Media Platforms as Blockholes of Information: App Economy and Burial of User-Generated Content

The present paper discusses the change in accessibility and searchability of data due to the popularity of mobile app versions of social media. The main argument is that new social media platforms restrict the access of search engines to the user-generated contents that are created and exchanged within them, and such trends have made access to public content more difficult. Focusing on the phrases “platforms as information blockhole” and “burial of content”, this article is a conceptual paper that argues that in contrast with the idea of freedom of information and data in world-wide-web, today mobile app platforms have formed close-core databases that search engines are restricted to access to them. The article warns that due to the increasing popularity of social media platforms, a huge volume of information is being generated and exchanged within them and this leads to new discrimination in access to the information. It also stresses the necessity of new types of syndication contracts between search engines and platforms as a new business model; or new policies that guarantee the findability of generating and exchanging public data on social media platforms.