Civil case law on online misogyny
The project investigates the existing legal frameworks in Latin America for addressing online gender-based violence.
Since 2014, InternetLab has been dedicated to studying the problem of online gender-based violence, with a particular focus on the Brazilian context. We understand this phenomenon as a contemporary form of gender violence, in which digital technologies are used to inflict harm on women and people with diverse gender identities. These practices, which manifest in virtual spaces, are rooted in sexist beliefs and operate in continuity with broader forms of gender-based violence, often intertwined with offline dynamics.
Despite the connections between online and offline contexts, violence on the internet has its own particularities: the potentially unlimited reach, the amplification of attacks, the multiple forms these aggressions can take, and the very structure of digital platforms—which can both foster and restrict violent content.
If online gender-based violence has specific contours and impacts, the ways of addressing it must also be distinctive. Building effective strategies to confront such a dynamic phenomenon—one that simultaneously operates within global and local contexts—is a challenge that requires diagnoses going beyond criminal law and punitive logic.
Based on this understanding, in 2024, InternetLab launched the project “Untangling Gender in Code and Law: Intersectional Perspectives of OGBV in Latin America”, which seeks to deepen and contribute to the debate on confronting online gender-based violence from a Latin American perspective. The project aims to understand existing legal frameworks in the region for addressing online gender-based violence—particularly non-criminal policies directed at combating misogyny on the internet—in Brazil and other Latin American countries.
The project is funded by the IDRC – Seed Program.
Methodology
The methodology for this project was developed by InternetLab to investigate how Civil Law has been mobilized in addressing misogyny and online gender-based violence in Latin American countries. This approach seeks to understand how civil courts rule in cases involving this type of violence, and how Civil Law can serve as a tool for reparation and accountability beyond a purely penal framework.
In Brazil, InternetLab will be responsible for fully replicating the methodology in national courts, conducting the collection and analysis of judicial decisions. At the regional level, two Latin American organizations were selected to adapt the methodology to their local contexts, adjusting criteria, search terms, and legal categories according to the specificities of each country. In addition, three smaller grants were awarded to Brazilian groups interested in exploring the database already collected by InternetLab. These grants were directed to initiatives whose scope proved to be complementary to the ongoing project. This articulation will enable the production of comparative diagnoses and the strengthening of a Latin American network dedicated to research on online gender-based violence.
The methodology comprises the following stages:
(i) Selection of civil courts to be analyzed, considering regional diversity and legal relevance;
(ii) Development of a lexicon of terms related to misogyny, gender-based violence, and the digital environment, to guide the search for judicial decisions;
(iii) Automated collection of court rulings, supported by technical expertise;
(iv) Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the collected data, aimed at identifying decision patterns, legal interpretations, and forms of accountability.
In addition to implementing the methodology, three Brazilian research groups will develop academic articles based on the data collected by InternetLab, exploring different dimensions of the application of Civil Law in cases of online misogyny.
Publications: