X expands lawsuit over advertiser ‘boycott’ for including Lego, Nestlé, Pinterest, and others

In August 2024, the former Twitter firm initially sued the World Federation of Advertisers and its brand safety program, the Global Alliance of Responsible Media.
The WFA withdrew GARM shortly after, noting that “recent allegations that unfortunately misconstrue its purpose and activities have caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances.” At the same time, the organization’s CEO reportedly told members that it would fight the lawsuit and “demonstrate our full adherence to competition rules in all our activities.”
Twitch and other marketers were later named as defendants in the lawsuit by X. The lawsuit has now been further broadened to include Nestlé, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate, Lego, Pinterest, Tyson Foods, and Shell, as first reported by Business Insider.
The complaint also alleges that the WFA “organized an advertiser boycott of Twitter through GARM, with the goal of coercing Twitter to comply with the GARM Brand Safety Standards to the satisfaction of GARM.”
“The majority of X’s advertising revenue today comes from small- and medium-sized businesses that are not GARM members or clients of GARM-member advertising agencies,” the complaint says. “As demand for advertising on X has declined as a result of the boycott, the price X’s remaining advertisers are willing to pay has declined as well.”
In fact, the lawsuit claims that ad prices on X “remain well below those charged by X’s closest competitors in the social media advertising market,” so “by refraining from purchasing advertising from X, boycotting advertisers are forgoing a valuable opportunity to purchase low-priced advertising inventory on a platform with brand safety that meets or exceeds industry standards.”
The lawsuit isn’t the only area where executives have offered a gloomy assessment of X’s business. The company owner Elon Musk reportedly informed employees in January that “user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even.”