News Corp CEO takes aim at now-defunct GARM's media boycott efforts: Its 'harm has been real'

News Corp CEO Robert Thomson took aim at the now-defunct controversial advertising alliance that's been accused of fostering corporate collusion in order to silence certain political messages. 

In Thursday's earnings call with News Corp investors, Thomson said the company was "considering our legal options" against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), in hopes to confront "the blatant political bias of advertising industry bodies who have done serious damage and denied many advertisers access to a significant audience."

"We applaud the work of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in pursuing the misnomer that is the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, or GARM, and its coordinated boycott of media platforms perceived to be unfashionable by illiberal liberals," Thomson said on the call. 

"GARM harm has been real, and there need to be commercial consequences," he added.

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GARM, the nonprofit arm of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), is reportedly shutting down operations after it was hit with an antitrust lawsuit by X owner Elon Musk. 

According to a new report from Business Insider, WFA CEO Stephan Loerke informed members in an email Thursday the group is "discontinuing" activities for GARM. The outlet said Loerke wrote the decision was "not made lightly," but it explained GARM is a nonprofit with limited resources.

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X filed a lawsuit against the WFA, GARM and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted and Unilever on Tuesday, accusing the defendants of colluding to illegally boycott certain companies and platforms, including X, from advertising.

Social media platform Rumble joined X in suing the WFA, which created the GARM consortium to serve member advertisers, claiming the group improperly used brand safety standards to effectively boycott certain platforms.

Still, Loerke said WFA and GARM plan on fighting back against X's lawsuit in court, and the ad groups are confident the outcome of the case will "demonstrate our full adherence to competition rules in all our activities," Business Insider reported.

FOX Business has reached out to WFA and GARM for comment on the report.

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X filed the suit after reviewing the House Judiciary Committee's recent investigation that found evidence "GARM and its members directly organized boycotts and used other indirect tactics to target disfavored platforms, content creators, and news organizations in an effort to demonetize and, in effect, limit certain choices for consumers. 

Among those targeted were Musk, Joe Rogan, Spotify, political candidates and news outlets, including Fox News, The Daily Wire and Breitbart News.

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"The Committee’s oversight has shown that GARM has deviated far from its original intent, and has collectively used its immense market power to demonetize voices and viewpoints the group disagrees with — even intervening in situations that do not have a so-called ‘brand safety’ concern," Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan wrote in a letter to over 40 companies last week. 

"Through its oversight, the Committee has learned that collusive activity is occurring within the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), of which your company is a member. In particular, the Committee has uncovered evidence of coordinated action by GARM and its member companies, including boycotts of disfavored social media platforms, podcasts, and news outlets."

FOX Business' Breck Dumas and Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.