Navigating the Battlefield: How Social Media Platforms Respond to Governance Demands From Legitimacy Communities in Geopolitical Conflicts

ABSTRACT

Social media platforms have become central actors in governing online speech during geopolitical conflicts, navigating complex governance demands from diverse stake‐holding communities including states, civil society, and users. This paper explores these dynamics through an analysis of Meta, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTokduring the recent Russia–Ukraine war and Israel–Palestine conflict. We develop a framework categorizing platform strategies along two dimensions: activeness and alignment, leading to five response types: proactive, accommodation, avoidance, defiance, and disregard. Through analysis of 126 interaction events, we found three platforms’ distinct strategic approaches. Meta adopted the most proactive measures with clear inclinations to the Western states and calculated defiance against others. X's strategy shifted dramatically after Musk's takeover: from accommodation to defiance and disregard, though it made pragmatic accommodations under severe pressure. TikTok, risk‐averse, and geopolitically vulnerable, frequently employs cautious and ambivalent avoidance and disregard strategies. The findings shed light on how corporate strategy, institutional background, and geopolitical positioning shape how platforms construct their legitimacy in content governance.