IPA Director General Paul Bainsfair has responded to the news that the WFA is discontinuing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).
"We are disappointed to hear that the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) is being discontinued. GARM served an important role in tackling illegal and harmful content online, raising standards across the board in the process. Illegal and harmful content on digital media platforms remains a significant challenge for our industry, and one that will require cross-industry collaboration to solve."
The news of GARM's discontinuation follows the filing of a lawsuit by X against GARM, the WFA and major brands, accusing them of unlawfully agreeing to boycott the platform. Commenting on the lawsuit before GARM's discontinuation, Paul Bainsfair said:
"GARM was established to ‘help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising. This is, to my mind, a worthy goal. There is no doubt this is an important initiative to raise standards across the board, so that advertisers, media owners and consumers can all benefit.
"Turning to this lawsuit; to our knowledge, there is no boycott of X within the advertising industry, and this lawsuit seems misguided and likely to adversely affect trust between advertising agencies, brands and X.
"As will always be the case, every brand is perfectly entitled to advertise wherever they wish within legal advertising channels. Some may choose to continue working with X while others may not."