A comparative study on false information governance in Chinese and American social media platforms

Abstract

False information has become a profound issue of the Internet governance partly because of its serious impact on the political elections and public daily information flows. Different countries and social media platforms have adopted divergent approaches in handling false information. This study conducts a comparative study of the governance models of social media platforms in the United States and China over false Information from the perspectives of the balance of governance mechanism, that is, the balance between self‐regulation, external regulation and coregulation. It explores the laws, regulations and rules of falseinformation in two countries, exams social media platform's regulatory mechanism, focusing on comparison of Weibo and Facebook. The research shows that to increase transparency and accountability, both Weibo and Facebook have devoted certain governance power and responsibilities to internal or external intermediaries. This may induce two negative implications: accountability of the external actors and reduction of platform's supervisory obligations. The paper concludes by arguing that having a more effective, accountable and inclusive governance of false information in social media platforms, we not only need to find a balance between the functions and power of different stakeholders in governance but also need to seek a delicate balance between the three regulatory models of social media falseinformation governance.

Regulating Zhibo in China: Exploring multiple levels of self‐regulation and stakeholder dynamics

“…To deal with these issues, the multistakeholder approach has been seen as a viable alternative, as it involves more people and civil society organizations in decision‐making, which facilitates the democratization of regulatory practices (Gorwa, 2019a). Similarly, the self‐regulatory regime of some companies has evolved into forms of ‘enhanced’ self‐regulation, reallocating their regulatory responsibilities to other intermediaries and creating polycentric regulation regimes (Chin et al, 2022; Medzini, 2021).…”

“…In practice, then, internet companies have needed to either reinforce self-regulation themselves or risk severe legal sanctions. And to increase regulatory efficiency and accountability, reassigning regulatory powers and responsibilities to industrial stakeholders has been a new strategy (Chin et al, 2022). It has been argued that during Xi's administration, internet governance in China has turned from the government control stage to the 'multiactor coordination' stage, which incorporates multiple stakeholders in the regulation process with the state.…”

Platform governance by competing systems of political economy: The United States and China

“…Papers by Chin et al (2022) and another by Liu and Yang (2022) focus on content governance. Chin et al (2022) examine the regulation of false information on platforms.…”

“…Papers by Chin et al (2022) and another by Liu and Yang (2022) focus on content governance. Chin et al (2022) examine the regulation of false information on platforms. They show that Facebook's governance relies almost entirely on corporate self‐regulation of the platform, users and external third parties, whereas Weibo's governance is much more complex, combining self‐regulation, co‐regulation, and external regulations.…”

“…However, to increase transparency and accountability, both Facebook and Weibo have devolved certain governance powers and responsibilities to internal or external intermediaries. Chin et al (2022) suggest that a balance between the three regulatory models is essential to improve its effectiveness, accountability and inclusiveness. Liu and Yang (2022) argue that China's platform governance mechanism focuses more on content governance, while the United States focuses more on technology governance.…”