The social network X sued LEGO, Nestlé and other large advertisers for the “illegal boycott” of the platform

Last year, the company, owned by Ilon Musk (former Twitter), filed a lawsuit against the World advertiser organization (WFA) and the global alliance of responsible media (GARM) controlled by it, accusing them of a systematic illegal boycott of the platform. Now the X expanded the list of defendants in this claim, including Nestlé, Colgate, Lego, Pinterest, etc. in it.

Image source: Joshua Hoehne / Unsplash

The trial with WFA regarding the illegal advertising boycott of the X platform began in August last year. Soon after, WFA stopped Garm, saying that “recent accusations, which, unfortunately, distort the goals and activities of the organization, distracted attention and significantly exhausted its resources and finances.” At the same time, the organization’s leadership expressed an intention to fight a lawsuit and “demonstrate complete compliance with the rules of competition in its activities.”

The X later added to the lawsuit of new defendants from among large advertisers. This week it became known about the next expansion of the list, which now includes Nestlé, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate, Lego, Pinterest, Tyson Foods and Shell. The 10 claims states that WFA “organized a Twitter boycott by advertisers through GARM in order to force the platform to comply with GARM security standards.” It also states that these efforts were successful and caused social networks significant damage.

It is noted that at least 18 advertisers associated with GARM stopped buying advertising on Twitter from November to December 2022, and other advertisers significantly reduced their advertising costs on this platform.

The plaintiff indicates that at present most of the X income from advertising comes from small and medium advertisers who are not GARM members. In fact, the lawsuit states that the GARM boycott led to the fall of the X advertising income and a significant decrease in the cost of placing advertising on the platform.