Stupri digitali: una questione di governance del cyberspazio

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that online gender violence is not primarily due to cultural or linguistic causes. Both gender and cultural studies fail to locate the real causes of digital gender violence in cultural patterns and linguistic performances. Contrary to the prevailing theoretical positions in the literature on online gender violence, I argue that the deep roots of this violence on the web are a direct consequence of the kind of governance that regulators allow Internet Service Providers, the real controllers of cyberspace, to engage in. The central thesis of this article is that effective regulation of digital gender-based violence requires a structural approach based on digital communities, abandoning the idea of adapting real-world laws to cyberspace. In short, this essay focuses on the structure of digi-tal architecture rather than cultural forms of gender in order to better understand the workings of power and the production of collective subjectivities in relation to gender, sexuality, and other types of social relations.