Stringent censorship and relaxed co-governance: understanding platform governance and user practices of queer social and dating apps

ABSTRACT Platform governance plays a key role in guiding and regulating user behaviors and helping the platforms grow healthily and has thus attracted growing scholarly attention. By deploying the walkthrough method and semi-structured in-depth interviews, this study examines the governance mechanisms of two queer social and dating platforms – Rela and HER – and users’ practices for engaging with their governance systems. The findings suggest that Rela developes a type of stringent governance culture, characterized by the highly strict and authoritative censorship stipulations and practices, particularly with respect to sexual and political content. HER, however, establishes a relatively relaxed governance system, showing higher tolerance toward a wider range of topics and foregrounding a co-governance approach by encouraging users’ self-regulation and mutual supervision. These differences in governance practices and cultures have been substantially shaped by the sociopolitical environments in which these two platforms have developed. Interviewees expressed diverse interpretations of the governance systems of Rela and HER based on their individual practices, for example, articulating their concerns and dissatisfaction while also emphasizing their positive experiences enabled by these two platforms’ governance practices. This study enriches the existing platform governance studies by offering insights into queer social platforms’ governance systems and their users’ practices.