Platform epistemology

Abstract

This chapter conceptualizes platform epistemology through the case of Instagram influencers’ efforts to understand the platform’s algorithms. Framed as a form of platform power, platform epistemology highlights platforms’ control over the epistemic resources shaping the practices by which influencers construct and legitimate knowledge about algorithms. Influencers learn about algorithms within a community of practice, through a variety of processes: observation, experimentation, desk research, social connections—particularly with platform employees—and training from self-proclaimed algorithm experts. Throughout these learning processes, Instagram, as both an infrastructure and commercial entity, shapes the availability, distribution, and perceived legitimacy of information, influencing how the community constructs and values knowledge about its algorithms.