Book: The Technicity of Platform Governance: Structure and Evolution of Facebook’s APIs
Abstract
Researchers, policymakers, and competition and regulation authorities worldwide recognise application programming interfaces (APIs) for powering the digital economy and driving processes of datafication and platformisation. However, it is unclear how APIs tie into the power of, and governance by, large digital platforms. This article traces the relationality between Facebook’s APIs, platform governance, and data strategy based on an empirical and evolutionary analysis. It examines a large corpus of (archived) developer pages and API reference documentation to determine the technicity of platform governance – the technical dimension and dynamics of how and what platforms like Facebook seek to govern. It traces how Facebook Platform evolved into a complex layered and interconnected governance arrangement, wherein technical API specifications serve to enforce (changes to) platform policy and (data) strategy. Finally, the article discusses the significance of this technicity in specifying the material conditions for app and business development ‘on top of’ platforms and for maintaining infrastructural and evolutive power over their ecosystems.
Preferred Citation
BibTex
keine Zitiervorlage
@MISC{van der Vlist2021,
author = {van der Vlist, Fernando N. and Helmond, Anne and Burkhardt, Marcus and Seitz, Tatjana},
title = {The Technicity of Platform Governance: Structure and Evolution of Facebook’s APIs},
year = 2021,
doi = "\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19311}",
volume = 20,
address = {Siegen},
series = {SFB 1187 Medien der Kooperation – Working Paper Series},
}
author = {van der Vlist, Fernando N. and Helmond, Anne and Burkhardt, Marcus and Seitz, Tatjana},
title = {The Technicity of Platform Governance: Structure and Evolution of Facebook’s APIs},
year = 2021,
doi = "\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19311}",
volume = 20,
address = {Siegen},
series = {SFB 1187 Medien der Kooperation – Working Paper Series},
}
Keywords
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