How do American social media platforms rule billions in the global majority? Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. More than 77% of its users live outside North America and Europe. Yet, scholarship and policy on platform power is largely driven by the Global North. This research assembles and analyzes original data on Facebook’s global news incidents, user legal mobilization, and corporate transparency documents to show that platform politics are qualitatively different in the Global North and South. The differences relate to the scope of societal harms, capacity for prevention and remedy, and salience of platforms as governors vis-à-vis states. These differences make platforms like Facebook both more central to politics in the global majority and also less amenable to policy prescriptions from the Global North.
About the Speaker
Swati Srivastava is Associate Professor of Political Science and University Faculty Scholar at Purdue University and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She broadly researches global governance, including the political power and responsibility of Big Tech. She is the author of Hybrid Sovereignty in World Politics (Cambridge University Press 2022) and numerous articles in top disciplinary journals, including International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Perspectives on Politics. At Purdue, Srivastava is the founding director of the International Politics and Responsible Tech (iPART) lab. She is also the current President of International Studies Association-Northeast, a founding member of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, and a working group leader of the Digital Futures Taskforce at New America.
