A Reflective Understanding of Platform Governance
As digital platforms supplant increasingly more central venues of public life (Gillespie, 2017:24), the governance of platform demands more attention as well as actions from all stakeholders. However, platform governance is a complicated and thorny issue yet to be sorted out. This post aims to reflectively understand platform governance from a holistic academic viewpoint as a general foundation for further studies. The definition of platform and platform governance will be classified first to then discuss current (proposed) platform governance methods together with confronted challenges.
'Platform' is a term that has emerged recently to describe online services of content intermediaries, in the self-description of platforms themselves and public discourse of users, the press and commentators alike (Gillespie, 2010:348). Platforms can be categorized into different types in terms of their services or business models. Srnicek (2016:36-92) classifies platforms as advertising platform (Google and Facebook), cloud platform (Amazon Web Services), industrial platform (Internet of Things), lean platform (Uber and Airbnb), and product platform (Sportify and Pandora). Platform governance is double folded, both referring to "governance of platform and governance by platform" (Gillespie, 2017:1-30). On the one hand, platforms govern content and behaviors of users on websites or online communities through a system of policies, rules and norms (Gillespie, 2017:12-16). On the other hand, platforms are, in essence, platform companies that are subject to local, national, and supranational mechanisms of governance Gorwa (2019:857). Irrespective of distinctions among platforms, it is crucial that how platforms govern contents and users should be governed. Thus, holding platform companies accountable is the initial step of platform governance.
The major challenges and difficulties to govern platforms may be largely hindered by the unprecedented phenomenon of platform monopoly. Dijck (2020:1-17) creatively envisions a platformization tree to unpack platform ecosystem's hierarchical and interdependence nature, arguing that three dynamics of platformization: vertical integration, infrastructuralization of intermediary platforms, and cross-sectorization of platforms, further strengthen society's dependency on big platforms and their monopolistic position. As such, Dijck (2020:1-17) proposes that it's salient to reshape the ecosystem's architecture to sustain diversity and that Europe (European nations, European Union, and European Commission) should take the role of global agent of change since the US and China have dominated the world's information system. Unfortunately, neither a diversified ecosystem nor Europe can tackle this challenge of monopoly at ease. It is possible that if the ecosystem is diverse and balanced, platforms would make every effort to provide more and better user-friendly services. Probably starting with improvement of the lengthy and complicated terms of service, platforms would stop tricking users to authorize complete discretion to them while stressing the autonomy of user to skirt accountability and maximize interests (Suzor, 2018:1-11). As competition among platforms to attract users becomes intense, platforms may compromise part of their interests in favour of more user base.
However, to nourish a diverse ecosystem under the present monopolistic system of powerful platforms requires not only governmental supports, but also innovative ideas and profitable business model of start-ups to compete for users as well as sustainably survive. Providing that newly emerging platforms could safeguard their place in a niche market, new governing problems would arise together with their novel practices. Take the impressive Clubhouse, an increasingly popular social media based on voice and invitation, as an example. All the communication on Clubhouse is based on voice. Thus, advanced algorithmic content moderation methods based on semantic training and analyses, such as matching, classification and flagging (Gorwa et al., 2020:1-15), are hardly practical when applied to Clubhouse to regulate conversations regarding hate speech, terrorism, racial or gender discrimination etc. This might complicate the current situation of platform governance, while pre-existing content moderation methods, such as to remove or to filter (Gillespie, 2017, page.20-22) still remain controversial and yet to achieve academic consensus. Moreover, its room-based conversation also raises the question of distinction between private and public, which makes the possible governing method, wiretapping, an ethically challenged one. But in essence, Clubhouse appears not intend to compete with traditionally powerful social media such as Facebook to reach as many users as possible. Its invitation only principle seem to serve as a gatekeeping policy to control complementor's access and encourage value creation activities of higher quality (Zhang, 2020:1-25). Given this, new platforms like Clubhouse, are merely innovating in a niche market with different business models, but not contributing to the diversity of existing ecosystem of monopolistic platformization. It's also unrealistic, at least in the near future, that Europe can act as a global agent to change the status quo. Dijck (2020:3) actually self-contradicts herself at this point by mentioning other scholars' (DeNardis, 2020; Jia, 2018; Mueller, 2017; Steinberg, 2019; Winseck, 2017) studies that America, China, and Europe are all interested in the global governance of digital innovation, which results in growing tensions between superpowers and their allies. Indeed, Europe's ambition to promote democratic and public values due to its scarcity of big platforms Dijck (2020:3) only can make a difference within its continent, as other countries especially powerful ones may not willing to acknowledge Europe's role as a global agent.
Other studies investigate into platform governance more specifically. Gorwa (2019:854-871) states that there are three emerging governance modes: 1) self-governance of platforms as a response to public concerns prior to legislative inquiry; 2) external governance by government intervention to protect privacy and data, to repudiate liability protections, and to regulate anticompetition; 3) co-governance by a third party to perform multiple functions or user participation in policy decision. The combination of the three governance modes seems to be a logically reasonable one to ensure effective governance of platform. However, obstacles may occur in practice. Platforms' self-governance is driven by either financial benefits or added value of brand image, but not users' interests (Gillespie, 2010:253). And governmental intervention may be confronted with the sophisticated technology owned by platforms. Furthermore, current socio-economic environment has only been at the early stage of nurturing third-party organizations to co-govern platforms, given the belief that technology is the key to sustainability (Carrigan et al., 2020:923). User participation in policy making is infeasible due to its global scale and complexity, which explains why Facebook's brave innovation in involving users to design its terms of services has failed (Suzor, 2018:1-11). There are many more approaches proposed by other scholars in need of further discussions. Jovanovic, Sjodin and Parida (2020:1-14) argue that different platform archetypes involve different platforms, architectures, services and governance. For instance, Martin, Upham, and Clapper (2017:1395-1406) apply the model for software governance to the governance of sharing economy platform, advocating a democratic organizational governance model to limit the power of organizational leader. It is also suggested that platform governance should move from "rules-based regulation" toward "principles-based regulation" (Nooren et al., 2018: 282). All of these ideas demonstrate that platform governance is a complicated issue demands continuous further studies so as to contribute academic part to a sound social transformation.
References:
Carrigan et al. 2020. Fostering sustainability through technology-mediated interactions: Conviviality and reciprocity in the sharing economy. Information, Technology & People. 33(3), pp. 919-943.
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