Participatory Transparency in Social Media Governance: Combining Two Good Practices

Abstract

Can the Terms of Policies of social media platforms be made more comprehensible, transparent, and consumer-friendly? Dreyer and Ziebarth suggest that “participatory transparency,” based in the community of users, can help overcome contractual complexity and legal jargon while increasing user awareness. They recommend the use of autonomous bodies of third-party users to crowd-source platform-specific suggestions for improvements, and to translate terms and provisions into practical pointers. Implementation may be slow because platform providers may resist this approach, but the authors argue that the process has many benefits for the providers as well.