Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
Page Number: 39

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

5 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

for many Americans,3 and with the decline of other media, 
their importance may grow.

Second, internet platforms, although rich and powerful,
are  at  the  same  time  far  more  vulnerable  to  Government 
pressure than other news sources.  If a President dislikes a 
particular newspaper, he (fortunately) lacks the ability to 
put the paper out of business.  But for Facebook and many
other  social  media  platforms,  the  situation  is  fundamen-
tally different.  They are critically dependent on the protec-
tion provided by §230 of the Communications Decency Act 
of 1996, 47 U. S. C. §230, which shields them from civil lia-
bility for content they spread.  They are vulnerable to anti-
trust actions; indeed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has
described  a  potential  antitrust  lawsuit  as  an  “existential” 
threat to his company.4  And because their substantial over-
seas operations may be subjected to tough regulation in the 
European Union and other foreign jurisdictions, they rely
on  the  Federal  Government’s  diplomatic  efforts  to  protect
their interests. 

For these and other reasons,5 internet platforms have a
powerful incentive to please important federal officials, and 
the  record  in  this  case  shows  that  high-ranking  officials 

—————— 

3 See, e.g., J. Liedke & L. Wang, News Platform Fact Sheet, Pew Re-
search Center (Nov. 15, 2023), https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/
fact-sheet/news-platform-fact-sheet; A. Watson, Most Popular Platforms 
for Daily News Consumption in the United States as of August 2022, by
Age  Group,  Statista  (Jan.  4,  2024),  https://www.statista.com/statis-
tics/717651/most-popular-news-platforms. 

4 C.  Newton,  Read  the  Full  Transcript  of  Mark  Zuckerberg’s  Leaked
Internal  Facebook  Meetings,  The  Verge  (Oct.  1,  2019),  https://www. 
theverge.com/2019/10/1/20892354/mark-zuckerberg-full-transcript-leaked-
facebook-meetings. 

5 For pending or potential legislation affecting internet platforms, see 
Congressional Research Service, C. Cho, L. Zhu, & K. Busch, Defining 
and Regulating Online Platforms (Aug. 25, 2023), https://crsreports.con-
gress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47662/11.