Thread by @rgorwa

My biggest project to date just landed in Berlin 🫣🤖

After many years of research, writing, and revision, I'm so excited to hear what you all think about 'The Politics of Platform Regulation: How Governments Shape Online Content Moderation.'

A short 🧵of summary and thanks:

The book is structured in three parts (free OA pdf at ).

The first section has an updated birds-eye view of the academic research on platform governance, and mapping of important regulatory developments from content to competition policy. academic.oup.com/book/56385

I try to systematize the spectrum of government intervention in the ecosystem of online safety/content moderation/platform governance/t&s as generally fitting three rough buckets, which I call convincing, collaborating, and contesting.

academic.oup.com/book/56385/cha…

Policymakers the world over are upset with platforms for various reasons, but why are govs able to foster policy changes in some cases but not others? My argument uses institutionalist-inflected political science + public policy to put forth explanations...

The second half of the book dives into the micro politics of regulatory development pertaining to online content moderation. For the nerds, I spent 4+ years doing more than 75 interviews and FOI'ing governments to reconstruct in detail negotiations in 🇩🇪🇪🇺🇳🇿🇦🇺🇺🇸.

My argument is in the title. Debates around the appropriate extent and character of private rulemaking in the platform economy are increasingly shaped through political battles. We need to better understand their core political dimensions / features (esp. at the domestic level)

This is by MILES my most empirically and conceptually ambitious project. It started in 2017 @Politics_Oxford and in the past 2.5 years has been totally re-worked and expanded @WZB_Berlin. Other than the NetzDG chapter, none of this material has been previously published🥴💨

Woah. I have SO many people to thank for making this possible. In Oxford, my gratitude to @KelloLucas @thomasnhale @fromTGA @C___CS @TheCollierJam @egflo @monica_kello @nahema_marchal @VickiNashOII @rasmus_kleis @CJ_Ohman @antonpeez @jamessshires @Maxwsmeets @ds_wats0n @Z0EJo

In Berlin, my huge thanks to @WZB_GlobalWork @internet_policy @claraig @San_amd @thothiel @flobut @Torbatschow @friedema @amelie_hldt @JonasPentzien @Timo_Seidl @JJaursch @ckatzenbach

In Canada, I'm consistently grateful for the mentorship of @taylor_owen @HeidiTworek @mckelveyf @lizdubois @bhaggart @NTusikov. Thanks as well to @CIGIonline and the huge support of @SSHRC_CRSH @CCSF67.

Internationally, I drew on a massive community of amazing people: @N_Appelman @Jausl00s @pranavbarkwhip @Elibietti @robyncaplan @jennifercobbe @brendadvoskin @evelyndouek @nielsvdoorn @bganesh11 @TarletonG @DzGuilbeault @jorisvanhoboken @tomiwa_ilori @shagunjhaver @Klonick...

thanks con't to @kreissdaniel @MCKettemann @sethlazar @PJLeerssen @shannimcg @ANewman_forward @PalomaViejo @blackgaygemini @JCPlantin @JulianPosada0 @ubiquity75 @jilltoh @mikarv @mathver @stacyewood @rachel_grfn @nicsuzor

Extra special thanks to @andrew_chadwick for believing in the project and to the team at @OUPAcademic

The book is open access (thanks @lfvopenscience @WZB_Berlin! ) and available for free download at

The print version is now shipping from .academic.oup.com/book/56385
global.oup.com/academic/produ…

We are all relieved to finally have this major chapter of my academic journey wrapped up...🐶

My thanks again to you all, and can't wait to hear your thoughts.

🧵/end