[Global Times Comprehensive Report] According to the British "Guardian" report on the 7th, on August 6, local time, Musk's social media platform X filed a federal antitrust lawsuit in the Texas federal court in the United States, accusing multiple companies of illegal conspiracy.

[Global Times Comprehensive Report] According to the British "Guardian" report on the 7th, on August 6, local time, Musk's social media platform x filed a federal antitrust lawsuit in the Texas federal court in the United States, accusing multiple companies of illegal collusion. The plan to boycott the x platform caused it to lose "billions of dollars" in advertising revenue.

reported that the cause of the lawsuit was that after Musk acquired the x platform (then known as Twitter) in 2022, some companies significantly reduced their use of the platform because they were worried that advertising investment. One source said that x expects advertising revenue to continue to decline in 2024 and be lower than 2023 ($2.5 billion), with only $2 billion, a figure well below the $4.5 billion in 2021.

Musk, file picture

After filing the lawsuit, Musk wrote on ." Musk also called on other social platforms or companies in similar situations to join in. According to the British "Financial Times" report, in the lawsuit filed by x on the 6th, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), Unilever, Denmark's Orsted Energy Company (orsted) and Mars were listed as defendants.

lawsuit documents show that the above-mentioned companies are based on the security standards set by the "Global Alliance for Responsible Media" (garm) initiated by WFA (garm's purpose is to "help the industry respond to the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms, and through "advertising monetizes"), unfairly withholds advertising spend against x even though x has applied brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors. The document mentioned that the actions of these companies went against their own economic interests, constituted a conspiracy against X, and violated U.S. antitrust and competition laws. According to the BBC, x is seeking compensation and a court order prohibiting any conspiracy to reduce advertising funding. The above-mentioned companies and WFA did not immediately respond to this request from the x platform.

A professor at the State University of New York in the United States told Reuters that the threshold for winning a lawsuit such as "illegal boycott" is very high and is often unlikely to succeed, "because the x platform must prove that each defendant company has participated in a real Boycott agreement. But proving this requirement is not easy when the agreement may be implicit. Moreover, even if the case is won, x cannot force them to advertise on the platform." (Zhou Yang)