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In the early days of the internet, it was hoped that digital technology would bring about democracy and positive outcomes for society. Recently, the debate has shifted towards tech lash with many critics pointing towards technology companies undermining democracy, stability, and sustainability. As a result, a new consensus seems to be emerging among policymakers, companies, and civil societal actors that self-regulation has to move towards co-regulation. This Special Issue of Information, Communication and Society draws together cutting-edge contributions on three core themes in scholarly and policy discourse on platform regulation: First, the papers in this special issue enhance empirical understandings of the role of the state in governing social media platforms developing in the United States, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, they provide a holistic framework to understand policy problems that need to be addressed, which helps to develop and evaluate new policy initiatives. Finally, papers point towards three approaches in governing social media platforms and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of content moderation, process-based co-regulation, as well as competition regulation and alternative business models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussion is often celebrated as a critical element of public opinion and political participation. Recently, scholars have suggested that the design and features of specific online platforms shape what is politically expressed online and how. Building on these findings and drawing on 112 semi-structured qualitative interviews with information technology experts and internet users, we explain how major Chinese social media platforms differ in structure and motivation. Drawing upon a nationwide representative survey and an online experiment, we find that platforms aiming to make users a source of information through public, information-centred communication, such as the Twitter-like Weibo, are more conducive to political expression; while platforms built to optimize building social connections through private, user-centred communication, such as WhatsApp and Facebook-like WeChat, tend to inhibit political expression. These technological design effects are stronger when users believe the authoritarian state tolerates discussion, but less important when political talk is sensitive. The findings contribute to the debate on the political consequences of the internet by specifying technological and political conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Chinese perspectives of, and support for propaganda, relying on television public service advertisements as a means of tapping into citizens’ beliefs. Through the analysis of data from focus groups conducted in Beijing and public opinion survey data from 30 cities, this study argues that Chinese people are generally supportive of state efforts to guide public attitudes through television advertisements, although levels of support vary by age, education and gender. The study suggests that considerable popular support for state propaganda contributes to the regime’s capacity to guide public opinion and helps to explain the persistence of popular support for authoritarian rule. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]