Social Science Research Council Research AMP Just Tech
Citation

Digital Platforms as Policy Actors

Author:
Popiel, Pawel
Year:
2022

This chapter traces how dominant U.S. platform companies attempt to influence policy debates, focusing on (a) the policy issues they engage, (b) the policy preferences they communicate, and (c) what these communications reveal about their regulatory and platform governance philosophies. Amid calls for private–public platform oversight frameworks, these policy communications provide insight into what such co-governance regimes might look like in practice. Specifically, platforms seek partnerships extending beyond nation-state boundaries, reflecting the transnational scope of their business operations. Domestically, they call for a form of “frictionless regulation”: light and narrow regulatory oversight confined to baseline standard-setting, receptive to the private sector’s ongoing feedback, and prioritizing fast responsiveness to market needs over the slow and deliberative responsiveness to the public, typical of democratic governance.