Trusting the Chimera? Platforms, Rules and Rule

TY - JOUR

T1 - Trusting the Chimera? Platforms, Rules and Rule

AU - Jaeger, Mark Daniel

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - How do Internet platforms intervene into the bases of civic engagement: associating and information provision? The paper investigates this question through the lenses of trust. For liberal democratic societies, trust is of fundamental importance. Platforms may enhance connectivity between like-minded people but may also amplify difference, in a marginalisation of trust and its substitution with in-group favouritism. Platforms are mediators of ‘the social’. More fundamentally, platforms claim neutrality in mapping data as ‘the real’ and objectivity in its algorithmic modelling. The paper argues that this positioning of platform technologies rejects the uncertainty of a mediated ‘real’. The politics of platforms is about the attempt to eliminate trust as a key component of their democratic control.

AB - How do Internet platforms intervene into the bases of civic engagement: associating and information provision? The paper investigates this question through the lenses of trust. For liberal democratic societies, trust is of fundamental importance. Platforms may enhance connectivity between like-minded people but may also amplify difference, in a marginalisation of trust and its substitution with in-group favouritism. Platforms are mediators of ‘the social’. More fundamentally, platforms claim neutrality in mapping data as ‘the real’ and objectivity in its algorithmic modelling. The paper argues that this positioning of platform technologies rejects the uncertainty of a mediated ‘real’. The politics of platforms is about the attempt to eliminate trust as a key component of their democratic control.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1396-0466

JO - First Monday

JF - First Monday

ER -