Militant platform democracy: a framework for democracy-worthy platform policies

This commentary draws on the long-established concept of militant democracy” to outline ‘democracy-worthy principles’ for commercial platform content moderation. First developed during democratic struggles against fascism in the 1930s, the central idea of militant democracy is that democratic states can and should preemptively restrict the rights of individuals, groups, and parties who threaten democratic institutions. We apply insights from militant democracy to platforms at a time of global democratic backsliding and argue that they should proactively define their normative commitment to protecting democracy. We propose that they adopt eight ‘democracy-worthy principles’ to protect and strengthen democratic norms, institutions, and publics. These principles include elevating the democratic public’s rights over individual expressive rights to use commercial services, drawing a red line around strategic attempts to undermine public faith in elections, placing foremost responsibility for democratic norms on political leaders and candidates, accounting for the differential status of social groups, protecting against political violence, and addressing country-specific threats to democracy. Drawing on case studies from Brazil, India, and the United States, we show how these principles would help protect against democratic threats, especially from anti-democratic political leaders.