(Reclaim The Net) Some members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a World Economic Forum (WEF)-affiliated advertising group accused of helping carry out censorship online, are receiving money from those same US taxpayers whose speech they work to silence.
Other than scores of the world’s biggest brands and corporations, GARM counts six global advertising agencies among its members.
Despite the allegations (actively investigated by Congress) that the initiative’s promise of securing “brand safety” is used as a smokescreen to blacklist “disfavored” brands, creators, and content and deprive them of advertising revenue, four of those agencies are receiving billions of US taxpayer dollars, the Foundation for Freedom Online states.
This information stems from a review of federal contracts, the free speech watchdog said, naming the four agencies as Interpublic Group (IPG), Omnicom, WPP, and Publicis Groupe.
The last of these, Publicis Groupe (which has ties with the controversial outfit NewsGuard) has a subsidiary called Plowshare Group LLC that has a contract, valid until 2025, worth $394.2 million with the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department of the US government.
Two other subsidiaries – Sapient Government Solutions and OnPoint consulting – whose business is to secure government contracts, “also received hundreds of millions of dollars over the years from a variety of government agencies,” reports the Foundation for Freedom Online.
