, the Tiger King!
Yes, this guy:
The ‘that B!tc# Carole Baskin!’ guy.
Yeah, and you thought the District I primary was spicy.
In July, 2022, she went on the I Helped Make That podcast (#19) to talk about her journey getting to know the Tiger King and becoming his power of attorney.
In the podcast, she tells you how she became prison pen pals with Joe Exotic after watching the show. She thought he was innocent, was set up, and was mad he was in prison. After the fourth letter, Joe Exotic started emailing her. A few months later they started speaking on the phone. Eventually, Joe Exotic wanted an online store to cash in on his new fame. He also wanted to change his power of attorney to someone ‘he could trust.’ That person was Tami Springer. On the podcast, she says they talk on the phone every day. She became his power of attorney after season 2 of Tiger King.
An Indiana University journalism professor said that Indiana will work its way into every story. Happy, sad, good, bad. There is a Hoosier connection. Probably not all the time, but it does seem to come up that way.
Here’s the next one: “Tiger King.” Yes, that one. Tami Springer, of Osceola, manages the website store for Joe Exotic and is his executive assistant and power or attorney. “No one believes me. They think I’m crazy,” she said. It all started when she began to write to him.
South Bend Tribune
Just last year she helped Joe Exotic in a public feud with Florida Seminoles quarterback Jordan Travis.
She doesn’t seem to mention this on her campaign site. I guess taking over as power of attorney for an ‘innocent’ man to help get him out of prison isn‘t campaign-worthy in St. Joseph County.
Tiger King was good fun and very entertaining. I still use the memes from that show regularly. Many might think it’s a far cry from engaging in the lore of the show to actually becoming pen pals and taking over as power of attorney for a guy sitting in prison. Especially considering what his convictions are for. Let alone his other accusations of grooming young boys.
Also, Joe Exotic is accused of being pretty racist.
Accusations have been made that Tami Springer my be defrauding Tiger King fans.
Please keep in mind, I have no way of knowing if this is true or not. The whole realm of Joe Exotic stuff is shady as hell.
There are several more accusations online about Tami Springer and potential fraud. I’m looking into it further. There’s even reports that Joe Exotic himself isn’t happy with how Tami Springer always seems to be looking for media attention.
Stay tuned to this one folks. Make sure you sign up for my free newsletter.
My name is Max Azzarello, and I am an investigative researcher who has set himself on fire outside of the Trump trial in Manhattan.
This extreme act of protest is to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery:
We are victims of a totalitarian con, and our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup.
These claims sound like fantastical conspiracy theory, but they are not. They are proof of conspiracy. If you investigate this mountain of research, you will prove them too. If you learn a great deal about Ponzi schemes, you will discover that our life is a lie. If you follow this story and the links below, you will discover the rotten truth of ‘post-truth America’. You will learn the scariest and stupidest story in world history. And you will realize that we are all in a desperate state of emergency that requires your action.
To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you. But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict.
Because these words are true, this is an act of revolution.
—
Last March, a billionaire named Peter Thiel started a bank run on Silicon Valley Bank. I knew enough about Thiel that I found this incredibly suspicious: My hunch was that this was intentional, though I couldn’t fathom why.
I began investigating online, and quickly found cryptocurrency’s fingerprints all over it. The bank run occurred just days after Silvergate Bank – which catered almost exclusively to crypto companies – collapsed. Meanwhile, several crypto cheerleaders were all over financial media warning of a regional banking crisis, and nobody in media was addressing the clear crypto connections.
I dug deep into the financials of Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Fund and eventually uncovered the following, all proven many times over.
Cryptocurrency is our first planetary multi-trillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. It was expressly created for this purpose by a laundry list of rich and powerful people out of Stanford/Silicon Valley and Harvard/Facebook.
The March 2023 bank failures were all intentional: the banks were used to move out stolen Ponzi money. This signals that they’re no longer dumping cash in to keep the cryptocurrency Ponzi afloat, and that it will soon go insolvent, as all Ponzis must.
When the Ponzi scheme goes insolvent, it will take down half the stock market with it: The perpetrators used their major companies to pipe into the blockchain so they could funnel money out from the crypto exchanges. This includes Google, Tesla, Apple, PayPal, Facebook, Disney, Walmart, Target, InBev, Zoom, and countless others.
It is a Ponzi scheme so large that it created global inflation, which is why the price of Bitcoin has been a remarkable leading indicator for inflation rates. Victims who bought crypto don’t realize their money has already been stolen, so the money gets double-counted by the victims and the criminals who stole it.
As it turns out, our elites are awash in Ponzi schemes. Stanford’s StartX.com investment fund and Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Program for Evolutionary Dynamics’ he ran at Harvard are both fake-science Ponzi factories that these schools have invested billions in: They are filled with fraudulent companies that use smoke and mirrors to promise miraculous new technology, but always collapse while the perpetrators only get richer.
Funneling trillions of dollars in stolen cash through the stock market created the largest stock-market anomaly in history. The stock chart signature of a Ponzi scheme is a massive increase (while they stack up cash) and then a massive fall (as they funnel out the stolen cash). This chart shape appeared in all the companies listed above. In order to explain the massive anomaly, our criminal government unleashed COVID on the world and told us these were the “stay at home stocks.”
