State Vs Platforms: Rethinking Who Governs the Digital Public Sphere

Abstract

In India, a WhatsApp rumour has ended lives. A tweet has triggered a sedition case. And a government order has made Twitter briefly vanish from millions of screens. These are not anomalies — they are symptoms of a deeper, unresolved question: in the world's largest democracy, who truly governs what people can say, see, and share online?

This paper examines the tense and often contradictory relationship between the Indian state and digital platforms in shaping the country's public sphere. From the IT Rules of 2021 to repeated internet shutdowns in Kashmir, and from Meta's content moderation failures during communal violence to the rise of WhatsApp as a primary news source for hundreds of millions — India offers a uniquely complex laboratory for understanding how platform power and state authority collide, overlap, and occasionally collude.

The paper argues that neither unchecked state regulation nor unaccountable platform self-governance is adequate for a society as linguistically diverse, politically charged, and digitally unequal as India. What is needed is a governance model rooted in constitutional values — one that protects free expression, holds platforms to public interest standards, and ensures that ordinary citizens, not just governments or corporations, have a meaningful voice in the rules that shape their digital lives.