The user state: an alternative reading of the state role and duty in the age of platformized harm

Abstract

Abstract States are increasingly delegating their regulatory functions to social media platforms to censor information, and the risk of a state retreat from the regulatory space has been extensively discussed. However, little is said about what this means when the state becomes a user of the same platform from which it retreats as a regulator—and more importantly relies on its user capacity to configure and repress public opinion. This article asks how we go about contextualizing the evolving nature of state violation of rights and freedoms on social media platforms and the state’s dereliction of duty? It argues that the changing dynamic represents a process by which power reproduces itself by linking state and corporate interests to the detriment of the people. Using perspectives from business and human rights and the Afro-centric conception of human rights, it presents an alternative reading of state duty for digital wrongdoing.