The Algorithmic Leviathan or the Digital Agora? Mechanisms of Enclosure and Pathways to Rights-Based Governance of Digital Commons

Technology corporations increasingly deploy commons language while maintaining extractive ownership structures. We develop the charity-rights framework to explain how enclosure becomes normalized under progressive rhetoric. Drawing on moral economy perspectives, commons theory, and corporate social responsibility critique, the framework distinguishes charity logic (benefits as discretionary corporate benevolence) from rights-based governance (enforceable entitlements grounded in democratic participation). We present a process model specifying antecedent conditions, the central mechanism of charity logic, outcomes of durable enclosure, and boundary conditions under which rights-based governance emerges. Using a contrast case design, we examine OpenAI and Worldcoin as instances of charity-based governance and the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, the MIDATA cooperative, and Indigenous data sovereignty frameworks as rights-based alternatives. The cases, drawn from varied regulatory contexts including North American, European, African, and Asia-Pacific settings, illuminate how constitutional protection, collective ownership, and community authority counteract charity logic. We derive institutional design principles by adapting Ostrom’s commons framework to digital governance.