Schneider, Nathan. "Admins, mods, and benevolent dictators for life: The implicit feudalism of online communities." New Media & Society 24.9 (2022): 1965-1985.

This article examines how the design of online platforms shapes interactions within online communities, critiquing the model of "implicit feudalism" that dominates these spaces. This model provides user-administrators with absolute control over their domains, mirroring feudal lords, under the oversight of the platform companies that set the overall rules. Such governance is rooted in the early technical conditions of online networks but is contrasted with potential alternative, more democratic management mechanisms, suggesting that this feudal structure is not inevitable.