Governing the Governors: Why Platform Self-Regulation Has Failed and What Democratic Oversight Requires

A decade of voluntary commitments, transparency reports, and self-regulatory frameworks has failed to meaningfully constrain the market power of large digital platforms. This essay traces the political economy of platform governance, arguing that structural conflicts of interest make genuine self-regulation impossible. Drawing on the EU Digital Markets Act and the UK Online Safety Act, we outline a model of democratic platform oversight grounded in participatory accountability mechanisms and mandatory interoperability requirements.