Attach equal importance to standardization and development to expand the platform economy
2026-06-11
The platform economy is an important component of the digital economy. With internet platforms as the carrier and data as the key production factor, it exhibits unique advantages in resource allocation, industrial upgrading, and public service, and plays a significant role in supporting innovation, expanding demand, and promoting employment and entrepreneurship. The outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan clearly states the goal of "promoting the innovation and healthy development of the platform economy," which points out the direction for its development. As a key carrier of online transaction order, platform rules serve as an important basis for transaction activities between operators, consumers, and platforms within the platform. The development of the platform economy requires continuous optimization and innovation of regulatory methods, improvement of platform governance rules, rationalization of the relationship between relevant platform entities and the social public environment, unleashing the positive externalities of platforms, fully leveraging their role in empowering the real economy and serving social and public needs, and injecting lasting impetus into the construction of Digital China.
In recent years, China has accelerated the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy, with the platform economy developing in an orderly manner and its position and role in the overall economic and social development becoming increasingly prominent. From an economic perspective, the platform economy possesses numerous advantages in data integration, technological innovation, and model iteration, which can facilitate the integration of all links in the entire chain of the real economy and promote the upgrading of industrial and supply chains towards intelligence and high-end development. The platform mechanism, focusing on the market-oriented allocation of data elements, helps to break down digital barriers across the entire chain of production, distribution, circulation, and consumption, providing a socialized and collaborative organizational carrier for the development of new productive forces. At the same time, the healthy development of digital platforms can significantly reduce the threshold for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), enabling more business entities to access intelligent production networks at low cost through the sharing of computing power, algorithms, and data resources, thereby improving resource allocation efficiency and forming a collaborative ecosystem of platform cooperation and innovation. From a social perspective, the platform economy has, to some extent, restructured the original labor process and organizational forms, created a large number of job opportunities, facilitated the entry of resource elements into rural areas and rooted them in communities, and allowed the digital dividend to benefit various groups more fairly and extensively. Furthermore, as a bridge connecting talent supply and demand, platforms break the constraints of geography and enterprise scale, promoting the reasonable flow and resource sharing of outstanding innovative talents within the platform ecosystem, thus enabling mutual empowerment between talent development and enterprise development. The development of the platform economy is closely related to the vital interests of numerous business entities, employees, and consumers, and its standardized and healthy development must be emphasized.
Currently, China's regulatory system for the platform economy is continuously improving, fostering a market environment that encourages innovation, fair competition, and orderly regulation. This has led to certain achievements in cracking down on platform monopolies and regulating platform behaviors. With the rapid evolution of the new generation of artificial intelligence technology, the platform economy, while demonstrating tremendous development potential, also faces some new challenges in governance. There are issues in regulation such as difficulty in detection, definition, evidence collection, and enforcement. This is mainly because of the dynamic iteration of platforms, hidden rules, and their cross-industry and cross-regional technical characteristics, which are difficult to effectively adapt to traditional industry- and region-based regulatory mechanisms. The borderless nature of the platform economy and the territoriality of regulation have led to increased difficulties in regulatory coordination across regions and industries. Grassroots regulation lacks professional technical tools and cross-regional coordination capabilities, and traditional post-regulation models struggle to cope with the rapid iteration characteristics of platforms. Furthermore, some platforms exhibit a lack of responsibility and ineffective self-regulatory mechanisms. The occupational security and skill training systems for related employees are not sufficient, and there is a lack of hard constraints and effective supervision in fulfilling social responsibilities. In new business forms such as live streaming e-commerce, relevant institutional rules lack clear definition standards for some platform behaviors and operations, making it difficult to implement precise regulatory measures.
To address the aforementioned dilemmas, it is necessary to further improve laws and regulations, innovate regulatory means, and promote the transformation of platform governance from "passive response" to "active response", in order to solve the existing problem of insufficient cross-regional and cross-industry collaborative regulation. On February 1st this year, the "Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Online Trading Platform Rules" jointly issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Cyberspace Administration of China officially came into effect, aiming to regulate the formulation, modification, and implementation of online trading platform rules, maintain the order of online trading, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of all parties involved in online transactions. Subsequently, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the "Anti-monopoly Compliance Guidelines for Internet Platforms", clarifying the content and specific requirements of compliance management for internet platform enterprises and guiding enterprises to operate legally. Through strong institutional guarantees and concerted efforts from multiple parties, we will promote the stable and sustainable development of the platform economy on a high-quality track, continuously unleashing the innovative vitality of the digital economy. To promote the healthy development of the platform economy, it is necessary to strengthen normalized supervision and enhance data security governance capabilities. Consider establishing a cross-regional regulatory coordination mechanism to achieve interconnection of regulatory information, mutual transmission of illegal clues, and mutual recognition of evidence. At the same time, optimize the regulation of the entire algorithm process, jointly conduct normalized reviews with third-party institutions, focus on investigating violations such as algorithmic discrimination, "big data price discrimination", and traffic monopoly, and regularly rectify and inspect issues identified through audits.
The optimization of platform regulation is not pursued in isolation, but rather aims to achieve organic integration with the development of the platform economy, the protection of workers' rights and interests, and the empowerment of the real economy. On the basis of regulatory optimization, platform enterprises should be guided to fulfill their social responsibilities, strengthen the protection of employees' rights and interests, regulate platform charging behaviors, and promote the symbiotic prosperity of platforms and merchants. On the one hand, clarify the rights and obligations between platforms and employees, improve the supporting measures of platforms in social security payment, labor protection, and rights relief, provide targeted legal assistance for labor disputes involving relevant personnel, and strengthen social security for workers. On the other hand, guide platforms to fulfill their social responsibilities and promote them to actively allocate resources and reduce service costs in scenarios such as disaster relief and people's livelihood security. In terms of the relationship between platforms and physical merchants, it is necessary to enhance compliance management capabilities, regulate platform charging behaviors, strictly prohibit behaviors such as forcing merchants to choose between two options, charging unreasonable fees, and transferring costs, while protecting the operational autonomy of physical merchants. At the same time, it is also necessary to guide platform enterprises to reduce the operating costs of merchants, consider introducing support measures such as commission reductions and exemptions, and conducting digital training, to achieve shared benefits and mutual promotion between platforms and physical merchants.
Overall, promoting the transformation of platforms from passive compliance to active compliance is not only an upgrade of regulatory methods, but also reflects an adjustment in development concepts and an improvement in governance capabilities. To promote the high-quality development of the platform economy, we must adhere to the principle of equal emphasis on regulation and development, effectively implement relevant central policies and deployments, and unite development efforts through regulatory innovation, legal improvement, and rights and interests protection. We should encourage platforms to exert positive effects in employment promotion, emergency support, livelihood supply, and industrial empowerment, so that the platform economy can truly become an important driving force for cultivating new productive forces, promoting high-quality development, and enhancing people's livelihood and well-being.
Edit:Luoyu Responsible editor:Wang Xiaojing
Source:ECONOMIC DAILY
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