The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South their content than to moderate hate speech directed at them. This imbalance is particularly severe for refugee and racialized communities, whose voices are further pushed to the margins. The opacity not only undermines visibility but also make it harder to track reports of abuse and erases key information from activists, organizations, and social movements. Algorithmic failure to recognize the context of communities in the Global South, deepens digital exclusion and exacerbates inequalities in access to public speech, evidencing the urgent need for a digital public sphere that reflects the plurality of voices. Research by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) on content moderation in Quechua[16] illustrates how these failures are amplified in non-English and Indigenous languages in Latin America. Despite Quechua being one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in South America, the report found that automated moderation tools, particularly large language models (LLMs), are not trained to understand it, leading to unjust removals, inconsistent enforcement, and the spread of abuse. The study highlights that these challenges are deeply gendered: women who identify as Quechua online are disproportionately targeted with harassment, while moderation teams lack the linguistic and cultural expertise to intervene effectively. Structural weaponization of platform rules Intellectual property rules have for long time been used to silence uncomfortable content, particularly when it exposes abuse of power or human rights violations 80 Intellectual property rules have for long time been used to silence uncomfortable content, particularly when it exposes abuse of power or human rights violations and that is also true for Latin America. This tactic is also evident in the case of Ponte Jornalismo[17], a Brazilian independent outlet investigating police violence and structural racism. In 2023, they published reports revealing that instructors at the a police academy were teaching torture and execution techniques. Videos documenting these practices were removed from YouTube following copyright claims filed by the academy. Ironically, their original videos, glorifying these practices, remained online. Ponte appealed, but now faces the risk of having their entire channel suspended if further claims are submitted. The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) has raised concern over the dangerous precedent this sets: when Digital Resistance in the Age of Algorithmic Governance The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South intellectual property is systematically prioritized over public interest and access to information, press freedom is severely compromised. Still in Brazil, Intervozes[18], a collective that defends the right to communication reported the abusive removal of a video denouncing misrepresentation of women in TV shows due to copyright infringement. No consideration regarding fair use was taken into account for the removal of productions that advanced critical reflection about human rights. Similar cases multiply affecting activism with automated removal ignoring local and international copyright norms. In the hands of the powerful, platforms’ rules to enforce copyright become the law, and their tools are used to erase evidence, silence dissent, and reinforce silence. It is increasingly evident that platform moderation policies are far from neutral. In the absence of clear protections for journalists and civil society, copyright enforcement can become a convenient excuse to suppress content. The situation is so alarming that law enforcement agencies have even learned to weaponize copyright protections themselves. A striking example was documented in California, United States, where police reportedly used copyrighted music to block the dissemination of videos documenting abuse.[19] As a response, Latin American organizations are experimenting with collective archives to preserve censored content, building local platforms that operate outside corporate control, and engaging in litigation to demand transparency and accountability from global companies. They claim for algorithmic transparency for the Global South on par with the standards already applied in Europe by the Digital Services Act, or DSA.[20] The message is clear: platforms need to explain how they moderate content, under what criteria, and with what biases. This demand is not technical, it is political. It’s about defending freedom of expression, and also protecting the political, cultural, and social issues that are being erased by automated systems. Users’ voices against algorithmic silencing Language is where the power of social struggle resides: to name violence, demand rights, and preserve collective memory. But that same power is read as a threat by automated systems governed by inconsistently applied rules that ignore political, Digital Resistance in the Age of Algorithmic Governance Language is where the power of social struggle resides: to name violence, demand rights, and preserve collective memory. But that same power is read as a threat by automated systems governed by inconsistently applied rules that ignore political, 81