Copyright at the margins: Mapping informal platform governance through Wikitubia

Platform governance research has prioritized formal mechanisms that can be codified in law or policy and audited with trace data. While such mechanisms merit attention, the focus risks overlooking informal yet influential practices that shape platform culture. We introduce a methodological approach for tracking informal platform governance through fan wikis, demonstrated through the case of copyright enforcement on YouTube. We annotated 149 copyright controversies from Wikitubia to understand how fans evaluate the use of intellectual property and copyright reporting tools. The wiki’s picture of copyright governance looks very different from YouTube’s official accounts: contributors rarely discussed Content ID and instead focused on cases filed by human petitioners. They talked about copyright controversies as political, economic, or interpersonal disputes, and judged the contextual legitimacy of enforcement through the perceived moral status of the target rather than legal principles. Our analysis demonstrates that informal platform governance is a semi-autonomous sphere with distinct actors, values, and practices that can complement or challenge mainstream approaches to platform governance.