Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
Page Number: 61

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

27 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

not “resolve [the conflict] on its own.”  N. Clegg & J. New-
stead, Our Response to the Decision on Facebook’s EU-US 
Data Transfers, Meta (May 22, 2023).23  Rather, the plat-
form relied on the White House to negotiate an agreement 
that would preserve its ability to maintain its trans-Atlan-
tic  operations.  K.  Mackrael,  EU  Approves  Data-Transfer 
Deal  With  U. S.,  Averting  Potential  Halt  in  Flows,  Wall
Street Journal, July 10, 2023.24 

It  is  therefore  beyond  any  serious  dispute  that  the  top-
ranking  White  House  officials  and  the  Surgeon  General 
possessed  the  authority  to  exert  enormous  coercive  pres-
sure. 

B 
1 
Second, I turn to of the officials’ communications with Fa-
cebook, which possess all the hallmarks of coercion that we 
identified in Bantam Books and Vullo.  Many of the White
House’s emails were “phrased virtually as orders,” Bantam 
Books, 372 U. S., at 68, and the officials’ frequent follow-ups
ensured that they were understood as such, id., at 63.  To 
take a few examples, after Flaherty read an article about 
content causing vaccine hesitancy, he demanded “to know
that  [Facebook  was]  trying”  to  combat  the  issue  and  “to 
know that you’re not playing a shell game with us when we 
ask you what is going on.”  30 Record 9365; see supra, at 7. 
The next month, he requested “assurances, based in data,”
that Facebook was not “making our country’s vaccine hesi-
tancy problem worse.”  30 Record 9371; see supra, at 7–8. 
A week after that, he questioned Facebook about its policies
“for removal vs demoting,” and when the platform did not 

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23 https://about.fb.com/news/2023/05/our-response-to-the-decision-on-

facebooks-eu-us-data-transfers. 

24 https://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-approves-data-transfer-deal-with-

u-s-averting-potential-halt-in-flows-7a149c9.