{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","uuid":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","normalized_title":"stateplatformcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","isbns":["9781009619714","9781009446594","9781009446587"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":98,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/State%20Platform%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/search"},"page":{"printed_page":20,"pdf_page":25,"physical_index":25,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"e4355a1d3254e7efe682a30baaa54dd7b862e4cdf2fbaa6fc7e4b4d8e957c5b4"},"chapter":"Cambridge Elements","content":"Most major digital platform firms are domiciled in either the United States or China, and both states are deploying a barrage of state capitalist practices to establish control over digital platforms and enlist them in pursuit ofgeostrategic objectives. Three distinctive competition dynamics result, which we outline here in turn as: infrastructural platform geopolitics, digital dependencies, and cross-stack rivalry.\n\nInfrastructural platform geopolitics has emerged as states have come to recognize the extraterritorial power potentials of transnational infrastructures (Westermeier, 2020; Abels and Bieling, 2024), while platforms have increasing taken on infrastructural properties (Plantin et al., 2018; Shen, 2022a). Some platform firms can be directly weaponized (Farrell and Newman, 2023) by their host states in nakedly geopolitical ways. For instance, WikiLeaks was famously denied vital services by internet platforms such as Amazon Web Services, and EveryDNS at the behest of US government pressure (Tusikov, 2021), while the second Trump administration has ordered a ban on access to US chip design platforms for Chinese firms. However, for the time being, such weaponization remains the exception rather than the norm, and this tremendous power to deny adversaries access to (or otherwise weaponize) platforms remains latent. Indeed, excessive weaponization initiatives are likely to reduce the appeal of platforms and induce users to switch to other platforms despite the cost. Instead, platforms’ infrastructural power derives from how they entrench power relations by monopolizing key passage points, while rerouting, ordering, and governing flows of data and capital in ways which potentially redound to the benefit of their home states (Westermeier, 2020; Bakonyi and Darwich, 2024; Hardaker, 2025). To this end, states seek to secure favourable regulatory environments (both at home and abroad), preferential financing, and forms of strategic endorsement that enable platforms to both scale and embed themselves in technology stacks.\n\nThis leads us to the second dynamic: fostering digital dependencies. Many countries are increasingly dependent upon US and Chinese platforms since they underpin access to the global economy (Mayer and Lu, 2025). Maintaining this dominant position is key to the profit strategies ofplatform firms, and it upholds the power asymmetries between states. Through lobbying, financial support, and implanting platforms with in bilateral agreements and initiatives, states seek to render third countries’ technology stacks critically reliant upon their platform infrastructures and embed them in overseas technology stacks. At the same time, states and platforms collaborate to centralize and police access to the critical resources which sustain their dominance – including compute power (as in licensing regimes for NVIDIA accelerator chips and remote AI datacentre access) and data flows (especially for AI model training). Limiting interoperability and resisting multihoming by third countries are key targets for platforms’ home states in fostering digital dependencies.\n\n20\n\nReinventing Capitalism","previous_page":19,"next_page":21}