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Online platforms often encounter the challenge of system vulnerabilities, such as bugs, which can be exploited by certain users for illicit gains. These platforms face a dilemma when devising countermeasures, particularly in deciding whether to penalize rule breakers. Different countermeasures can lead to varying economic impacts, including subsequent user engagement. In this study, based on unique field data from a prominent online gaming platform, we discovered that the occurrence of bugs has a negative effect on the online duration and consumption of observing players. Surprisingly, although the platform is responsible for the bugs, not penalizing rule breakers results in more substantial reductions in platform engagement among observing players compared with penalizing them. This effect is particularly pronounced for observers who are directly affected by rule violations. Our findings emphasize the essential role of the platform in fairly punishing rule breakers. To ensure the long-term prosperity of an online platform and the overall welfare of its participants, it is crucial for the platform to maintain high-quality system control and implement effective governance mechanisms for rule enforcement, thereby restoring justice and order to the online community. Online gaming platforms are inevitably subject to system loopholes such as bugs. Some players may take advantage of these bugs to gain benefits illegitimately, being viewed as rule breakers by platforms. Online platforms face a dilemma between disciplining rule breakers with the risk of being perceived as unfair to the rule breakers—because rule breaches are, after all, caused by the game software's technical glitches and belong to a "gray area"—and not disciplining rule breakers with the risk of being perceived as unfair to the observers. Different recovery measures may result in significantly different economic impacts. In this study, we use the unique field data of an online gaming platform to examine the effects of players' rule-breach behavior due to system bugs and the platform's different recovery measures on players' subsequent engagement. Using various empirical models, we find that the occurrence of bugs negatively impacts the observing players' in-game online duration and consumption. Surprisingly, although the platform is responsible for the bugs, not punishing rule breakers leads to even larger reductions in observing players' platform engagement than punishing them. We thus suggest that the primary driver of the engagement reduction is the platform's inappropriate recovery measure, rather than the bugs, and call online platforms' attention to designing effective rules and recovery measures under the situation of a rule breach. Our findings enrich the literature and theories concerning the relationships between online platform loophole exploitation, associated recovery measures, and sustained user engagement. History: Wonseok Oh, Senior Editor; David (Jingjun) Xu, Associate Editor. Funding: X. Yang acknowledges the financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [72272075, 71872086], Nanjing University Special Program for Middle and Long Term Outstanding Research in New Era Humanities and Social Sciences [14914220], and Nanjing University Special Program for Young Faculty in Interdisciplinary Humanities and Social Sciences [14370115]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2020.0416. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to discuss discusses the legal and technological challenges and disputes about the governance and regulation of user-generated video platforms. In this paper, by focusingon the Aparat video service, we will show how the issue of Content management has become a legal challenge. The regulation of video platforms in Iran, whether platforms that provide subscription video-on-demand services or platforms that mediate user-generated content sharing, has created some legal disputes. This conflict has different levels Its first level is related to the definition of video content. Its primary manifestation is the continuation of the conflicts on the definition of "expanded audio and video." The second level is the determination of the regulatory authority. The establishment of Satra and the difference between the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the IRIB regarding the institution in charge of this area is remarkable from this point of view. The third level of this controversy is about the mode of content moderation. Considering these different levels, this article shows how these disputes have emerged at the level of content moderation. Presenting a comprehensive communication law in Iran by determining a macro-regulatory body that considers the technological developments of the media, deciding on the limits and responsibilities of users or platforms, and developing a content moderation mechanism are the main suggestions of this article.

