Digital Platforms as Policy Actors

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