The Trump Administration has been open about using its power to quash political opposition. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the administration is trying to stop advertisers and brands from boycotting right-leaning businesses.
The latest maneuver comes from the Federal Trade Commission. Last month, it announced that it would approve the merger of two of the biggest ad agencies in the world only if the parties agree to an unusual condition: The merged company cannot refuse to place ads on websites for political reasons.
The move was a sharp break from its traditional practice. The F.T.C. is usually focused on such concerns as consumer protection and monopoly power; now it’s trying to dictate where businesses advertise their products.
While the move would theoretically affect platforms of any political persuasion, there’s little doubt that it is a thinly veiled attempt to prop up X.
Formerly known as Twitter, the platform suffered an advertiser exodus after Elon Musk took it over and began using it to promote right-wing talking points, including antisemitism and conspiracy theories. In 2023, dozens of advertisers suspended their spending after two media watchdog groups, the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Media Matters, revealed how X was profiting from accounts that spread hate and misinformation and that major brands’ ads were appearing near pro-Nazi content. X responded by suing both the watchdog groups, as well as an advertising trade group and several leading advertisers it accused of illegally boycotting its business.
Then in May, the F.T.C. began investigating roughly a dozen advertising and advocacy groups including Media Matters to determine if they were engaged in a conspiracy or collusion by encouraging advertisers to boycott X and other websites. Media Matters has since sued the F.T.C., but in the meantime, the organization has dialed back its criticism and is considering closing in the face of steep legal fees.
The F.T.C.’s recent efforts essentially bolster X’s legally dubious argument that advertisers don’t have the right to freedom of expression. The agency’s conditions for approving the ad merger are “blatantly inconsistent with the First Amendment right of advertisers not to associate their brands with content or viewpoints that they know consumers find objectionable,” said Olivier Sylvain, a law professor at Fordham University.
Business boycotts have long been used to foment social change. In the 1980s, boycotts of South Africa by corporations and governments around the world — combined with boycotts of white-owned stores by Black shoppers — contributed to the demise of apartheid.
But in 2015, a movement led by conservatives began passing laws in dozens of states barring companies that participate in politically motivated boycotts from receiving government contracts or investments. Initially, the effort was intended to stop boycotts of Israeli products and services. But over time, it expanded to protect gunmakers, oil and gas companies and other businesses from economic protests.
And these earlier efforts to thwart boycotts pale in comparison with what is happening today, with the full force of a federal agency being deployed to coerce advertisers into supporting conservative media.
There is considerable power to tap. The advertising industry is a $1 trillion global behemoth and the engine of the internet economy. Ads are the kingmakers of online media; very few YouTube stars, newspapers, TV stations, podcasts or websites can thrive without being blessed by advertisers.
In other words, controlling advertising is a back door to controlling media itself. Already, this administration has sought to reshape how it is covered by giving access to friendlier conservative outlets, punishing traditional news outlets like The Associated Press that defy its orders, defunding public media and filing defamation suits against broadcasters whose coverage President Trump doesn’t like.
The boycott bans and investigations are another piece of this larger project. Faced with the threat of having to prove they are not boycotting outlets for political reasons, advertisers may find that their best defense is to place ads in right-wing publications. Already, the marketing research firm Forrester has advised clients, in an article titled “X-tortion: How Advertisers Are Losing Control of Media Choice,” to buy ads on X in order to protect themselves from legal threats and investigations.
If advertisers adopt this approach, it could expand to mean more money for Mr. Trump’s own media platform, Truth Social, as well as his favorite conservative outlets, and less money for outlets that are adversarial to the administration.
The F.T.C. move is an attempt to tilt the media landscape in favor of the government in ways that are simply un-American. If we want a media that is willing to stand up to government, we need to fight for the right to boycott, not just for ourselves but also for advertisers.
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Julia Angwin, a contributing Opinion writer and the founder of Proof News, writes about tech policy. You can follow her on Bluesky, Twitter or Mastodon or her personal newsletter.
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