Vertical Governance of Online Speech: Evidence from Google's Moderation Mandate

Michael McRae ()
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Michael McRae: Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin

No tep1425, Economic Papers from Trinity College Dublin, Economics Department

Abstract: This paper provides the first causal evidence that upstream infrastructure providers can reshape social media discourse by enforcing content moderation through access-based leverage. I exploit a 2022 update to Google's Play Store policy requiring stricter removal of violent threats and misinformation, along with variation in platform exposure across three similar 'Alt-Tech' social media platforms, within a triple-differences design. Using a novel panel of over 28 million posts from 62,000 users, I find that threatening content declined sharply and persistently on the exposed platforms, particularly among high-risk users. These effects are not explained by user self-censorship, public awareness, contemporaneous events, or selective data loss. I also document significant reductions in lawful but politically sensitive narratives, including election denial and January 6 insurrection commentary. The findings show how infrastructure-level enforcement can durably alter the boundaries of permissible speech across platforms, contributing to literatures on platform governance, vertical restraints in digital markets, and the institutional foundations of online discourse.

Keywords: platform governance; content moderation; digital infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 L82 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 83 pages
Date: 2025-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pay and nep-reg
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