Purpose: Agrifood platforms are now part of consumption habits. They have emerged in various forms, and we need to describe this diversity to understand better how platforms manage their relationships with farmers. We aim to understand the governance forms of agrifood platforms and consider whether they comply with the principles of transaction cost economics (TCE). Design/methodology/approach: Based on a survey of 103 French platform managers, a two-step cluster analysis and ordered logit regressions were applied to test hypotheses derived from the theory. Findings: The results enable us to propose a refined typology of eight governance forms for the farmer-platform relationship. These different forms can be classified according to a continuum ranging from "market to hierarchy", conforming to TCE principles. We define a gradient describing how the platforms manage their relations with the farmers through contractual and relational control. We show that specific assets, behavioural uncertainty, and membership in a platform network are associated with more integrated governance forms. Practical implications: The article describes the different forms of platform governance and their relevance to market conditions. This clarification is necessary for farmers to elect the more suitable platform and for platform managers to create a new business or improve its efficiency. Originality/value: This article is the first to offer a detailed typology of agrifood platform governance. It highlights these governance characteristics and their relationship with transaction attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centering on social media's public- and profit-oriented nature, this study theorizes how social media users are empowered and constrained when participating in platform governance through user-initiated expressions on platforms. The empirical analysis focuses on user responses before and after Elon Musk's official acquisition of Twitter, utilizing cluster analysis and topic modeling to examine the volume and content of related discourses among different Twitter user groups. Our results point to user constraint in platform governance. Although a diverse set of users, such as partisans, bots, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts, spoke up, they had diverging and sometimes conflicting objectives; and partisans dominated the conversations. There was an upsurge in user volume and activity level post-acquisition among liberal users, whose critical voices on platform governance might have bolstered platform business. Potential bots also increased in volume and amplified political topics. Our findings shed light on the challenges of user-driven platform governance, underscoring the complex interplay between platform users, economy, and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite social media companies' public commitments to do good, they regularly face international criticism. This article explores how platforms engage in corporate public relations campaigns to negotiate social and political responsibilities. Through a qualitative analysis of the values promoted in the social initiative TikTok for Good, I show how TikTok promotes messages that amplify positivity, minimize negativity, and focus on individual well-being, while consistently assigning responsibility to other actors. Together, these strategies allow TikTok to symbolically empower users while maintaining control. I conceptualize these strategies that downplay and distance a company from conflicts associated with struggles over power as depoliticization by platforms. This study highlights platform companies' soft forms of governance and demonstrates how the analysis of platform values allows researchers to cut through the strategic vagueness of claims to do good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controversies surrounding social media platforms have provided opportunities for institutional reflexivity amongst users and regulators on how to understand and govern platforms. Amidst contestation, platform companies have continued to enact projects that draw upon existing modes of privatized governance. We investigate how social media companies have attempted to achieve closure by continuing to set the terms around platform governance. We investigate two projects implemented by Facebook (Meta)—authenticity regulation and privacy controls—in response to the Russian Interference and Cambridge Analytica controversies surrounding the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Drawing on Goffman’s metaphor of stage management, we analyze the techniques deployed by Facebook to reinforce a division between what is visible and invisible to the user experience. These platform governance projects propose to act upon front-stage data relations: information that users can see from other users—whether that is content that users can see from “bad actors”, or information that other users can see about oneself. At the same time, these projects relegate back-stage data relations—information flows between users constituted by recommendation and targeted advertising systems—to invisibility and inaction. As such, Facebook renders the user experience actionable for governance, while foreclosing governance of back-stage data relations central to the economic value of the platform. As social media companies continue to perform platform governance projects following controversies, our paper invites reflection on the politics of these projects. By destabilizing the boundaries drawn by platform companies, we open space for continuous reflexivity on how platforms should be understood and governed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disputes over transactions on two-sided platforms are common and usually arbitrated through platforms' customer service departments or third-party service providers. This paper studies crowd-judging, a novel crowdsourcing mechanism whereby users (buyers and sellers) volunteer as jurors to decide disputes arising from the platform. Using a rich data set from the dispute resolution center at Taobao, a leading Chinese e-commerce platform, we aim to understand this innovation and propose and analyze potential operational improvements with a focus on in-group bias (buyer jurors favor the buyer, likewise for sellers). Platform users, especially sellers, share the perception that in-group bias is prevalent and systematically sways case outcomes as the majority of users on such platforms are buyers, undermining the legitimacy of crowd-judging. Our empirical findings suggest that such concern is not completely unfounded: on average, a seller juror is approximately 10% likelier (than a buyer juror) to vote for a seller. Such bias is aggravated among cases that are decided by a thin margin and when jurors perceive that their in-group's interests are threatened. However, the bias diminishes as jurors gain experience: a user's bias reduces by nearly 95% as experience grows from zero to the sample median level. Incorporating these findings and juror participation dynamics in a simulation study, the paper delivers three managerial insights. First, under the existing voting policy, in-group bias influences the outcomes of no more than 2% of cases. Second, simply increasing crowd size through either a larger case panel or aggressively recruiting new jurors may not be efficient in reducing the adverse effect of in-group bias. Finally, policies that allocate cases dynamically could simultaneously mitigate the impact of in-group bias and nurture a more sustainable juror pool. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management. Funding: S. A. Yang and A. Zhang acknowledge the support of the Hong Kong General Research Fund [Grant "Decentralizing Platform Governance: Innovations from China; Project 17614921]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4818. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies suggest that platform access restriction may cause restricted complementors to switch to competing platforms, which will increase complement quantity on competing platforms. We re-examine this prediction by accounting for the impact of economies of scope on complementor responses to platform access restriction. We argue that restricting a complementor's access on a platform may prevent it from achieving economies of scope from multi-homing, thereby incentivizing it to abandon both the restricted and (unrestricted) competing platforms. Using rideshare data in New York City, we compare the numbers of trips made by Lyft and Uber drivers, respectively, before and after Lyft restricted drivers' access on its platform. We find that Lyft's access restriction reduced trip numbers not only on Lyft but also on Uber. In addition, both Lyft's and Uber's trip numbers decreased not only during the restricted low-demand periods (e.g., non-rush hours) but also during the unrestricted high-demand periods (e.g., rush hours). In contrast, after a substantial number of multi-homing drivers left both platforms following Lyft's access restriction, a subsequent access restriction by Uber led to an increase in trip numbers on Lyft. These results highlight the importance of accounting for interdependencies across complementor activities when designing platform governance policies. This paper was accepted by Alfonso Gambardella, business strategy. Funding: H. D. Chung acknowledges support from the Strategic Research Foundation's Dissertation Research [Grant SRF-2021-DRG-8363]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4706. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how platform companies seek to lobby and otherwise influence policymakers during heated regulatory episodes. While there has been some valuable recent work on different policy influence strategies deployed by platform firms, in particular the emerging use of “user-facing” tactics of consumer mobilisation, current research tends to neglect the role of specific institutional contexts and related power structures intermediating the exertion of business power. Developing an institutionally situated approach, we offer an analysis of platform policy influence during the Digital Services Act (DSA) negotiations in the EU from 2019-2022. Through an analysis of political science literature on business power and interest group politics, we outline five strategies of corporate policy influence (access lobbying, coalition building, stakeholder mobilisation, public relations, and funding). Drawing on freedom of information requests, the EU Transparency register, and civil society watchdog reporting, we then provide an analysis of how platform firms sought to influence EU policymakers through these strategies around the DSA.

