The limits of the state in dealing with platforms. Regulating online content as frontier work

The fight against online hate speech and fake news has completely transformed the relationship between states and platforms, intensifying both cooperation and conflict between public and private actors around these pressing issues. Content regulation thus raises the question of the powers of the state in the face of large multinational internet companies that seem to control our online public space. Have they become new censors on a par with governments? And what can states really do to preserve their power to act on the Web? In this article, we propose to draw on the work of Timothy Mitchell to reflect on these “limits of the state” in relation to platforms. They invite us to investigate the very location of a boundary that may seem increasingly blurred between public and private actors in order to consider how it is established and maintained despite the advent of negotiated regulation. Finally, the article demonstrates that the state continues to play a role as a symbolic bank, accrediting the moderation exercised by platforms in order to maintain trust in the online public sphere.