Governance of Social Media Platforms: A Literature Review

Social Media platforms have become an integral part of our life. Initially, they were used as a medium of interconnection but now have become a source of creating, consuming, and disseminating information. The proliferation of misinformation, fake news, and hate speech are some of the major challenges that are posed by these platforms. To curb these challenges, it is crucial to study the governance mechanisms of these platforms. Though there have been studies in the domain of platform governance but there is a dearth of studies in the area of governance of social media platforms. This paper tries to comprehend the studies in the domain of governance of social media platforms and present them under four major themes that are different modes of governance, content moderation and combating misinformation, algorithmic governance, and ethical aspects of governance. This paper not only synthesizes the existing literature but also identifies future research gaps