—
Ponzi schemes are vicious beasts, and cryptocurrency is history’s largest Ponzi by orders of magnitude. It could best be described as an economic doomsday device, intentionally made to shatter the world economy.
The U.S. government is fully involved in this totalitarian con: To illustrate its bipartisan support, I’ll note that nearly every participant of the Clinton Global Initiative has ties to cryptocurrency, while two of the biggest tech VCs who participated are Trump associates Josh Kushner and Anthony Scaramucci.
To better understand our form of government, I will point you to one of the most astonishing pieces of stand-alone evidence I’ve found: Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton’s 1988 DNC speech where he nominated Mike Dukakis for president against George H.W. Bush. The speech is a vile, mean-spirited roast of Dukakis that makes no sense whatsoever: For Clinton to ruthlessly attack a member of his own party should have been political suicide, and he repeatedly mocks Dukakis’ noble and earnest qualities.
Notably, actor Rob Lowe, who was supporting Dukakis, was victim of a teen sex blackmail operation at the DNC that year. Since we know Clinton is a close associate with teen sex blackmail artist Jeffrey Epstein, we can suddenly make perfect sense of the nonsensical speech by applying this lens: Bill Clinton is a cocky mob boss who blackmailed Mike Dukakis because Dukakis thought his job was to help the public. He teases out the future public revelation that Kitty Dukakis drank rubbing alcohol, and offers a strange anecdote about the crack epidemic that reveals he is an exceedingly proud drug runner.
What does this revelation tell us? That our government is conning us completely. That Bill Clinton was secretly on (former CIA Director) George H.W. Bush’s side, and that the Democrat vs. Republican division has been entirely manufactured ever since: Clinton is with Bush; Gore is with Bush; Trump is with Hillary, and so on. When they present themselves in public, they are acting as characters that are against one another, practicing kayfabe as wrestlers do.
As it turns out, we have a secret kleptocracy: Both parties are run by financial criminals whose only goals are to divide, deceive, and bleed us dry. They divide the public against itself and blame the other party while everything gets worse and more expensive and handful of people take all the money.
Since it is fully parasitic, a secret kleptocracy is an incredibly unstable form of government – left to its own devices, it can only lead to fascism or failed state.
—
One of the key findings of this research is that Harvard University is one of the largest organized crime fronts in history, which is how they churn out billionaires – it’s a major hub of this sprawling criminal network.
As it turns out, dozens of the writers of The Simpsons went to Harvard. So I asked myself the question: If The Simpsons served the interests of organized crime, how would it do so?
Well, it offers a dysfunctional family suffering from moral decay, a community incapable of solving its problems, a worker drone who slaves away for an evil billionaire, and cathartic laughs for our poor collective circumstances.
There are some notable specifics as it relates to this research, too: In Marge vs. The Monorail, the townsfolk are too oafish and divided to invest in the town’s needs (fix Main Street) and fall for the charms of a dazzling showman with a bogus monorail Ponzi scheme. When we know that the show is closely linked to an organization that invests billions of dollars in Ponzi factories, this becomes quite damning.
In Lisa the Iconoclast, Lisa discovers that town founder Jebediah Springfield was a secret criminal con artist, and that the townsfolk’s lives are a lie. Realizing this is an important discovery, she desperately tries to get the townsfolk to listen to her. But they meet her with hostility, apathy, disbelief, and partisanship and she fails to get through to them. Ultimately, she realizes the town is so far gone that perhaps it’s better for them to be lied to by con artists, and she keeps the secret to herself.
And here I’ve been, like Lisa Simpson, desperately trying to get friends, family, and the public to believe the proof of a totalitarian con I’m trying to show them, and they’ve turned away with hostility, apathy, disbelief, and partisanship.
And so, we realize the criminal truth of The Simpsons: Our elites are telling us that our eroding collective circumstances are our own fault, and we can’t do anything about it, while they steal the American Dream from us. It is, for lack of a more elegant word, brainwashing.
—
Lastly, we string these major discoveries together: Cryptocurrency is an economic doomsday device; our government is a secret kleptocracy; The Simpsons exists to brainwash us. From there, the only research we need is critical thinking and we’re able to piece together the true story of our circumstances.
Consider America since 1988: Institutions like healthcare and universities have become parasitic in their skyrocketing prices. News media tells us to be angry and tribalized. Daytime television warns us of moral decay. Local news tell us to fear our neighbors. The Simpsons tells us we’re too oafish and divided to save the American Dream. Seinfeld tells us to celebrate the assholes and be irritated by all the normal people around us. “Reality” TV tells us that real life is filled with hedonism and strife.
Social media, owned by crypto criminals like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, is flooded with nonsense conspiracy theories and memes reminding us that we are hopeless, helpless, anxious, depressed, ironic, scared, apathetic, escapist, lonely, misguided, and jaded, telling us we can’t do anything but have a laugh at our circumstances.
