White House Falsely Argues That It Did Not Violate the First Amendment Despite Evidence That It Did
Newly released internal emails show that Facebook executives felt pressure to comply with White House demands in order to resolve a European Union ban on Facebook’s ability to transfer the data of European users to its servers in the United States. In July 2021, after a White House official demanded that Facebook censor more information, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications, Nick Clegg, asked his colleagues to comply because of “the bigger fish [they had] to fry with the Administration — data flows etc…”
By “data flows,” Clegg was referring to the EU’s demand that Facebook stop transferring European user data — which Facebook advertisers value for targeting customers — to the United States. The new emails point to a form of government leverage over the platform.
“This is a gross violation of the First Amendment,” Columbia Law School Professor Philip Hamburger told Public, “not only because it involves what the Supreme Court considers ‘coercion,’ but also because it’s equally unconstitutional for the government to seek censorship through contract or conspiracy. And that’s what happened here.”
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