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Digital platforms shape civic, social, and political life through algorithmic ranking, amplification, and restriction, yet users are rarely supported in interpreting how these systems influence what they see or how meaning is constructed over time. Existing transparency efforts operate at institutional or aggregate levels and seldom reach the everyday feed interactions where sense-making is most needed.
This paper presents STOA (Standards for Transparent Online Agency), a design-science case study exploring interpretive transparency as a social media literacy interaction. STOA does not remove content or explain platform decisions. Instead, it provides user-governed contextual interpretation, helping users examine why content appears, what signals it carries, and how influence accumulates, while applying a rights baseline that includes protection from harmful exposure.
Digital platforms shape civic, social, and political life through algorithmic ranking, amplification, and restriction, yet users are rarely supported in interpreting how these systems influence what they see or how meaning is constructed over time. Existing transparency efforts operate at institutional or aggregate levels and seldom reach the everyday feed interactions where sense-making is most needed.
This paper presents STOA (Standards for Transparent Online Agency), a design-science case study exploring interpretive transparency as a social media literacy interaction. STOA does not remove content or explain platform decisions. Instead, it provides user-governed contextual interpretation, helping users examine why content appears, what signals it carries, and how influence accumulates, while applying a rights baseline that includes protection from harmful exposure.