Responding to frustrations with the enforcement of copyright on YouTube, some creators publish videos that discuss their experiences, challenge claims of infringement, and critique broader structures of content moderation. Platform callouts, or public complaints about the conduct of or on platforms, are one of the primary ways creators challenge the power imbalance between users and corporations. Through an analysis of 135 videos, we provide a rich empirical account of how creators publicly define the problem of copyright enforcement, propose solutions, and attribute responsibility to other creators, the platform, and external actors like media conglomerates. Creators criticise the prevalence of “false” copyright claims that ignore fair use or serve ulterior motives like harassment, censorship, and financial extortion, as well as the challenges of communicating with the platform. Drawing inspiration from organisational theory, we differentiate horizontal and vertical callouts according to the institutional positioning of the speaker and target. Horizontal callouts, or public complaints between peers, offer a mechanism for community self-policing, while vertical callouts, or public complaints directed towards organisations, provide a mechanism for influencing centralised content moderation policies and practices. We conclude with a discussion of the benefits and limitations of callouts as a strategy of creator-driven platform governance.

Algorithmic transparency is high on the agenda for social media regulation. However, recent work in Science and Technology Studies questions whether this endeavor of “opening the black box” is feasible or even meaningful due to the sociotechnical contingency of platform behavior. To address these shortcomings, Bernhard Rieder and Jeannette Hoffman have proposed a move from algorithmic transparency to platform observability: a pragmatic and sociotechnical perspective aimed at securing structural, real-time access to the means of platform knowledge production. This paper applies the concept of observability to recent legislative developments in the EU’s new Digital Services Act. Reviewing that legislation’s transparency rules demonstrates how familiar algorithmic principles rules are starting to be complemented by innovative new observability policies and how these reflect revised understandings of transparency’s possible subjects, functions, and formats. This review also surfaces normative tensions in observability policy. In terms of substance, observability demands access to content but struggles to discern public from private discourses in semi-public social media channels. In terms of function, observability aims to act as a companion to regulation, but tensions arise between a broad concept of knowledge production and a narrow concept of regulatory compliance monitoring. In terms of format, observability’s drive for infrastructural and real-time access entails new API governance tradeoffs between, for example, scope and scalability. Along these lines, observability paves the way for a more constructive debate around platform data access laws and the dead ends of algorithmic transparency.

Purpose: This study investigates the operational processes, oversight practices, investor incentives and business impacts in the localization of equity crowdfunding in Indonesia through an exploratory case study of the LandX platform. Design/Methodology/Approach: Qualitative data was collected through interviews with 5 key personnel of LandX and document analysis of 8 internal materials related to operational processes and financial outcomes. Data underwent inductive thematic analysis. Findings: Findings reveal LandX conducts structured due diligence encompassing weighted financial and qualitative criteria that represent industry best practices, balanced by outcome uncertainties. Investor incentives span portfolio diversification to personal passions, requiring tailored communication and education to ensure informed participation. While complying strictly with regulations, LandX also demonstrates responsible self-governance through transparency and protections that exceed policy requirements. Qualitative indications point to accelerated issuer growth, but quantified impact data remains limited. Practical Implications: Results provide insights into prudent navigation required to advance equity crowdfunding in Indonesia through platform diligence and education, calibrated outcome expectations, updated regulations, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Originality/Value: This pioneering study provides timely qualitative insights into equity crowdfunding localization dynamics in the under-examined context of Indonesia. Paper Type: Case Study

Decentralised content moderation describes and potentially advocates for moderation infrastructures in which both the authority and the responsibility to moderate are distributed over a plurality of actors or institutions.

On both sides of the Atlantic, policymakers are struggling to reign in the power of large online platforms and technology companies. Transparency obligations have emerged as a key policy tool that may support or enable achieving this goal. The core argument of this blog is that the Digital Services Act (DSA) creates, at least in part, a global transparency regime. This has implications for transatlantic dialogues and cooperation on matters concerning platform governance.

