News and Research articles on Platform governance

Volume 14, Issue 1

Introduction to the special issue on content moderation on digital platforms

Romain Badouard, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University
Anne Bellon, University of Technology of Compiègne
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.1.2005

Content moderation encompasses a great diversity of actors who develop specific practices. Their precise contribution to the democratisation of content regulation, and to the balance between public and private interests in platform governance, remains little studied. This special issue is an attempt at remedying this.

KEYWORDS: Content moderation, Platform governance, Civil society, Digital platforms
Volume 14, Issue 1

Platform governance and civil society organisations: Tensions between reform and revolution continuum

Eugenia Siapera, University College Dublin
Elizabeth Farries, University College Dublin
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.1.2002

Ideological differences, financial precarity, and tensions within the milieu of digital rights civil society organisations involved in platform governance advocacy can undermine these organisations’ ability to advocate for reform at all, let alone engage in a radical redefinition of the terms under which (platform) governance takes place.

KEYWORDS: Platform governance, Civil society organisations, Digital Services Act, Digital rights
Volume 14, Issue 1

Aspirational platform governance: How creators legitimise content moderation through accusations of bias

Blake Hallinan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
CJ Reynolds, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Yehonatan Kuperberg, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Omer Rothenstein, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.1.1829

Although commercial social media platforms provide few formal channels for participation in platform governance, creators aspire to influence decisions and policies through expressive forms of civic engagement that ultimately legitimate platforms as arbiters of public discourse.

KEYWORDS: Algorithmic bias, Content moderation, Platform governance, Creators, React videos
Volume 14, Issue 1

Stop hate for profit: Evaluating the mobilisation of advertisers and the advertising industry to regulate content moderation on digital platforms

Steph Hill, University of Leicester
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.1.1825

This article compares the Stop Hate for Profit campaign and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media to evaluate efforts that leverage advertisers’ financial power to challenge platform content moderation.

KEYWORDS: Platform governance, Content moderation, Advertisers, Activism
Volume 14, Issue 1

Framing the role of experts in platform governance: Negotiating the code of practice on disinformation as a case study

Kateryna Chystoforova, European University Institute
Urbano Reviglio, European University Institute
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.1.1823

This study examines experts' role within the EU's Code of Practice on Disinformation, highlighting challenges in co-regulatory processes and platform governance.

KEYWORDS: Content moderation, Platform governance, Co-regulation, Policymaking, Experts
Volume 13, Issue 2

Copyright callouts and the promise of creator-driven platform governance

Blake Hallinan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
CJ Reynolds, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Omer Rothenstein, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
PUBLISHED ON: 26 Jun 2024 DOI: 10.14763/2024.2.1770

Despite few formal opportunities to participate in platform governance, social media creators use public callouts to shape community norms and place pressure on the platform.

KEYWORDS: Copyright, Creators, Norms, Platform governance, YouTube
Volume 13, Issue 2

Decentralised content moderation

Paul Friedl, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Julian Morgan, Humboldt Universität Berlin
PUBLISHED ON: 4 Apr 2024 DOI: 10.14763/2024.2.1754

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.

KEYWORDS: Content moderation, Platform governance, Protocol-based infrastructure, Fediverse
Volume 12, Issue 3

From brand safety to suitability: advertisers in platform governance

Rachel Griffin, Paris Institute of Political Studies
PUBLISHED ON: 11 Jul 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.3.1716

Advertisers’ concerns about “brand safety” and “brand suitability” are an underappreciated influence on social media platforms’ content governance, with concerning implications for social equality and the freedom of public debate online.

KEYWORDS: Platform governance, Social media, Platform regulation, Content regulation, Digital Service Act
Digital Services Act (DSA)

P2B and the missing relational dimensions of the Digital Services Act

Ohad Somech, Bar-Ilan University
Maayan Perel, Netanya Academic College
Niva Elkin-Koren, Tel Aviv University

PUBLISHED ON: 23 Nov 2021

This op-ed is part of a series of opinion pieces edited by Amélie Heldt in the context of a workshop on the Digital Services Act Package hosted by the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society on 15 and 16 November 2021 in Berlin. This workshop brought together legal scholars and social scientists to get a better understanding of the DSA Package, in detail and on a meta level.

Volume 10, Issue 3

Pandemic platform governance: Mapping the global ecosystem of COVID-19 response apps

Michael Dieter, University of Warwick
Anne Helmond, University of Amsterdam
Nathaniel Tkacz, University of Warwick
Fernando van der Vlist, University of Siegen
Esther Weltevrede, University of Amsterdam
PUBLISHED ON: 6 Aug 2021 DOI: 10.14763/2021.3.1568

How have app stores governed the global app response to the coronavirus pandemic? An exploratory systematic mapping of COVID-19 pandemic response apps.

KEYWORDS: App Store, Platform governance, covid-19, App studies
Intermediary liability

The President and free speech: consequences of Twitter’s fact-checking indication

Amélie Heldt, Hans-Bredow-Institut

PUBLISHED ON: 4 Jun 2020

Since Twitter labelled a tweet by Donald Trump as ‘potentially misleading’ and indicated that it was fact-checking the statement made, the US President signed an ‘Executive Order'. Amélie Heldt finds that far from being new, the situation illustrates how torn we are when it comes to intermediary immunity or rather liability.