I’m not a corporate legalmancer; so maybe this is just my ignorance; but the part of the lawsuit that blows my mind is:
Concerned that Twitter might deviate from certain brand safety standards for advertising on social media platforms set through GARM, the conspirators collectively acted to enforce Twitter’s adherence to those standards through the boycott.
Outright admitting “Our customers stopped buying our shit because they were worried that we were unreliable and high risk” seems like a crazy opening to an argument about a zOMG Illegal Conspiracy!
Obviously a trade group could(and I’m sure at least some have) assist in facilitating a bit of cartel activity among members; but in this case Twitter’s own complaint is laying out how GARM members were deeply concerned about Twitter’s brand-safety issues and GARM’s assessment was that their concerns were justified.
It feels a bit filthy to make the comparison; since advertising is a sordid little diversion rather than a critical aspect of civilization-building; but this complaint sounds like a manufacturer of pipe fittings suing the ASTM because its standards wonks and customers who care about that sort of thing were deeply concerned that it was selling valves that misrepresented their specifications and had a high risk of dangerous failures under expected use conditions; and claiming that is an illegal conspiracy rather than a totally sensible customer reaction to a dodgy supplier.