On 17 February 2024, the Digital Services Act (DSA) became fully applicable in Europe. The DSA's new approach fundamentally reshapes the regulation and liability of platforms in Europe, and promises to have a significant impact in other jurisdictions, like the US, where there are persistent calls for legislative interventions to reign in the power of Big Tech. This symposium brings together a group of renowned European and American scholars to carry an academic transatlantic dialogue on the potential benefits and risks of the EU’s new approach.

Unlike traditional organizational structure, participants and actors in digital platform-based ecosystems are gathered together in a loosely coupled network structure. How to coordinate different types of participants to achieve value creation is a great challenge for the platform. In the meanwhile, scholars also paid great attention to the governance issues in digital platform-based ecosystems. However, the current research on the dynamic governance mechanism for digital platform-based ecosystems is relatively insufficient, especially lacking of focus on in-depth exploration of the governance mechanism during the whole life cycle of digital platform-based ecosystems. This paper adopts a theoretical analysis method to analyze the dynamic governance mechanism for digital platform- based ecosystems and summarizes the important features, goals and key challenges of digital platform-based ecosystems at different evolutionary stages. Ultimately, we draw the following conclusions. Specifically, in the emergence phase, the digital platform-based ecosystem needs to implement an open-based governance model, which can be implemented through decoupling strategies, open access, designing value creation modes, providing resource information, symbiotic promotion strategies. In the oscillation phase, it is required to implement the control-based governance model, which controls negative factors that may affect the development of the platform by setting access rights, system feedback, dispute resolution mechanisms, behavioral control, external relationship control, and regulating the transaction process to screen complementarities. In the normative phase, it is required to implement the institutionalization-based governance model, which controls negative factors that may affect the development of the platform by allocating consultation procedures, limiting the power of owners, granting autonomy to complementors and ensuring procedural fairness to safeguard complementors. In the renewal phase, it involves the implementation of a change-based governance model to realize the transformation of the platform by improving platform quality, focusing on complementors' responses, focusing on cutting-edge digital technologies, designing collaborative organizations, and facilitating mutual growth. Compared with previous literature, this paper expands on the following aspects: first, previous studies are mostly based on a static perspective, while this paper adopts a dynamic perspective to analyze the important features, goals and key challenges of the evolution of digital platform-based ecosystems in details. Second, previous studies mostly focus on the governance mechanism fordigital platform-based ecosystems at a certain point in time or during a period of time, while this paper portrays the whole lifecycle process of digital platform-based ecosystems' governance mechanism. Third, while previous studies have focused on digital platform-based ecosystem either from the standpoint of platform owner or from the standpoint of complementors, this paper focuses on the perspective of the interaction between platform owner and complementors to explore the dynamic governance mechanism for digital platform-based ecosystems. To a certain extent, the research reveals the internal logic of the dynamic evolution and governance for digital platform-based ecosystems, which helps to understand the development process of digital platform-based ecosystems from the perspective of the whole life cycle, provides decision-making guidance for digital platforms at different stages, and offers ideas for platform owner to better handle the relationship with their complementors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of recent crises at commercial social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit, the "fediverse" has gained adoption and visibility as a noncommercial alternative for individuals, communities, and institutions to develop channels of public communication, dialogue, and debate. In this article, we draw on illustrative examples from the history of digital civic discourse and identify 6 ways in which history shows us how the potential benefits of the fediverse are at risk of subversion. We discuss several potential threats to these spaces of civil discourse, including challenges inherent to distributed governance, commercial platform capture, inclusive access, moderation at scale, reputational assaults by commercial competitors, and the neoliberal technoromanticism familiar from previous digital innovations. These threats must be addressed collectively and proactively by key fediverse stakeholders in an ecology whose ruling values are noncommercialism, decentralization, open source, free association, and wariness of traditional governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The negative impacts of social media have given rise to philosophical questions around whether social media companies have the authority to regulate user-generated content on their platforms. The most popular justification for that authority is to appeal to private ownership rights. Social media companies own their platforms, and their ownership comes with various rights that ground their authority to moderate user-generated content on their platforms. However, we argue that ownership rights can be limited when their exercise results in significant harms to others or the perpetration of injustices. We outline some of the substantive harms that social media platforms inflict through their practices of content moderation and some of the procedural injustices that arise through their arbitrary application of community guidelines. This provides a normative basis for calls to better regulate user-generated content on social media platforms. We conclude by considering some of the political and legal implications of our argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Online Safety Act (OSA) has now become law, marking a significant milestone in platform regulation in the United Kingdom. The OSA introduces fresh obligations for technology firms to address illegal online content and activities, covering child sexual exploitation, fraud, and terrorism, adding the UK to the array of jurisdictions that have recently introduced new online safety and platform accountability regulations. However, the OSA is notably short on specifics. In this post, we dissect key aspects of the OSA structure and draw comparisons with similar legislation, including the EU Digital Services Act (DSA).