Liberals mock the hypocrisy of conservatives; conservatives mock the hypocrisy of liberals, and our collective circumstances erode. The left shouts “All Cops Are Bastards,” which ensures they’ll be hated by the police and the public (and flies in the face of leftist theory). The public’s distrust of the government is at an all-time high, but so is the belief that we are helpless to do anything about it.
And with all this, a sharp rise in apocalyptic messaging: Climate change will kill us all; COVID will kill us all; vaccines will kill us all; AI will kill us all – no matter the bubbles we ascribe to, we’re bombarded with existential crises with no solutions. We’ve seen a surge in apocalyptic film, literature, and video games that tell us there is no way out of our poor circumstances but total societal breakdown. Zombies tell us that the public is our enemy. If you go to your nearest convenience store, you can buy a can of water called “Liquid Death.”
This is our rotten farce: For our entire lives, we have been flooded with media designed to slowly steer us into a world where the American Dream was dead, where the public was fully divided against itself, where everybody believed we were powerless to do anything about our worsening circumstances. It is all so they can organize an unprecedented, apocalyptic rug pull on the entire populace as they pivot to fascism, which is perhaps best understood as kleptocracy at the barrel of a gun.
When we piece it all together, we understand the truth: We are in a totalitarian doomsday cult.
Why on earth would our elites do this? There are many reasons, but the simplest is because capitalism is unsustainable, and they knew it: Climate change and resource extraction would catch up eventually. So, they never intended to sustain it. They knew all along that they would gobble up all the wealth they could, and then yank the rug out from under us so they could pivot to a hellish fascist dystopia.
—
Things escalated wildly in 1988 when former CIA Director George H.W. Bush got the White House, but this plan had been in action long prior:
Why is Stanley Kubrick’s comedy about mutually assured destruction called Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb? Because he was a cocky secret fascist who was getting us to stop worrying and love the bomb. Why did he make A Clockwork Orange? So we’d rejoice at ultra-violence designed to desensitize us to the horrors of the world.
Why were the Manson Family murders crawling with cover-ups and intelligence agents? Because our government wanted to make us fear for our lives and believe that hippies are deranged psychopaths.
Why did Walt Disney produce a fraudulent documentary that told us Lemmings follow each other off cliffs? So we would believe it.
Why did The Beatles tell us to fear the taxman, to scoff at revolution, chase nonsense conspiracy theories, and that happiness is a warm gun? So we would believe it.
Why did Easy Rider tell us that the hippie movement was dead? So we would believe it.
Why did Chinatown end with defeatism in the face of massive corruption? So we would believe it.
Why did George Orwell tell us of a hellish future of totalitarian control that we are powerless to stop? So we would believe it.
Why did Wall Street tell us “greed is good”? So we would believe it.
Why did Do The Right Thing tell us we’re all racially tribalized? So we would believe it.
Why did Simpsons creator Matt Groening make a comic strip called Life in Hell? So we would believe it.
And on, and on, and on, and on. When it comes to any popular media, if you ask yourself the question, “Why would secret doomsday cult kleptocrats want the public to consume this?”, you will find your answers.
—
This is obviously very bad news, but the biggest lie we’ve been told is that we are powerless. We’ve got one way out of hellworld, and that’s for the public to realize that we’ve been conned completely so we can build a united movement that shatters every lie they’ve told us, mocks this rotten farce as loudly as it deserves, and aims at nothing short of abolishing our criminal government so we can build one that serves the public.
To understand this story is to see right through the con, to become immune to the endless sea of criminal propaganda, and to feel the great joy and power that comes with freedom.
If a small number of people quickly put on these truth-colored glasses, we are in for an unimaginably bright future. If not, we get an apocalypse.
For more information, I’ve put together this booklet that includes other major findings and a map to a sea of proof, along with all the other essays on this site.
For the true history of America since the end of World War II, see here.
To see this discovery unfold in real-time, along with further explanations, hundreds of pieces of evidence not covered here, advice, inspiration, political theory, and the heart and soul of a man escaping history’s largest doomsday cult, see my Instagram story highlights. I apologize for leaving things so scattered, but this has been an exhausting affair. So long as you understand this (true) ideology, you will be able to learn the whole story.
Here is a federal lawsuit I filed against dozens of perpetrators of the cryptocurrency Ponzi – not for litigation, but just to preserve the information and attach my name to it. I was terrified and hadn’t slept in days and it shows, but it served its purpose of keeping myself alive long enough to keep learning and telling this story.
I no longer have my original research files from the crypto rabbit hole. If you want to see them, you’ll have to get my laptop back from the government. Ask them how they got it – it’s a very fun story.
I hope you know how powerful you are. I wish you a hell of a lot more than luck.
What's in the new monster bill Congress is rushing to pass? – $850k for a gay senior home – $15 million to pay for Egyptian's college tuitions – $400k for a gay activist group to teach elementary kids about being trans – $500k for a DEI zoo – $400k for a group to gives clothes… pic.twitter.com/sDcz8bgvMX
🚨BREAKING: After considering additional briefing, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals once again ruled our commonsense state law, banning dangerous and irreversible gender-transition procedures for minors can stay in effect. Another win for Hoosiers!
