TEXAS — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday announced his office is investigating the World Federation of Advertisers over a “potential anticompetitive scheme to withhold advertising dollars from certain social media platforms.”

What You Need To Know

  • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he is investigating the World Federal of Advertisers over a “possible conspiracy” to boycott social media platforms

  • It comes after X, formerly Twitter, sued WFA, alleging advertisers engaged in a “systematic illegal boycott” of the platform

  • X’s lawsuit accused the advertising group’s brand safety initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion

  • In November 2023, a number of advertisers began fleeing X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site

While Paxton doesn’t name which social media platforms he’s referring to in a news release announcing the investigation, Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, sued WFA in August, alleging advertisers engaged in a “systematic illegal boycott” of his platform.

“Although companies are free to choose when and where they want to advertise, a conspiracy among companies along these lines can result in harm to competition and may violate the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act of 1983,” Paxton’s news release reads.

According to its website, WFA represents more than 150 of the world’s largest brands and more than 60 advertiser associations worldwide. Some of those brands include Best Buy, Dell Technologies and IBM.

X’s lawsuit accused the advertising group’s brand safety initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video announcement that the lawsuit stemmed in part from evidence uncovered by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee which she said showed a “group of companies organized a systematic illegal boycott” against X.

In November 2023, about a year after Musk bought the company, a number of advertisers began fleeing X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

“It is completely unacceptable and un-American that the Department of Justice under the Biden Administration failed to enforce antitrust laws against its perceived political allies,” Paxton wrote. “Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to undermine.”