With the rise of online video content, especially the growth of online video consumption during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study focuses on Google’s video search as an important but understudied platform to explore Google’s role in three media diversity areas — format-type diversity, source diversity, and structural-social diversity—in the online video landscape. Findings of this study reveal a complicated picture: on the one hand, Google can expose users to video content alternative to YouTube video, which involves a variety of media and non-media sources; on the other hand, the lack of diversity can be found in the studied areas. In addition, Google-source partnership and the limited presentation of minority sources at the time of a global crisis, this study argues, has profound implications for media diversity. While normative expectations of digital platforms’ role in media diversity depend on different understandings of democracy models, media diversity is an important thread of the ongoing debate regarding platform governance. This study sheds light on one video platform, as a case updating our understanding of media diversity in the digital age.

We study the relative merits of different dispute resolution mechanisms in two-sided platforms in the context of disputes involving malicious reviews and blackmail. We develop a game-theoretic model of the strategic interactions between a seller and a (potentially malicious) consumer. In our model, the seller takes into account the impact of consumer reviews on his future earnings; recognizing this, a malicious consumer may attempt to blackmail the seller by purchasing the product, posting a negative review, and demanding ransom to remove it. Without a dispute resolution mechanism in place, the presence of malicious consumers in the market can lead to a significant decrease in seller profit, especially in settings characterized by high uncertainty about product quality. The introduction of a standard centralized dispute resolution mechanism (whereby the seller can report allegedly malicious reviews to the host platform, which then judges whether to remove the review) can restore efficiency to some extent but requires the platform's judgments to be both very quick and highly accurate. We demonstrate that a more decentralized mechanism (whereby the firm is allowed to remove reviews without consulting the platform, subject to ex post penalties for wrongdoing) can be much more effective, while simultaneously alleviating—almost entirely—the need for the platform's judgments to be quick. Our results suggest that decentralization, when implemented correctly, may represent a more efficient approach to dispute resolution. This paper was accepted by Victor Martínez-de-Albéniz, operations management. Funding: S. A. Yang and A. H. Zhang acknowledge the support of the Hong Kong General Research Fund [Grant "Decentralizing Platform Governance: Innovations from China; Project 17614921]. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4655. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many have criticized the centralized and unaccountable governance of prominent online social platforms, leading to renewed interest in platform governance that incorporates multiple centers of power. Decentralization of power can arise horizontally, through parallel communities, each with local administration, and vertically, through multiple hierarchies of overlapping jurisdiction. Drawing from literature on federalism and polycentricity in analogous offline institutions, we scrutinize the landscape of existing platforms through the lens of multi-level governance. Our analysis describes how online platforms incorporate varying forms and degrees of decentralized governance. In particular, we propose a framework that characterizes the general design space and the various ways that middle levels of governance vary in how they can interact with a centralized governance system above and end users below. This focus provides a starting point for new lines of inquiry between platform- and community-governance scholarship. By engaging themes of decentralization, hierarchy, power, and responsibility, while discussing concrete examples, we connect designers and theorists of online spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital platform ecosystems increasingly dominate the enterprise software domain, and the persistence of platforms depends on the sustained engagement of complementors. However, there is a limited understanding of its antecedents, complementors' evaluation of antecedents and the manifestations and dynamic changes of complementors' engagement. Therefore, we investigate complementors' engagement within platform ecosystems over time. We draw on actor and stakeholder engagement from service research to conceptualise complementor engagement (CE) and create an integrated empirical understanding of CE and its dynamics in digital platform ecosystems. Our embedded case study builds on 30 interviews with complementors in Anubis and Osiris enterprise software platform ecosystems. Inductive data analysis reveals five CE antecedents: platform resources and rules, platform value proposition, platform agents, customer needs and other complementors' value propositions. The antecedents are associated with three CE behaviours: generating, networking and synchronising. Further analysis of CE over time resulted in 26 different sequences representing stable and changing engagement trajectories, the latter comprising selective, growing and abating engagement as subcategories. We show how complementors' evaluations of antecedents lead to behaviour changes, providing a novel perspective on the dynamics underlying CE. Finally, we link complementors' evaluation outcomes to their (dis)satisfaction, contributing to the discussion on what drives and impedes CE. The findings implicate the debate on dynamic platform governance and inform platform owners about using cooperative and competitive approaches in the short and long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The positive and negative effects of the participation of digital platform companies in governance are a major issue of the times. Starting from the three subfields of internal governance, external governance, and co-governance, we construct an analytical framework for digital platform governance to understand the four-sided relationship among digital platform companies, the state, the market, and society. From the perspective of enterprise autonomy, we should view the effectiveness of platform company participation in social governance dialectically. The key of promoting good platform governance is to improve the external structural pressure from the state, promote the reform of the endogenous governance of enterprises, and build a sustainable architecture for co-governance. The mission of sociologists includes not only explanation but also intervention.

