Platforms are People Too: Social Media Firms and International Relations

Social media platforms have an increasingly central influence on global politics. Media of unprecedented reach, they have the power to sway elections, exacerbate societal polarization, promote or provoke conflict at all levels, and jeopardize relations between states. But what of the people who govern and oversee these platforms? For although algorithms and automation may underpin how social media content influences politics, the policies, approaches, and international relations of social media companies are directed or conducted by corporate executives and their representatives, actors who receive limited critical attention in International Relations (IR) scholarship. Combining multiple data sources, including field interviews with Meta and Twitter staff on three continents, this reflection suggests an approach to studying social media companies and their relationships to global politics that moves beyond abstraction and aggregation. Examining these actors and their internal dynamics through an organizational lens can shed fresh light on the contingent spatial, temporal, and normative drivers and enactments of their influence across the international system.