Many have criticized the centralized and unaccountable governance of prominent online social platforms, leading to renewed interest in platform governance that incorporates multiple centers of power. Decentralization of power can arise horizontally, through parallel communities, each with local administration, and vertically, through multiple hierarchies of overlapping jurisdiction. Drawing from literature on federalism and polycentricity in analogous offline institutions, we scrutinize the landscape of existing platforms through the lens of multi-level governance. Our analysis describes how online platforms incorporate varying forms and degrees of decentralized governance. In particular, we propose a framework that characterizes the general design space and the various ways that middle levels of governance vary in how they can interact with a centralized governance system above and end users below. This focus provides a starting point for new lines of inquiry between platform- and community-governance scholarship. By engaging themes of decentralization, hierarchy, power, and responsibility, while discussing concrete examples, we connect designers and theorists of online spaces.

翻译：许多学者批评主流在线社交平台治理的集权化与问责缺失，这重新激发了学界对引入多权力中心的平台治理模式的兴趣。权力的去中心化可通过横向平行社区（各设本地管理机构）与纵向多层级管辖重叠体系两种路径实现。借鉴联邦制与多中心治理理论在离线类比制度中的研究成果，我们以多层次治理视角审视现有平台格局。分析表明，在线平台以不同形式与程度吸纳了去中心化治理要素，具体而言，我们提出一个框架：该框架刻画了通用设计空间，并揭示中层治理体系在对接上层集权系统与下层终端用户时呈现的多样化交互模式。这一聚焦为连接平台治理与社区治理研究的新方向提供了起点。通过结合具体案例探讨去中心化、层级结构、权力与责任等议题，我们为在线空间的设计者与实践者搭建了理论桥梁。