Zhai Wei: Interconnection, can urge large platforms to abandon the "traffic pool" monopoly two-wheel two-wing mechanism has a certain role The role of the Internet giant "gatekeeper" has certain limitations and needs a general rule across various departments

The platform governance behavior implemented by super-large platform enterprises using quasi-legislative power, quasi-administrative power, and quasi-judicial power must neither exceed the market micro-rules and laws, nor can it replace or even override the macro industry governance behavior based on the authority of national governance

China's Internet era is about to enter the era of full interconnection, and I would like to discuss whether it is necessary to carry out asymmetric control of large platform enterprises. I think it is necessary to make a certain degree of differentiation.

There is a principle in economic law called the principle of economic equality, for large platform enterprises and for small and medium-sized platform enterprises, their technical capabilities, economic strength and resource agglomeration ability are very different.

In this case, entering the era of interconnection, it is necessary to carry out certain bias protection for small and medium-sized enterprises. Protection can be divided into two levels, the first level, after interconnection, if there are some illegal external links, large platform enterprises because of technical reserves and regulatory mechanisms, there is no big problem. Small and medium-sized enterprises may have the problem of lack of technology, so they may need some technical support from large platform enterprises to ensure the legitimacy and compliance of linked content.

On the other hand, for some small and medium-sized platform enterprises, whether they also require full interconnection also needs to be considered. If some small and medium-sized enterprises are indeed very weak, they may need to consider the need to set up a certain safe haven mechanism for them to achieve substantive equality.

Interconnection is the basic attribute of the digital economy, is to ensure the high-quality development of the Internet industry is an inevitable choice, only to ensure interconnection, in order to maximize the positive effect of the digital economy.

<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > the two-wheel biplane mechanism has a role</h1>

Previously, many sub-sectors of China's Internet industry, such as instant messaging, social media, and information release, have always had malicious bans such as not direct chains and refusal to open APIs, and most of them actually have no legitimate reasons. This kind of beggar-thy-neighbor ban behavior seriously violates the basic attributes of the digital economy, and also unnecessarily increases the transaction costs of users, resulting in the consequences of market fragmentation.

This kind of behavior should be supervised from the perspective of market micro-regulation law, and should also be supervised from the perspective of industry supervision to ensure the sustainable development of the digital economy and ensure the freedom, circulation, transaction and integration of data.

From the perspective of market micro-rules and laws, the Anti-Monopoly Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, in which the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a public consultation draft prohibiting online unfair competition, involves provisions on unfair acts and can also be used to regulate illegal prohibitions.

From the perspective of industry supervision, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requires platform enterprises to eliminate the stubborn disease of blocking from the perspective of high-quality development and sustainable development of the overall industry.

Therefore, market micro-regulation and industry supervision have formed a two-wing two-wheel system, and built a very effective governance system involving the Internet economy, digital economy, and especially competition among large platform enterprises.

This kind of industry supervision, supplemented by market micro-regulation, can eventually promote the Internet industry to enter a sustainable and high-quality development model of full interconnection. However, undoing a malicious blocked link is only the first step. Because, to control the "refusal to interconnect" behavior, further measures are needed.

Large Internet platforms have certain public attributes and cannot be regarded as private gardens. Most Internet platform companies have data, and the data generated by their own platforms is very small, the vast majority of which is provided by social users, and they are still making full use of this data.

From the perspective of fair competition, lifting the platform ban to achieve interconnection can urge large platform enterprises to abandon the monopoly model of monopolizing the "traffic pool" and form a pattern of fair and orderly competition among large platform enterprises, so as to maximize the positive effect of the platform economy.

At present, the EU and the United States have made new progress in legislation, especially the EU's digital marketization draft, which specifically targets super-large platform enterprises and supervises super-large platform enterprises with the role of "gatekeeper" to ensure that these super-large platform enterprises enter fair competition.

<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" > the Internet giant's "gatekeeper" role has certain limitations</h1>

In major Internet subdivisions including e-commerce, instant messaging, social media and information release, the bottom ecological platform controlled by super-large Internet platform enterprises has the role of "gatekeeper" to a certain extent. In fact, in the process of platform governance, these super-large platform enterprises have quasi-discourse rights similar to the state's management rights, such as platform rules, quasi-administrative powers, operation and management platforms, and quasi-judicial powers. Disputes within or in connection with the Platform can be handled.

However, these "gatekeeper" enterprises, the so-called quasi-legislative power, quasi-administrative power, and quasi-judicial power they have, are not state rights in the true sense, can not replace the management authority of state public rights, they actually still belong to the derivative rights of enterprise management rights, these rights themselves should not be outside the scope of national statutory supervision, how they exercise, how to exercise the content, what kind of method must be strictly in accordance with the framework of laws and regulations.

Therefore, the platform governance behavior implemented by such super-large platform enterprises using quasi-legislative power, quasi-administrative power and quasi-judicial power shall neither exceed the market micro-rules and laws, such as the illegal red line set by the Anti-Monopoly Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, nor can it replace or even override the macro industry governance behavior based on the authority of national governance.

The measure proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to lift the malicious blocking is a very typical industry supervision and industry governance behavior.

<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="33" > requires a universal rule across departments</h1>

From a more macroscopic point of view, many of our scholars are calling for the establishment of a platform governance system that spans major departments, including a multi-dimensional platform governance system, a platform governance system for the digital economy, and so far, Internet platform enterprises have the selfish and profit-seeking attributes of "rational people" and "economic people" because they have the attributes of selfishness and profit-seeking. So many of them are now limited to platform self-governance, hoping to manage everything that happens on the platform through platform self-governance, and manage the generation, distribution, and sharing of resources. This kind of governance, we say, is difficult to ensure that it meets the requirements of the social public interest, so for the platform governance of such a super-large platform enterprise, it should be the dimension of platform pluralism and co-governance under the leadership of the state management body.

Under this system of pluralistic co-governance of the platform, the industry regulatory organs that represent the will of the state or the social public interest shall play a core role in guiding, managing, and supervising the overall operation of the Internet industry. Finally, a standardized, orderly, open and shared Internet ecosystem will be built to ensure that the public can share the dividends of the development of the digital economy.

We can learn from the development economy and lessons of the United States and other countries, if the digital economy, although the national economy of the entire country has grown for a long time, but the development dividend of the digital economy is only limited to a very small number of senior executives of super-large platform enterprises, and the public is not fully shared in this dividend, it is an unhealthy development, and may even cause social division.

In the era when China is about to enter a fully interconnected Internet ecosystem, the greater the capacity of large-scale Internet platforms and the greater the social responsibility, under the guidance of industry regulators, they should take the initiative to assume the role of empowering the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and start-up enterprises, and can become the role of small and medium-sized enterprises and start-up enterprise platform incubation period.

Of course, Internet security is the premise of the bottom line of development, after the full entry into the comprehensive Internet, the major Internet platforms should unify the standards of security supervision, unify the identification and handling of illegal external links, and establish relevant regulatory information sharing mechanisms to prevent some illegal external links from infringing on the competition order of the platform and infringing on the social public interest.

Finally, under the system of comprehensive interconnection, our large Internet platform enterprises can focus more experience on high-tech innovation and focus on improving social and public welfare, which is conducive to China's core competitiveness in the international competition in the field of science and technology. (This article is based on Zhong Xiangming's speech at the 223rd Digital Forum, zhai wei is an associate professor at the School of Economic Law of East China University of Political Science and Law)