Zhen Ye

To mediate the tensions between state regulation and content-creator incentives, Chinese social media platforms have developed an interesting practice of using platform official accounts to communicate their rules to the creator community. These accounts anthropomorphize platforms, enabling platforms to represent their regulatory bodies using fictional human characters or animated figures. The phenomenon of platform anthropomorphization in the Chinese context stems from a different ontological understanding of platform governance. The first part of this article discusses the logic of platform governance in China, and highlights a different state–platform relationship in comparison to the US and European countries. In the second part, the article turns to focus on Douyin as a case study to further investigate how Chinese social media platforms establish rules and govern content creators. By analysing Douyin's public-facing policy documents and its platform official account, Douyin Safety Centre, we reveal a mechanism of playful governance.

Instagram has become a place of work for many content creators, including influencers; however, the inherent power imbalance between creator and platform dictating influencers’ success, requires creators to negotiate user expectations and the platform environment for their potential (commercial) success. Therefore, this article proposes approaching the influencer industry from the framework of platform imaginaries by developing a mixed qualitative method approach to visualize the precarity of Instagram influencers through their Instagram imaginaries with a cross-national comparison of US, German, and Japanese influencers. The results reflect a constant renegotiation of their own positions in relation to platform features and algorithms, follower interaction, as well as commercial partners, within three main imaginaries around Instagram’s use, namely, Instagram as a social space, Instagram as a workplace, and Instagram as a marketplace. The analysis highlights the interdependencies with and situatedness within Instagram’s platform environment, which need to be considered to understand the precarious working conditions of influencers.