Digital technologies and changing geographies of power. The role of YouTube in the controversy about Article 13/17 in the European Copyright Directive

Conflict and controversies are a prevalent feature of policy making processes. Disagreements range from the means of policies, and the goals of policies, to what the policy problem actually is (Finlayson 2007, Bacchi 2012). The study presented in this paper contributes to investigations on the role of multinational ‘platform companies’, such as Google, in policy conflicts concerning the ‘democratic governance of digital technologies’ (Redden, 2018; Prainsack, 2020; Zuboff, 2019; Dijck, Poell, and Waal, 2018). It studies the controversy of Article 13/17 in the European Copyright Directive. The directive attempted to change copyright law, transferring greater responsibility for content in user-generated videos to the companies providing the ‘platform’ (Gillespie 2010). The paper analyzes how Google acted when confronted with new public regulations that addressed the market in which YouTube operated. In our qualitative analysis of YouTube’s persuasion strategies, we draw on Critical Policy Studies and Actor-Network-Theory. We show how YouTube engaged citizens in resistance associated with the hashtag #saveyourinternet. In this manner, we elicit the changing roles of citizens, authorities, and private companies in governance processes, and how actors, such as Google, engage with institutions, such as the EU, during conflict. In conclusion, we relate this study to our previous research on how digital technologies change geographies of power (Metzler & Åm 2022). That is, we ask what such developments imply for distributions of responsibilities, power, and authority in democracies.