This paper aims to question the dominance of human rights as the primary normative framework for European social media regulation, and academic research in this field. Analysing EU legislation and recent ECJ cases, it shows that issues like discriminatory content moderation, profiling, and promotion of stereotypes cannot adequately be addressed within a human rights framework. The centrality of individual rights in the EU legal regime not only fails to address collective issues, like platforms’ influence on culture and social norms, but cannot even offer effective, equal protection to individuals. In policy debates, the depoliticised and individualistic language of human rights can legitimise corporate activities and downplay important questions about the political economy of this privatised, highly-concentrated, advertiser-funded industry. The paper also considers interpretations of human rights as structural conditions or collective values, and argues that they cannot fully overcome the limitations discussed here. Given the entrenched role of fundamental rights in EU law, critics of social media cannot avoid relying on them. However, academics should also seek to develop more explicitly political critiques, based on alternative normative visions.

Second-hand trading platforms are helpful to the recycling of resources. It is important to accelerate the construction of second-hand trading platforms and improve people’s willingness to buy second-hand goods. However, due to the uncertainty of second-hand goods, it is difficult to establish the trust between users and complete second-hand transactions. Nowadays, more and more platforms use community-based governance mechanisms to promote relationships between users. Taking the second-hand trading platform Xianyu as an example, this study explores the influence of three specific community-based mechanisms (interest group, feedback mechanism and dispute resolution mechanism) on trust and transaction intention from three dimensions of relational governance. This study compares the different effect between consumers and prosumers. Based on 721 valid questionnaires, a structural equation model was used to analyze the data. The results show that interest group, feedback mechanism and dispute resolution mechanism all have significant positive effects on trust in sellers and platforms. In addition, the impact of a dispute resolution mechanism on trust in sellers and platforms is higher for prosumers than for consumers. This study extends the previous research on community-based governance, contributes to the design of second-hand trading platforms and promotes more users to participate in recycling economy.

Public discourse has moved online, enabled by platforms, which in the context of information and media content have become an essential source, access point and key distributor of information. Public Service Media (PSM) — the ‘basic information service provider’ with a special mandate from the state — increasingly relies on platforms under the universality principle to reach out and interact with the broadest range of their audiences. However, control over PSM content dissemination and audience engagement is primarily determined by the private interest-ruled platforms via algorithmic recommendation systems (content curation) and according to their terms and conditions (community standards). This paper addresses the necessity and possibilities of safeguards for PSM content delivery on digital online platforms as an issue of media pluralism. Actual or potential policy interventions for the preferential treatment of public value content, aka due prominence online, were studied through the analytical lens of accountability in its interaction with platforms and PSM performance. Finally, the analyses on the appropriateness of the current accountability regimes for achieving pluralism objectives laid out recommendations for future policy for public-interest-driven platform governance.

