Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-511_p86b.pdf
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2 

FACEBOOK, INC. v. DUGUID 

Opinion of the Court 

I 
A 
In 1991, Congress passed the TCPA to address “the pro-
liferation  of  intrusive,  nuisance  calls”  to  consumers  and 
businesses from telemarketers.  §2, ¶¶1, 6, 105 Stat. 2394, 
note  following  47  U. S. C.  §227.    Advances  in  automated 
technology made it feasible for companies to execute large-
scale  telemarketing  campaigns  at  a  fraction  of  the  prior 
cost,  dramatically  increasing  customer  contacts. 
Infa-
mously,  the  development  of  “robocall”  technology  allowed 
companies  to  make  calls  using  artificial  or  prerecorded
voices, obviating the need for live human callers altogether. 
This case concerns “automatic telephone dialing systems”
(hereinafter autodialers), which revolutionized telemarket-
ing  by  allowing  companies  to  dial  random  or  sequential
blocks  of  telephone  numbers  automatically.    Congress
found  autodialer  technology  to  be  uniquely  harmful.  It 
threatened public safety by “seizing the telephone lines of 
public  emergency  services,  dangerously  preventing  those 
lines from being utilized to receive calls from those needing 
emergency services.”  H. R. Rep. No. 102–317, p. 24 (1991).
Indeed, due to the sequential manner in which they could
generate numbers, autodialers could simultaneously tie up
all  the  lines  of  any  business  with  sequentially  numbered 
phone lines.  Nor were individual consumers spared: Auto-
dialers could reach cell phones, pagers, and unlisted num-
bers,  inconveniencing  consumers  and  imposing  unwanted 
fees.1  Ibid. 

Against  this  technological  backdrop,  Congress  made  it 
unlawful to make certain calls “using any automatic tele-
phone dialing system” to “emergency telephone line[s],” to 

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1 At  the  time  Congress  enacted  the  TCPA,  most  cellular  providers 
charged users not only for outgoing calls but also for incoming calls.  See 
In re Rules and Regulations Implementing Telephone Consumer Protec-
tion Act of 1991, 18 FCC Rcd. 14014, 14115 (2003).