The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a voluntary cross-industry initiative established in 2019, has confirmed it's discontinuing operations after being hit with an antitrust lawsuit by Elon Musk's X platform over an alleged advertising boycott.

As reported by Mi3 Fast News on Friday, the lawsuit, which filed earlier this week, claimed members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Advertising illegally colluded to collectively withhold "billions of dollars in advertising revenue" from X. GARM members including Unilever, Mars, CVS and Orsted were also named as defendants in the case. The WFA has told members that it was confident of its compliance, and planned to contest the allegations in court.

However, it hasn't stopped the group from collapsing. In an official statement confirming the decision, GARM said was created to address digital safety following high-profile cases such as the Christchurch New Zealand Mosque shootings, where brands' ads appeared next to illegal or harmful content.

"GARM has been instrumental in providing tools to the advertising industry to help advertisers avoid supporting harmful and illegal content. The initiative has seen a significant reduction in such ads, from 6.1% in 2020 to 1.7% in 2023. GARM's toolkit includes the Brand Safety Floor and the Adjacency Standards Framework, which have aided brand owners in developing their safety frameworks," the statement read.

"Despite its achievements, GARM, a small not-for-profit initiative, has faced allegations that have misconstrued its purpose and activities. These allegations have drained its resources and finances, leading to the decision to discontinue its activities. The discontinuation of GARM's operations raises questions about the future of digital safety and the responsibility of brands and advertisers in this space.

"WFA therefore is making the difficult decision to discontinue GARM activities."

Arielle Garcia, the director of intelligence for adtech industry watchdog Check My Ads took to LinkedIn on Friday to assert the WFA's decision to shut down GARM was "horrible news for advertisers, and for the communities they serve".

"Now, more than ever, advertisers must not let Elon’s bullying rattle them: they must stand firm in their right to adopt standards that meet their own needs, and to decide what’s best for their brands and their businesses," she said.

The decision comes less than two months after GARM launched its new sustainability framework in partnership with Ad Net Zero, providing advertisers, media owners and agencies with voluntary standards to improve consistent, comparable measurement of greenhouse gas emissions from digital, television, print, audio, outdoor and cinema channels. IAB Australia chief Gai Le Roy has confirmed that the frameworks will be taken up by industry in the local market.

The GARM initiative was first founded in 2019 to address the challenges of illegal or harmful content and social media, and create voluntary frameworks that would provide shared definitions around brand safety and misinformation. It had more than 100 members including major advertisers as well as agency Holdcos and ad tech platforms. The initiative was not intended to advise members on where to spend budgets, and per the WFA's website was not involved in naming platforms or measuring or categorising the relative brand safety of content.