Purpose: This study investigates the operational processes, oversight practices, investor incentives and business impacts in the localization of equity crowdfunding in Indonesia through an exploratory case study of the LandX platform. Design/Methodology/Approach: Qualitative data was collected through interviews with 5 key personnel of LandX and document analysis of 8 internal materials related to operational processes and financial outcomes. Data underwent inductive thematic analysis. Findings: Findings reveal LandX conducts structured due diligence encompassing weighted financial and qualitative criteria that represent industry best practices, balanced by outcome uncertainties. Investor incentives span portfolio diversification to personal passions, requiring tailored communication and education to ensure informed participation. While complying strictly with regulations, LandX also demonstrates responsible self-governance through transparency and protections that exceed policy requirements. Qualitative indications point to accelerated issuer growth, but quantified impact data remains limited. Practical Implications: Results provide insights into prudent navigation required to advance equity crowdfunding in Indonesia through platform diligence and education, calibrated outcome expectations, updated regulations, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Originality/Value: This pioneering study provides timely qualitative insights into equity crowdfunding localization dynamics in the underexamined context of Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several blockchain-based social media (BSM) platforms have emerged as alternatives to mainstream social media (MsSM) platforms in the recent past. Using blockchain architecture as a mechanism for governance and economics, these secondgeneration alternative social media (ASM) platforms aim to create social media platforms without advertising revenue or algorithmic governance. BSM platforms are relatively new and less popular than other platforms. They are, therefore, understudied in the disciplines of media studies, communication studies, platform studies, or cultural studies. This article traces changes to platform governance on DTube, a blockchain-based video-sharing platform. Using platform biography as a systematic framework and methodological approach, this article aims to understand the ever (re)configuring assemblage of technology, people, media, and economics on DTube, between 2019 and 2022. Platform governance on DTube changed from being manually driven by community members to a semi-automated process using bots. Although characteristics of blockchain technology influenced platform governance, the changes over time reiterated that user practices (not the technology itself) determined the platform's functions. In the reconfiguration of platform governance, DTube articulated minor structures of feeling that aimed to produce an inclusive space over rapid scaling. Furthermore, it hints toward "agonistic pluralism" to govern a (transactional) community with differential ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Special Issue on Trust and Safety on Social Media delves into two pressing and interlinked concerns: the growing prevalence of anti-social behavior and the widespread presence of misinformation within and across various social media platforms. The collection of articles featured in the issue collectively examines factors that contribute to these concerns and proposes potential strategies to mitigate their negative impact on social media users and society. The articles included in the issue are extended versions of research first presented at the 2022 International Conference on Social Media & Society (#SMSociety), organized by the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complex role of social media platforms in transitional justice processes, with a particular focus on the challenges and impediments these platforms can present. Using the Rohingya genocide as a case study, we scrutinize the destructive impact that social media, especially Facebook, can have when misused for inciting hate speech and violence. Furthermore, the article delves into the governance mechanisms of social media platforms, shedding light on the failures that contributed to the genocide. In this exploration, we identify both internal and external governance mechanisms that faltered in their duty to protect human rights. The article also scrutinizes legal mechanisms available for bringing justice to genocide victims at both international and domestic levels. Ultimately, this article contributes to ongoing discussions about digital platform accountability, the intersection of human rights and online content moderation and the importance of rigorous platform governance in the context of transitional justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of a platform owner entering its complementor spaces has been growing and, given its potential impact on the dynamics of competition in platform-mediated industries, has captured the interest of entrepreneurs, scholars, and policy makers. Empirical studies on the consequences of such platform owner entry have been scant so far and show mixed results for complementors. Drawing on competitive dynamics theory, our paper revisits an implicit assumption held in extant studies that allows us to hypothesize on dissimilar entry modes across owners, to study the implications of entry mode differences. We argue that how an owner enters its complementor spaces drives the level of competitive pressure that such an entry exerts on the affected complementors. In turn, this determines the size and valence of the repercussions on complementors' product performance as well as their responses. Drawing on platform theory, we argue that an owner's mode of entry into complementor spaces relates to that owner's approach to platform governance. Using a unique panel dataset of health and fitness mobile apps in the Apple iOS and Google Play store, our results support our prediction that the mode of entry plays a significant role in the resulting complementor dynamics. We find contrasting modes of entry and resulting dynamics that arise between a platform that follows a closed and reigning approach to governance and one that follows an open and laissez-faire approach. Our findings help explain apparent contradictions in prior studies and extend our understanding of this increasingly common phenomenon in platform-mediated industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship has long identified the business imperative to create an advertiser-friendly environment as a key influence on social media content moderation. However, "brand safety" – the industry term for advertisers’ measures to avoid content perceived as reflecting negatively on their brands – remains understudied. Drawing on policy statements from industry actors, as well as extant academic literature, this article makes four contributions. First, it proposes four distinct mechanisms through which branding imperatives influence platforms’ content governance. Second, it highlights two current trends: growing efforts by major advertisers to directly influence platforms’ content policies, and a shift in industry terminology from brand safety (avoiding content widely considered objectionable) to "suitability" (evaluating appropriate content for a particular brand) – which promises advertisers greater customisation, but in fact promotes the standardisation of content governance across major platforms. Third, it explores the policy implications of these developments, in particular for equal participation and freedom of public debate on social media. Finally, it briefly explores the relevance to these concerns of the EU’s 2022 Digital Services Act, suggesting that it fails to adequately address a marketised logic in which the production and distribution of online media content is increasingly shaped by what is deemed suitable for branding objectives.

Parler, a self-proclaimed free speech social media platform founded in 2018, attracted a large influx of new members in 2020 as the result of a highly visible platform migration campaign. Parler usage was linked to the planning of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol building, leading to a shutdown of the Parler platform. Parler, which is now back online, offers an important lens through which to examine the broader attempts at platform migration in response to changing content moderation and platform governance policies and their impact on political polarization. We begin by examining the network connections between US Congressional Representatives on both Twitter and Parler. We find that Parler has a homogenous population of users, consisting of a single isolated group, where polarization seems irrelevant, while Twitter demonstrates two clearly polarized groups. We compare how politicians and political pundits use Parler differently. Finally, we examine the evolution of Parler including comparing Parler’s own policies before and after the shutdown and reflecting on the future of platforms like Parler and similar platform migration experiments.

