Australia’s online censorship chief coordinated with a shadowy global “advertising cartel” that is accused of trying to silence Donald Trump, suppress lawful speech on social media, and organising Twitter boycotts.
A new report from the US government’s House Judiciary Committee on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) includes correspondence between Australia’s controversial eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and GARM co-founder and Initiative Lead Robert Rakowitz.
GARM, which is now defunct, was established by the World Federation of Advertisers in 2019 as a “flagship project” of the World Economic Forum, and its members accounted for 90% of the world’s advertising dollars.
The interim staff report, released on Friday, accuses GARM of colluding with regulators in Europe and Australia to pressure Twitter into complying with its censorship demands, distributing private information to member companies in order to spark Twitter boycotts, and pressuring social media companies into removing content “despite knowing that its efforts were unwanted by American consumers”.
Included in the report is an email chain between the eSafety Commissioner and Mr Rakowitz which began with the GARM boss contacting Ms Inman Grant in November 2022 to discuss questions he had for the platform, which had recently been acquired by Elon Musk.
The Australian bureaucrat, a former Twitter employee who was born in the US and earns a taxpayer-funded salary of about $450,000 a year, praised GARM’s “significant collective power in helping to hold the platforms to account” in her response.
She also expressed support for a LinkedIn post by Mr Rakowitz addressed to Musk where he said social media platforms being “safe for all” was “non-negotiable” and that he expected Twitter to “uphold its commitments to GARM”.
“In response to Commissioner Grant’s message, Mr Rakowitz informed her of GARM’s plans to pressure Mr Musk and force him to submit to the group’s demands,” the report states.
“Mr Rakowitz emailed the specifics of the plans to Commissioner Grant and warned her, ‘I am sharing the attached in confidence with you. There is an ongoing major intervention’.”
Ms Inman Grant responded by promising to keep the information confidential and saying she was “open to discussing vectors for mutual support”.
Mr Rakowitz replied later that day, and told her: “My main thing is I need to see Trump and denials effectively sidelined but I am afraid the contagion is too widespread to protect infection overall.
“I have little faith in either part (sic) establishment – and I say this as a first generation American who is a refugee from anti Jewish persecution in pre-state Israel and Iraq.”
“That must be soul destroying, Rob!” Ms Inman Grant replied, and added “America is not the country of promise I left 22 years ago”.
“It makes me sad to see the societal polarisation and deterioration on so many fronts – and frankly the violence that permeates discourse-in (sic) the name of free speech – not to mention the obvious Second Amendment. Move to Australia!”
Ms Inman Grant then sent a further email asking for GARM to share information she could on regulatory decisions in Australia, noting that Mr Rokowitz had “some very powerful levers at [his] disposal”.
In the same email she lamented a “meltdown” at Twitter and said she was “sad” for the company and former colleagues.
According to the report, GARM then “created a plan that would force Twitter to uphold the requirements or risk boycotts by some of the world’s largest advertisers”.
“Documents obtained by the Committee demonstrate that GARM’s goal was to force Twitter into taking GARM’s preferred course of action. Mr Rakowitz noted specifically that the plan was intended to issue Twitter ‘punchy requests’ to ‘ensure they are upholding commitments’ to GARM,” the report states.
“GARM communicated this plan with both EU and Australian regulators.”
Last year the Committee released a report on GARM revealing that it discussed blocking conservative and right-wing news outlets like Fox News, Breitbart and The Daily Wire with its members.
That report showed that Mr Rakowitz complained about free speech advocacy and the US Constitution being written “by White men exclusively”, and that GARM bragged about Twitter being “80% below revenue forecasts” after it directed members to stop paid advertising after Musk bought it.
The revelations come just days after Ms Inman Grant called for YouTube to be added to the Australian government’s controversial under-16s social media ban, and said in a speech to the National Press Club that social media platforms needed more regulation.
In February she lost a legal battle against Australian woman Celine Baumgarten over a takedown order for an X post drawing attention to a “queer club” at a Melbourne primary school, a free speech violation that sparked outrage online.
In October last year she abandoned her final attempt to force X to stop Australians from seeing videos of the alleged Islamic terrorist stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.
That development came three months after she aborted attempts to force X to delete the videos after losing a bid to keep an injunction on the platform over the posts the previous month. The case sparked a war of words with X owner Elon Musk, and backlash from the Australian public.
In July Ms Inman Grant was caught spreading misinformation about “violent extremism” and racist abuse, and later that month critics called her her sacking after she made a biased speech about Donald Trump.
And a month before that she admitted there was a conflict of interest when her office acted on the request of a “transgender” extremist to demand X remove a post about her made by Canadian activist Chris Elston, known as Billboard Chris.
Mr Elston’s case was held on March 31 in Melbourne but the decision has been reserved.
Header image: Left, Julie Inman Grant (eSafety Office). Right, Rob Rakowitz (BeetTV – YouTube).
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