By Mike Killalea, NSD president
On Nov 21, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation against an advertising trade group for failing to advertise on Elon Musk’s failing X. Musk has been cry babying about the lack of advertisers for a while.
Sound newsworthy? Apparently, the Austin American Statesman, Dallas Morning News, and Houston Chronicle disagree. A Google for “ken paxton investigates ad group” reveals no major Texas newspaper with a story on the topic. I also searched through these papers’ websites, as well, but found nada on the topic.
Embarrassingly – to a true Texan – the New York Post carried the story! So did a paper in Colorado.
Don’t feel bad. Those paragons of corporate media virtue, New York Times and Washington Postapparently slept through the news too.
The AG website says Paxton sent a civil investigative demand to the World Federation of Advertisers (“WFA”) as part of an ongoing investigation into a potential anticompetitive scheme to withhold advertising dollars from certain social media platforms.
Attorney General Paxton is investigating a possible coordinated plan or conspiracy to withhold advertising dollars from certain social media platforms by pressuring advertisers not to purchase online advertising space.
“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,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to undermine.
I am not the AG, but I think I know a little about antitrust and a bit about advertising. First, antitrust is supposed to protect customers from price fixing and other monopolistic evils. The advertisers are the customers. The entities or people who pay for the service are protected by antitrust. X is the provider of the service and the collector of the money. That is the entity that antitrust statutes target.
Back in the day, huge entitites like railroads ganged up together, forming “trusts” that set prices for all the railroads. So much for competition lowering prices. The railroad’s customers were getting righteously ripped off. The Sherman Antitrust Act, and others, prevented large companies from ganging up against the consumer.
It does not prevent advertisers from ganging up against companies, though.
Since when is it illegal for consumers to boycott any “deserving” entity? People can organize to boycott anything – be it a big box store (hi, Walmart), restaurant (choose from a buffet of culinary boycottees), arts and crafts store (G’day, Hobby Lobby). You get the idea.
In any event, it’s highly unlikely that any “conspiracy” existed. Advertisers are notoriously fickle (speaking as a former publisher whose white hairs are thanks to advertisers).
This is just a small indication of the oligarchic rule America faces.
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