Algorithms play a critical role in steering online attention on social media. Many have alleged that algorithms can perpetuate bias. This study audited shadowbanning, where a user or their content is temporarily hidden on Twitter. We repeatedly tested whether a stratified random sample of American Twitter accounts (n ≈ 25,000) had been subject to various forms of shadowbans. We then identified the type of user and tweet characteristics that predict a shadowban. In general, shadowbans are rare. We found that accounts with bot-like behavior were more likely to face shadowbans, while verified accounts were less likely to be shadowbanned. The replies by Twitter accounts that posted offensive tweets and tweets about politics (from both the left and the right) were more likely to be downtiered. The findings have implications for algorithmic accountability and the design of future audit studies of social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discursive construction of sociotechnical imaginaries by the leaders of platform companies can help legitimate their platforms, shaping how they are perceived and ultimately regulated. Scholars have identified the construction of "future imaginaries" by large platform companies such as Meta—but do smaller platforms also seek to construct imaginaries, and if so, what form do they take? In this article we undertake a critical discourse analysis of statements by John Matze, co-founder and CEO of the fringe social media platform Parler, that garnered media coverage in 2020. Parler gained significant popularity among US right-wing users during 2020, before it was removed from Apple and Google's app stores in January 2021 following the riot at the US Capitol. Using Van Leeuwen's framework for discursive legitimation, we analyze a curated dataset of 186 news articles to identify the legitimating themes that Matze invoked in media coverage of Parler in 2020. We find that Matze foregrounded free expression, and with it the vision of Parler as a "town square," which can be seen as an attempt to legitimate the fledgling platform. However, this discursive legitimation must be understood in the context of Parler's base of predominantly US right-wing users, many of whom turned to Parler because of the perceived "bias" and "censorship" of mainstream platforms. We argue that, in contrast to the future imaginaries constructed for large platform companies such as Meta, Matze's discursive strategy constructed an imaginary that was fundamentally retrograde. Parler's "past imaginary" resembles efforts by far-right groups to justify and legitimate hate speech in increasingly platformized societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how social media creators navigate and respond to severe cases of ongoing, networked harassment. Drawing on 19 in-depth interviews with Twitch streamers who experienced a form of networked harassment known as "hate raids" on the platform, including three creators who built and shared tools to combat these attacks, this analysis pays particular attention to the nature and coordination of responses to networked harassment and the extent to which creators' responses are also networked. This study's findings suggest that, in the absence of communication and technical support from Twitch, creators started ad hoc networks for sharing technical tools, offering strategies for managing audiences during attacks, and providing emotional support for peer creators. Yet these networks of support were unevenly accessed across the streamers interviewed in this study and often existed only temporarily. This study's findings furthermore indicate that communities on Twitch form primarily around individual streamers, which fosters supportive connections within that streamer's audience community but limits opportunities for solidarities to form across streamers as a class of creative workers. I conclude by considering more broadly how platform infrastructures can facilitate or constrain different forms of community building among creators and their audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popularization of the Internet and the convenience of e-commerce are driving the online restaurant industry's rapid development of worldwide. However, serious information asymmetries in online food delivery (OFD) transactions not only aggravate food safety risks, resulting in simultaneous government and market failures, but also intensify consumers' perceived risks. This paper innovatively constructs a research framework for the governance participation willingness of OFD platform restaurants and consumers under the moderating effects of perceived risks from the perspective of control theory and then develops scales for analyzing the governance willingness of both restaurants and consumers. Using data collected through a survey, this paper explores the effect of control elements on governance participation by restaurants and consumers and analyzes the moderating effects of perceived food safety risks. Results showed that both government regulations and restaurant reputation (formal control elements) and online complaints and restaurant management response (informal control elements) can increase governance participation willingness among both platform restaurants and consumers. The moderating effects of perceived risks are partially significant. When the risks perceived by restaurants and consumers are strong, government regulation and online complaints can more effectively boost the governance participation willingness of restaurants and consumers, respectively. At this moment, consumers' willingness to pursue problem solving through online complaints is evidently enhanced. Accordingly, the perceived risks and the online complaints jointly motivate restaurants and consumers to participate in governance activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The positive and negative effects of the participation of digital platform companies in governance are a major issue of the times. Starting from the three subfields of internal governance, external governance, and co-governance, we construct an analytical framework for digital platform governance to understand the four-sided relationship among digital platform companies, the state, the market, and society. From the perspective of enterprise autonomy, we should view the effectiveness of platform company participation in social governance dialectically. The key of promoting good platform governance is to improve the external structural pressure from the state, promote the reform of the endogenous governance of enterprises, and build a sustainable architecture for co-governance. The mission of sociologists includes not only explanation but also intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Second-hand trading platforms are helpful to the recycling of resources. It is important to accelerate the construction of second-hand trading platforms and improve people's willingness to buy second-hand goods. However, due to the uncertainty of second-hand goods, it is difficult to establish the trust between users and complete second-hand transactions. Nowadays, more and more platforms use community-based governance mechanisms to promote relationships between users. Taking the second-hand trading platform Xianyu as an example, this study explores the influence of three specific community-based mechanisms (interest group, feedback mechanism and dispute resolution mechanism) on trust and transaction intention from three dimensions of relational governance. This study compares the different effect between consumers and prosumers. Based on 721 valid questionnaires, a structural equation model was used to analyze the data. The results show that interest group, feedback mechanism and dispute resolution mechanism all have significant positive effects on trust in sellers and platforms. In addition, the impact of a dispute resolution mechanism on trust in sellers and platforms is higher for prosumers than for consumers. This study extends the previous research on community-based governance, contributes to the design of second-hand trading platforms and promotes more users to participate in recycling economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]