PONE-D-23-39623Players’ Strategy Selection in Co-Governance and Supervision of Internet Platforms’ Monopolistic Behaviors: A Study on New Media ParticipationPLOS ONE

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Dr. Jiachao Peng

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This article is a hot issue of concern to everyone now in the current climate. Internet platform enterprise business events are related to the development of market economy, public interest and social fairness and other issues. Responding to the antitrust incidents of Internet platform enterprises, this article introduces multi-party subjects to participate in the governance and supervision based on the establishment of a perfect antitrust supervision system by government departments. It also constructs an evolutionary game model involving government departments, Internet platform enterprises, new media and the public, solves the stable equilibrium point of strategy selection of each game subject, analyzes the stability of strategy combinations through Lyapunov's first law, and carries out a simulation analysis using Matlab 2021b to validate the influence of each decision-making variable on the strategy selection of different subjects. Overall, the article has strong research value and realistic research significance, the research process and logical framework is rigorous and reasonable, and the line is relatively standardized and readable.

However, the current manuscript still needs to answer the following questions and make corresponding improvements:

1. The cases in the introduction need to indicate the source, increase the authenticity and rigor of the event

2. The revision of legal documents should be added as much as possible to indicate the authenticity of the event.

3. Before modeling, please explain the relevance of using evolutionary game to solve the antitrust problem of Internet platform enterprises.

4. Equation (5) and Equation (12) pay attention to the range of values at the ends of [0, 1], which need to be modified, do not repeat the values.

5. Whether the results of the model proof and the results of the simulation analysis can be further combined to make the explanation clearer.

6. Whether the conclusion part of the article can be combined with the reality of antitrust behavior to make more targeted suggestions

In summary, it is recommended that the authors revise the article before sending it for review.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript constructed an evolutionary game model involving the government, Internet platforms, new media, and the public to explore the stable equilibrium point of players’ strategy selections. The stability of the strategy combinations was tested using Lyapunov’s first stability method, and MATLAB 2021b was used to conduct simulation analysis of the impact of each decision variable on players’ strategy selection. This manuscript aims to construct an evolutionary game theory model involving the above four players within the new media environment context to explore the stable equilibrium point of their strategy selection, analyze the stability of their strategy combination, and the impact of changes in decision variables on strategy selection.

The topic of this manuscript has both theoretical and practical significance. The established model is scientific, Data analysis is feasible. The discussion and conclusion have guiding function.

There are three suggestions that the author needs to continue revising:

First, Please the author to cite the latest literature in this field from the past three years 2021-2023.

Second, The manuscript is 35 pages long, please compress it appropriately by the author.

Finally, Please the author to improve the clarity of the Figures to achieve above 300*300 DPI.

Reviewer #3: This article studies the antitrust regulation strategy of Internet platform enterprises under the participation of new media. The antitrust regulation of Internet platform enterprises studied in this article is a hot issue of concern nowadays, which has strong practical significance and research value. This article constructs a four-party evolutionary game model to study the problem from four related subjects: government regulators, Internet platform enterprises, new media and the public, and introduces variables related to the efficiency of co-regulation. The stability of each participant's strategy choice is analyzed, and Matlab2021b is used to conduct numerical simulation to explore the influence of parameter changes on the game behavior of the four participants. Overall, the derivation process and logical design of the article are more complete, the derivation process and the conclusion have a logical echo relationship, and the line is more standardized, the method is properly selected, and the problem awareness is stronger.

However, the current manuscript still needs to answer the following questions and make corresponding improvements:

1. The relevant literature review of the previous part of the lack of important literature with game theory research as a theoretical support, should be added in the literature review of game theory research related literature.

2. In the chapter of model assumption and construction, please explain why the method of evolutionary game is used to analyze and solve this problem.

3. Whether the data selection in the simulation analysis can be realized by using the real data now?

4. It is suggested to read through the article again to improve and enhance the readability of the article.

To summarize, it is recommended that the authors revise the article before sending it for review.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Players’Strategy Selection in Co-Governance and Supervision of Internet Platforms’ Monopolistic Behaviors: A Study on New Media Participation

PONE-D-23-39623R1

Dear Dr. Xia,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Dr. Jiachao Peng

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In the revised version, the author has addressed each of the comments in their response. Therefore, I do think that this article could be accepted and published in PLOS ONE.

Reviewer #2: Firstly, The authors have adequately addressed my comments.

Secondly, after revising the manuscript item by item, the level and quality of the manuscript have greatly improved, meeting the requirements for journal publication.

Finally, I suggest ACCEPT the manuscript for journal publication.

Reviewer #3: I am very glad to receive the “Responses for the Comments” soon. All comments have been addressed. Therefore, I do think that this article could be accepted and published in PLOS ONE.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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