A few social media platforms have come to play a central role in civil society organizing, often functioning as organizing partners. But on whose terms? As organizing partners, commercial social media platforms shape the conditions under which civil society actors organize, also shaping organizational dynamics, visibility, and collective action. Far from being neutral partners, these platforms become battlegrounds where civil society actors and platform owners negotiate power, visibility, and control—differently affecting various forms of civil society actors and organizing. Therefore, we need to move beyond the notion of platforms as mere organizing agents to critically examine the opportunities and constraints they create for different civil society actors, as well as how different civil society actors navigate these. This requires considering both exogenous, contextual elements, and endogenous, actor-centered elements of civil society organizing. Doing so allows us to examine how organizing efforts emerge not simply on social media platforms but with them, requiring constant negotiation with platform logics. The collection of articles in this special issue shows how social media platforms enable civil society organizing, but also how platform-driven asymmetries emerge and play out differently according to the different features that characterize the civil society organizations at stake.

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平台作为合作伙伴？剖析公民社会组织和社交媒体平台之间的相互作用

一些社交媒体平台已经在公民社会组织方面发挥着核心作用，通常充当组织合作伙伴。但是以谁的条件呢？作为组织合作伙伴，商业社交媒体平台塑造了民间社会行为者的组织条件，也塑造了组织的活力、知名度和集体行动。这些平台远非中立的合作伙伴，而是成为公民社会行为者和平台所有者协商权力、可见性和控制的战场——以不同的方式影响各种形式的公民社会行为者和组织。因此，我们需要超越平台仅仅是组织者的概念，批判性地审视它们为不同的公民社会行为者创造的机会和限制，以及不同的公民社会行为者如何驾驭这些机会和限制。这需要同时考虑公民社会组织的外生、背景因素和内生的、以行为者为中心的因素。这样做使我们能够研究组织工作如何不仅出现在社交媒体平台上，而且随着它们而出现，这需要与平台逻辑不断协商。本期特刊中的文章集展示了社交媒体平台如何促进公民社会的组织，以及平台驱动的不对称如何根据面临风险的公民社会组织的不同特征而出现和以不同的方式发挥作用。