“刷单炒信”与平台市场的“技术-市场悖论”

“Click Farming” and the “Technology-Market Paradox” of the Platform Market

“刷单炒信”所表征的网络失信行为是平台自我妥协和变通的结果,其根源在于平台双重属性之间的内在张力。新市场、新秩序对合法性的强烈需求,促使平台构建了“以用户体验为中心”的控制体系,将内部市场的信任生产纳入强制度范式的轨道。强制度范式保证了内部市场的实际活动与信任生产的控制体系及其正式结构保持高度一致,相互耦合。但是,平台还是一个私利性的企业。为了赢得同业市场上的规模竞争,平台采取了一系列促进快速扩张的技术性策略。效率取向的技术性策略动摇了合法性机制对内部市场的控制,导致信任生产的实际活动与控制体系之间的技术性脱耦,使平台市场脱离强制度范式下的信任生产逻辑,进入弱制度范式下“好评数据”的生产逻辑,从而为网络信任的刷单式生产提供了可乘之机。质言之,网络失信的本质是平台基于外部市场规模竞争的需要而发生于内部市场注意力竞争的技术性脱耦。

The online breach of trust characterized by the “click farming” is the result of the platform’s self-compromise and expediency, which is rooted in the inherent tension of the dual attributes of the platform.The strong demand for legitimacy in the new market and new order has prompted the platforms to build a “user experience-centered” control system, which brings the trust production in the internal market into the track of the strong institutional paradigm. The strong institutional paradigm ensures that the actual activities of the internal market are highly aligned and coupled with the control system of trust production and its formal structure. However,the platform is still a self-interested enterprise. In order to win competition for scale in the peer-to-peer market,the platform adopts a series of technical strategies that promote rapid expansion. The efficiency-oriented technical strategies shake the control of the legitimacy mechanism over the internal market, leading to a technical decoupling between the actual activities of trust production and the control system. This allows the platform market to break away from the logic of trust production under the strong institutional paradigm and into the logic of “positive feedback data” production under the weak institutional paradigm, thus providing an opportunity for the production of online trust in the form of click farming. To put it bluntly-simply, the essence of online breach of trust is a technical decoupling of the platform, which is a competition for attention that occurs in the internal market in response to the need to compete for scale in the external market.