{"id":2135,"date":"2017-11-06T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T09:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicseastasia.com\/staging\/3558\/?p=2135"},"modified":"2017-11-05T14:52:01","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T13:52:01","slug":"platform-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicseastasia.com\/staging\/3558\/studying\/platform-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Platform Power and the Risks of Digital Convenience"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Discussion with Students at Leiden University<\/h2>\n

Our digital experiences are quickly becoming dominated by a small number of seemingly indispensable platforms. We share images on Instagram, connect through services like What\u2019s App and WeChat, and increasingly\u00a0receive our news through Facebook<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 indeed to such an extent that\u00a0Facebook is changing how politics work<\/a>. Our access to information is in the hands of a small number of companies, first and foremost Google, which dominates the market for online search to such a degree that its market share \u2018is already a rounding error from 100%\u2019 in most countries\u2019 (Edelman 2011: 32). Many of these companies try to create\u00a0what is called \u2018lock-in\u2019<\/a>: a situation in which users are pushed to remain within a convenient array of interconnected services and products, often through technical standards and protocols that create dependencies. Lock-in keeps customers from bouncing to competitors to buy their products elsewhere. It also prevents users from leaving their valuable data points with other services. Platforms thrive on the analysis and sale of user data, prompting observers to warn that\u00a0users are being turned into media themselves<\/a>. At the core of these processes lies the platform, and importantly: the platform power that designers and ultimately owners of such crucial digital technologies wield.<\/p>\n

Platform power is generated in no small part because getting \u2018locked in\u2019 by a company like Google or Apple\u00a0is extremely convenient<\/a>\u00a0for users. Yet this convenience comes at a price. Security expert Bruce Schneier (2015) has compared the situation to feudalism, arguing that the current make-up of the net is forcing users to \u2018pledge allegiance to the United States of convenience<\/a>\u2019. This creates serious security concerns, since the companies that offer seemingly \u2018free\u2019 services or convenient product suites are not transparent enough about how they use their customers\u2019 data. What is more, a small number of corporations are now filtering our media usage for us, designing the algorithms through which we perceive reality (Pariser 2011). Should we hand this kind of power to just a few players who do not have to disclose how the backend of their digital operation works? Of course, opting out of Apple, Google, or Facebook is theoretically possible, but is it practical? Just try to go about daily life in China today without making use of Tencent\u2019s WeChat. For most people, this is not an option.\u00a0The platform is already too integrated<\/a>\u00a0into everyday social, commercial, and political activities.<\/p>\n

Indeed, East Asia is a particularly interesting place to explore platform power. The platform approach has a long history in Japan, as Marc Steinberg (2017) recently discussed in his contribution to a\u00a0special issue on regional platforms<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Asiascape: Digital Asia<\/em>. Japan and South Korea are each home to companies that are perfecting the platform approach, e.g. Sony with its range of hardware and entertainment products, or Samsung with its strong mobile services. Interestingly, when it comes to social media, East Asian societies have pushed back against what Dal Yong Jin (2017) calls \u2018platform imperialism\u2019, embracing somewhat different products than those that dominate Europe or America. Facebook and Twitter are important, but\u00a0Line in Japan<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Kakao in Korea<\/a>\u00a0have taken up core positions of their own. In China,\u00a0the so-called BATs<\/a>\u00a0(Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) are powerfully dividing up the local market,\u00a0at times fiercely competing<\/a>\u00a0for users. Each is generating platform power through interlinked services that allow users to not just communicate with others, but to order cabs, rent bikes, shop online, and transfer money.<\/p>\n

Alibaba is emerging quickly as a platform giant in that context. Its retail and peer-to-peer commercial services\u00a0are generating dizzying profits<\/a>, while Alibaba\u2019s payment service\u00a0Alipay<\/a>\u00a0is creating a parallel economy in which the Chinese Yuan is transferred into Alibaba\u2019s own payment network. Keeping and spending money in that system is convenient, and it promises to move China towards a cashless economy. The fact that Alibaba requires retailers and wholesalers to submit to its system of down-payments and securities generates huge digital money reserves that the company can re-invest to generate yet more profit, through interests. These processes, along with Alibaba\u2019s ability to vacuum up user data, have caught\u00a0the attention of China\u2019s Communist Party<\/a>, which is experimenting with its own cryptocurrency schemes, e-government platforms (Schl\u00e6ger 2013),\u00a0media platforms<\/a>, and\u00a0social credit systems<\/a>\u00a0to reinvent how power works in the information age.<\/p>\n

As part of our Leiden University seminar on the Politics of Digital East Asia<\/a>, I have asked our graduate students to share and debate their views about power, platforms, search engines and their epistemological relevance, and the meaning of ‘convenience’ in digital ecologies. How powerful are platform in the East Asian region and beyond? Should the move towards integrated platforms that connect different markets be a matter of concern, or is it an opportunity that creates hitherto unknown levels of access to crucial services? Who benefits and who suffers from the radical re-mapping of social, economic, and political processes through digital platforms? These are the questions that this week\u2019s debate about digital East Asia focuses on. Join us below, in the comment section, with your opinions, ideas, and any interesting resources you find worth sharing.<\/p>\n

References<\/h3>\n

Edelman, Benjamin (2011), \u2018Bias in Search Results? Diagnosis and Response\u2019.\u00a0The Indian Journal of Law and Technology<\/em>, 7, 16-32.<\/p>\n

Jin, Dal Yong (2017), ‘Rise of Platform Imperialism in the Networked Korean Society: A Critical Analysis of the Corporate Sphere’.\u00a0Asiascape: Digital Asia<\/em>, 4(3), 209-232.<\/p>\n

Pariser, Eli (2011),\u00a0The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. New York et al.: Penguin.<\/p>\n

Schl\u00e6ger, Jesper (2013),\u00a0E-Government in China: Technology, Power and Local Government Reform<\/em>. Abingdon & New York: Routledge.<\/p>\n

Schneider, Bruce (2015), Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World<\/em>. New York & London: W.W. Norton.<\/p>\n

Steinberg, Marc (2017), ‘A Genesis of the Platform Concept: i-mode and Platform Theory in Japan’. Asiascape: Digital Asia<\/em>, 4(3),\u00a0184-208.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How powerful are platforms in the East Asian region and beyond? How does platform power reshape society? 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