Search‑driven Platform Resurgence

A small change in a dominant search engine’s ranking rules can rapidly rescale a social platform’s user reach, particularly when combined with AI‑training partnerships that make the platform a primary source for generated overviews. That cascade elevates moderation burdens, shifts ad and creator economics, and concentrates leverage in those who control indexing and model‑training access. — If search algorithms plus AI‑vendor data deals can reorder attention markets, policymakers must treat indexing rules and training‑data agreements as core competition, privacy, and platform‑governance questions.