A U.S. District Judge in Dallas has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the video platform Rumble, which claimed that several major advertisers, including the spirits giant Diageo, conspired to boycott its platform. The ruling, handed down by Judge Jane Boyle, didn’t address the core of Rumble’s claims but instead focused on a key procedural issue: jurisdiction.
The court found that Texas was not the appropriate place to hear the case, as the defendants—Diageo, the advertising agency WPP, and the World Federation of Advertisers—are all based overseas in England and Brussels. The judge’s decision leaves the door open on the merits of the case but effectively closes this specific legal challenge in that district.
The Broader Advertising Dispute
This ruling comes as the same court weighs a similar but separate lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s social media company, X. The legal dispute revolves around a “brand-safety standards” initiative from the World Federation of Advertisers, known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. Rumble’s lawsuit had alleged that members of this alliance illegally boycotted platforms that didn’t meet their content moderation standards.
The defendants, however, countered that they had legitimate, non-boycott-related reasons for not advertising on Rumble. They pointed to the platform’s self-described “lax content moderation and brand-safety measures” as the reason for their decision. They argued that Rumble’s lawsuit was an attempt to weaponize antitrust laws to force an advertising relationship.
The dismissal of this case highlights the ongoing tension between social media platforms that prioritize free speech and the advertisers who are increasingly concerned about where their brands appear online.
