States vs. tech giants. Who is wielding soft power? Soft power in the age of online platforms

Online platforms are programmable architectures that enable the organization of relationships between users. These digital ecosystems test the ability of states to exert soft power in a multicentric environment. At the same time, platforms dictate the rules of the game, although not always clearly: states must exercise their soft power by chasing black box algorithms, moderation, and censorship rules, while policies and terms of service are constantly changing. The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to analyze how both platforms and state actors try to exert soft power in the online setting. On the one hand, it focuses on how States use online platforms as a venue to build and exercise their soft power. On the other hand, the chapter examines how platforms (self-) represent themselves as players endowed with soft power. For this reason, we will analyze all those (sometimes cosmetic) platforms’ interventions that accompany state action. Market actors and state entities are forced to undertake cooperation, coexistence, and competition strategies to establish forms of power in the digital space.