Advertising Companies Cave to the FTC. Media Matters Sues To Defend the First Amendment.
On Monday, Andrew Ferguson, chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announced that his agency had reached a settlement with Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG), two of the largest advertising holding companies that had been targeted by the FTC’s recent advertiser boycott antitrust investigation. With the FTC’s investigation into these advertising companies now over, the firms can now merge.
Still, the legal battle between the commission and Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media watchdog included in the agency’s boycott investigation, has just begun. On Monday, Media Matters, which has been accused by X Corp. of orchestrating an advertiser boycott of the platform, filed a lawsuit challenging the FTC’s ongoing investigation into the nonprofit on First Amendment grounds.
The FTC’s proposed consent order to the merger of the two advertising holding companies prohibits Omnicom and IPG from “entering into or maintaining any agreement or practice that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoints,” according to Ferguson. The “settlement does not limit either advertisers’ or marketing companies’ constitutionally protected right to free speech,” added the chairman.
Ari Cohn, tech policy lead counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, challenges Ferguson’s assertion, telling Reason that “prohibiting the carrying out or enactment of editorial discretion absolutely limits First Amendment activity.” Cohn says Ferguson “seems to believe that he can magically turn something into ‘not speech’ just by calling it something different. But he couldn’t be more wrong.”
As part of its advertising boycott lawsuit, the FTC is also investigating Media Matters for its role in facilitating an alleged boycott against X Corp. In 2023, Elon Musk sued
Article from Reason.com
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